Airless smoky rooms with hanging lights over the tables, sloppily dressed dealers, rustling of the rain outside the window and swearing opponents – dismiss me please, poker has long grown out of that cliché, becoming the worldwide popular  game. You can play poker on the beaches of Aruba and Costa Rica, as well as in such distant places as Krugersdorp, South Africa.

The biggest migration of poker players occurred in 2011. And by the way we are not talking about live regulars. When online poker in the United States suddenly became taboo, and potential income was still huge, many players began to look for a new shelter.

The issue with the tips (how much and when should we tip? Should we tip at all?) exist in all the countries with poker clubs. The major part of the problem is that the decision is up to the players. From one side, one doesn’t want to seem unthankful chipshot, but from the other side tips can negate all the profit, especially at the lower stakes.

To tip or not to tip – that is up to every individual. It is common to leave 10% of the bill to the waiters in restaurants. This is too much in terms of poker. However, in Japan, for instance, tips aren’t habitual and the level of service is always top. Should you try to handle the Japanese waiter the tip – in most cases – he politely won’t take it.

You though such thing as multitabling is impossible in live poker? Or it is possible but barely? The man with teleportation abilities proved you wrong by not just playing at two different tournaments held in one town (and simultaneously) but making to TOP-25 in each of them.

Duke Lee is a young professional player from San Francisco, USA. He and his company of other regulars decided to play tournaments in Las Vegas, including WSOP Events.

Well, that’s it. Yet another time World Series of Poker takes a prolonged break after which we’ll know new Main Event champion. By the way. This year some famous people made it to the final table what will make the denouement of the most important final table more interesting.

To be honest, this break for several months is very irritating. It is like waiting for the new season of “Game of Thrones”. They finished on the most interesting part, created an immense intrigue and now we have to wait for the continuation for a whole year.

And the most terrible part – you can’t do anything about it.

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. 3^rd and 4^th place owners are much more interesting. Aidyn Auyezkanov of Kazakhstan and Murad Akhundov of Azerbaijan took these places respectively.

The final stage of 12^th 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.