Poker News

Isildur1 is not Viktor Blom (blom30)

The mystery behind the identity of high-stakes Full Tilt Poker player Isildur1 received a little clarification on Tuesday, as Viktor “blom30” Blom told Bluff Europe that he is not the man of the hour.

Blom bluntly told the European news outlet, “I am not the one you are looking for. Keep searching.” One cryptic sentence later, the online poker industry is back at square one in its hunt to uncover the real Isildur1. A variety of poker players tossed out Blom as possibly being Isildur1, most notably Tony G, who commented in a recent blog entry, “I don’t want to talk too much about Isildur1 but I can reveal to all it is Viktor and he crushed them on the iPoker network for some time. I actually played a few hands with him today and quite many on iPoker where my site TonyG Poker runs. I honestly respect this guy 100%. He has proved that he is the best player in the game right now; this is based on many, many hands on iPoker and Full Tilt Poker.”

Tony G then praised the “self control and money management” skills of Isildur1 and high-stakes opponent Tom “durrrr” Dwan. According to Poker Table Ratings, Isildur1 is down $1.3 million overall, a drop of $800,000 on Tuesday alone. In mid-November, the Swede owned more than $5 million in profits at the tables before a drastic turn of events. Among those he has squared off against are Dwan, Power Poker pro Ilari “Ziigmund” Sahamies, 2009 World Series of Poker (WSOP) November Nine member Phil Ivey, Phil “OMGClayAiken” Galfond, and CardRunners instructors Cole South, Brian Townsend, and Brian Hastings.

Also fueling the fire that Blom was the man behind the Isildur1 moniker was the following chat that occurred on Full Tilt Poker and was posted on the online poker forum PocketFives.com on November 30th:

Ziigmund: u r nice guy
Ziigmund: and pretty viktor
Isildur1: lol Ziigmund: :- )
Isildur1: can u atlest reload finnish superstar
Ziigmund: :- )

Isildur1 gave no correction after Sahamies addressed him as “Viktor,” which sparked a major debate online as to whether Blom’s statements to Bluff Europe were accurate or merely meant to throw the online poker community off the trail. Last month, Frank “Frank1The1Tank” Calo asserted that Isildur1 was Robert “Gulkines” Flink: “Fwiw, I have received intelligence by some very credible sources (who shall be kept completely private) who said pretty confidently who isildur1 is. So I give you the knowledge I have (with like 99% certainy but not quite 100% yet) that it is Robert Flink aka Gulkines.”

However, Flink denied being Isildur1, according to Calo, who posted on PocketFives.com: “Update: I spoke to robert flink last night. He was pretty sketchy about it and without me even asking about isildur immediately said he wasnt him and then said he thought it was stefan mattsson which is a well known swedish mtter.” Mattsson, who plays as “stema2” on PokerStars, allegedly began playing $25/$50 several days after Isildur1 began his climb up the online poker ladder.

Other names that have cropped up as possible Isildur1 front men include Dan Harrington and Todd Brunson. However, both are American and not Swedish. Brunson is a sponsored pro of the Cake Poker Network site DoylesRoom, while Harrington won the 1995 WSOP Main Event. Also tossed out as a possibility is Martonas, Dwan’s nemesis on the high-stakes virtual felts. However, with tax laws in Sweden, Isildur1’s true identity may never be known.

In the meantime, the nosebleed action will likely continue on Full Tilt Poker. Stay tuned to Poker News Daily for the latest from the Isildur1 saga.

Pre-2007 high stakes results show Antonius up $3m

An interesting thread has sprung up on Two Plus Two showing how, before the days of HSDB when the nosebleed games were rather conveniently tracked for us, Patrik Antonius was already crushing the nosebleeds.

Isildur1 back up over $2 million in profit for the year

After dumping off most of his $5 million in profits just a week after he had made it, Isildur1 has spent the last week attempting to climb his way back. And with last night's profit added to his roll, the unknown Swede is almost half way there, back up over $2.2 million.

The night started with Isildur1 playing $300/$600 PLO against Antonius and Rafi "howisitfeellike" Amit. Amit stuck around for 100 hands before leaving with $181k profit, most of which came from Antonius.

After reaking even over another couple hundred hands, the players chose to move up to the nosebleed stakes for the remainder of the night. For the next hour and a half, Isildur1 took on unknown UK player DjAdi at at the Hold'em tables and Antonius at PLO, crushing both.

Despite winning the largest pot of their match, DjAdi lost over $160k. But Antonius had an even worse go of it, losing both of the session's largest pots and finishing his night down over half a million. With his six-max losses factored in, Antonius booked a $688k loss.

Isildur1 left the tables with $667k profit, continuing his current winning streak.

Below are the three largest pots from the night. You can watch more hands replayed by heading to MarketPulse .

 

 

 

 

 

 

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PokerNews Op-Ed: Who Is Isildur1?

The identity of “Isildur1” is a mystery wrapped in an enigma. The online player from Sweden ambushed poker's elite when he came out of nowhere in early November and shook up the old-world order of the nosebleed tables. Initial speculation...

Ziigmund wins $1.5m from Isildur1

Unsurprisingly, the name of Isildur1 dominated the nosebleed action on Full Tilt Poker last night. Despite the mystery Swede winning $957,000 in total – courtesy of a $1.8m win against Patrik Antonius and $700k more against others including durrrr – he lost $1.5m to Ilari “Ziigmund” Sahamies at Pot-Limit Omaha.

Patrik Antonius Takes Record-Setting $1.3 Million Pot from Isildur1

The ongoing clash between Isildur1 and the game’s most vaunted high-stakes cash game players reached new levels over the weekend, as the cagey Swede played record-setting sessions with Full Tilt Pros Patrik Antonius, Phil Ivey, and Tom “durrrr” Dwan. The online poker world watched in awe as Isildur1 got involved in multiple $1 million pots at the $500/$1,000 Pot Limit Omaha (PLO) tables.

The biggest pot ever played on the internet came on Saturday between Isildur1 and Antonius, who has taken any opportunity to play against the Swede at the $500/$1,000 PLO tables. With Antonius sitting on a stack of $1.26 million and Isildur1 with $678,000, Isildur1 raised the button to $3,000. Antonius re-raised to $9,000, Isildur1 put in another raise to $27,000, and Antonius came back over the top for a total of $81,000. Isildur1 decided to call and the two players saw a flop of 5c-4s-2h. Antonius led out for $91,000 and Isildur1 raised to $435,000, leaving $162,473 in his stack. Antonius moved all-in and the Swede quickly called with 9s-8h-7d-6d. Antonius revealed Ah-3s-Ks-Kh for the wheel and, with the 5h turn and 9c river, Antonius dodged a higher straight to collect a pot worth $1,356,947, the largest pot in the history of online poker. The previous record, an $878,958.50 pot, was set a few days earlier by the same two players.

The onslaught continued into the night, as Antonius was able to take more than $2 million from Isildur1 over a 24-hour span. In total, Isildur1 has lost more than $3.5 million over 12,604 hands to Antonius since the Swede burst on to the scene this month, according to PokerTableRatings.com.

Isildur1 was able to recoup some of those losses on Sunday evening when he and Phil Ivey played a lengthy match at the $500/$1,000 PLO tables. Another $1 million-plus pot went down, but the Swede came out on the winning end of this one. With Ivey holding $563,500 and Isildur1 holding $638,500, Ivey raised his button to $3,000 and Isildur1 re-raised to $9,000. Ivey put in a four-bet to $27,000 and Isildur1 called out of position. The flop brought Ks-Js-Jd and both players checked. On the 10d turn, Isildur1 checked again and Ivey bet $41,000. Isildur1 check-raised to $177,000 and Ivey called, boosting the pot to $408,000. The river brought the 5d and the Swede moved all-in, putting Ivey to a decision for his entire $360,000 stack. Ivey called and mucked his hand when Isildur1 flipped over Kd-Kc-5h-4d for a flopped full house.

