Poker

Records are made to be broken, and PokerStars players do just that with astounding regularity. Eighteen months ago, PokerStars celebrated its tenth anniversary and the surrounding festivities included its fourth World Record tournament, where 200,000 players played for a $250,000 prize pool. But after Thursday's bombastic 100 Billionth Hand celebration (don't think about how big 100 billion is, it will either trigger an existential crisis or make your head explode) did you really think we weren't gonna take the opportunity to smash that record again? By game time, a capacity crowd of 225,000 players had gathered, officially breaking the record for the largest poker tournament ever played. Their $1 buyins contributed $225,000 to the $300,000 guaranteed prize pool, PokerStars kicking in a $75k overlay to sweeten the pot even further. 60,000 players earned a share of it with first place set to earn $25,000. After only an hour of play, the crowd thinned to 28,000 and another hour later only 2,595 remained. Hour three saw the field reduced to 190, and with five minutes left before the fourth break, the final table bubble hit and play went hand for hand. With the blinds up to 3M/6M with a 750k ante, chip leader Mr.SlavaPro opened for a min-raise to 12 million. With 3.75 milllion of his remaining 4.1 million already committed in the small blind, MattDooms called all-in and Ravic77 folded his big blind. MattDooms' [5h][Ts] was already drawing thin against Mr.SlavaPro's [Kd][Kc], but went completely dead on the [Kh][Ks][5c] flop. Mr.SlavaPro raked in the 19 million pot with quad kings and sent us to the final table, while MattDooms exited in eleventh place. Final table chip counts Blinds: 3,000,000/6,000,000, ante 750,000 Seat 1: johnnykara75 (17,560,748 in chips) Seat 2: SOY PATO355 (14,065,727 in chips) Seat 3: Evgeniy33377 (3,729,288 in chips) Seat 4: Mr.SlavaPro (87,268,525 in chips) Seat 5: KARI#9 (64,386,794 in chips) Seat 6: Ravic77 (17,422,024 in chips) Seat 7: jpstef06 (13,712,929 in chips) Seat 8: 1star09 (52,884,148 in chips) Seat 9: Tormenter85 (34,974,394 in chips) Seat 10: jmmetra (31,495,423 in chips) johnnykara75 doubles with aces, Evgeniy33377 eliminated in tenth It took 11 minutes and only 20 hands to distribute the $73,000 in remaining prize money. The jumps were huge and the stacks extremely shallow, the chip average only 6.25 big blinds as the final table began. On Hand #1, jmmetra picked up [9h][9c] and moved all-in for 30.7 million on the button, only to have johnnykara75 wake up with [Ac][Ah] in the small blind. Johnnykara75's aces held and he doubled to 47.1 million, leaving jmmetra on only 14.5 million (2.5 bb). However, jmmetra's situation wasn't quite as dire as Evgeniy33377's. On Hand #2, Evgeniy33377 was all-in for 1.97 million in the big blind while SOY PATO355 had 4 of his remaining 7.3 million committed in the small blind. Johnnykara75 limped in for 8 million on the button, SOY PATO355 called all-in and the cards went on their backs. SOY PATO355 [Qc][9h] Evgeniy33377 [3c][3h] johnnykara75 [Td][4h] SOY PATO355 snagged the lead on the [As][9s][6c] flop and held onto it, the turn and river falling the [Jc] and the [Ac] to send Evgeniy33377 to the rail in tenth place ($1,000). Ravic77 out in ninth, jmmetra exits eighth Evgeniy33377's elimination left jpstef06 as the table short stack. On Hand #3, jpstef06 moved all-in for 11 million from UTG+1 and KARI#9 called the 3 million balance from the big blind. Jpstef06's [As][Qh] held up aganist [6c][7h] and he doubled to 35 million, only to move all-in from UTG on the next deal. Ravic77 called all-in for 5.67 million more with [Qs][Js] in the big blind, but did not improve against jpstef06's [7s][7c]. For ninth place, Ravic77 took home $1,500. With only one more hand to go before he'd be committed in the 8 million big blind, jmmetra pulled the trigger with [Qc][Td] and moved all-in for 9.9 million from UTG+1. 1star09 called with

Here's a recap of the #rewards we're giving away in #Zynga #Poker today! (Remember you can get one type of reward per day.) http://zynga.tm/cny http://zynga.tm/fr3 http://zynga.tm/fr2 <-- Pimp Cup collectible.

