Archive for February, 2010

Welcome Poker people !!

Before I’m going to present you the next five players of my list, numbers 25-21, yes indeed, we’re reaching the top-10 very close now, I’ve made a big decision first. From now on I’m going to explore all the online poker sites out there and play all those bonuses and first deposit offers free, so I’ll have a really big and nice bankroll. I’ve decided that my first stop is at Everest Poker. I’ll probably only play the cash games and remain playing tournaments at PokerStars. But I’ve heared that there is many fish out there on Everest, so hopefully they’ll help me building up my bankroll . Maybe I see you soon, I’ll try to play the $200 bonus free as soon as possible. But for now let’s start with the highest ranked female player…

(25)   =>   JENNIFER   HARMAN

> Jennifer C. Harman – Traniello

> born 29/11/1964 Reno, Nevada (USA)

> resides now in Las Vegas, Nevada.

> married to fellow poker pro Marco Traniello and they have twin boys.

> won 2 Bracelets (’00 NL 2-7 Draw / ‘02 Limit Hold’em)

> won one Poker After Dark title

> plays online at Full Tilt Poker as member of TeamFullTilt.

> has Live Tournament Winnings of almost $ 2,400,000 (until 2009)

Jennifer started to play poker at the age of eight. She later graduated from the University of Reno, before playing poker full time. She had issues with her father for years because of her professional poker career but they resolved it later. She also had inherit problems with her kidneys and she took a year off from the poker world in 2004 for a transplant. She had excellent results after her comeback, 2nd at the WSOP Circuit Championship Event at the Rio, 2nd in the inaugural WSOPE HORSE Event in 2007 and made 2 WPT final tables.  She won her first Bracelet in 2000 and it was a special one because she had never played 2-7 Draw before and she got a quick lesson from Howard Lederer five minutes before entering. Jennifer wrote the Limit Hold’em chapter in Brunson’s Super System II and she played on different seasons of High Stakes Poker. She’s an active fund raiser for different charities and even has her own tournament for charity.  Jennifer is wildly considered as a great person and as her good friend Daniel Negreanu said : ” one of the best poker players in the world, cash and tournaments, online and live, and not only as a female “. She proved that as being the only woman to hold 2 Bracelets in WSOP open events, the only woman to be a regular at the Big Game at the Bellagio and she ranked fifth on the all time female ranking of tournament winnings.

(24)   =>   HUCK   SEED

> Huckleberry Seed

> born 15/01/1969 Santa Clara, California (USA).

> resides now in Las Vegas, Nevada.

> was the 1996 WSOP Main Event World Champion

> was 6th at the WSOP Main Event in 1999.

> won 3 other Bracelets (’94 Pot Limit Omaha/ ‘00 Razz/ ‘03 Razz)

> plays online at Full Tilt Poker as a member of TeamFullTilt.

> won over $5,300,000 in Live Tournament Play (until 2009).

Huck is a former Electrical Engineering student and he was a member of big college basketball teams, even featured in 2006 documentary Quantum Hoops about him being a star player on the famous Caltech’s team. He’s considered as one of the best heads-up players in the world, which he proved when he won the 2009 NBC Heads-up Poker Championship and cashed in every single edition. Mr. Seed is an enigmatic character at the table, talking rarely or very quiet and he’s over 2 m. tall. He’s well-known as a very good tournament player in all the games, notably Razz and for his famous sick prop bets with Phil Hellmuth.

(23)   =>   JOHN   JUANDA

> Johnson Juanda

> born 08/07/1971 Medan (INDO)

> resides now in Los Angeles (USA).

> Nickname : ‘ Luckbox ‘ or ‘ JJ ‘

> won the WSOPE Main Event in 2008.

> won 3 other Bracelets (’02 Triple Draw Lowball A-5/ ‘03 Seven-card Stud Hi-Lo Split/ ‘03 PLO)

> plays online at Full Tilt Poker as a member of TeamFullTilt

> has over $9,700,000 in Live Tournament Earnings (until 2009).

John is ethnically Chinese and arrived in the US in 1990 when he was accepted at Oklahoma State University. He was a school track star and he did sold bibles from door to door. John became the 2001 and 2002 Card Player Magazine Tournament Player of  the Year. He’s wildly honoured as a calm and friendly player at the table and considered as one of the best tournament players alive. Here are some results to prove that: he won the World Poker Open Championship title, the inaugural Professional Poker Tour Event in 2004, the Monte Carlo Millions Consolation tournament in 2005, Crown Australian Poker Championship in 2006 and he became 2nd at the EPT High Roller Event London in 2008. Besides that he won 2 Poker After Dark titles and made 6 WPT final tables, but haven’t won one yet.

(22)   =>   MARCEL   LUSKE

> born 20/03/1953 Amsterdam (NED).

> still lives there

> Nickname : ‘ The Flying Dutchman ‘

> became 10th in the WSOP Main Event in 2004, the year Greg Raymer won.

> won the Hall of Fame Poker Classic Paris in 2005.

> plays online at PokerStars as a member of TeamPokerStars.

> won over $3,700,000 in Live Tournament Play (until 2009).

Marcel had an illegal casino in Amsterdam in the 80’s and his brother Bertus was shot there in 2003. He’s very famous for wearing his sunglasses upside-down and always wearing a suit at the table. He’s a true gentleman singing and sitting at the poker table who loves the attention and media circus and is a controversial player, like a European version of Phil Hellmuth but with style. He’s considered as the best Dutch poker player in tournaments with his 20 cashes at the WSOP and made 3 EPT final tables. He was rewarded two times as European Poker Player of the Year in 2001 and 2004. He’s a good friend and mentor of Noah Boeken, and they’ve made different poker television shows together in The Netherlands. Marcel is also well-known as the mentor of David Williams and Kirill Gerasimov. Mister Luske holds a black belt in karate.

