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Poker Shuffle Season 3-Stotter steps up a notch to win the finals

February 1, 2010

Season 3 has by far been the most exciting and competitive season to date. The re-structuring of the points system and limited games (12 in the season) gave every player something to play for.

The first casualty of the system was Bryan Botha, Season 2 Champion, who miscalculated his points and missed out on the finals narrowly. The rest of the players were fortunate enough to secure their places well before the final week.

The stage was set- a Tropical Poker Themed Tournament, palm trees, snacks, cocktails and enthusiastic poker players. The final table players lounged around, talking about big hands of the past season while waiting for the rest of the Shuffle Gang who were playing for the “wild card”. The “wild card” seat eventually went to Yourek Dotan, who came blazing out with his loose aggressive play to bluff the rest of the players off their hands.

The final table was made up of strong player, who were all gunning for the top spot. The game play was very divers with some of the players mixing up their game a bit to try and out fox each other. It was by far the best game of the season.

The final three poker players left were Mike Barfoot, Manuel Mota and Brian Stotter. All three players were playing for the win but of course only one of them could be crowned as the season 3 champion.

Mike Barfoot was the first casualty but achieved a solid 3rd place. The heads-up battle between Manual and Brian was fierce, both having a bit of history. Manuel overtook Brians season long lead in the league standings by winning the final game of the season and obviously Brian wanting revenge by taking the Season 3 title.
Brian Stotter finally edged Mota on a showdown with his Qh3h suited to Mota’s Kc2c suited. The flop was ks3s9hQsQd. Brian Stotter took the win with 3 of a kind Queens.

Congratulations to all the players and venues who have contributed to the success of Poker Shuffle, your ongoing commitment ensures that we continue to grow. A big thanks to Jim Sher who took photographs on the evening, Duke of York for sponsoring the Platters and for great specials and to Gavin Paulse who sponsored some prizes.

Mike Barfoot 3rd, Brian Stotter 1st, Manuel Mota 2nd

Mike Barfoot 3rd, Brian Stotter 1st, Manuel Mota 2nd

Top 10 places for Season 3 Finals:

  1. Brian Stotter
  2. Manuel Mota
  3. Mike Barfoot
  4. Jade O’Brien
  5. Ricky Collins
  6. Reza Abrahams
  7. Andre Joubert
  8. Ryan Hannival
  9. Carol Strapp
  10. Yourek Dotan

Written by admin · Filed Under Poker News 

Comments

One Response to “Poker Shuffle Season 3-Stotter steps up a notch to win the finals”

  1. Neil on February 2nd, 2010 9:15 am

    Great win guys, well done!!!

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Decent players have a good understanding about when to fold preflop. You want to play premium hands preflop. In terms of marginal hands, you want to play suited connectors/small pairs more when it is a multi-way pot and less so when it is about three people seeing the flop. For big cards such as AJ or KT, the opposite is the case. Be more willing to play these hands in a heads up or three way situation. There are 3 rounds of betting post flop, and the decisions you make are not automatic. Small Mistakes vs. Big Mistakes In Limit Hold'em, the bets are a small fraction of the pot. This encourages action because it is cheaper to see a showdown. This aspect of Limit appeals to fish and new players who like to 'see cards.' Most bad players lose money at Limit Hold'em over time and not one any one big hand. This is because they continually make small mistakes and play every hand. They call when they do not have pot odds, or they continue to call when they are clearly beat. Every time you call when you shouldn't, you are making a small mistake. A big mistake at Limit Hold'em is folding when you should not have. I do not mean folding early and then later finding out you would have hit a miracle river. I mean folding when you have the best hand late in the pot. For example, suppose you have AQ. The board is KQ2 rainbow. You raised the pot preflop and there were 3 callers (8 small bets). It is checked around to you. You bet, someone raises, 2 people call, you call. A 5 falls on the turn. The raiser bets, the other players fold. Right now, there are a total of 18 small bets in the pot (8 preflop, 8 flop, 2 turn- remember a big bet is equivalent to two small bets). What should you do? You are probably beat. However, if you call on the turn and the river, you will invest a total of 4 small bets. If you call to the river, there will be a total of 24 small bets in the pot, so you must win this pot 1/6 or more of the time in order for a call down to be appropriate. Assuming you have 5 outs (which is not the case if he has KQ or AK but let's just assume), you have a 12% chance of drawing out. So, you roughly have a 1/8 chance of winning because you draw out. In this case, you only need to be roughly 4% confident that you have him beat (1/6-1/8). This is very small indeed! So When to Fold? Two major decisions to be made at Limit Hold'em. The first is preflop, whether to play your hand or not, and the second decision is to be made on the turn. The flop decision is not that important because most of the time you will just be making or calling a small bet; this is a decision that can be made almost entirely based on pot odds. The second major decision is on the turn. Assuming you call the turn, you should call the river because it would be a disaster to fold the winning hand on the river. Calling the turn and the river means investing 2 big bets, equivalent to 4 small bets. Assuming the pot is raised preflop and just one bet is made postflop, you would have only invested 3 bets to see the turn. Thus, you can fold at the turn and lose slightly less than half the money you would have lost had you called to a showdown. The river is not the time to fold your hand. The only exceptions to this are when you missed a draw (such as a small flush draw) or if there is so much betting and raising that you know you are beat.