Earlier today Schneider came out on top in a rapid-fire four-handed finish to Event 29 $5,000 H.O.R.S.E.  It was Schneider’s second bracelet of the summer, fourth overall, with both coming in the multiple-game H.O.R.S.E format. The Arizona-native couldn’t have been happier to win another H.O.R.S.E. title. “If you’re just a No-Limit Hold’em player, you really don’t learn a lot of skills that are valuable in poker,” he said. “[Learning H.O.R.S.E.] makes you think really hard about how to play certain games and gives you an edge in all games.” Schneider took down a $258,000 first-place prize for winning his fourth WSOP bracelet. Back in 2007 Schneider put together a spectacular run that included three final tables and two WSOP bracelets. It was enough to earn Schneider WSOP Player of the Year. Considering Schneider now has five cashes at the 2013 WSOP and two bracelets, he’s certainly in the running for this year’s POY. Daniel Negreanu is currently in the lead with just 20 more points than Schneider. Mueller Nearly Misses Becoming 8th Canadian Winner of the Year Greg Mueller   The final four of Event 29 also featured Greg Mueller, Benjamin Scholl and Viatcheslav Ortynsiky but Schneider held a massive chip lead. The entire event was extended by one day when the final four were still battling it out until 2 a.m. yesterday. Mueller had a shot at becoming the astounding eighth Canadian to win a bracelet in this year’s series but instead busted in third place for $129,600. Schneder isn’t done either. He was already thinking about taking a run at third bracelet of the summer just minutes after winning his second. “I feel really good about it,” he said. “I really do. I don’t know what it is. It’s like there’s something in the water or something. I feel like I’m playing well and I’m sensing what’s going on with other players.” Here’s a look at the complete final-table payouts: 1st: Tom Schneider - $318,955 2nd: Benjamin Scholl - $197,228 3rd: Greg Mueller - $129,600 4th: Viatcheslav Ortynsiky - $94,664 5th: Chris Klodnicki - $70,093 6th: Adam Friedman - $52,613 7th: David Benyamine - $40,039 8th: Konstantin Puchkov - $30,876 Visit www.pokerlistings.com

By Debbie Burkhead Seats are still available for the second annual poker seminar, sponsored by Poker Player Newspaper, with former World Champion, Tom McEvoy, and 2008&rsquo;s Online Player of the Year, David &ldquo;The Maven&rdquo; Chicotsky. Attendees will enjoy a full-day of poker information and lunch, with snacks and beverages served throughout the day. The price of the seminar also includes entry into the 5 pm satellite for a chance to win a $600 seat into the Poker Player of the Year tournament. The seminar will be held in the Conference Center at the Golden Nugget in Las Vegas on July 3 with the Poker Player of the Year event on July 4 at noon. The seminar will begin at 9 am-12 pm followed by lunch until 1 pm and end at 4:30 pm. The information you will take away from the seminar is worth many times more than the small fee of $390. Last years&rsquo; attendees placed high in the Poker Player of the Year tournament, proving the value of this expertise. read more

The Borgata Summer Poker Open Championship drew 296 entries and a total buy-in of $740,000, easily covering the $500,000 prize pool guarantee.They'll play down to a winner by Thursday as Day 2 started today with 174 players still in the hunt.Follow all the action at our live tournament blog and check the Borgata Summer Open Schedule for more tournament action. The Open runs to June 21.

Poker pro Martin Finger's hopes for a Triple Crown added a second leg when he locked up Event #21 $3,000 No-Limit Hold'em (Six Handed). He battled back for a come-from-behind win in the heads-up battle with Matt Stout. In 2011 Finger won the...

This Sunday, the largest Zoom tournament ever is going to take place. A massive $1,000,000 guarantee has been put up as part of the 100 Billion Hands Celebration meaning that they'll be a huge prize whether 10,000 players put up a fast $109 bucks or not. How can you miss out on that value? Especially when you get to play so many hands! Guarantee: $1,000,000 Buy-in: $109 Date: 23 June Start time: 13:00 ET Find out more about the Zoom 100 tournament by clicking here. Qualify for less There are qualifiers and satellites running around the clock with buy-ins varying from $40 Hyper-Turbos to $1 rebuy rumbles. Or perhaps you'd rather take a top-two-go-through approach of a $27.50 sit & go. And if you love those then perhaps you should also be taking a look at... Golden Sit & Go's Running now until 23 June the Golden Sit & Go promotion is festooning grinders - that means you - with spot prizes of up to 10 times your buy-in and 10 times the prize pool. More than $336,000 of bonus money has already been given away (in less than two days). Find out more about that now by clicking here. Rick Dacey is a staff writer for the PokerStars Blog.