(21)   =>   GREG   RAYMER

> Gregory Raymer

> born 25/06/1964 Minot, North Dakota (USA)

> lives in North Caroline with wife Cheryl and daughter Sophie.

> Nickname : ‘ Fossilman ‘

> became the WSOP Main Event World Champion in 2004.

> wears always opaque holographic sunglasses during a hand and has a small fossil as his card protector.

> plays online at PokerStars as a member of TeamPokerStars

> won around $6,850,000 in Live Tournament Play (until 2009)

Greg majored Chemistry at the University of Missouri and graduated from the University of Minnesota Law School. He worked as an attorney for Pfizer, a pharmaceutical company before becoming a full time poker professional in 1999. He won the WSOP Main Event in 2004 after beating David Williams in heads-up play and won $ 5,000,000. Greg won his entry fee by winning a satellite tournament at PokerStars. He finished 25th at the World Series of Poker Main Event the year after his win which was an extraordinary achievement. He appeared on Poker Superstars III and represented his country as Team Captain USA in the World Cup of Poker. Besides live poker, Mr. Raymer has excellent online results in big tournaments, even winning the PLO event at the WCOOP of PokerStars. Greg is a perfect ambassador for poker as he’s a friendly, well-respected guy who’s very accessible and patient and he said once during a EPT event that he’s allergic to alcohol. Raymer also considered running for Vice-President of the US in 2008 as a candidate of the Libertarian Party.

So, now we are down to the last twenty players !! See you next week for the next post and the following five players because I’m going to play at Everest now.

Cheers,

J.M.

Good Evening Poker People !

I’ll give you a quick and final update now about the last events at the World Blogger Championship of Online Poker aka WBCOOP. It was the first time that I played in such big series of tournaments, in spite of that it were just freerolls. They felt like big tournaments and events so I was pleased to enter the stages and there were some big cash tickets to win.

Event 5 was the 8-game freeroll where I talked about it previously as I was a little bit cautious because there were some games that I had never played before. As the name already says, there are 8 different types of poker to be played during 8-game. We began with Limit Triple Draw 2-7, followed by Limit Hold’em, Limit Omaha Hi/Lo, Limit Razz, Limit Stud, Limit Stud Hi/Lo, NL Hold’em and finally PL Omaha. There were 1536 entrants to play with all a starting stack of 2000 and again 153 tickets to deserve.

I’ve read a little bit about those unknown games before and I played very tight like I had to. As most of the games were known as Luck and Drawing games, I’ve read that I should only draw to the Nuts. So I did, waited for my chances and took advantage of the players who didn’t knew the games at all. After a real rollercoaster ride making some draws and losing some, I finished Event 5 in a very good 62th place !! That earned me another SCOOP- ticket, namely a $16.50 one.

Event 6 was another NL Hold’em event with 1939 Entrants and a starting stack of 2000. This time I didn’t get many sexy flops, river or premium preflop starting hands. So I just hung in there, waiting for the right spot that finally never came. On the contrary I went out in 325th place when I finally had a big hand in the hole, namely pocket Kings. And like the last 70% of the time with that starting hand, I ran into the powerful Pocket Rockets, or Aces. It’s getting really frustrating that it’s always happening to me, so I won’t be that suprised that I’m going to fold the kings once in the near future when they raise again after my reraise. Never fold them preflop earlier before.

Event 7 was the big Main Event where we played NL Hold’em, of course. There were 2062 entrants this time, with each a starting stack of 2500. The ticketprizes went up for the Main Event for all of the first 153 players. First place finish got a nice $3.150 entry ticket.

I played very good at the Main Event, tight-agressive, fighting for every pot while I was sitting on the famous rollercoaster again. It’s hard to follow some gameplan when you always have to take control of those swings of emotions and frustrations. But I managed it well until I got pocket eights in the Big Blind, and one raise before me in the cut off position. I just called- mistake there- and after a rainbow flop of J 2 6, I checked to him with the thought of moving all-in after he betted. He did that and I shipped as he called me  with 9-2 leaving him with only 5 outs, which of them came on the turn as the nine appeared. Very unlucky exit for me there !!!  It was probably the unexperience at a big tournament that cost me my place because I should have raised it preflop. Well I still went out in 109th place and a fourth ticket, namely a $$22 one this time.

SUMMARY :

Event 1 / NL Hold’em  / finished 235th place / Winner : Devlsbnkroll from Casselberry

Event 2 / PLO / finished 122th place / Won $11 ticket / Winner : CDRLT from Milford

Event 3 / NL Hold’em / finished 1159th place / Winner : skllzdatklls from Las Vegas

Event 4 / NL Hold’em / finished 20th place / Won $33 ticket / Winner : barrelproof7 from Wuerzberg

Event 5 / 8-Game / finished 62th place / Won $ 16.50 ticket / Winner : maverick600 from Staten Island

Event 6 / NL Hold’em / finished 325th place / Winner : Suivokal from Veselaya

Main Event / NL Hold’em / finished 109th place / Won $22 ticket / Winner : BelaLany from Munich

So the WBCOOP were very successful for me with four cashes and 4 tickets to play at the Spring Championship of Online Poker. I hope that my gained experience from the WBCOOP to run deep in a big tournament will help me to cash in the SCOOP and expand my bankroll. I’ll keep you up to date in spring when they begin !

Cheers,

J.M.