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Who would have thought of rise of a young man who is able to repeat (or even exceed) an unbelievable upstreak of Daniel Coleman: Dan earned $22,389,481 in 2014, having won $1,000,000 The Big One for One Drop. Total prize money of German wunderkind is less but only in actual figures.
“I started to play when Antonio Esfandiari won his first One Drop. I was really obsessed by poker back then,” Holz remembers. And that was just four (!) years ago. Just like yesterday.
Famous one million buy-in tournament The Big One for One Drop is back in the new format! Poker festival One Drop Extravaganza will take place in Monte Carlo on October, 13-17: expensive cash games, tournaments and €1,000,000 Main Event. And major change: no pros allowed!
The founder of charity organization One Drop Guy Laliberte once again invites super high rollers to the biggest event this year, place of action is Monaco, Casino de Monte-Carlo. Pro players are welcomed as well, but the participation in the Main Event is prohibited to them.
Jason Mercier has already won one bracelet of this World Series and came second in one of the events. Should he win three WSOP titles, Vanessa Selbst will pay $1.8 million to the American. And that is just part of all the side bets Mercier made. On the third day of Event #24: $10,000 H.O.R.S.E. Jason has the chip lead….
Update: Mercier did win the second bracelet of WSOP 2016!
Jason Mercier won his second title in the Worlds Series by overcoming gigantic handicap in heads up match of H.O.R.S.E. tournament with $10,000 buy-in. Now the American has five bracelets. He is on the pace of catching up Helmuth.
The results of the Event #24: $10,000 H.O.R.S.E. Championship:
1. Jason Mercier – $422,874
2. James Obst – $261,354
3. Nick Schulman – $183,779
4. Adam Friedman – $131,519
5. Mikhail Semin – $95,817
6. Jesse Martin – $71,089
7. Yuval Bronshtein – $53,729
8. Bryn Kenney – $41,383
Do you want to decide should this or that tournament be played on the fly? Will it be profitable or just a waste of time? American tournament and cash regular who earns for a living playing online and live has made full-scale calculator for live players.
We have published an article under the title Is it hard to be a profitable tournament player?, and the conclusions were not very bright. The players who stepped on the hard path of tournament pro should be really good to consistently show profit. Especially if he travels a lot and plays in different cities and countries.
But at the same time if the player is able to visit local poker room/casino or spend minimum of money for travel and living expense – the picture looks much more promising.
Mister dgiharris from 2+2 forums has got a great winrate calculator for live tournaments. Winrate, not ROI.
WSOP 2015 bracelet winner Andrew Barber who took over prestigious $10,000 H.O.R.S.E. with his article about selling and buying action in live poker speaks about the failure of this marker as a whole and about the destructive nature of it to the poker economy.
Andrew Barber, graduate of the faculty of Economics, Omaha-8 specialist (who made his way up from $2/$4 to $75/$150) wanted to play at the World Series 2015 as actively as possible and was preparing for it maximal level of intensity.
It turned out his efforts weren’t vain. He played at six final tables and won a bracelet. Barber won $10,000 H.O.R.S.E. and got over half a million dollars.
American pro published an article, where he criticizes the current state of backing industry. We read the text and highlighted the main points.
You’re taking quite a big risk when you earn your living playing in just one poker club (as the needed stakes are only there). What if the club gets closed or you get in the blacklist? That is not the worst part even. Sometimes stories like this happen.
In a desperate attempt to thind at least some help from the side, American Chauncey Monk told his story at 2+2 forums, where he was met not quite Commence welcome. We’ll talk later about the response, let’s get to the story itself.
We’ve selected basic moments omitting some minor details.
“Hello my name is Chauncey Monk, I am a professional poker player who lives in south Florida. I was robbed at gunpoint then banned for being robbed”
World Series 2016 starts in the very end of May. The biggest poker event of the year traditionally attracts thousands of players from the entire planet including the most experienced regulars. Get to know what organizers prepared this year.
So WSOP 2016 begins May, 31, and the address is still Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas. Satellites, bracelet tournaments (total number of 69) and cash games will be played 50 days is a row.
One of the main tournaments begins right from the start. The first open event is $565 Colossus II, which had 22,374 registrations last year. Now it’s even bigger with increased prize fund of $7 million in comparison with $5 million last year and guaranteed $1,000,000 to the winner.
We’re expecting a new record on number of players in a live tournament this year.
