Poker

Any tips or ideas for a future 3-Bet, drop a note and a link in the comments and we’ll include you/it in an upcoming post. Today in the 3-Bet we find 2012 WSOP Main Event champ Greg Merson reaping the rewards from wearing his Baltimore Orioles jersey last year, Team Online Pro Shane Schleger getting the documentary treatment for his daily Mexican grind and revisit Sam Trickett's rave-inspired 2012 WSOP. 1) Merson Throwing Out First Pitch at Orioles Game As if winning the WSOP Main Event isn’t prize enough, who knows what other riches might come your way if you just pick your shirt wisely? Ask Greg Merson, who famously (in Baltimore, at least) wore his hometown Orioles jersey for the Main Event final table last year and will reap the rewards tonight: Tossin out the first pitch for the O's Yankees game tonight. Hoping to give them some of my run good and stop this losing streak! — Greg Merson (@Gregy20723) May 21, 2013 Let’s just hope he fares better than John Wall: If you happen to end up in the November Nine yourself this year it might be worth considering some non-traditional long-term perks with your clothing choice. We have an old In-and-Out uniform, for example, if you’re interested. 2) Shane Schleger Stars in Viva Mexico As purveyors of the short poker documentary ourselves, we’re obviously big fans of PokerStars’ ongoing video docs of its Team Online Pros. The star of the latest edition is Shane “Shaniac” Schleger, who opens up for the cameras about his “drifter” past, his up-and-downs in poker and his ongoing Black Friday exile in Mexico. Check it out below: 3) Reliving WSOP 2012 with Sam Trickett Remember that dream life of Sam Trickett we mentioned yesterday? In case you were having trouble visualizing it, here’s a taste of what it was like last summer in Vegas through the Trainspotting-esque lens of of his fiancée Natasha Sandhu: I forgot how good @natashasandhu video from Vegas last year was. click the link to watch youtube.com/watch?v=ityvEh… — Sam Trickett (@Samtrickett1) May 16, 2013Visit www.pokerlistings.com

