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Poker Celibacy- The key to my recent success

February 24, 2010

I’m sure most of you have realized that i have slowed down a lot with my poker posts. The main reason is that i haven’t really played much poker. Apart from the social league, it has been a quiet poker year for me.

Today, i played my first freeroll in well over a month on the Pigg’s. It started off fairly well and i quickly found my grove, my game has improved a lot over the past few months and it seems that my new approach and poker ethos is working. Anyway, i slogged it out in the hold’em tournament and managed a win.

I pocketed a nice amount of R350 ( about $35) which boosts my 2010 freeroll earnings to $61.95. Not bad considering i haven’t loaded any accounts with my own money!!!

Feeling in great poker shape, I took R80 from my winnings and played in the R5000 Guaranteed Tournament on the Pigg’s and played a similar game, applying the tactics i have been training for and WHAM… a top 10 finish in 7th with a nice R776.00 purse( No re-buys or add-on’s) and my freeroll earnings explodes to $141.95.

The key to my success at online poker. Poker Celibacy!!! Yes, you heard correctly! I have taken a well deserved break and feeling fresh, fresh enough to pick up from where i left off! I will continue to play once or twice a week but not more and concentrate on quality online poker sessions rather than long innings!

”All-in Stefk”

Written by admin · Filed Under 2010 Poker Challenge, Poker News | Leave a Comment 

Tom “durrrr” Dwan’s $1.5 Million Dollar Challenge

February 19, 2010

Tom "durrrr" Dwan puts out a heads-up challenge

Hello fellow poker fans, Jason Lindgren here with the first of hopefully many news articles for Poker Shuffle! I’ve decided to start with news regarding  Tom Dwan aka “durrrr” online, a young and unpredictable professional poker player who has won and lost several fortunes in his career. So lets begin with Tom Dwan’s “durrrr” heads-up challenge.

So whats the “durrrr” challenge all about? Well Tom Dwan  issued a challenge to the international poker world in January 2009 (anyone with the cash can accept the challenge). He will put up $1.5 million dollars to any opponent’s $500,000, guaranteeing challengers 3 to 1 odds.

The way it works is, the opponent plays “durrrr” in heads-up at 4 tables all at once, 50,000 hands. After the last hand has been played, the player who is up, even by one dollar, wins the challenge. So if  “durrrr” wins, he keeps any money he won during the challenge and the opponents $500,000. However if the opponent wins they keep their winnings and the $1.5 million that “durrrr” put up.

There are a few rules that “durrrr” has laid out:

  • The game type must be No-Limit Hold ‘em or Pot-Limit Omaha
  • The stakes must be a minimum of $200/$400
  • Once the stakes have been decided upon, they must stay the same for the entire challenge
  • Players must reload if their stack falls below 75 big blinds at any time be it No-Limit Hold ‘em or Pot-Limit Omaha

Patrik Antonius steps up to the challenge

Professional poker star Patrick Antonius has been the first in line to try win the $1.5 million dollars in the “durrrr Challenge”. Other big name players including Phil Ivey and David Benyamine have expressed interest in accepting the challenge.

After a year, have these two high-stakes experts played through all 50,000 hands?  They are yet to reach their  goal, so far 32,874 hands have been played of the 50,000

The problem here is that there is no set time for playing the challenge, only playing when they are both available and willing. For instance Patrik is not online or readily avalible when Tom is, or vice versa. So they struggle to get Challenge time.

However, often you will see Patrik Antonius online as well as Tom Dwan and they are not playing in the “durrrr Challenge”. The reason behind this is, the challenge is set to either “No-Limit Hold ‘em” or “Pot-Limit Omaha”, and as both players are professional Stud H/L, Razz, Stud Hi and other variants of poker they prefer to be playing other games, instead of only the one form.

The stats so far? Well after 52 sessions “durrrr” is up by just over 1.4 million dollars so it is clear Patrik has a lot of catching up to do with less than 20,000 hands left to play.

In the last session they played a total of 79 hands, which is not very much at all. With “durrrr” only going up another $22,000. I will be following the “durrrr Challenge” closely to see what unfolds, but with Tom’s lead it is not looking very good for Patrik, but this is poker, anything can happen in 20,000 hands!

Patrik in the "durrrr challenge"

The game type must be No-Limit Hold ‘em or Pot-Limit Omaha

Written by Jason Lindgren · Filed Under Poker News | 3 Comments 

1st hand and out…full house vs. runner runner four of a kind!!!

February 17, 2010

In a frantic game of online tournament poker, i ran into some trouble early on against a marginal weak hand. This is how it panned out!

9 Handed Table – Deep Stack 40 000

Pre-Flop

SB- 100 folds

BG- 200 folds

3rd- calls 200

4th- Hero raises to 1600 with pocket kings

5th- folds

6th- folds

7th- calls

8th-folds

9th- calls

……………………………

The Flop

Kh, 9h, 2s

Hero- Continuation bet of 1600 and now sitting with ”A set of Kings”

2nd player- calls 1600

3rd player- calls 1600

……………………………

The Turn

9 c

Hero- Continuation bet of 3600 and now sitting with ”A Full House, Kings and 9’s”

*at this point i know that getting the right betting amount is vital. The thought crosses my mind and wonders if these guys would limp in a hefty pre-flop raise with A 9 or J9…but i give them more credit.

2nd player- Moves all in

3rd player- folds

Hero- Calls but after some time, stressing and beginning to think that he might have pockets 9’s but call anyway.

* He turns over A 9 unsuited and i show my full house.

……………………………

At this stage i i’m leading by 99% and all that he can hope for is a 9 for a 4 of a kind.

He hits his 9 and i am out!

What a hand, i have been analyzing my betting structure all round for a few days now and i have realized that it was perfect- You cant account for luck, he got lucky!

Written by admin · Filed Under Poker School | 2 Comments 

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I want to be the best poker player that i can be. To be the best poker player i can be, what can i do to achieve this goal? Players like Phil Hellmuth, Phil Ivey and Gus Hanson have that regular poker players like me dont have? After some carefull consideration i have realised that its not just that the odds and percentages knowledge that give them an advantage but its the depth of their poker game knowledge and variety that gives them the ultimate edge. Can you call yourself a poker player if you dont know, understand or play the other types of poker? My quest is to cover the basics of all the types of poker and practice them. So below i will add some links to the rules and concepts of all the poker game types. Texas Holdem Seven Card Draw Red Dog Poker Razz Omaha Five Card Poker Pai Gow Crazy Pineapple Poker