Week 6 of the 2010 WSOP and the countdown to the final of the Main Event game, a $10,000 buy-in No Limit Hold ‘em tournament, has begun. As in other recent years the actual champion won’t be known until November as, once again, that is when the final table of 9 poker players will reconvene to battle it out for the most prestigious of all poker titles.

WSOP national results so far

So, with just one game left what can be said about the nations that have produced winners at WSOP 2010?  A question here of course is should we measure this by cashes, totals or bracelets awarded?  Well, for the reason you’ll appreciate soon – we’ll go with gold bracelets awarded. Somewhat unsurprisingly the USA has produced the biggest number of bracelets at 39 winners and some 5000 cashes. Total earnings for USA poker players are over a staggering $81 million. With a surprise in store in second place – it was Canada that was third in the international stakes with 4 bracelets and about 450 cashes totaling over $8 million. The surprise in second place was the United Kingdom, or Britain as we prefer to say, who despite only making around 230 cashes totaling some $7 million – they actually accumulated 5 gold bracelets.

5 gold bracelets – big deal huh!

Sure looks like a British winner to me!

OK, so 5 gold bracelets might seem small fry compared to the number that the USA won but – there is a real significance in this. Quite simply in winning 5 gold bracelets at WSOP 2010 the Brits have set a new record as – never before has a foreign nation won so many gold bracelets at any particular world series before! So, for all the online poker players out there – FTW! The winners were: Praz Banzi, James Dempsey, Richard Ashby, Mike Ellis and Steve Jelinek. Although Praz was the biggest single winner taking home $515k along with his bracelet Steve Jelinek probably produced the best win, for $245k – as he was playing in a $1500 buy-in Pot Limit Omaha Hi Low Split 8 or better game. So, being a Hi-Low game both the highest and lowest poker hands can claim a share of the pot – requiring a whole different strategy to the more regular games. As in a regular Omaha poker game looking for the nut flush is always a good bet, but you’ll always be hoping to have an ace in your hand to be confident of pressing for a win.

No point playing poker when you’re about to fall asleep!

Here at pokertipsbook.com we’re aware of an article, emanating from the UK, about their perceived unfairness over the transatlantic time difference when it comes to playing online poker tournaments. Now before we all jump up and down shouting “whingeing limeys” and other such good humored insults – what about a west coast poker tournament and east coast poker players participating in it?

So, with regard to things like the recent Spring Championship of Online Poker, where a buy-in of just $22 could have net you $55k – can anything be done to equalize things out time wise.

Time just doesn’t stand still

First of all you need to remember that regardless of where you are in the USA, let alone the world, the fact that online poker tournaments are open to anyone and anywhere – inevitably means that somewhere someone will feel aggrieved by the time difference. This is true for say a Las Vegas online tournament starting at 8pm local time when it will be 11 pm in New York, 4am in London (UK) and even 1pm the next day in Sydney (Australia). You can extrapolate those times backwards and forwards for a tournament based in London, New York etc – but the same is always true, someone somewhere will shout foul, especially if they’re losing at poker. Add into this equation the confusion caused by various time zones adopting daylight saving schemes and you could easily completely miss out on tournament.

The simple answer

There is, of course, a simple answer. If you truly want to play for serious money in an online poker tournament do some homework. Find out in advance what the local start time will be and what the time will be that you’ll need to sit at your computer to play the poker game. Presuming you have a day-job and can’t lead the life of a poker pro, rising when most folk are just getting home form work and then playing cards ‘til dawn the next day … If it is something like a 4am start for you sitting at home, then you can’t expect to have worked all day, stay awake and still stand any sort of chance of making any money playing poker before falling asleep by 5am. So prepare yourself! Get home early from work, have a meal and get some seep for a few hours then, on getting up, shower and change your clothes and then you’ll feel ready to hit those poker tables.