This time yesterday, I was writing about Shaun Deeb and how he was sitting in second place in the SCOOP Player of the Series. I don't know if he took offense or something, but it seemed to fire him up, because he made another final table last night and took over the number one spot on the overall 2013 SCOOP Player of the Series leaderboard. So, ordinarily this would be another in a series of Yippity Yay Shaun Deeb Days (they are sanctioned by three major governments and four unrecognized principalities). But it seems, somebody out there it looking for a holiday of his own. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Calvin Anderson, the second person in SCOOP history to win four titles (yes, the first and only other was Deeb) Anderson's fourth win came last night, making for his 52nd career cash in SCOOP. When Anderson moved up to the four-win spot on the board, it left the three-win hole empty...for a few minutes. Seems Rodrigo Caprioli was ready for his third title. SCOOP continues through the weekend, but for now don't forget to check out the PokerStars.tv SCOOP channel for highlight shows from the biggest events. If you want to see the most recent news, click on any of the headlines below. OptionNz wins $54K in five way deal of death Event #21-L ($27 NL Hold'em) Players: 23,693 Prizepool: $581,663.15 Places paid: 3,150 1. OptionNz (Germany), $54,000.00* 2. Sun*RMC (Russia), $30,107.46* 3. NicoBKK (Thailand), $28,313.22* 4. Run Bad King (United Kingdom), $35,892.38* 5. serj_kh (Israel), $22,894.76* 6. DtownDevil20 (Germany), $11,633.26 7. IMmaxValuee (Netherlands), $8,172.36 8. palingboer1 (Netherlands), $5,234.96 9. melchis4774 (Portugal), $3,489.97 * denotes five-way deal Luciano S.H saves best for last in Event 21-M ($215 NLHE) Players: 5,905 Prizepool: $1,181,000 Places paid: 765 1. Luciano S.H (Brazil) - $110,765.94* 2. CAPOH0GG1N (Romania) - $170,000.00* 3. kingroler (Slovakia) - $111,189.19* 4. HochuBablo (Russia) - $94,534.20* 5. Mr.Buster - $50,192.50 6. mendezoo (Norway) - $38,382.50 7. t8ofDiamonds (Germany) - $26,572.50 8. McMang (Sweden) - $14,762.50 9. koivu18 (Canada) - $9,448.00 * denotes 4-way deal 4rebmun FTW after chop with Ben "NeverScaredB" Wilinofsky in Event #21-H ($2,100 NLHE) Players: 902 Total prize pool: $1,804,000.00 Places paid: 108 1. 4rebmun (Canada) $275,874.45* 2. Ben "NeverScaredB" Wilinofsky (Canada) $285,169.55* 3. Chris "ImDaNuts" Oliver (Costa Rica) $175,890.00 4. VbV1990 (Russia) $131,692.00 5. callmemanu (United Kingdom) $92,906.00 6. Matthew "mjw006" Wakeman (Australia) $74,866.00 7. Dimitar "KuuL" Danchev (Bulgaria) $56,826.00 8. bebaimis777 (Lithuania) $39,868.40 9. Aku1206 (Finland) $23,091.20 * denotes 2-way deal nuds400 doesn't budge and wins Event #22-L ($27 NLHE) Entrants: 25,172 Prize pool: $617,972.60 Places paid: 3,150 1. nuds400 (Germany) $61,816.23 2. hartwith (United Kingdom) $45,921.54 3. Borritoo (Germany) $30,898.63 4. Ezbn91 (Norway $24,718.90 5. ReeBroHan (Poland) $18,539.17 6. elayu23 (Argentina) $12,359.45 7. monk419 (United Kingdom) $8,682.51 8. maiorov_163 (Russia) $5,561.75 9. sr. quijito (Philippines) $3,707.83 T3G3S wheels and deals in monstrous win in Event #22-M $215 NL Entrants: 8,308 Prize Pool: $1,661,600 Place Paid: 1,080 1. T3G3S (Poland) - $249,244.70 2. vinifenomeno (Brazil) - $183,390.79 3. Lady Skadi (Germany) - $132,928.00 4. morrisondk (Denmark) - $88,064.80 5. cwbpokerclub (Brazil) - $68,125.60 6. mariivida (U.K.) - $51,509.60 7. GreaWW (Russia) - 435,724.40 8. TiltAttack (Austria) - $19,939.20 9. erickie (Netherlands) - $12,877.40 SCOOP 2013: Str8$$$Homey banks $377k in Event #22-H, $2,100 NL Hold'em Entries: 1,048 Prize pool: $2,096,000 Places paid: 117 1st place: Str8$$$Homey (Canada) $377,280 2nd place: David "WhooooKidd" Baker (Mexico) $272,480 3rd place: poker41day (Israel) $203,312 4th place: Flufferd (Belgium) $151,960 5th place: Sebastian "p0cket00" Sikorski (Canada) $105,638.40 6th place: pablox55 (Argentina) $8

Places One through Ten Win Seat to HPO Championship in Las Vegas Aurora, IL – Opportunity is knocking for Chicagoland poker players to go all in. Hollywood Casino Aurora will host a Hollywood Poker Open (HPO) Memorial Day Weekend qualifier on Sunday, May 26. In addition to their share of the estimated $120,000 prize pool, the Top 10 players from the event will receive a $4,000 Las Vegas package that includes a $2,500 seat for the $500,000 guaranteed Hollywood Poker Open Championship being held at the M Resort and Casino on June 28-30. Players may buy-in to the May 26 HPO event at Hollywood Casino Aurora which will also include Top 5 players who qualified by winning Sundaytournaments at the casino earlier this year. The $500,000 guaranteed HPO Championship at the M Resort will feature more than 225 skilled poker players who have won seats to the event at HPO regional tournaments and qualifying events at Penn National Gaming casinos across the U.S. and in Canada. Players may also buy-in to the HPO Championship for $2,500. read more

Here it is! We're giving away 30,000 of this rare VIP gift! What is it you ask? Click below to find out, and thanks for playing Zynga Poker! http://zynga.tm/cig <-- Get your VIP Gift now!

