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How cool are rematches!

Sunday, December 16, 2007

Full Tilt Poker has recently added an extra dimension to their heads up tournaments. At the conclusion of the tournament you can choose whether or not you'd like a re-match with your opponent.

I know another poker room has a feature similar to this, but I can't remember where.... Carbon Poker has also had it on their 'to-do' list for a while. But the way that Tilt has implemented it is awesome because it is so quick and easy to use.

I love heads up sit & gos because they are quick to play. Being able to get an instant rematch against the player that just beat you is a great way to keep the games interesting and fun.

I had a nice little 5 game series on Tilt today against 'TheSavage79". I sucked out big time on the river in the first game after we both got it all in with 2 pair, so I had to give him another crack. Game 2 went to me pretty easily with a good run of cards. Game 3 went to the challenger when he caught me bluffing, and he got game 4 with a donkey suck out with 6-4 when I caught him bluffing and he hit trip 4s to beat my AK pair of Ks!

So it all went down to game 5. If I lost, my quick heads up to blow off some steam had turned into an hour of grinding it out for either a loss or a tiny profit and a few bucks in lost tourney fees... But damn I was having fun!

Savage started getting cocky and showing me bluffs, which got me angry and determined to win. I was raising everything hoping he would crack and just start calling with junk so I could outplay him on the flop. I got him to call (raise even) with junk - 5,6 to be exact. But what do you know he hit a flop of 5c 6c 4s for 2 pair. I was holding Kc Qc and had him stacked, so was calling the flush draw all day long. As it turned out, it was my turn to hit a draw and the turn and river came king then queen to give me the higher 2 pair and the series!

He wanted a rematch, but I declined because I'd already wasted way too much time for my $22.50 profit. ($30 - 5 x $1.50 fees).

But thanks for the game TheSavage79! Seems like you love the new rematch feature as much as me!


Posted at 11:42 PM Permalink | 4 comments | Talk on the Poker Forum


APPT in Sydney

Scotty NguyenI went down to Sydney, Australia, for the PokerStars APPT grand final this past few days. I didn't get there in time to play, and to be honest I wasn't expecting much from the event after the small fields that have turned out at some of the other APPT stops. The Sydney casino is also owned and run by a company with a poor reputation in Australia and their poker room has often been voted the worst in the world for a variety of good reasons.

But the tournament was a great success! They ended up getting 561 starters, with some big names like Scotty Nguyen, Joe Hachem, Chris Moneymaker and Greg Raymer intriguing passing casino patrons and drawing big crowds.

Scotty was the star of the show baby. There were high fives and handshakes for every single poker fan in the casino whenever Scotty made his way to the poker room baby. You just can't have anything but love for the prince of poker.

It was nowhere near as big an event as the Aussie Millions, but with Melbourne's ex tournament director Danny McDonagh helping to run the show for the APPT, things seemed to run very smoothly.

However the same old problems existed for the crew of media and poker bloggers trying to cover the event. Internet access was ordinary and there wasn't much love from the APPT president who earned himself a reputation as a clown from what I saw of his behaviour toward the people there to help give his event free exposure. I was just a bystander this time around, but I felt their pain as writers ran off to the expensive hotel broadband connections in their rooms to periodically log stories online. Why can't any casino or tournament organisers ever look after the internet guys!

Overall I think PokerStars did a great job with the Sydney event and it was fun to be there and hang out for a couple of days. The only other rooms I saw players from were Carbon Poker and 888, who each had a few players they had sent via satellites. A couple of big wigs from 888 and Carbon were there too, with Carbon's boss even playing the event and scoring himself a Royal Flush!

The event ended up being won by a local Aussie school teacher, who took down the $1 million first place prize.

December / January looks like becoming the time to be down under playing poker in the future, with the annual Aussie Millions starting again next month on January 5. There's still time to qualify at Full Tilt Poker and win yourself the ultimate poker holiday and chance to succeed Gus Hansen as the Aussie Millions Champ!


Posted at 9:43 PM Permalink | 0 comments | Talk on the Poker Forum


R.I.P. Chip Reese

Thursday, December 06, 2007

Poker legend, Chip Reese, died this week at the age of 56 in Las Vegas. I never met him, but I think I would have really liked the guy.

He was the first ever WSOP $50k HORSE winner and widely regarded as the best poker cash game player in the world.

Here's a clip of Chip, so you can see what sort of person he was for yourself.



And his friend Barry Greenstein has uploaded an touching audio tribute available here, which is worth listening to also.

Peace Chip.


Posted at 6:00 AM Permalink | 2 comments | Talk on the Poker Forum


Knockout Tournaments

Tuesday, December 04, 2007

This is something I have been hoping for since the closure of JetSet Poker. Full Tilt Poker now has 'knockout' or 'bounty' tournaments and Carbon Poker is adding them early in the new year with their next update.

I used to love the old bounty tournaments at Jetset - it was the only reason I had an account there. They've been on the drawing board at for years at Carbon Poker and it's great that they have finally found the time to add them.

The way they work is that a portion of the prize pool is allocated to a bounty for knocking out each player. For example in a tournament with a $24 buyin, $20 goes to the prize pool and $4 will go on each player's head. The more players you knock out, the more cash you win!

Now all Full Tilt has to do is get more knockout tournaments into the software. Look for the 'K' next to the tournament listing - there's a few there, but there needs to be more, especially single table sit & gos!


Posted at 5:07 AM Permalink | 0 comments | Talk on the Poker Forum

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