In our recent poker blog posting “Super Euro Online Poker”, on this poker website, we informed you that PartyGaming was looking to merge with the Austrian online betting and poker site BWIN. Well it now looks like that deal has been sealed and is heading for completion sometime this summer, which is little wonder having seen the latest figures for PartyGaming.

USA online poker return

Looks like they know how to have some real Party Poker fun.

Late last week PartyGaming published its first quarter figures for 2010 which show a very nice increase on last year; and will surely have PartyGaming eyeing up a return to the poker in the USA. Q1 returns show PartyGaming revenues up by 27% to $127 million – despite PartyGaming currently not offering its PartyPoker website in the USA, having voluntarily withdrawn it in the wake of the 2006 anti online poker legislation of 2006. Having had time to see how well the other online poker sites that stayed operating in the USA have done – they are now looking for at least an online partner in the USA to resurrect their American poker tables; ahead of the long-hoped for overturning of the punitive anti-poker laws – when poker is finally accepted by the US legislators as a game of skill every bit as much as Bridge, another popular card game.

Share’s gambling

Despite all this good news for PartyGaming their share price has actually fallen by the odd percentage point during the early weeks of Q2; something that PartyGaming puts down to it simply being a quieter time of the year for them. With BWIN shares still available, and at an eighth the price of PartyGaming ones, you’ve got to ask yourself – “do you feel lucky today”? If you do then how about applying some of those poker skills to figuring out if buying some BWIN shares could pay a handsome dividend when PartyGaming finally moves all in for BWIN?

Feeling tired? Feeling old? Think you’re losing your memory? If any of those things describe you then perhaps it’s time you took to playing more poker, rather than just sitting in front of the fire with your slippers on and watching TV. Whilst the TV adverts would have us think that the only way to stave off dementia is to rush out and buy a Nintendo DS or whatever, think again as most surely all the skills required for such a device – little more than a bit of math and logic, are also what is required for playing poker.

Exercising your brain at poker

Hey Grandpa - looking good and ready to play some poker?

Unless you’ve actually never played poker at all – you’ll already know that poker really is far more of a game of skill, than the chance one that some US gambling regulators would have the population believe. I guess you could sit there, receiving cards and innocently and blindly play a few poker hands without understanding what’s really going on. However, the chances of you actually winning at poker are probably as remote as the ‘infinite monkey theorem’ – that a monkey sat at a typewriter could, by chance hitting of the keys, type a Shakespearean play! No, to stand any sort of chance of winning you actually need to have the skill and ability to understand and calculate the poker odds and know the poker bets worth making, not to mention the ability to concentrate possibly for hours on end, to keep your wits about you and, don’t ever forget, keep your sense of humour.

Does brain training work?

However, the fact of the matter is that none of these so called ‘brain trainers’; be it a Nintendo electronic gadget, cross-word puzzles, Scrabble or even playing the  poker table – can actually have any impact in protecting us from Alzheimer’s disease – if it’s in your genes, it’s in your genes! So, bearing that in mind what are you going to do? Cosy up in front of the TV after all or get yourself down to the local casino or hooked up to an online poker website and start having some fun? Even if you’re not actually exercising your brain by playing poker – you’ll surely be keeping it active, trying to both outwit your opponents and having a laugh with them too.

News coming in this week indicates that a super Euro online poker consortium could shortly be realized and that just could be good news for online poker players in the USA as well as Europe.

Partying whilst gaming

One of the top UK based internet poker companies, PartyGaming who own the PartyPoker website, has been in talks for some time with the Austrian online betting firm Bwin about a potential merger, worth some $3 billion. Although these talks haven’t been exclusive, with PartyGaming looking to also merge with other online gambling operations, the potential for a partnership with Bwin is looking the strongest. The talks must be going well as over the week-end PartyGaming shares rose 6% on the London Stock Exchange.

PartyGaming and the WPT

Why not have a party whilst playing poker?

