Poker News Round-up

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Poker News Round-up: Week #44

By Adam Noone, 31/10/2008

It’s all been going off on Full Tilt recently with four new online world record sized pots all being shipped inside 24 hours last weekend. After the craziness that saw the previous record pot won by patatino with just a pair of twos, there were at least some genuine hands on show this week starting with Tom Dwan winning a $618,000 pot against LarsLuzak. With almost the nut low on the river Luzak could only win with a bluff and having decided that he wasn’t going to give up on the money already in the middle that’s exactly what he did, only to find that Dwan would not be folding top two.

John Juanda - $678k richer for just 1 minute

A few hours later Dwan was on the wrong end of an even bigger pot when he and John Juanda shoveled $678,072 in pre-flop with the two best hold’em starting hands. Dwan’s aces looked to have secured him yet another monster pot until the river sickeningly brought a third king for Juanda to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. Amazingly, the very next hand dealt at RailHeaven saw an even bigger pot develop when Juanda played his K 8 very aggressively both pre flop and post flop and ended up getting it all in chasing the spade flush draw against Phil Ivey. Ivey’s flopped set of tens still needed to dodge a few heartbreakers, but this time the best hand held up and a new record was set at $687,022.

Finally, a few hours later, it was aces versus kings again for the biggest pot of all when Di Dang aka Urindanger flipped over the hand Tom Dwan really didn’t want to see. Unlike Dwan’s aces earlier on, Dang’s hand held firm and he pulled in a mammoth $723,941 to cap an astonishing session on Full Tilt. The high stakes tables at the site seem to prove that there are at least some people for whom the financial recession means very little.

Bertrand "Elky" Grospellier

Meanwhile for those of us who need to rely on the hope of winning such sums over the course of a whole tournament rather than just one hand, there has been plenty of action recently. Bellagio was hosting the second of four WPT events to be held there this season with the Festa Al Largo Classic, which despite an increased buy in of $15,000 still managed to get a respectable 368 entrants. A very tough field was eventually whittled down to the requisite six for WPT final tables, with France’s Bertrand Grospellier sitting with more than double the chips of his nearest opponent. Grospellier’s tactic of forcing his opponents to play for all their chips if they wanted to get involved paid handsome dividends as even when he got it in with the worst hand luck was on his side. Particularly unlucky was Osmin Dardon who had played exceptionally well to get to the final, including on day four a breathtaking (and correct) fold of pocket fours on a flop of 10 8 4 against a single opponent with a bigger set. With three players left and Nam Le sitting on the short stack, Grospellier once again exerted pressure by moving all in over the top of Dardon’s raise. After a little consideration Dardon declared “that’s a move” and made the call to find that he was absolutely correct in his assessment, only to see Grospellier’s 10 2 outdraw him for a highly unfortunate exit.

With a 17 to 1 chip lead, Grospellier was never going to allow Nam Le back in the game and continuous all in moves successfully closed the tournament shortly afterwards. A fantastic year for Grospellier sees him add a WPT title to the EPT title he won in January and pick up an extra $1,411,015 for his efforts.

Anthony Arlot wins at GCBPT Teesside

Our own UK tours continue to attract decent fields and the latest event saw the GCBPT’s visit to Teesside draw in 212 runners for the £500 main event. The final table was a tough one, as we have often seen with these domestic events, including the likes of Keith “The Camel” Hawkins and winner of the Edinburgh event Colin Wu. It was one of the less well known players who outlasted the pros to win though, as Leicester’s Anthony Arlot picked off James O’Connell’s bluff on the river to capture the title. Arlot earns himself £30,000 and a seat at the championship event in Bristol in December. That brings an end to the regular tour for season two but if the showpiece event in Bristol turns out to be anything like last year’s tournament then we still have plenty to look forward to.

And finally, poker has been in the news recently in Holland – a country traditionally seen as having fairly relaxed views regarding allowing adults to make their own life choices. The Dutch Supreme Court’s 1998 classification of poker as a game of chance has been challenged by a professor of mathematics specializing in probability and statistics. Ben van der Genugten has developed a formula which allocates a numerical value between 0 and 1 to various games depending on the different factors that determine the mix of skill and chance. This formula is highly enough regarded to have been used in court previously to establish that fantasy sports games could be classified as skill based and therefore legal, and according to van der Genugten’s calculations poker has a higher skill rating than fantasy sports. Logic might seem to dictate that poker should therefore also be accepted as a game of skill, but Dutch Justice Minister Hirsch Ballin seems to have a bee in his bonnet and is adamant that he will not apply the same reasoning to all games. He has stated that even if poker were to be officially recognised as a game of skill, it would still never be licensed and regulated in Holland. Despite the challenges of van der Genugten and others over this inconsistency, Ballin has also warned that restrictions on internet poker will become more severe in Holland. Something along the lines of the UIGEA in America is apparently being discussed, with plans to block transactions between Dutch residents and online gaming providers. Poker just seems to have a special ability to elicit bristling indignation in some people.

Adam Noone is a Full Tilt Pro, Play with him and the Mob at Full Tilt Poker

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