My PLO results since the middle of last year have been kind of frustrating. They've forced me to think about Omaha and poker in general in ways that I never did before. I thought back across my poker career. I started off playing limit hold'em. Then I transitioned to no-limit hold'em in 2007 before making the switch to Omaha in 2010. When you focus on playing one game for a while, you kind of forget how to play the other games a little. Players adapt and change all the time. If you go away for three months and then come back, the players play a little bit differently and the ranges are a little different. I'm sure I'd struggle with 6-max NLHE right now even though that was my main game for a number of years. If I started playing a lot of 6-max NLHE again I'd have to back and re-evaluate how the game is played. When you do that, you have a new tool to use. You have all these different ideas from the other games that you've been playing that you can apply to the old game. For example, in Omaha, there's emphasis on backdoor draws. They become quite significant. In hold'em we often forget about these draws, but they do add a few percentage points to your equity. When determining when to make a move, noticing a backdoor draw is going to increase your equity by just that much. Maybe it makes the difference in that instance, maybe it doesn't. But if you didn't realize it at all then you'd miss out on it. I was thinking about this after a recent break from PLO. Historically I've been well-known for being the guy who piles through a downswing, doesn't care, and never takes a break. My attitude is the bigger the sample size, the quicker I'll get back to my equilibrium point. This time exceeded my threshold a bit. It wasn't really the dollar amount that was frustrating, it was the way things were happening - losing a lot of flips and 60-40s. Obviously I was playing badly as well. Downswings are a result of both bad variance and bad play. It got to the point where I felt like, "Why am I doing this?" PLO's a brutal game. I reminded myself "Hey, why don't you play something that's not so swingy." So I took a fresh look at hold'em. Just working on tightening up my hold'em game for 3 or 4 days got me out of my own mental black hole. It helped me look at Omaha in a more friendly light and convinced me to apply the same tightening strategy to my Omaha game and to get back on the horse. Plus I was able to think about concepts from one game that applied to the other, and vice versa. It's good to take a step back and re-evaluate your game once in a while. Working on any game is going to help you as a player. It doesn't have to be your primary game. Even something as simple as rock-paper-scissors can spark a thought or an idea that gets you pointed in a winning direction. Raymond Wu is a member of Team PokerStars Pro

The 2013 World Series of Poker Europe will run from October 12-25 (pushed back one day from the original schedule) at the Casino Barrière d’Enghien-les-Bains. For the first time ever the WSOPE will feature a €25,600 No-Limit Hold’em High Roller bracelet event. “New tournament dates and 12 million Parisians have us aiming for the largest Main Event in Europe,” said WSOP Executive Director Ty Stewart.  “Baguettes and Bracelets; Champagne and Cash; we think is a winning recipe for the 2013 WSOP Europe.” Seven events is the exact same number of tournaments the series had in 2012 and 2011. 2013 WSOPE to Kick Off with €1,100 Event The WSOPE in Paris will begin with a lower-buyin €1,100 re-entry event on Oct. 12. Other events include the return of the Mixed-Max No-Limit Hold’em event, which features eight-handed, six-handed and heads-up days. This year marks the premiere of a PLO Mixed Max event as well. There will also be numerous side events and cash games offered for the duration of the 2013 WSOPE. Here’s a complete look at the 2013 WSOPE schedule: Oct. 12, Event 1a €1,000 + €100 No-Limit Hold'em Re-entry (4 Day Event) Oct. 13, Event 1b €1,000 + €100 No-Limit Hold'em Re-entry (3 Day Event) Oct. 14 Event 2 €5,000 + €300 Mixed Max No-Limit Hold'em (4 Day Event) Oct. 15 Event 3 €1,500 + €150 Pot-Limit Omaha (3 Day Event) Oct. 16 Event 4 €2,000 + €200 No-Limit Hold'em (3 Day Event) Oct. 17 Event 5 €3,000 + €250 Mixed Max Pot Limit Omaha (3 Day Event) Oct. 19 Event 6a €10,000 + €450 No-Limit Hold'em Main Event (7 Day Event) Oct. 20 Event 6b €10,000 + €450 No-Limit Hold'em Main Event (6 Day Event) Oct. 22 Event 7 €25,000 + €600 High Roller No-Limit Hold'em (3 Day Event) Visit www.pokerlistings.com