The $1,127,955 pot, while massive, was just a hiccup in what has been an Ivey-dominated match thus far. PokerTableRatings.com has tracked 6,174 hands between the two players, with Ivey up by nearly $3 million. We expect much more heads-up action from the two players in the near future.

Tom Dwan made his way back to the nosebleed games on Full Tilt Sunday evening. Fresh off his victory at the live “Durrrr” Challenge against Marcello “luckexpress” Marigliano, Ilari “Ziigmund” Sahamies, and Sammy George, Dwan sat down with Isildur1 again to try to regain some of the $4 million he’d lost to the Swede in November. After nearly 1,500 hands, Dwan found himself down another $645,000 after a series of coolers and bad beats. Dwan’s total losses to Isildur1 reached $4,548,473 after Sunday’s session.

The fearless Swede, who lost around $3.3 million to Antonius and Ivey during the past 48 hours, is still up more than $500,000 since he first showed his face on Full Tilt Poker. He has logged major victories over Ilari “Ziigmund” Sahamies and Full Tilt Red Pros Cole South, David Benyamine, and Haseeb Qureshi. Most of his losses were to the aforementioned Antonius and Ivey, but Isildur1 has also given away more than $100,000 each to Hac “trex13″ Dang and Brian Hastings.

Rumors continue to circle about the identity of Isildur1, with likely candidates being Robert “gulkines” Flink, Stefan “el_matador” Matsson, and Viktor “blom90″ Blom. Regardless, Poker News Daily will continue to follow the progress of the Swedish sensation. Stay tuned.

Jay Rosenkrantz Discusses the Future of 2 Months, $2 Million

Poker News Daily: Calls and e-mails we’ve placed to G4 on the future of the online poker reality show “2 Months, $2 Million” have gone unreturned. What have you heard about the possibility of a second season?

Jay Rosenkrantz: I’ve heard that they’re happy. I haven’t gotten official word, but I haven’t asked either. We feel good about there being a Season 2 and creatively it’s going to get better. From a physical perspective, the show has been growing and growing. It has to be a good business decision for them [to renew it]. It has an international following also. I just imagine that they have other things to deal with right now like new programming and they’ll get around to it. I would bet on there being a Season 2 and I think we’re a favorite.

PND: How tough was it to juggle playing poker with creating an entertaining end product for fans to watch each Wednesday night on G4 during the 10-episode series?

Rosenkrantz: It was hard. Often you’d see us on tilt and you’d assume it was because we were losing money, but often it would be because we had just had some words with the producers about them wanting us to do something stupid or trying to get all four of us to go talk in front of the backdrop of the Las Vegas Strip while there was a great game running. There would be fighting back and forth when there were people outside of the poker world trying to do something about the poker world. At times, it was stressful.

PND: Since we last talked to you, the episode featuring the high-stakes home game aired. Tell us about that night.

Rosenkrantz: It was fun. It wasn’t the softest game ever. Everyone knew they were going to be on television, so you had people who wanted to be on television playing in the game, otherwise people weren’t going to go out of their way to play nosebleed stakes against us. We might be relative unknowns to the general public as far as being on television, but anyone who is a high-stakes poker player knows who we are.

The game was $100/$200 with a $50,000 buy-in. It didn’t last that long and the producers made David Williams out to be a fish. He was the worst player at the table, but he wasn’t a fish. Nothing happened for two hours, the game broke, and the producers did the best they could with the footage they had.

PND: How has the traffic at your training site, DeucesCracked.com, been as a result of the exposure it has received on “2 Months, $2 Million”? Has being on the show translated into more subscriptions sold?

Rosenkrantz: It’s been doing well. It’s tough, though, because it’s hard to convert someone to poker training from watching G4. They have to make that leap to wanting to get better at poker and wanting to pay $29 per month to subscribe to the site. There’s a seven-day free trial, which is a smoother way in for newcomers. We’ve experienced a lot more eyes, though, which is great for the brand.

Isildur1 Runs Hot Against Durrrr, Patrik Antonius

Full Tilt Poker is home to some of the biggest online poker action in the world on its nosebleed-stakes tables.  The players who join these games include millionaire pros Patrik Antonius, Phil Ivey, and Tom “durrrr” Dwan, who have dominated the biggest games for years, with many top pros refusing to play any of them for fear of losing their bankrolls.  However, what happens when the hunter becomes the hunted?

A few months ago, a player from Sweden by the name of Isildur1 came onto the scene at the nosebleed-stakes tables and has rampaged through opponents.  This player, whose true identity remains anonymous to add to the intrigue, has played about 85,000 hands against top pros and showed a profit of over $3.6 million.  Of that, approximately $3.1 million has come directly from who we all thought was the best online player in Dwan.  Overall, according to Poker Table Ratings, Isildur1 is up $4.2 million over 90,600 hands with a best day of $1.44 million.

The consensus is that Isildur1 is a pretty decent player, but at the same time has enjoyed a string of good fortune.  Almost $700,000 was exchanged in one of the biggest pots in the history of online poker between these two.  In the hand, all the money got in after a series of raises, with Durrrr holding A-K suited to clubs against Ilidur1’s pocket aces.  The board missed Durrrr, shoving the massive pot to Isildur.  Dwan is now one of the very few people in the world to know what it’s like to lose $350,000 in a single hand of Texas Hold’em online.

Just in this month, Isildur1 has been playing mainly $200-$400 to $500-$1,000 games of Hold’em and Pot Limit Omaha.  His best session was on November 10th and lasted a little over 12 hours playing $500-$1,000 Hold’em against Dwan.

One hand from this session started with Isildur1 holding A-K offsuit in the big blind.  Dwan put in a raise and Isildur1 made a 3bet, which was called.  The flop came K-3-Q with two clubs and Isildur1 led out for $14,000 into the $22,000 pot, which was called.  The ace of spades came on the turn and Isildur1 cbet for $29,400 into a $50,000 pot, which was flatted again.  With a pot of $108,800 at the river and the nine of spades falling (giving three spades on the board), Isildur1 shoved all-in.  With $44,600 behind, durrrr made the call and saw that he couldn’t beat top two pair.  The hand cost Dwan $100,000.

Isildur1 isn’t just picking on Durrrr at the tables.  In a session against Antonius, he played $500-$1,000 heads-up No Limit Hold’em.  In one hand, Isildur1 was in the big blind with A-Q suited to clubs.  Antonius made a raise on the button, which was 3betted by Isildur1 to $12,000.  Antonius made a 4bet to $28,000, which was flatted.  The flop came K-6-8 with two clubs and Isildur1 checked to Antonius, who bet $26,000 into a $56,000 pot.  Isildur1 then came over the top to the tune of $134,000, which was met by an instant-shove from Antonius for $30,000 more.  Isildur1 made the call and Antonius flipped over K-6 of diamonds for two pair.  When the money went in, Antonius was a 64% to 36% favorite and Isildur1 managed to miss his flush draw.  However, in what had to floor Antonius, Isildur1 won the hand by hitting a runner-runner Q-A for a better two pair.  A $400,000 pot slid over to the game’s hottest player.

Dwan, a newly deputized member of the Full Tilt stable of sponsored players, has a new blog set up to publicly discuss his thoughts.  In the first few paragraphs, he discussed activities such as the beaches in Spain and his love for skydiving.  After nine paragraphs of reading how awesome it is to be Durrrr, he stated that he’s been playing Isildur1 a lot lately.  A quick note about how he’s an aggressive player was followed by a promise that he’ll be addressing the games in a more detailed entry in a month.

The various online poker forums are ablaze with posts related to Isildur1 and guesses at the identity behind the person crushing the players that normally crush them all.  As Dwan indicated, his grudge match against this newcomer is far from over.

The Online Railbird Report: Antonius Dominates the 7-Game Action

It was a light week in nosebleed-stakes action, as most of the action continued to center around the $2,000/4,000 7-Game tables on Full Tilt Poker. Everyone’s favorite Finnish ex-model Patrik Antonius came out on top, adding $346,000 to the till...

