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

At 8:24 PM here on the Isle of Man on Thursday, June 13th, 2013, PokerStars reached a mind-blowing milestone in our corporate history (and really in the history of poker) - we dealt our one hundred billionth hand of poker. Let me write that number out for you: 100,000,000,000 I won't try to draw any real world parallels, but suffice it to say few of us can wrap our heads around a number like that. But I'm not here to talk about the size of the number; I want to talk about running the 100 billionth hand and how it's a proxy for how we got there in the first place. Annnnd we're there. I had the supreme honor of being the host for that hand. I got to tell the players what was happening, who won what, and so forth. But that was the easy part. Behind the scenes (where I was lucky enough to be), it was like Mission Control at an Apollo rocket launch.* My 30" monitor was covered with windows - three separate chat windows, my "script" for hosting the hand and, of course, the client itself. *That's an exaggeration, obviously. But if all our people had been wearing white shirts, dark ties, and black-rimmed glasses, it might have looked somewhat similar. One of those chat windows was a 20-way IM chat among many of the key staff members. The software developers, the CRM (Customer Relations Management) folks, the poker room management people, the tournaments people, customer support... "250K+ RM" A note from the head of the poker room saying that we have over 250,000 real money players on the site... See, as far as our 407,000 customers on PokerStars at that moment were concerned, it was just another day at the playground. Well, not just another day; it's not every day that we deal our 100 billionth hand of poker and give away a million dollars in half an hour. But our customers expected that our games would run just as smoothly and continuously as they have for almost 12 years now. We had to make sure that the tsunami of poker players didn't cause any glitches. "OLTP-MAIN is creeping up in the monitor" One of our servers is beginning to show a little strain under the record crowds. The database team wants to be sure that the number of transactions doesn't affect the march toward 100 billion and asks the poker room to take down the play money Zoom games. "PM Zoom is killed - last hands being dealt now..." The poker room takes down the play money Zoom games; as soon as the big hand is over, they'll be brought back up. The customer support manager chats that he'll get the message to our support representatives so they can answer the emails ("Hey - where'd our Zoom games go?!?!?"). As the counter on the client spins up, the chat actually slows - things are going according to plan. At 8:24pm the counter in the software client lobby counts down those last few hundreds of thousands of hands and then the message flashes up on the client: The Milestone hand #100,000,000,000 is being dealt at Euryalos XI The Million Dollar Hand The poker world and Twitter explode with the news while, in the meantime, there is "guarded optimism" in the IM chat. "Home stretch..." "Here we go" At the PokerStars office, people crowd around monitors, the CEO whips out his phone to take a picture of the table... And, just as planned, the table pauses. I go to the chat box at Euryalos XI and type (actually copy/paste from the script): Hi all - Welcome all to the final step in the Road to 100 Billion. And we're off. I don't watch the IM chat - I'm too busy chatting at the table - but they had paused dealing at the table, and everybody is watching as the observer count at the table climbs to 20,000; 30,000; 40,000... by the time we actually deal the hand, 67,000 observers are watching a single hand of poker. That is approaching the capacity of Manchester United's Old Trafford. Visualize Old Trafford almost full of poker fans breathlessly watching the turn of a river card. The hand goes off exactly as planned. A low-stakes poker player call