Nowadays, elite poker is more and more a scientific game, in which it's increasingly complicated for an amateur player to survive and succeed. Who's to blame? I can find only one explanation: online poker! Any regular player is now playing more hands in a week than Doyle Bruson played live during a whole year. The internet has allowed the game information to be transmitted very easily. The players have gathered in study groups and in poker schools. There is now software that traces our opponent's profile in a matter of seconds. Players have managed to accumulate a tremendous amount of experience in dealing with very straining situations. All this makes it feel like we're playing against machines more than players, considering the rational way they look at the game. Despite all this preparation, there are always feelings, emotions, and ambitions at stake that end up betraying the rational side of a poker player. And there is a moment when all poker players become completely irrational... (I'll now tell a recent story that will offer a better explanation of what I mean.) I returned to Monaco this year to play the EPT Grand Final. This is without a doubt the most important tournament I play annually and the one I dream of every night. Winning this would be my life-changing moment. So I started playing in a more rational way, without taking many risks. When there were 114 players left (relatively close to getting paid - 80 players would make it to the money) I found myself with the hand I dream of everyday when I am on my way to a victory in an EPT (in my dreams, of course). The flop brings Q64, and I hold 66. Villain bets 12,000, I raise to 27,000, he goes all-in, and I insta-call the 85,000. You cannot imagine how proud I was of my move, I managed to raise the pot just like I wanted, sure he had AQ, AA or KK. We turned our cards over, and he showed QQ... set over set. My dream fell apart. I got up from the table, stunned by what had just happened and sank into a tremendous void. "I want to go home." "I'm giving up poker." "I hate this game." "I'm the unluckiest player in the world." ""djhfsdkjdsfha." "jdhfsdsfjkhd." "leave me alone." Who hasn't felt that? Five minutes later, my irrational state continued, but I slowly made it back to earth, began to digest the situation, and moved on to the next stage: telling everyone I know about my misfortune. After all these years of poker, everyone has had enough of hearing about bad beats, coin flips, two-outers. We know that. We hate when people tell us about their hands, but we just can't get out of the hole if we don't share our story with 20 people and if we don't get a pat in the back from our friends. We always need the compassion to overcome such a moment. How is it possible in a game that is becoming more professional and scientific to still have moments when the players/machines go from a completely reasonable state in all their actions and decisions to a completely irrational one? Well, because in the end, we are only human, and because this is the best game in the world. Poker raises our ego to the sky and then throws it down to the depths of hell, but after the shock, there is always acceptance and overcoming. When is the next tournament again? Joao Nunes is a member of Team PokerStars Pro

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I apologise if this is a bit hastily written, but you have to understand the more time I spend indoors writing this for you, the less time I'm out in the 29 degree sun drinking Pina Coladas. The UKIPT got its bucket and spades out and teamed up with the ESPT for the first ever Marbella Poker Festival. Players voted with their feet and declared the event a big hit exceeding expectations with a 763 runner field and a first prize well north of €150,000. That's was more than enough for several buckets and spades, not to mention an eight-person banana boat inflatable to celebrate your win with your closest, drunkest friends on the open ocean. I played the event... for a bit. My most exciting conflict of the day was - somewhat unfortunately - with the casino floor staff. I didn't need to speak Spanish to understand they weren't delighted with my choice of shorts and sandals for Day 1. Apparently there was a dress code... at a poker tournament. I laughed, they frowned, I stopped laughing. They let me get away with it for one day, just so long as I smartened my act up 'tomorrow'. I sneakily didn't last until Day 2 so the joke was on them. "You've had how many bellinis?" On my first table, I played with a good humoured Spanish lady who was chain-drinking back-to-back Bellinis. Sometimes when people drink it loosens up their play, however she was playing every hand and it was midday, so either a) she always plays every hand and drinks Bellinis, or b) she started at breakfast. Either way she was a joy to play with as were most of the players in the tournament. UKIPTs are always played in good spirits, but this event was particularly fun. Kudos to the Spanish players for playing the game in the right way. My tournament was really unremarkable. I built my stack up early with a couple of nice bluffs and half-decent hands to around 30,000 (from a 20,000 starting stack), but then I was dealt some real hands and the wheels came off. I had Aces cracked and top pair run down twice. They were all really standard spots that I don't feel I lost any more in than I should have, but it was all enough to put me well below the average. I battled on with a dwindling stack for most of the evening but eventually hit the rail when my 11 big blind shove with pocket eights ran into tens. I bust with about 30 minutes of the day left to play. Busting out is never fun but if you had to pick a place to get knocked out a tournament this would be on the list. I wasn't the only one to have their UKIPT dream crushed but their love of life restored by the sun, pool and good times with other players. "I wish I was outside." For most players, the weekend was a chance to play some fun poker and have an early summer holiday with the (slightly messy) PokerStars party finale on the Saturday night at the super fashionable Ocean Club. It's very generous of Stars to provide an open bar but perhaps they could also provide some means for the players to retain their personal dignity. Maybe we could set something up a system of using FPPs to pay for the deletion of photographs the morning after? Right, I'm off to pitch other venues we could add to the UKIPT. I mean one holiday a year is hardly enough, is it? What about Cancun? That's pretty near Devon...as the crow flies... I bet they have some badass Pinas down there. Nick Wealthall is a poker commentator for PokerStars. Check out the full Season 4 UKIPT schedule here.