Patrik Antonius Takes on kingsofcards at Nosebleeds

The action on Full Tilt is still very slow, even compared to the past summer – let alone the days of Guy LaLiberte dropping millions. Most of the recent action has been at $200/$400 or $300/$600 but the dust was blown off the $500/$1,000 Hold ‘em tables as Patrik Antonius and kingsofcards took to the felt.

Akenhead makes Poker Million final

The British Full Tilt Pro, who will come into the final table of the 2009 World Series of Poker Main Event next month as the shortest stack, recently finished ninth in the WSOP Europe main event.

Now, Akenhead has made the final of Poker Million, a made-for-TV event sponsored by Full Tilt.

"I've watched previous Poker Million's on television, so to get to the final table in my first appearance is something I'm proud of," Akenhead said. "It's the biggest tournament of this structure I've ever played in."

Akenhead's run to the final included knocking out Tom "durrrr" Dwan and Antonio Esfandiari along the way.

Those who will join him in the final include Juha Helppi, Full Tilt's Dag Martin Mikkelsen, Cardrunners' co-founder Taylor Caby and Peter Vasiliou, a travel consultant from London who qualified online at Full Tilt.

UK nosebleed stakes loudmouth Luke "FullFlush" Schwartz will come into the final table with the chip lead.

The seventh and last spot in the final can still be won online at Full Tilt Poker through the site's Poker Million - Last Chance 5000 FTP point freeroll on Nov. 22, where the winner will bypass the heats and semi-finals going directly onto the final table.

The Poker Million final will take place in December and air live Sky Sports TV.

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Gus Hansen… What Have You Done?

Just when we wrote the news that Gus Hansen is getting back up… what does he do? Yes, he digs up another hole. According to the Highstakesdb he is taking the beating of his lifetime.

Gus Hansen is well known from his several WPT victories, but nowadays he is better known from his total nosebleed cash games at the online high stakes tables. Hansen has made massive losses in Pot Limit Omaha and Mixed games during this year. Seems like his only profit has come from the HORSE tables.

HORSE - The game for “The Great Dane”?

Hansen has been mainly playing HORSE this month, and like we earlier wrote, it seems that it’s the only game where Gus can make some profit.

Even though it seems that way, there is something fundamentally wrong in Hansen’s play even when he wins. Clearly he can make small profit in several sessions, only to lose massively the next night. His graph from the past 30 days is really harsh to watch.

Before yesterday Hansen had been playing good this month; he had won $400.000 from HORSE, so October was going pretty well for him. Then something happened again. He lost $500.000 in one session.

Even though Gus lost yesterday, his graph clearly shows that he should stick to HORSE because it is the only game he can beat at the moment. He has won over $800.000 from Horse this year and lost massively in all other games repeatedly.

Omaha and Mixed games are bad

Hansen loses particularly much when he happens to sit down on the Omaha and Mixed tables. He has lost over $1.3 million in Omaha and almost twice as much, 2.3 million dollars, in the Mixed game this year.

Source: Highstakesdb

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Gus Hansen… What Have You Done?

Jay Rosenkrantz Recaps 2 Months, $2 Million

We’re eight episodes through the G4 online poker reality series “2 Months, $2 Million” and the cast is $507,000 in the black. Among those who made waves in last week’s episode was Jay Rosenkrantz, who sat down with Poker News Daily to discuss his heads-up match against David “Viffer” Peat and the show in general. “2 Months, $2 Million” airs at 8:00pm ET on Wednesdays on G4.

Poker News Daily: Has it been surreal to watch “2 Months, $2 Million” unfold on G4 every week?

Rosenkrantz: It’s very, very, very surreal.  Emil Patel and I live together in New York City and host a weekly party with all of our friends and family.  Dani Stern is here for most of those also.  Watching a hyper-stylized version of our summer with friends from childhood and college is pretty damn fun, but definitely weird.

For instance, seeing Emil get sneak attacked and destroyed by water balloons is hilarious both in the fact that it’s just really funny, but also that we somehow convinced a television network to put our dumb asses on television.  Each “week” is actually around 80 hours of footage broken down into 21 minutes, so while the Jay, Emil, Dani, and Brian Roberts developed on television are very much accurate depictions of all of us, sometimes we get sold a little short (or are given too much credit).  All in all, though, it has been an awesome experience and we all badly want to go back for Season 2 next summer.  $2 million or bust!

PND: Has there been a traffic boost on your poker training site, DeucesCracked, as a result?

Rosenkrantz: Yes, our traffic and signups have gone up and I’m really happy with the results.  We’re not talking like we doubled our membership, but considering a lot of people watching the show have never been exposed to poker or poker training videos before, I like the influx of new, genuinely curious users.  [CardRunners founder] Taylor Caby got a deal with Full Tilt, so obviously I had to go out and one-up him with a television show.

PND: Talk about the roller coaster of a ride against David “Viffer” Peat.

Rosenkrantz: Some behind-the-scenes information about that match.  First, it was one of our producer’s (Brandon) duties throughout the summer to try to arrange high-stakes matches for us.  We wanted to play pretty much anyone (other than the top, top players) at heads-up No Limit.  As our results started to not look great around Week 5 or 6, the four of us realized that we needed to push Brandon to seek out more matches for us.  He put word out to most of the card rooms and poker agencies, but a lot of people just didn’t understand what the show was about, didn’t want to play us, or the money we wanted to play for was too big.

A few people accepted though, among them David Benyamine, Viffer, and Sami Kelopuro (LarsLuzak).  Viffer’s doing a television show called “The Bet” and wanted the guaranteed exposure, so the match was set up to occur near the end of Lockdown (Lockdown, by the way, was an idea I had before the summer even started that the network wasn’t really into, but we were able to convince them of its merits when push came to shove).

We started playing and Viffer was playing really erratically and running me over.  I was coming off 36 hours straight in the war room and had not only just lost back everything I made during Lockdown, but also lost a great episode for the TV show because now I was down a lot.  I was expecting him to be a loose-passive live pro, but he wasn’t really anything like that, which caught me by surprise.  The producers had their heads in their hands, they didn’t know what to do, and they’re not from poker, so they were just lamenting why I didn’t stop when I was up on him.  Not only that, Brandon was feeling awful that he set me up to get crushed by this live shark and our chances of coming anywhere close to the goal were basically shot.

Then, Viffer took a break to get food and came back playing crazier than ever.  I bad beat him in a huge pot to get close to even and this sent him on huge tilt.  Total bajunky - this is when he started mashing pot.  He had been doing it earlier, but not nearly as often, and now he was re-raising tons of hands and mashing pot constantly.

People speculate about how he would have such an obvious tell, but honestly it’s not obvious when you’re sitting there stuck $100,000 trying to claw back to even not only so you can win your money back, but also so you can save an episode of a TV show.  We’re playing $40,000 No Limit, I had a big piece of myself, and the cameramen and producers were visibly shaken by what was going on.  I had a lot of things on my mind unrelated to clearly processing what was going on in the match, not to mention that I had spent 38 hours in the war room!

PND: Did Peat’s betting tell prove to be true 100% of the time? How tough was it not exposing it every time so he wouldn’t adjust?

Rosenkrantz: Not 100%, but close to it.  As you can see in the episode, the atmosphere in the room transformed from tense and excited to giddy and incredulous.  It was really important to make sure that I didn’t take away or hero call down every single pot he was bluffing in and I’d have to guess that is definitely why he didn’t notice until it was too late.  In that last $316,000 pot they showed, it was actually a good bluff by him where I happened to have a huge hand, but considering how often I was defending to his 3bets, it was a good bluff and I have to fold all of my non-two pair hands by the river.  There were lots of cooler pots I also won that they didn’t show like 3-3 versus A-K on an A-3-X flop and A-K versus A-J on an ace-high flop.  So, while it was an amazing, rock solid read, it was definitely made to be a little bit more cinematic than it actually was.