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Slyde has today been revealed as the Official Watch Sponsor for the European Poker Tour Season 10. Winners of this season's Main Events and High Rollers, inclusive of the PCA 2014, will be lucky enough to strap on a specially-designed luxury Swiss watch of their own. This is the second season that Slyde has sponsored the EPT, which is Europe's richest and most popular poker tour no less. Here's the breakdown of what you could win (alongside €100,000's, of course): EPT10 Main Event winners: a 'Black and Steel' design watch worth €5,680. EPT10 PokerStars.com and Monte-Carlo®Casino European Poker Tour Grand Final champion: a 'Black and Rose Gold' design watch worth €9,000. EPT10 High Roller winners: a new limited edition watch design worth €5,470. PCA 2014 Main Event winner: a 'Steel and Black' design watch worth €5,550. PCA 2014 High Roller winner: a 'Steel and Rose Gold' design watch worth €12,800. PCA 2014 Super High Roller champion: a 'Steel and Diamond' design watch worth €15,600. The Slyde 'Black and Steel' design You can take a look at some other Slyde watches by clicking here and find out more about Season 10 here. "The EPT is delighted to be working with Slyde for the second season in a row. These watches truly are works of art and we are very pleased to be offering our winners these customised time-pieces as part of their prize," said EPT President Edgar Stuchly. According to the a press release sent out earlier today, "Slyde watches are made according to the traditional standards of top-grade Swiss watchmaking and represent a revolution in watch-making by combining traditional horological craftsmanship with modern design and the latest technology. The innovative sapphire crystal display is equipped with an intuitive touch screen enabling the user to generate an infinite number of personalised interfaces for a customized indication of the time." That sounds pretty special to us. Well, they sure do look pretty anyway. We caught up with the creator of Slyde, Jorg Hysek at EPT Barcelona at the beginning of last season to explain how the watches came about. Read that interview with Hysek here. Jorg Hysek, Mr Slyde himself "We are very pleased to be working with the EPT again for Season 10. Slyde is a company that values creativity, innovation and quality, and we are very pleased to be aligning ourselves with a brand like the EPT that has a similar focus. We are looking forward to presenting the winners with their watches and congratulating them on their success at the tables," said Hysek. Further details about the EPT and how to qualify for the opening event of Season 10, EPT Barcelona (28 August - 7 September) can be found at the European Poker Tour site. Rick Dacey is a staff writer for the PokerStars Blog.

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Winning poker tournaments can often involve crazy coolers, huge suckouts and a fair share of lady luck. Then there are the days where you keep your head down as it all just seems to fall into place. That was the case for dunner1624 in the weekly Super Tuesday. dunner1624 picked spots carefully, survived the early carnage of the final table and then accelerated beautifully short-handed to secure the win in efficiently ruthless fashion. The $1,050 Super Tuesday brought out a healthy field of 478 entrants to create another juicy prize pool of $478,000.00. The top 54 place finishers would share in the spoils with first place slated to receive over $90,000.00. With many of the big name professionals currently tied up at the World Series of Poker we couldn't spot too many Team PokerStars Pros in the field but Caio Pessagno and Toni Judet were representing the red spade in today's field. Unfortunately they both fell short of the money. A min-cash was worth $2,390 but that also eluded Austrian donvito1st who was the unlucky bubble in 55th place. When SW GEORGIY lost a preflop race with pocket eights against the ace-king of CredeExperto, SW GEORGIY was out in 10th place as our Super Tuesday final table was set: Final Table Line up Seat 1: CredeExperto (853,395 in chips) Seat 2: Pinguizetti (199,989 in chips) Seat 3: Brad "BaZa88" Bower (102,236 in chips) Seat 4: Ruben "rubenrtv" Visser (177,837 in chips) Seat 5: quarltje (213,145 in chips) Seat 6: puto59 (240,230 in chips) Seat 7: NhFy (90,811 in chips) Seat 8: dunner1624 (191,375 in chips) Seat 9: kleopl (320,982 in chips) The final table was deceptively strong with several players possessing strong online resumes, and reigning EPT London champion Ruben "rubenrtv" Visser headlining the line up. A few of them, such as NhFy and BaZa88 had some work to do as the short stacks, while CredeExperto held such a commanding lead, he was sitting out in the early stages of the final table. BaZa88 was able to secure an early double with his [ad][qc] flopping two pair against the fast-talking quarltje's [ks][7d] in a button versus big blind battle, before dunner1624 was able to do likewise with pocket tens holding against NhFy's ace-king. It would be BaZa88 first to go when he three-bet jammed [as][4s] into CredeExperto's [ah][qh]. The flop of [Kh][7h][Kd] took away one of BaZa88's outs but did bring some chop possibilities if the board double-paired. It wasn't to be on the [2c] turn or [6c] river to leave BaZa88 to pick up $7,934.80 for 9th place. The players settled into a grove and it would be some time before quarltje would be next to fall. After opening from under the gun, quarltje called off what was left holding [jc][jh] after Pinguizetti shoved from the small blind with [as][kc]. The race was on but it wasn't until the river on the board of [3c][6c][3d][5s][Ah] that Pinguizetti took the lead to eliminate quarltje from the tournament in 8th place for $10,755 in prize money. Those chips didn't last long with Pinguizetti as next hand dunner1624 doubled up with pocket kings against Pinguizetti's ace-jack as the chips started to fly around the table. NhFy was able to secure one double up with pocket aces, but was brought unstuck in a battle of the blinds. NhFy raised from the small blind before dunner1624 moved all in from the big blind. NhFy called it off with [ac][3s] but it was another big pair for dunner1624 with [js][jc] which held on the board of [2s][Qd][Kd][6d][5h]. NhFy picked up $15, 535 for 7th place. Just a few short hands later and puto59 was joining the rail. puto59 three-bet shoved from the big blind with [6c][6h] with CredeExperto making the call holding [ah][kh]. The flop was a bare [2d][9s][7c] but the [Ac] turn and [Kd] river sealed the deal to send puto59 home with $20,315 for a 6th place finish. CredeExperto was well out in front, and that lead grew after a river raise was paid off by dunner1624 with CredeExperto tabling a full house on a coordinated board.