Still not interested? Still think – big deal this is a European thing? Well perhaps you don’t quite fully understand exactly how influential PartyGaming is in the world of poker, let alone online poker. In it’s quest to acquire other online gambling and poker websites, last July it took over Cashcade, for a mere $170 million, who owned the popular Foxy Bingo website. However, not content with that in November they also acquired for a relative song the WPT Enterprise assets – yes, which means they are now in effect the organizers of the World Poker Tour. Prior to the WPT acquisition PartyPoker had upwards of 80 million players a day and, beyond doubt, the acquisition of WPT signals their intent to increase their stakes (like it eh?) in the American online poker business.

PartyGaming and PartyPoker back in the USA?

PartyGaming, or more importantly PartyPoker, was a player (like it again eh?) in the US online poker business until a crackdown by US authorities in 2006. One thought at present is that the merger with Bwin would give them the financial leverage to talk to the US authorities about a return to the USA and its lucrative online poker market – tying in with established US media companies looking for gaming offshoots

The 2010 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure, at the Atlantis Resort & Casino on the exclusive Paradise Island, Bahamas, is now entering its closing stages. All the PokerStars satellite tournaments for online poker players have ended and the real action has moved on to a $25,000 High Roller game, which saw PokerStars professional, Dario Minieri forging an early lead with a stack of nearly 220,000.

Still playing at the poker tables

Last year’s winner, Elky (aka Bertrand Grospellier) is still in the poker game as too are the likes of Daniel Negreanu, Joe Cada and the currently second placed Lex Veldhuis. However, for me one of the best poker plays on day 1 of the High Roller event came from Greg Raymer. In danger of going out Greg went all-in with 21,800 on his pre-flop KS and 8C, with the opposition on 9S with an 8D. The flop brought 9D, 5C and 8H, so not looking too good for Raymer. The turn was 4C but the river turned over KD – changing his fortunes to a more respectable stack of 47,000 chips.

The PCA Main Event

Way to go Harrison - PCA Main Event 2010 winner!

Earlier on the PCA Main Event had been won by 19 year old Harrison Gimbel from Florida. Harrison becomes the youngest ever poker winner at the PCA Main Event, having beaten the 1529 strong field, changing his $1000 entry, via a satellite the night before, into a very cool $2.2 million. Harrison is no stranger to winning at poker, even at his young and tender age – having previously won $70k in his State poker championship and $45k in a recent PokerStars Sunday Million. However, with this big win Harrison’s first thought was to go “car shopping” for that dream set of wheels. The runner-up in the PCA Main Event was Tyler Reiman with veteran Barry Shulman in third place – these two places carried prize money of $1.73 and $1.35 million, so not a bad poker pay day for them either.

The poker talk this week is centering on just one thing – is ‘Isildur1’ talented or just a chancer at poker? Only just a few weeks ago Isildur1 seemed to be a veritable online poker enigma – taking top professional players for millions and yet managing to remain the mystery player of the moment at the online poker tables.

Hero to zero

Can she tell who Isildur1 is?

His, or indeed her, recent roll began with the epic against Patrik Antonius, when a then record online pot actually went to Antonius for nearly $900,000, but in making the play to create that pot Isildur1 seemed quite happy to show themselves as a brave player, if not just a chancer. Further games saw Isildur1 work up winning pots of $1.6 million and then, quite recently, taking a very cool $5 million off Tom Dwan of all people. With that sort of ability to win cash thoughts of Isildur1 being a chancer seemed to be being overtaken by thoughts that he or she is actually quite a talented poker player after all. Then, in the last month the fairy tale seems to be ending as Isildur1 has eaten through near on $8 million – surely unsustainable for anyone other that an Arabic sheik or one of the new Russian oligarchs? So, the thoughts that Isildur1 is just a chancer return.

How should you play?