Funny aside - when I got back to up $100,000 on him, the producers started begging me to quit.  They were so shook up that they could barely hold the cameras straight.  The money was just so huge and incomprehensible, I had just completed this legendary comeback, and they couldn’t bear to deal with the thought of me losing more again.

Of course, we’re all poker players and there was a drought of nosebleed action this summer, so all of a sudden I had this insanely profitable spot and there was absolutely no way in hell any of us were stopping.  There’s all of this great rough footage of Paul and Terry (the Executive Producers) begging me to pick up and go relax with the guaranteed win outside the war room and the four of us just berating the hell out of them for being huge donkeys.  I think Brian threatened to cut off someone’s pinky finger.  Anyhow, it worked out, the producers knew not to try to argue with us about poker ever again, and Brandon got out of the doghouse and was celebrated as a hero for the production.

The next day, the network executive in charge of the show showed up to the house to see how Lockdown had gone, saw the big black number in my column on the tally board, and G4’s collective brain exploded.  Two years in development, seven episodes’ worth of footage and storylines, and they still didn’t fully understand the kinds of swings and drama that were possible in poker until that moment.

PND: Did you foresee fewer high-stakes games happening this summer? Had that been the trend?

Rosenkrantz: It was the trend, but every summer for the past three years, the games had picked up.  We didn’t foresee the complete death of nosebleed No Limit and, because of that, we were really ill-prepared.  I wasn’t as good at Pot Limit Omaha as I should have been and a few of us should have learned mixed games over the year.  Second season or not, we won’t be caught off guard like that again next summer.

PND: What’s your favorite non-online poker activity you guys have done so far and why?

Rosenkrantz: Definitely trampoline dodgeball.  Unfortunately, I think it’s cut from the show, but if you can get a group of people together in Las Vegas and want to blow off steam, there is nothing more fun than trampoline dodgeball.  I can’t even properly describe it because it’s so crazy.

PND: Would you use a different strategy from the beginning if you had to do the show all over again?

Rosenkrantz: If we get a second season, we will have 10 months to prepare and now that “2 Months, $2 Million” has a passionate following in the poker community, I think more well-known pros will want to play us.  More game selection, more opponents, and more chances to win or lose big - I think those are the best parts of the show.  We learned so much this summer about how to approach the goal and about how to make a compelling television show about it.  I just know in my heart that if we go back, it will be week to week, consistently, the best poker television there has ever been.  I’ll guarantee that.

PND: Heading into Week 9, how are you feeling about making up $1.5 million to reach the goal?

Rosenkrantz: Not good.  We obviously are not going to make it, but the question is whether or not we will crack $1 million.

2 Months, $2 Million: Jay Rosenkrantz Battles Viffer, Team Earns $371,000

A high-stakes mutli-table battle between Jay Rosenkrantz and David “Viffer” Peat headlined this week’s episode of the G4 online poker reality series “2 Months, $2 Million.” In the end, the team earned $371,000 for the week and is up over $500,000 overall.

Week 8 of the G4 franchise began with the team up $135,600. Despite the six-figure earnings, the team was nowhere near its $2 million goal and began hunting for high-stakes games. Rosenkrantz quickly found a taker in luckexpress10, who has vandalized the “2 Months, $2 Million” cast in previous episodes. In one pot shown, Rosenkrantz held A-J of clubs and the flop came 6-3-A, Rosenkrantz bet out $5,000, luckexpress10 raised to $14,000, Rosenkrantz shoved, and luckexpress10 quickly called, turning over A-6 for top and bottom pair. No jack came and Rosenkrantz dropped the $114,000 pot. He was down $97,000 on the week after one day, sinking the team to nearly even on the season.

As a result of the group’s collective struggles, a 36-hour lockdown was planned. Only one person could leave the war room at a time over the next day and a half. Rosenkrantz battled JD_KILLER in the early stages of lockdown, winning with pocket aces versus K-J and then cracking JD_KILLER’s aces with 9-10 after turning a straight. After Rosenkrantz raked another pot to be up $93,000, JD_KILLER sat out. At 11:20pm, during the 13th hour of lockdown, Emil Patel and Brian Roberts both went to sleep. Rosenkrantz soon followed.

The next morning, with Patel still asleep, Rosenkrantz played Peat across two tables of $200/$400. The $40,000 buy-in match marked the highest stakes game of the series. Early on, Rosenkrantz won a pot with pocket nines against Peat’s 4-7 to go up $159,000 during lockdown. Then, Peat went on a tear, as Rosenkrantz’s lockdown total fell to $248,000 the wrong way from zero. Rosenkrantz was visibly frustrated, but began looking for tells. He noted, “There has to be a way to turn this around. I know I’m better than this guy. I just have to figure him out.”

With his housemates following the action in the war room, Rosenkrantz discovered that Peat’s betting habits marked an online tell. When Peat bet pot, he was typically bluffing. A montage of hands followed where Rosenkrantz exploited his newfound edge, including one where Peat bet pot on a Q-J-3-A board. Rosenkrantz held Q-10 and called a bet on the river, trusting his read. Sure enough, Peat showed K-9 for a busted straight draw and Rosenkrantz scooped $165,000.

In the largest pot shown during lockdown, Peat bet pot on a board of 3-10-K-Q. Rosenkrantz called with K-Q for top two pair. Peat pushed when a five fell on the river and Rosenkrantz called, creating a massive $316,000 pot. Peat showed 9-6 for “squadoosh” and Rosenkrantz was up $351,000 during lockdown. Peat parted with the words “die in a grease fire” in the chat and sat out.

On his impressive lockdown performance, Rosenkrantz told “2 Months, $2 Million” cameras, “What a crazy 36 hours. If we can get some more nosebleed action, the $2 million goal doesn’t seem so unbeatable anymore.” When the totals for the week were tabulated, the “2 Months, $2 Million” quartet were up $371,000 during Week 8 and $507,000 overall. Rosenkrantz was the week’s big winner, up $351,000. Patel was up $34,000, Roberts was up $9,000, and Dani Stern was the only cast member to lose money for the week, down $22,600.

For his penalty stunt, Stern played 52-card pickup in the disgusting-looking green pool at Aaron “aejones” Jones’ house. Roberts joked, “Look at the bright side. After jumping into this pool, you’ll be exposed to so much bacteria that you’ll never have to take medication again.”

Next week, the “2 Months, $2 Million” cast holds a high-stakes home game featuring Bertrand “Elky” Grospellier, David Williams, and Peat, among others. “2 Months, $2 Million” airs weekly at 8:00pm ET on G4.

durrrr Challenge changeup: $500/$1,000 action

Apparently the only player to accept the invitation and take a seat was high-stakes regular POKERBLUFFS.

In what has become his familiar style, POKERBLUFFS sat for only 21 hands, but that was still long enough to pull a hit-and-run on Dwan.

After catching a lucky river card to win a $110k pot, POKERBLUFFS immediately logged off, taking his fresh profit with him and calling it a night.

The hit-and-run is a technically-legal-yet-frowned-upon practice in cash-game poker. But when you sit across from the best players in the world for long enough, there's a good chance you'll end up broke.

So although POKERBLUFFS is becoming known as a hit-and-run artist, his strategy appears to be an effective one as he's consistently growing his online roll while some of the players who stick it out at the nosebleeds for longer end up with million-dollar deficits.

Just three minutes after getting hit-and-run, Dwan reloaded to get it all in on the flop with pocket nines against Antonius's top pair of eights, resulting in the largest pot of the night worth over $186k.

Unfortunately for Dwan, just eight minutes later Antonius won an almost identical $178k pot with pocket nines against his top pair of sixes.

At the end of the night Dwan had won just $50,000 off of Antonius, almost exactly what he lost to the hit-and-run of POKERBLUFFS.

POKERBLUFFS finished his night with just over $60,000 in profits making him the largest winner in all No-Limit and Pot-Limit games.

