News / John Tabatabai / 28 August 2009 / Leave a comment

I must apologise as I have done many times before for not updating my blog frequently enough. I don't know what else to do, my excuse this time is that I have been waiting for our new, super cool and personalised websites so that I can update as frequently or as the case may be, as infrequently as I like without having to go through this tedious process. Soon I am sure it will materialise, I just hope it's cool and I can have a few interesting things on there for you.

I think the last time I should have written something was about Poker Million which to be honest was quite uneventful. I had quite a tough heat so didn't really do much fancy plays at all, I got owned quite a bit by Nam Lee who I had never played with before and mistakenly thought he was tight! We got to 3 handed and I lost a flip for around 4/5 of the chips in play which would have almost certainly see me through to the semis. Same placing as last year when Sammy George knocked me out. Marvellous.

These TV tournaments are beginning to get quite annoying actually, the first one I played a couple years ago I got through to the semis and since then, I seem to have hit a wall. I am consistently coming 3rd (not that difficult with only 6 starting lol ) and it seems to be the flips I can't win at these later stages. Only a matter of time, however, the main question then arose. How many of these TV STTs must someone play for variance to even out. I believed the answer to be around 80, a lot of people disagreed with me and said it would be way less due to the fact that it's live, there are weaker spots and you can pick up on tells unlike online. Either way, I am sure the number you must play must be at least 50, and with only 3-4 of these a year that is going to take a long time to achieve a couple of wins. Nonetheless, I shall trek on.

The latest one of these I played was a show that actually got me excited about poker and the first time I heard the incredible commentary of the infamous Mr. Jesse May on Late Night Poker. It was so many years ago that not only was Jac Arama at the top of the poker ladder but Devilfish looked decent in his suits that he use to wear. Now it's all about the Elvis Jesus baby...

Of course, when I was invited to play Late Night Poker I was honoured and over the moon to play the event. $10,000 buyin, 49 players and a $1,000,000 guaranteed prizepool by fulltilt. Of course, when I arrived at the ITV studios in Cardiff I found out that FullTilt had falsely advertised on all their websites in a multitude of different languages that it was a $1M GTD prizepool but NOOOOOO it wasn't to be. It was a $500,000 prizepool! How generous, they added $10,000 to the prizepool. 1 buyin. LOOOOOL.

Why would anyone want to pay $10k of their money to play against top pros in a crapshoot format. The usual answer is that it's a $20k tourney and you pay $10k, thus getting a nice little overlay and therefore worth the shot. Now that FullTilt poker have taken over, it seems to be the trend. They have also taken over Poker Million which was previously sponsored by Ladbrokes. Since its inception and as the name would imply, Poker Million has ALWAYS awarded $1,000,000 to first, OBVIOUSLY. Guess what, they are still naming the program PokerMillion but first prize is going to be only half of what it should be. Splendid. wp ftp.

I had a pretty good heat compared to others I saw and was pretty disappointed to bust out first when I kind of overplayed my hand. The difficulty is that in this format, there are 7 players and only first goes through to the final. Blinds increase very quickly so need to remind yourself you are playing for first and take shots in certain situations. Basically a situation arose where Benjamin Kang (PS sponsored player) 3b from the SB v my UTG min raise. I had been quite active and could tell his plan was to play tight early levels, build an image and exploit it when blinds increase. Standard. This was a spot I am sure he would 3b me with a wide range of good hands including medium pocket pairs and decent aces. I was also sure that these hands he would fold to a 4b which commits myself. After speaking with Ben it turns out I was right, but it didn't make up for the fact that he had KK. Ooops. wp john. When will you learn from Annette and just get there if you are behind? Simple poker strategy, GET THERE !!

On the flip side, Annette won her heat in quite some usual style, I'll let you guys watch that on TV and see. She truly is the best J

Luke Schwartz somehow ended up HU in his heat v Andrew Feldman, OBVIOUSLY. It was probably rigged that they were in the same heat given the feud that is going on and it truly is incredible they got to HU. I just wish they would air the whole thing, unedited, it would make incredible television. The really funny thing is that Luke has openly quoted that Feldman is "the worlds worst HU player and could only stack him if it was a set up hand" yet in the actual heat Schwartz had a 6-1 chip lead over him and still nearly lost. When I asked him what he would have done if he lost to him HU, the answer was obvious but sad for all poker fans who like a bit of controversy. "Quit poker".

A very special human being indeed.

I did want to talk about scams, con artists, indecent humans and humans that would be better of as animals but I feel that would be better saved for another article. Until we get to that though, please, only play on poker sites that have reputable names and are legit. Obv.

In the meanwhile, this is going to be the last week that Team Betfair will be playing as many as STTS as possible between 1930 - 2130 GMT and that you get bounties for knocking us out. Great value esp as sometimes there are more than one of us in the same STT.

Best of luck,

John

p.s. as I'm writing this on my laptop, I was bored and started sifting through some files and found a funny hand from a while back. I am sure I've posted it on here before but it is definitely worthy of another post. It is a great example of why you should auto post in NL HE, especially UTG.

***** Betfair Poker Hand History for Game 426013036 *****

NL $5/$10 Texas Hold'em - Friday, October 10, 23:51:45 GMT 2008

Table Carbon 143 6-max (Real Money)

Seat 6 is the button

Total number of active players : 6

Seat 1: Fortknoxxx ( $2,406.81 )

Seat 2: knubbo ( $1,371 )

Seat 3: Gabian ( $1,072 )

Seat 4: kunku wap ( $1,000 )

Seat 5: Back2Back ( $2,396.50 )

Seat 6: ITILTYOU2 ( $930 )

Fortknoxxx posts small blind [$5]

knubbo posts big blind [$10]

kunku wap posts big blind [$10]

** Dealing down cards **

Dealt to kunku wap [ 2c, 7d ]

Gabian folds

kunku wap checks

Back2Back folds

ITILTYOU2 folds

Fortknoxxx folds

knubbo raises to [$50]

kunku wap calls [$40]

** Dealing Flop ** [ Kc, 6c, 6s ]

knubbo bets [$75]

kunku wap calls [$75]

** Dealing Turn ** [ 9d ]

knubbo bets [$165]

kunku wap goes all-in

kunku wap raises to [$875]

knubbo folds

Returning uncalled bet [$710] to kunku wap

kunku wap shows [ 2c, 7d ]

** Hand Conclusion **

kunku wap wins $582 from main pot

************ Game 426013036 ends ************

pps Comments are still not working here....ffs..if you want to leave a message, see my Facebook page.

If you need any info about the upcoming World Series of Poker Europe Check out the Official WSOPE site, there's still time to qualfy online, I think.