We told you last week about the historic introduction of poker onto mainland China last week. We even told you how our Team PokerStars Pros Celina Lin and Raymond Wu were doing pretty well in the tournament. Both players showed how important skill is in the game by booking top ten finishes from the 379 player field. Wu came closest with a final table 7th place finish, but Lin's final table bubble was also pretty impressive. Kudos to HaiGuang Jin who got to lift the trophy beating two of the game's best ambassadors in the process. Lin and Wu both did the game proud The top ten finishers 1. HaiGuang Jin, China Beijing 2. MingYi Hsu, Chinese Taipei 3. DaWei Shi, China Beijing 4. Wei Zhang, China Tianjin 5. Jun Hu, China Xiamen 6. Wen Hao, China Beijing 7. Raymond Wu, Chinese Taipei 8. Jia Wang, China Beijing 9. Hong Zhu, China Changsha 10. Celina Lin, China Shanghai It looks like there could be a bright future for the game in China and, we hear, the location was pretty fantastic, not least of all the five-star Mangrove Tree resort. Keep your eyes peeled for more events in the future. Rick Dacey is a staff writer for the PokerStars Blog.

The first three months of 2013 have sparked cautious optimism for the economic recovery of Nevada’s casino industry. A new report for March appears to build on that trend. Statewide gaming revenues grew 7.04 percent in March to $914.8 million, the state’s second-straight monthly increase. On the Strip, gaming revenues grew 13.13 percent to $507.6 million, the second straight double-digit increase . For the first three months of the year, statewide gaming revenues are up 2.6 percent. Strip gaming revenues are up 6.7 percent. Following release of the figures Friday by the Gaming Control Board, analysts told investors they wanted to see more than just three months of Strip gaming revenue totals before deeming the patient fully cured. Last year, Strip casinos reported gaming revenues of $6.2 billion. “Looking over the last several months, we believe results point to a continued uneven recovery on the Las Vegas Strip, with some positives and some negatives,” JP Morgan gaming analyst Joe Greff said. BACCARAT BOOST The March results followed February’s $1.073 billion revenue take statewide, which included a record-setting $696.1 million in gaming revenues from Strip casinos. The month was fueled by a calendar switch for Chinese New Year, which attributed to record baccarat wagering. In March, high-end baccarat play once again helped boost the Strip’s results. Revenues from the game were $76.6 million, a 93 percent increase from a year ago. The amount wagered on baccarat was $686.9 million, up 39.1 percent. For the first three months of the year, Strip baccarat revenues are up 25.5 percent. Without baccarat, Strip gaming revenues in March still would have been up 5.2 percent. Deutsche Bank gaming Carlo Santarelli cautioned that the baccarat results masked relatively flat figures in other gaming areas, such as slot machine play. “Said simply, we believe the underlying trends are not as strong as the headline would suggest,” Santarelli said. Stifel Nicolaus Capital Markets gaming analyst Steven Wieczynski echoed similar concerns, saying the baccarat numbers weren’t a surprise since the major Strip casino operators had reported first-quarter earnings. “All told, March results were in line with management’s recent commentary, as it appears strong international visitation continues to pace the broader Strip recovery,” Wieczynski said. “Slot volumes, generally a good indicator of U.S.-sourced leisure travel demand, were flat, suggesting modest headwinds continue to persist within the leisure segment.” OTHER REVENUE RESULTS On a whole, Clark County gaming revenues grew 7.42 percent in March. Downtown casinos saw gaming revenue totals increase 5.33 percent. Other areas of the county, such as Laughlin, North Las Vegas and the Boulder Strip, all suffered monthly declines. Analysts were disappointed the locals markets didn’t show results in the same vein as the Strip. Slot machine wagering in the locals market was down more than 2 percent during the month. “The slot volume numbers continue to show relative weakness,” said Union Gaming Group Managing Director Bill Lerner. Washoe County, which includes Reno, saw gaming revenues increase 9.48 percent. Reno’s casino market experienced a 10.8 percent increase during March. Gaming taxes collected in April based on March’s gaming revenues were $78.3 million, an increase of 9.62 percent over the same period a year ago. For the first 10 months of the fiscal year, gaming tax collections are up 3.78 percent. Contact reporter Howard Stutz at hstutz@reviewjournal. com or 702-477-3871. Follow @howardstutz on Twitter. ________________________________________________________________ Copyright 2013 Stephens Media Interactive GamingWire.