Here are the three largest pots of the session, all of which happened within 11 minutes of each other. If you want to see any more hands from the night, click over to MarketPulse.

Wayne Gretzky always wins.

The hit before the run.

Dwan missed a bet.

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High roller Glantz takes EPT London £20k

But he will leave London the 2009 PokerStars London EPT High Roller champion.

Glantz, who hails from Lafayette Hill, Pennsylvania, outlasted a field of 75 elite players to grab the title and £542,000 first-place prize Friday.

"There were tons of great players," Glantz said. "Probably, out of the top 100 tournament players in the world, 50 to 60 were in this tournament."

Among those who put up the £20,000 buy-in were Full Tilt's Phil Ivey, Tom "durrrr" Dwan, Dave "Devilfish" Ulliott and Team PokerStars Pros Chris Moneymaker, Greg Raymer, Barry Greenstein, and Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier.

The final table featured 2007 WPT Five Diamond champ Eugene Katchalov, 2008 November Niner Dennis Phillips, and online nosebleed stakes legend Ilari "Ziigmund" Sahamies.

Glantz beat Erik Cajelais heads-up, a little over a week after Cajelais took down his first major tournament, winning the 2008 WSOPE $2,500 Pot-Limit Hold'em/Pot-Limit Omaha event.

Primarily a cash-game pro, Glantz' previous top tournament finish was a fourth place finish for $568,320 at the 2008 WSOP $50k H.O.R.S.E. event and said he plays tournaments more for the competition than the cash.

"I don't plan on ever making a living from tournaments," he said. "It's like a challenge. It's like a sport to me. Cash games are more of a grind, doing the same thing over and over again, while tournaments are more of a meta-game.

"Cash games are more of a logical way to beat your opponents while in tournaments it's more fun to try to get inside your opponent's head."

In fact, Glantz admitted he has difficulty finding the motivation to play tournaments, considering the cash stakes he regularly plays.

"To tell you the truth, I know it sounds crazy, but this one was harder to get motivated for because you are putting up £20,000 to win £500,000," he said. "You're only getting 25 to 1 on your money and you have to beat 75 great players, so it's hard to motivate you there.

"On the other side it was nice to only have to beat 75 players as opposed to a big tournament where you have to beat like 2,000 players - it seemed a lot more attainable."

Glantz, who regularly blogs about playing high-stakes cash, prop betting, cross booking and playing Chinese Poker for $1,000 a point with some of the biggest names in the game, said he hopes the money doesn't get bled off there.

"That's Roland (de Wolfe's) plan and some other friends I have, but no, we don't play that big in Chinese, we play big enough, you can lose enough, but not those numbers."

For now, Glantz plans on playing the main event at PokerStars EPT London before heading back to the United States.

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The hits continue: martonas drops another $500k

The martonas comeback began with a $200k win on Sunday night. But when the Swedish gambler tried for a repeat the next night, he lost over $500k to Tom "kingsofcards" Marchese and Aaron "aejones" Jones.

If martonas is one thing, he's persistent. Last night he returned to the highest-stakes games online, and for the second night in a row, he managed to get beat out of half a million dollars.

Almost every nosebleed-stakes player in the game could smell the blood in the water, causing an absolute frenzy of action.

In fact, the top 25 pots of the night alone amounted to over $6.1 million wagered.

Patrik Antonius, whose appearances on Full Tilt's tables have been sparse in contrast to last year, has returned with a vengeance, proving once again he is one of the most prolific online players ever.

Last night Antonius was involved in four pots worth over $300k, including the largest pot of the night worth a massive $496,023. Antonius won the top pot by snapping off Marchese's bluff, making a $101k call on the river holding nothing but king-high.

Despite losing the half-million dollar pot, Marchese managed to minimize his losses down to just over $100k.

Playing on the same tables as Antonius and Marchese, POKERBLUFFS picked his spots well, playing fewer hands than his opponents but taking down the majority of those he chose to play.

At the end of the night, POKERBLUFFS finished with an impressive profit of $488k.

On top of all the No-Limit Hold'em action, Ilari "Ziigmund" Sahamies and Phil Ivey took turns pulling down massive pots while playing heads up $500/$1,000 Pot-Limit Omaha.

Even after winning all five of their largest heads-up pots, Sahamies was unable to leave the table with any more than $150k of Ivey's money. However, by winning some large pots in other games, Sahamies brought his final result on the night to just over $230k.

The night was a complete bust for Ashton "theASHMAN103" Griffin who cut his month's profit of nearly $1 million in half, losing close to $480k playing NLHE.

Regardless of who won or lost over the last few days, one thing is almost certain: As long as martonas continues to return to the tables, the action will be through the roof.

Here are the three largest pots of the night, head to MarketPulse to see the rest:

Both players knew they both had the draw.

$146k on a draw.

A nice turn for Antonius.

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Andrew Feldman: Reformed and ready

It took less than 24 hours to make it all disappear.

"One night, I was coming home from the casino where'd I'd lost quite a bit of money, £2000 on 3-card poker, so I was a bit steamed up," he said.

"I thought yeah, whatever, I'll go and get it back from poker. So I played out of my bankroll at $25/$50. It took just one bad beat and then I started playing bad and by the end of the night I'd done half the roll.

"I went to bed, woke up, was in a bit of shock after only seeing half my balance there, and within the next few hours all that had been wiped out."

Suddenly broke and dejected, a then 18-year-old Feldman said the worst was yet to come.

"I had to come clean to my parents and tell them that everything had gone, which was very hard because they kept telling me to withdraw the funds and I wouldn't do it because I was a bit superstitious that if I'd taken it out I wouldn't be winning as much," he said.

"So they just said, 'right, no more gambling in the house, we want you to focus on your A-levels and go to university.' I was feeling like I really wanted to play, so they made me go to Gamblers Anonymous just to get it out of my system, but even when I was going, all I could think about was playing again.

"I just wanted to get back to it because I knew I had the potential to make it. I knew I needed another shot."

As luck would have it, Feldman found a few hundred pounds in rakeback money on one of the sites he'd been playing and started grinding again.

"I built it up to £1,000 after one day, £10,000 by the week, £30,000 by the end of the month and then my parents made me take out most of that," he said. "They made me put it away, gave me £5,000 pounds to do with what I like and made me get my exams out of the way, which is exactly what I did.

"I managed to scrape through my A-levels, not really caring to be honest. I got accepted to University, but all I wanted to do was just continue playing poker."

Continue playing poker is exactly what Feldman did, working mid-stakes games online, moving into the live arena on the GUKPT, and eventually stepping into the bright poker spotlight with a $250,000 win in the televised 2007 888.com UK Open.

"Then I got invited to other events like the Poker Den cash game and I was the biggest winner there," he said. "Now I've done a bunch of TV events and just filmed the Full Tilt cash game last week."

A poker prodigy of sorts, Feldman, now 22, was introduced to the game by his older brother, who'd been playing satellites online. But his poker education has come through on-the-job training rather than study.

"I didn't read any books," he said. "It's all sort of been through experience."

Fellow Brit and outspoken high-stakes player Luke "__FullFlush1__" Schwartz has criticized Feldman for dodging the top high-stakes players in the game.

But a now more mature Feldman insists he isn't looking to take on the poker's best at nosebleed stakes just to prove he's one of them.

"For me, playing cash games, I try and be very selective," he said. "I'm not like [Tom Dwan] or Phil Ivey who will play anyone high stakes.

"Obviously, the Full Tilt cash game there was no dead money there, but that was kind of to get my name out there, for the experience. I didn't expect to win. I just wanted the experience and to see what it's like.

"I'm not too worried about being the best. That just isn't my game, my game is to try and target the weaker players."

Feldman also has little interest in engaging in a war of words with Schwartz.

"[Schwartz] likes to conduct himself in that way," he said. "He's very opinionated and he doesn't hold back. It's not something that I would advocate, because you've got to have respect for your fellow poker players.