We’re not all in the same league as the players, or indeed the money, mentioned above – but is there room in the sort of poker games you play to be a chancer or should you concentrate on developing your poker playing talent? There is, of course, no single answer to that question. The most important thing to remember though is – never bet/play for more money than you can afford to lose, it doesn’t matter if it’s a $20 or a $200 game, when you can’t afford it – stop! Secondly, your personality will play a part in your style of play. Which basically means you’ll either take risks (be a chancer) or not. Taking risks is fine – providing you can afford to lose. Finally, do you really want to progress as a poker player – or just make the occasional ‘flashy’ win? If you truly want to develop some talent as a poker player, whether at a casino table or multiple online poker tables – then be patient and don’t be a chancer.

If any of you online poker fans fancy winning big this month then, with just a few days to go now, a European poker website, Titan Poker, could be the site to go to. Until the end of the month Titan Poker is running a ‘turbo’ poker tournament totaling $50,000 and this week-end is your last chance to cash-in on the $5000 weekly prize and have a chance of scooping the end of November $10,000 grand prize.

Who can enter?

What is she reaching for? Looks like he’s living the dream!

Live the dream

If you feel you’ve been doing pretty well lately in your regular small poker games and have been dreaming about some serious competition then here’s another reason for playing the Titan Turbo series – the overall top seven places will win seats to the fifth European Championship Of Online Poker, with total prize money of $4.5 million spread over 14 days of play. So, what are you going to do – dream the dream or try living the dream? 

Despite the 2009 WSOP Main Event only having just been completed last week it appears that a ‘night of the long knives’ has erupted over the way it was handled, resulting in the resignation of commissioner Jeffrey Pollock. Describing his departure as “bittersweet” all that Jeffrey would say was that he had “great memories” and appreciated the opportunity to be part of the WSOP.

So why has Jeffrey Pollock left the WSOP?

Since 2005, under Pollock’s direction, WSOP not only expanded in America but also successfully developed a European brand, drawing in even more of the world’s top poker players. However, his resignation, coming just days after what would seem to have been a successful WSOP 2009 Main Even final, is almost certainly a result of WSOP brand owners, Harrah’s, announcement of the formation of Harrah’s Interactive Entertainment to establish a more solid footing in the lucrative online poker business. In forming this new company Harrah’s had already acquired the services of Mitch Gamber, from Party Gaming, as CEO. Although Pollack was the nominal President of the new organisation, there was no real base from which he could drive developments himself. However, a bit more research reveals another possible reason for the sudden departure.

WSOP TV ratings fall

Perhaps Pollock should have spiced up the TV coverage somehow?

Jeffrey Pollock was the instigator behind splitting the WSOP so that, in effect two tournaments took place with the Main Event occurring months after the qualifying; supposedly to increase interest in it. It was also he who agreed with the TV companies to have edited tape-delayed TV poker coverage. Unfortunately, at a time when the new Harrah’s Interactive Entertainment would want to maximize promotional opportunities for the groups feature poker tournament – TV viewing figures actually fell! Although the differences in the numbers concerned from last year to this are only small, if ESPN can only bring in 1.8 million viewers, down 100,000 from 2008, on average for the WSOP – then they’re clearly not bringing any new audiences to the game, that then might go on to play online poker through the new venture.

After waiting months for the 2009 WSOP Main Event to begin in just a few days it was all over and Joe Cada emerged as the 2009 WSOP Main Event winner. Apart from the prestige of winning this event Joe walks away with a winners check for $8.5 million and that all important WSOP winners bracelet – not bad for a player who is only 21 years of age!

The Main Event finals table

Joe Cada on his way to winning the WSOP 2009.

The final two

That left 21 year old Joe Cada and the 46 year old woodsman Darvin Moon to compete for the WSOP title. The final play was hand 364 when Joe Cada went all in to win, Darvin needed a queen or jack on the river, but up came a 7 giving Joe two pairs and the title. So, Joe becomes the youngest ever winner of the WSOP Main Event and, apart from his winnings, can look forward to some lucrative sponsorship and invitations to poker games for years to come.