Anderson, generally regarded as one of the best poker players on the Internet, defeated Nick Abou Risk to win the $215 6-Max Limit Hold'em event. Deeb, meanwhile, settled for a fifth-place finish in the $1,050 Mixed NL/PLO event ultimately won by decorated Canadian pro Dylan “ImaLucSac” Linde. Keep reading for all the details. Calvin Anderson Closing in on Shaun Deeb's Record Last year Shaun Deeb rocketed to the all-time SCOOP win lead, winning four events and bringing his total title count to five, but Calvin "cal42688" Anderson is steadily catching up. Anderson defeated a field of 639 last night to win over $23,000 and his fourth SCOOP watch. Anderson has earned over $4.5 million playing online tournaments, and had to defeat a tough heads-up opponent in Nick Abou Risk to close out his most recent victory. Abou Risk, a poker pro from Dublin who plays as tanglewizard on Full Tilt Poker, took down almost $18k for the runner-up finish. Also cashing in this event were Australian James “Andy McLEOD” Obst (14th), Chad “lilholdem954” Batista (18th) and Sorel “zangbezan24” Mizzi (20th). Here are the full final-table results for #25-M ($215 FL Hold'em 6-Max): 1. Calvin "cal42688" Anderson (Mexico) $23,643.00 2. Nick "nabourisk" Abou Risk (Ireland) $17,636.40 3. b8chatz (United Kingdom) $13,099.50 4. jonstarz (United Kingdom) $8,946.00 5. nimzon (Finland) $6,390.00 6. Truelove13 (Russia) $3,834.00 Linde Denies Deeb Sixth Career SCOOP Canadian Dylan “ImaLucSac” Linde has almost $3.5 million in lifetime online cashes and last night he picked up his first SCOOP title. Shaun Deeb   Linde won the $1,050 Mixed No-Limit Hold'em and PLO event, prevailing over 362 players to pocket over $70,000. Linde defeated Danish player fuddebuf heads-up, while leading all-time SCOOP winner Shaun Deeb finished fifth. Narrowly missing out on the final table was Linde's fellow Canadian Griffin “Flush_Entity” Benger, who is still hunting his first SCOOP victory. Also cashing in this event were former WCOOP main event winner Thomas “Kallllle” Pedersen (19th), Steve “gboro780” Gross (26th), Mickey “mement_mori” Petersen (37th) and Theo Jorgensen (44th). Here are the full final-table results for #24-H ($1,050 Mixed NL/PLO): 1. Dylan "ImaLucSac" Linde (Canada) - $70,047.00 2. fuddebuf (Denmark) - $52,490.00 3. Markush13 (Belarus) - $39,820.00 4. ILYAK1717 (Finland) - $29,865.00 5. Shaun Deeb (Mexico) - $20,634.00 6. pokerkluka (Netherlands) - $15,928.00 7. shtirlitz_ (Russia) - $12,308.00 8. Schinken777 (Germany) - $8,688.00 9. ihaveAAdream (Germany) - $6,335.00 Visit www.pokerlistings.com

Remember at 12PM Noon PST today we'll be giving away a VIP Gift, so stay tuned because we will only be giving away a limited amount! http://zynga.tm/1yD <-- Play Zynga Poker now!