"But he likes to do that, he likes to get players on tilt and that's his strategy. If it works for him and he feels he's happy then, you know, that's up to him to decide."

These days, with a sponsorship from Full Tilt Poker, Feldman is much more interested in big-time live tournaments than proving himself in the high-stakes arena.

"I would like to get a big tournament win," he explained. "I haven't had any big results lately. I feel I'm due a big result and I want to win a big title. So predominantly I'm focusing on live tournaments.

"If cash games come up and I feel there's a bit of dead money in the game, then yeah, I'll go for it. But live, I'm focusing on tournaments. I'm just playing as many tournaments as possible."

To read the full transcript of the interview with Andrew Feldman check out the PokerListings Poker Reporter Blog.

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Oops! Ziigmund Did It Again

Friday night games at Full Tilt Poker. Phil Ivey, Phil Galfond, Ilari Sahamies, Gus Hansen, Cole South and Di Dang. What can you expect apart from fireworks?

Friday night action poker with some of the top pros can get pretty ugly. There are winners and then there are losers. Sometimes the swings can get into an incomprehensible levels. This time Phil Ivey and Phil Galfond made almost a million profit. Then the losers; Ziigmund lost a staggering 1,3 million dollars in few hours.

When you look at the played hands it’s just amazing how these nosebleed pros play. Phil Ivey won over $900k in just 93 hands and Ziigmund lost $1.3 million in 317 hands. That’s some heavy variance there.

According to coinflip.com, Ziigmund’s losses is explained with a total monkey tilt. In his blog Sahamies says that he’s very angry of himself when he couldn’t stop playing when he didn’t even feel like playing at all. There was some chat after Ziigmund’s massive loss:

Ziigmund: no london
Ziigmund: jumping from balkony
Phil Ivey: lol

Some of the hands:

Ziigmund and Ivey flips, $400k

Ziigmund against durrrr in the second biggest pot of the evening, $361k

Sahamies vs Ivey pt II, $200k

Sahamies vs Ivey pt III, $240k

Top 3 winners:
1.Phil Ivey              $936 210
2.OMGClayAiken $928 190
3.Cole South          $371 244

Top 3 losers:
1.Ziigmund               $-1.328 859
2.Gus Hansen          $-362 253
3.Urindanger           $-182 057

Source: highstakesdb, coinflip.com

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Oops! Ziigmund Did It Again

Marc Karam Talks Eurolinx Scandal

Marc Karam is a well-known online poker personality who has been playing professionally for a number of years.  His final table run during the 2006 European Poker Tour (EPT) Monte Carlo Grand Final launched him to a new status of stardom.  Recently, his sponsored site, Eurolinx, went into liquidation on the Microgaming Network and potentially thousands of players won’t see a dime of the bankrolls they held on the site for the foreseeable future.  Poker News Daily discussed the matter with Karam in this exclusive interview.

Poker News Daily: How far back did your affiliation with Eurolinx go and at what point did you become a sponsored player?

Karam: After I made the final table of EPT Monte Carlo in April of 2006, I was approached by a Eurolinx representative and asked if I was interested in entering a sponsorship deal with the site.  I said I was and he put me in contact with Eurolinx’s VIP manager at the time.  After some negotiations, we agreed to a deal.

PND: As one of the site’s sponsored players, what benefits did you receive and what did you bring to the table for them?

Karam: As a sponsored player, I was getting 100% rakeback, a better-than-normal affiliate deal, and paid live tournament entries.  In return, I referred over 1,000 players to them through my blog, forum, and local bar league freerolls.

PND: It seems a lot of the nosebleed action at the site dried up a while ago.

Karam: The nosebleed action dried up around mid-2008.  Almost everyone moved to Full Tilt and only a few regulars remained.  I’m not sure of the exact circumstances, but it was probably just that the games were juicier on Full Tilt.

PND: Eurolinx’s owner/manager Jo Remme made a lot of promises to you to help his poker site. What were some of those promises and do you know of any agreements made with other people?

Karam: He asked me to borrow money in mid-2008.  I lent him $200,000 and, in return, Eurolinx was supposed to cover all expenses related to launching my own skin on the Microgaming Network.  I would get to keep all of the players I referred and Eurolinx would receive 25% of my net profit for running the backend.  I had websites created, merchandise and gear ordered with my logos, etc., for the new site.  From what I have heard, he sold a few shares of Eurolinx to high-stakes players who were playing on or sponsored by the site at the time.

PND: What was your reaction when you heard about the liquidation and what legal options did you have to protect your assets?

Karam: They actually asked to borrow the money in 2008.  They recovered for a while and then started having financial trouble again earlier this year.  When I heard they were shutting down and in liquidation, I felt sick to my stomach.  It was anger, hurt, and shock.  I knew I didn’t have many legal options because the money was most likely already gone.  I did immediately contact a few lawyers.

PND: Now that Eurolinx has gone into liquidation, you’ve most likely suffered the biggest financial loss of anyone involved.  Do you mind speaking about your financial losses?

Karam: I’d rather not say exactly how much I lost, but it was not $1 million as was mentioned on the TwoPlusTwo Podcast.  In my statement, I said I had $1 million at one time when I gave the loan.  Withdrawals and a pretty ugly downswing left me with less than that.

PND: Where do you go from here in terms of trying to recoup lost funds?

Karam: Right now, I have pretty much written off my losses and anything I do recover will be looked at as a bonus.  After seeing what resulted from the Tusk scandal, my hopes are not high.

PND: What’s your guess as to what happened to the millions of dollars that apparently have vanished?

Karam: There are really only two likely scenarios: bad investments or theft.

PND: It seems like you weren’t the only high-stakes player to lose six- or seven-figures, as Tom “durrrr” Dwan himself posted in the thread.  Are you pooling your resources to fight for lost funds?

Karam: We spoke briefly; there are people who are pooling resources and I am considering joining them shortly.

PND: You are still a well-known commodity in the poker world who has a lot of clout with players.  Once the dust settles, there are surely going to be offers for you to sign on at a new poker room.  What are you going to look for out of a potential deal?

Karam: The first thing I would look at in a potential sponsor would be a widely-trusted reputation and the security of players’ funds.  I definitely won’t be jumping at the first deal that comes my way.  Of course, the money is important too, but I will never put my or my referred players’ funds in a risky situation again.

PND: There have been a lot of well-wishers in the poker industry to you and others taken advantage of in this scandal.  Have their comments helped in any way?

Karam: Their comments mean a lot to me.  I also received many PMs and e-mails offering support. At a time when I was feeling depressed and somewhat embarrassed, reading the comments was very comforting and helped put this terrible situation behind me.

PND: What’s the plan moving into the future?

Karam: Right now, I’m just trying to put the whole situation behind me and start fresh. I’ve been playing a lot of poker, but I also won’t let what happened discourage me from continuing to work on the affiliate side of things. I have learned many lessons from this.

PND: Do you have any final statements aimed at others affected by the situation?

Karam: While this situation is extremely unfortunate, I hope it wakes up not only the people who were victimized by it, but also the entire poker world, and puts a lot more pressure onto sites and networks to ensure it never happens again. I’d also like to thank a lot of the ex-staff at Eurolinx who have helped out in the investigation.

2009 Poker Hall of Fame Finalists Announced

The final list of nominees for the 2009 Poker Hall of Fame was announced on Tuesday and the ballot is loaded with the game’s biggest names. It is now up to the 15 living Hall of Fame members and the 15-member Media Panel to cast their votes before the inductees are revealed on Saturday, November 7.

The nine selected candidates are Barry Greenstein, Dan Harrington, Phil Ivey, Tom McEvoy, Men Nguyen, Scotty Nguyen, Daniel Negreanu, Erik Seidel and Mike Sexton. Any of those nine who receive at least 75% of the vote will be inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame, which will be part of a special Hall of Fame dinner ceremony at the Rio Hotel in Las Vegas during the dinner break of the World Series of Poker Main Event Final Table.

The voters must determine which nominees most deserve an induction this year. Each candidate is voted the following criteria:

–A player must have played poker against acknowledged top competition
–Played for high stakes
–Played consistently well, gaining the respect of peers
–Stood the test of time
–Or, for non-players, contributed to the overall growth and success of the game of poker, with indelible positive and lasting results.

Current Hall of Fame members also have the ability to add a write-in candidate — someone they feel deserves consideration — but were not among the list of finalists this year. This write-in candidate will be added to the 2010 nomination list automatically. The voting members will receive their ballots this week and have until October 2, 2009 to submit their completed forms.

Before starting the 2009 WSOP, the WSOP Commissioner Jeffrey Pollack announced that the process for becoming a member into the Poker Hall of Fame would undergo a slight modification. Starting in this year, the Poker Hall of Fame started accepting nominations from the public.

Ten players received the required number of votes to make the nominees list. Tom Dwan, known as “durrrr” online, was the lone preliminary nominee left off the final ballot. The nosebleed cash game specialist only recently burst onto the poker scene but quickly gained worldwide fame after proposing a challenge to anyone in the world (except Phil Galfond) that believed they could beat him in a four-table heads-up format on Full Tilt Poker.

“With all due respect to Mr. Dwan, one of the games most exciting young players, he does not currently meet the criteria for Hall of Fame selection”, said a member of the Poker Hall of Fame Governing Council. “We wish him well and expect he will again be considered once he has ‘stood the test of time’.”

The inductees will be invited to a special dinner held and hosted in their honor where they will give their induction speech and be awarded their commemorative trophy. Each of nine of the finalists will be invited to the dinner, and room will be reserved for additional family, friends, the current Hall of Famers and the media voting panel.

PKR Heads Up Event to Feature Dwan and Schwartz

The railbirds at the nosebleed cash games on Full Tilt Poker that loved watching Luke “FullFlush1″ Schwartz mouth off to Tom “durrrr” Dwan earlier this year will be happy to hear there is yet another chance for the two to face off on the felt in person.  Both Dwan and Schwartz have been tapped to play in the upcoming PKR Heads Up Grand Slam invitational event.

The televised event will feature a bracket-style tournament that pits a total of 32 players against each other in deep stack, heads-up matches.  The buy-in is $10,000 and there will be a grand total of $350,000 up for grabs in the prize pool.  Some of the other pros confirmed to be joining Dwan and Schwartz  are JC Tran, PokerStars Pro Vicky Coren, WPT Championship winner Yevgeniy “atimos” Timoshenko, Annette “Annette_15” Obrestad, Nam Le, Sammy George and Full Tilt Pro Roland de Wolfe.  The event will be taped and broadcast on UK’s Sky Sports over the course of eight two-hour episodes.

In addition to his poker prowess, Schwartz is also known around the poker world for his penchant for trash talking and outspoken nature.  Ever since Schwartz began playing in the high stakes cash games on Full Tilt, he has been particularly critical of Dwan and his group of friends within the poker community.  Schwartz has hinted at taking on durrrr in both the online and live “durrrr Challenges” in which opponents face off against Dwan in a series of heads-up matches, but nothing had come to fruition.

In the past two weeks all that has changed though, as the PKR Heads Up event marks the second televised tournament which will feature the two young pros.  In August, PartyPoker announced the two would be playing in their upcoming event, the PartyPoker World Open V.  That event, also being recorded for television, features a series of single table Sit & Go heats with players from each heat advancing to the final table.

Neither of these matches guarantees that Dwan and Schwartz will bump heads at the same table, but it now gives those eager to see the two together in a brick and mortar setting even more opportunities for their wish to come true.  The PKR Heads Up Grand Slam will take place in London from October 8th-10th and the World Open V will film immediately after that, running at the Palm Beach Casino from October 11th-15th.

The PKR Heads Up Grand Slam may be an invitation-only event, but it will be open to more than just the top pros.  The site is currently running satellites on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays in which players can qualify to play in the Heads Up Grand Slam Online Finale taking place from September 29th through October 1st.  Only 32 players will advance to the online finals, which consist of a series of three heads-up matches.  The 16 players who survive Round One on the 29th advance to Round Two the next day.  On the final day of play, the eight remaining players will battle in one last heads-up showdown and each of the four winners will gain entry into the live and televised Heads Up Grand Slam Event.

The four satellite prize packages are each valued at $12,000 and include a buy-in into the October event as well as $2,000 for travel expenses.  Those interested in satelliting their way into the online final can do so for as little as $7.28.

The upcoming heads-up event is not the only live tournament with PKR sponsorship on the horizon.  The site recently announced it’s popular PKR Live event will be returning for a third installment from November 20th-22nd at The Loose Cannon Club in London.  A special $200 Bounty tournament will be offered in addition to the $1,000 buy-in Main Event, which is expected to offer a first place prize of $40,000.

Martonas Loses $1.4 Million on Full Tilt Poker

This weekend, the high-stakes action at the Full Tilt nosebleed tables was relatively calm compared to the Pot Limit Omaha (PLO) frenzy that transpired last weekend.  The slow action of Friday and Saturday brought an anticlimactic end to a week that saw the return of Durrrr Challenge play, a big winning week for Ashton “THEASHMAN103″ Griffin, and a substantial loss for the player known as “martonas.”

The bulk of martonas‘ $1.4 million downswing came at the hands of Tom “durrrr” Dwan and Phil “OMGClayAiken” Galfond last Friday at the $300/$600 PLO tables.  Martonas clashed with durrrr in two massive hands, one worth over $280,000 and another that sent $460,000 durrrr’s way.  In the latter hand, the two got it all-in on the flop with martonas holding a massive combination flush and straight draw to durrrr’s nut flush draw.  The river brought the third diamond to complete the flush and give durrrr the best hand.

It was a big night for durrrr, who picked up $1 million in profit.  Galfond also found success in last Friday’s session, bringing his end-of-day winnings to over $800,000.  Like durrrr, he also picked up a chunk of his bankroll off of martonas.  Meanwhile, martonas ended the day down nearly $1 million and that was not the end of his misfortune.  He dropped an additional $600,000 on Monday and, despite winning sessions on Sunday and Tuesday, ended the week as the big loser on Full Tilt with a $1.4 million loss from Friday, August 21st to Saturday, August 29th.

Other players who ended up in the losing column during that time include both Di “Urindanger” Dang and his brother Hac “trex313″ Dang, who each dropped in the vicinity of $300,000.  Several Full Tilt Red Pros didn’t fare too well this week, either.  David Benyamine, Haseeb Qureshi, David Oppenheim, and Gus Hansen all came out of the week in the red with six-figure losses.

While those sponsored pros had a rough week, several other names in red came out in the black, most notably Patrik Antonius.  He picked up much of his $500,000 in profit from two epic Durrrr Challenge sessions in which he was able to completely erase durrrr’s $726,000 overall lead in their infamous bet.  Now, Antonius is sitting with a slight lead of $76,104 and half-million dollars more in his Full Tilt account.  Richard Ashby and Phil Ivey also booked respectable weeks with profits of $190,000 and $163,000, respectively.

The big success story of the week is THEASHMAN103, who found himself up nearly $900,000 at week’s end.  His $1 million winning session on the tables on Tuesday resulted in the majority of that profit.  THEASHMAN103 continues to be one of the big winners of 2009 on Full Tilt Poker along with Antonius, CardRunners instructor Cole “cts” South, and Ilari “Ziigmund” Sahamies.  Ziigmund had an impressive week himself, with $725,000 in winnings.

If this weekend is any indication, the fast and furious action on Full Tilt Poker may be hitting a lull.  With the live tournament schedule picking up and continuing high-stakes action in Bobby’s Room at the Bellagio, perhaps the attention of many players is diverted.  In his latest blog post, Doyle Brunson spoke of “insane” action at the Bellagio, so that could explain part of the dip in action at the online nosebleed tables.  Only time will tell if action will pick back up shortly, when Durrrr Challenge play will resume, and if martonas can rebound from his rough week at the tables.