Usually it is prohibited to use mobile devices during the hands of tournaments. However couple of days ago room manager and tournament director of Aria told about changes of rules of the famous casino. Now people can call right in the middle of the hand without any punishment.
“Players are disallowed to speak on the phone while at the table. Regardless of whether the player is in the hand or not. The call can be made only out of the table”.
This is an excerpt of the European Poker Tour tournament rules. It is said that players can use phones, tablets and laptops but not during the hand.
WSOP is pretty much the same:
“My goal is to break even until I win a big tournament,” – these are words of American live tournament pro who has some good results. And this phrase shows strategy for the most players. And many fail to do that. Most of the players who hit the road to take part in different series lose money. That is the fact. And that’s it.
There is a good article, a little bit outdated and imprecise in some points. It author claims (basing on online MTT player data) that $60,000 per year with 25% ROI is a good result for a tournament player. The ROI part is Chris Moorman’s and based on 40,000 MTTs.
Most players are as far from Chris Moorman as YotaPhone is far from Apple production, but let’s let it slide.
Therefore, player needs to make $240,000 a year to get $60,000 as profit. This is $1,000 a day if you work 5 days a week… what is, as one could guess, is far from reality for most of the tournament players. Especially in Russian-speaking countries. However, we expect profits much lower.
Live poker is a catalyst for incredibly absurd and comic situations. That’s the charm of it. Human factor has the biggest influence at the table. That’s why online would never replace going to the poker club.
The main part in those stories is to be respectful to their heroes. Remember, you’ve done some stupid stuff at the poker table as well back in the days. You’ve also got combinations wrong and argued with people being completely wrong. We’ve all been there.
Poker is mainly made for pleasure. As Zhirinovskiy (Russian politician) once said: “Be simpler, that attracts people”.
Or was it Zhirinovskiy? Does it matter? Moving on.
EPT Monte Carlo €50,000 Super High Roller winner is Fabian Quoss. Or should we say two Germans: Quoss and Schemion who made a deal before heads-up. 3rd and 4th place owners are much more interesting. Aidyn Auyezkanov of Kazakhstan and Murad Akhundov of Azerbaijan took these places respectively.
The final stage of 12th season of European Poker Tour took place in Monaco. Both super highroller tournaments with €50k and €100k are finished, Main Event is under way. The most expensive events have a nice list of final table participants. New faces aren’t rare here,
Ali Reza Fatehi (€828,500) took the 3rd place in €100k Super High Roller, and that was his first career EPT stage.
Live poker is a catalyst for incredibly absurd and comic situations. That’s the charm of it. Human factor has the biggest influence at the table. That’s why online would never replace going to the poker club.
Playing for decades, regulars save tens of stories: of incredible stupidity, amazing bravery, wit and professionalism. Any story collection has funny stories part about the beginners. Usually, these are kind stories which occur at the poker tables all around the world, never mind the city or a country.
That is who this post is about.
There is nothing simpler than basic rules of poker. Should some difficult situation occur, online poker soft deals with it within few seconds with the help of certain algorithm. However it all could quickly get out of control when there are live people at the table and the decisions are made by human floor personnel. Weird poker facts arrive all the time.
Let’s start with what’s simple. We’ll give you an info about where strange poker facts start to occur.
It is a tournament, two tables left. Two of the players at one of the tables get eliminated. One of the rest need to be seated at the other table. Who is it going to be? It is the player closest to the button. So if the player who was at the cutoff is eliminated, the player from this position at the other table will be seated there.
It sounds insane for Russia, but in America sports events organizers share profits with the players and spend 40 to 60 percent of total income to this matter. There is another system in poker, which came out of date and needs to be changed, as many think.
There is an interesting announcement on popular petition site change.org with the proposition to share wsop earnings: “Increase the prize pools at the World Series of Poker; eliminate rake on the Main Event”.
“Please eliminate the rake on player buy-ins into the World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event poker tournament; and start a revenue-sharing program to supplement the prize pools for the top WSOP poker tournaments.”
WSOP earns big money on TV contracts, sponsorships, licensing and so on. They are called major source of financing. World Series of Poker profit is immense.
Long lingering playing sessions are usual to online and live players. Top high rollers are able to maintain high level of game for 20+ hours. Famous private high stakes cash in Macao often has long sessions also. But what are possible effects?
Live players like to tell stories about them playing day after day without coffee or lunch breaks. These are quotes from 2+2 forums about playing long poker sessions: