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Poker News Round-up: Week #26 Jeff Lisandro  John ‘Large’ Kabbaj  Richard Austin The headline of the week this week must surely be Jeff Lisandro managing to add the Razz crown to the Seven card Stud and Seven card Stud Hi-Lo successes already this year for a runaway bracelet treble. Most people will hopefully be able to spot a pattern through these game formats, suggesting that Mr Lisandro is an animal at this form of the game. Don’t play stud with this man, and if you do, don’t make the mistake that Prahlad Friedman did a while back and wrongfully accuse the man of shorting antes, he didn’t seem best pleased. Expect to get a skinny price if you want to back Lisandro in the HORSE events this year. Form is everything, but knowing how to play seven card stud doesn’t hurt your HORSE chances either. On the subject of bookmaker prices, presumably the Beevers’ household will be short of another couple of Christmas cards this year as yet another WSOP tip romps home. It is rather surprising that bookmakers employ odds compliers without a basic grasp of probability or compilers so lazy that they simply plagiarise prices from a competitor and trust that they are good. Either way, you still have to be sharp enough to spot these ricks when they occur, so well done Joe. Maybe bookies will have a go at pricing up 3 or more bracelets for next year. John ‘Large’ Kabbaj also deserves to share the headlines with a stunning victory late this morning in the Championship PLH event and $633k. PLH sometimes gets a bad press as a nitty form of the game (mostly by NL shove monkeys) but there are nuances to the game that those brought up on a diet of pot limit seems to understand better than most. However, it did get drawn out for so long that the average blinds in play did get very shallow. Heads up against Kirill Gerasimov with a chip disadvantage, PL experts know the best way to win these things is to get it all in and flop a boat and then get AA v KK shortly afterwards. Nicely done, congratulations to John! There is still a story waiting to be told after the $5k PLO event was taken down by Richard Austin. You might assume he would be slightly jaded, but fairly buoyant with the success. Either the $400k that goes with the bracelet was burning a fast hole in his pocket or some part of the Harrahs/WSOP experience disagreed with him sufficiently to turn down the post-tournament interview. Watch this space next week for any developments that come to light. In other events Robin Keston managed a very creditable 4th in the Championship PLO event with Padraig Parkinson narrowly missing out on the final table. Vitaly Lunkin added another $400k to his bank account with second place to the winner Matthew Graham. The Mob’s own Barny Boatman went deep in the $5k shootout. The non-standard format means that 6th place was just short of the final table and the commensurate massive hike in pay day that a standard tournament payout structure doesn’t provide. Unlucky Barny. Someone evidently got fed up waiting for the Sklansky bucks that you are deemed to acquire when playing hands well and robbed his home to collect on the debt. This adds to the trend of burglaries on famous poker players’ homes recently, watch those insurance premiums go. Also predictions that Las Vegas was set to switch to electronic poker tables pending a trial at the Excalibur will have to wait a while longer while the trial is moved to NYNY. I am not entirely sure what the change of venue will identify, but I am sure that dealers everywhere will continue to follow developments. On UK soil, the GUKPT managed a disappointing 42 runners this week, which may have been a reflection on the Aberdeen venue more than the credit crunch. Retired accountant John Angus made the most of the best opportunity to obtain a Champion of Champions tournament seat by clinching the victory. Next stop Walsall where numbers may recover to be a better barometer of poker affluence. Next week will see the last of the WSOP events draw to a close, including the 6-max and the HORSE in time for the start of the Big Dance. How many runners this year? Who will go on the best timed heater possibly imaginable? I’m not sure yet, so I think I’d better fly out there and find out. |
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