All eyes were on Noah Schwartz as he tried to win his first WSOP gold bracelet. Schwartz was the dominator on Day 2 and had five times as many chips as his closest competitor at one point. But the fickle card fairy set course in another direction...

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And yet, despite being over 10,000 miles from Las Vegas and the biggest poker series in the world, there is a tight-knit poker community in Johannesburg, according to local pro Jarred Solomon.  “We have a lot of support,” said Solomon. “All the players back home are all behind us and they really want to see us do well.” Solomon, who is also a part-owner of a small transportation business in Johannesburg, is a member of a small group of South African players who play the international circuit. South African poker players not only have to travel huge distances but they also have deal with an economy that lags behind many of the cities on the circuit. The Raymond Rahme Effect in South Africa Raymond Rahme in 2007.   Poker has also taken a slightly different path in South Africa than most countries. The country experienced a mini boom when Raymond Rahme finished third in the WSOP Main Event. In recent years, however, the game has declined thanks to the government banning online poker in 2010. “Poker in South Africa used to be a lot bigger,” said Solomon. “We used to have a couple online poker sites that were exclusive to South Africa. We built up a nice community.” The poker scene is still changing, however, as casinos are starting to run more live games including small-stakes cash and tournaments. Solomon estimates that about once a month there is a $1,000-$2,000 buy-in tournament. There are smaller tournaments that ran at randomly locations daily. The World Poker Tour and World Series of Poker also have stops in the country now. South African Pros Brave Distance, Big Expenses to Play Circuit Jarred Solomon   Still there isn’t quite enough action for Solomon and his poker-playing friends. They generally travel to Las Vegas or Australia for Aussie Millions and set up shop for a month to grind it out. “Without online poker being legal it’s hard to just sit at home and wait for live tournaments to come to us,” said Solomon. Although South Africa does have one bracelet winner, Norman Keyser won a Hold’em event in 1989, Solomon thinks a modern bracelet winner would revitalize the local scene. It’s part of the reason he makes the journey out to Las Vegas. “If someone from South Africa were to win a bracelet it would be massive,” said Solomon. “Whenever South Africans cash in an event it’s quite a big deal. There are only three or four of us. It’s not a huge contingent that comes out here. We try our best.” It’s not as if Solomon hasn’t been close before. He finished second in the 2011 WSOP $10,000 Pot-Limit Hold’em Championship for $354,460. He’s recorded more cashes than any other South African in poker history with 31. “It’s interesting,” he said. “They always say people never remember who comes in second place and that was certainly true about my run.”  Earlier today Solomon recorded yet another cash, his 32nd, in the $1,500 Omaha Hi-Lo Event. He picked up $4,662 for coming in 53rd but continues to seek that illusive WSOP title.Visit www.pokerlistings.com

CAPTION HERE if you’re not willing to back me. In this week’s episode, er, I mean last week’s … Andrew embarks on the Las Vegas Strip low-stakes Summer circuit (Rio, Venetian, Caesars Palace, Bellagio, Aria, Wynn …) only to make a valiant 0-fer run, leaving us time to discuss a caravan of high-stakes cash games sprouting up around town — it’s open-face Chinese blossoming at the Rio, Doyle popping up at the Venetian, and Doyle doing his best Deadmau5 in the Ivey Room. Meanwhile Dave takes a look at the Carnevale of Poker and the fields it draws, and we all get a chuckle out of getting so drunk at the Carnival Court that you’re banned forever from the WSOP. (Surely no one will get that drunk at the premiere party for the online poker documentary Bet Raise Fold, right?) All that and some patch bonuses available for those willing to pimp for WSOP.com, Ultimate Poker, and/or those crazy kinds at QuadJacks. Vegas Grinders 1.18 Download audio file (VG1point18.mp3)