Phil “OMGClayAiken” Galfond Running Really Bad

Just recently Phil Galfond wrote his latest blog entry where he reveals how frustrating it is to run bad at nosebleed high-stakes games. The figures aren’t that pretty when you are running $800k below equity.

Galfond ran godly a year ago on Full Tilt Poker as he was the second biggest winner in 2008, but now after frustration after frustration he has to rethink about his whole Poker career all over again; “I think I need to come to terms with the fact that I can’t rely on high stakes poker for my income,” he says. “My EV is still very good, but I need to have other reasons for playing: the challenge, fun, pride. Playing 50k hands a year of 300/600+ for the money is just setting myself up for disappointment. Even with a decent edge, I can’t expect to come out a significant winner more than 60% of the time.”

In his blog, Galfond ponders about the frustration and psychology behind Poker; how people can get into a cycle of bleeding tilt and negative thinking and how mentally draining the whole downswing will get. He surely knows what he’s talking about as he posted a graph showing his actual winnings vs his all-in EV. He’s down almost a million in just a bit over 4000 hands, $800k below EV.

You can check his graph and the whole blog entry at bluefirepoker.com.

Source: bluffeurope

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Phil “OMGClayAiken” Galfond Running Really Bad

Phil Galfond Running Bad, $800k Below Equity

In his latest blog at BlueFirePoker.com, Phil Galfond has revealed how draining it is being a high-stakes professional at the nosebleed stakes when you’re on the other end of those six-figure wins.

durrrr Challenge Resumes - Patrik Wins $392,000

After a break of nearly two months – the WSOP and Martonas’ donations to the nosebleed stakes, aka Tom Dwan’s bankroll having something to do with it, we suspect – durrrr and Patrik Antonius resumed the four-tabling heads-up challenge across the $200/$400 tables yesterday.

Martonas Shakes Up High-Stakes Games on Full Tilt

A newcomer joined the high-stakes cash games on Full Tilt Poker in August and has captivated the online poker world like we haven’t seen in quite some time. The player, who hails from Sweden, goes by the moniker “martonas” and has already clashed with Tom “durrrr” Dwan, Phil Ivey, Patrik Antonius, Phil “OMGClayAiken” Galfond, David Benyamine, Brian Hastings, and many others at some of the biggest No Limit Hold ‘em and Pot Limit Omaha games on the site.

Whenever an unknown makes an appearance in the nosebleed games it is automatically assumed that it’s either a high-stakes pro attempting to hide his or her identity or a wealthy novice taking a shot against poker’s best (much like billionaire Cirque du Soleil founder Guy Laliberte, who has lost millions playing on Full Tilt Poker). Either way, it attracts the sharks, and there has been no exception in the case of “martonas”, who has taken million dollar swings in 19 sessions since August 10th.

Speculation from the online poker community has linked the “martonas” account to several possible high-stakes regulars from Sweden, including Martin de Kniff, Jonas Danielsson, Bengt Sonnert, and a player with the online name Blom90, who came out of nowhere to obliterate the high-stakes No Limit games on the iPoker network early in 2009. Most of the talk has surrounded de Kniff and Danielsson, as Martin is rumored to be staking the young Swede. Danielsson regularly plays the biggest cash games on Ladbrokes as “nebuchad”.

Up until now, there hasn’t been enough information to confirm either of their connection to the “martonas” account.

The mysterious Swedish player went on a spectacular rush when he or she first burst onto the scene this month, taking close to $900,000 in a $500/1000 No Limit Hold ‘em session on August 14th. Phil Ivey, Patrik Antonius and Cole South each had substantial losses to “martonas”, which would go on to win $1.3 million by August 17th.

The nature of high-stakes cash games revealed its ugly face shortly after and it’s all gone downhill since. According to pokertableratings.com, “martonas” lost more than $2.7 million during a lengthy session on August 18th, most of which went to Phil “OMGClayAiken” Galfond, Full Tilt Team Pro member Brian Hastings, and Tom “durrrr” Dwan. Galfond made more than $800,000 from the Swede at both the NLHE and PLO tables while Hastings’ winnings were over $600,000. But it was “durrrr” who did most of the damage. More than $2.8 million of the “martonas” bankroll went to Dwan, who has now recouped all of his losses on Full Tilt Poker from the year.

“Martonas” lost $314,000 in their most recent session on August 21. Dwan, Benyamine, Galfond, Di “urindanger” Dang, and Ashton “theASHMAN103″ Griffin were all there to pick apart the newcomer and “martonas” hasn’t been seen on the site since. The player has lost close to $2 million on Full Tilt overall. Whether or not “martonas” went bust or is simply taking a break remains to be seen, but the top players in the game certainly look forward to a return.

Poker News Daily will continue to investigate the identity of “martonas” and will follow up with any addition info we can gather about the player. Stay tuned!

Last week’s Full Tilt Poker Results: durrrr won $2.2 million

Last week was one the craziest week’s at Full Tilt Poker ever. The biggest winner was, who else than Tom “durrrr” Dwan.

Last week’s nosebleed games were really action filled as millions and millions of dollars changed their owner. Yet again Tom Dwan proved his skills as he was able to grind up as the biggest winner.

Dwan won an amazing $2.270.694 during the week. Second biggest winner, theASHMAN103, wasn’t even able to get past the one millon mark.

“Martonas” rules the tables

“Martonas” was the dominating player early in the week and he seemed to crush everyone. Although “martonas” was quite lucky, he proved that he is a skillful player as well.

Few huge “martonas” hands:

“Martonas” traps Tom Dwan after he hits the flop, $450k

Runner-runner straight for “martonas”, $361k

Luck changes

Eventually variance got a hold on to “martonas” when he clashed with Tom Dwan in maybe the biggest online head’s-up matches recorded. “Martonas” was down millions, but in the end his luck changed again.

Dwan gets full profit for his nut flush, $570k

“Martonas” gets rivered for $501k

Dwan flops a monster, $433k

Patrik Antonius the second biggest loser

Patrik Antonius was the biggest winner for 2009, but now he has hit the downswing. Last week he lost almost $1.4 million. One must admit that Antonius got a bit lucky and he could have lost even more.

Some of his last week’s hands:

Patrik hits the turn against “aejones”, $246k

theASHMAN103 hits the board better, $239k

theASHMAN103 against Antonius again, $169k

Top3 winners:

1. durrrr - $2.270.694

2. theASHMAN103 - $869.492

3. POKERBLUFFS - $786.405

Top3 losers:

1. martonas - -$1.895.077

2. Patrik Antonius - -$1.389.259

3. Gus Hansen - -$584.294

Source: Highstakesdb

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Last week’s Full Tilt Poker Results: durrrr won $2.2 million

New Player at Full Tilt: POKERBLUFFS

There’s a quite fresh new player at Full Tilt Poker, POKERBLUFFS, and he’s playing the biggest game as he sat on $500/$1000 tables winning $500k.

It’s not the first time he has visited the high-stakes games but previously his games hasn’t gone as planned. This time though he was able to make some nice profit.

Rivered set against Benyamine, $199k pot

POKERBLUFFS likes the river, $192k pot

All-in preflop against Antonius, $151k pot

The biggest losers against POKERBLUFFS were Di “Urindanger” Dang (-$234k), Rami “howisitfeelllike” Amit (-$195k) and David Benyamine (-$155k).

Let’s hope POKERBLUFFS isn’t going to stop playing at the nosebleed games as all the new players create loads of action.

Source: Highstakesdb

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New Player at Full Tilt: POKERBLUFFS

Cole “CTS” South a Huge PLO Winner

The CardRunners boys are showing their mettle in the nosebleed games at the moment on Full Tilt, particularly fan favourite Cole “CTS” South. In the last day he has been on fire at the PLO tables and walked away with an $850,000 profit.