Born in Nashville, Tennessee, in 1967, Kathy later moved to Las Vegas. Unlike most other women players on the Poker circuit, she does not speak much, does not use feminine vile to impress or win and is known as one of the most serious women players around. For her, it’s just about Poker skill. She has continued to remain among the top female players of the game for several years now. She’s also one of the few women players who insist that there should not be separate tournaments for women.

Kathy has been known to repeat before the media that Poker is about patience, discipline and intelligence and women should not be discriminated against by considering them as lesser players in comparison to men.

Liebert took to Poker as a 12-year-old when her mother and their guests would play on the kitchen table. She didn’t take it seriously and went on to study business and finance. She started working as a business analyst but didn’t find creative satisfaction. Finally, she heeded her mother’s advice to do what her heart wanted and Kathy switched to betting on the stock market. That helped her quit her job but she was still looking for something she really wanted to do.

Her quest led her to Las Vegas where she tried her hand at Poker and was hooked. She decided to live in Colorado to be able to ski in the Rocky Mountains and play $5 Limit Poker nearby at the Blackhawk and Central City gambling resorts. The management of the resorts found her spending much too time at the Poker table and asked her to become one of the prop players which only honed her skills.

Eventually, Kathy decided it was time to play a tournament and finished second in her first Omaha Hi Lo poker event. She finished second again at another event of Texas Hold Em a week later. Now, she has notched up more than $4 million in tournament winnings and has a bracelet win at a World Series of Poker event. She became the first woman to win a million dollars at Poker with her victory at the PartyPoker.com Inaugural event. There she beat the likes of Mel Judah, Chris ‘Jesus’ Ferguson, Ken Flaton, and Phil Hellmuth at the final table.

Her professional Poker expertise was also on show in 2004 fetching her a WSOPbracelet in the $1,500 Limit Hold Em Shootout event and in 2005 with a first place at the televised Poker Royale: Battle of the Sexes.

Kathy is a sure fixture on the Poker tournament and her fans are not just women. Everyone who loves Poker cheers for this lady with grit and gumption of the unique kind that only Poker winners have.

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The heads up battle lasted a total of five hours with Shulman going up against Daniel Negreanu for the cash and the title. Negreanu picked up £495,000 for his trouble. The USA also had two more runners in the final nine with Jason Mercier and Matt Hawrilenko coming 4th and 8th respectively.

The British players also had a showing with perhaps two of the top no-limit poker tournament players in the country right now coming 3rd and 9th respectively. Praz Bansi came third winning around £360,000 and WSOP “November Nine” finalist James Akenhead coming ninth and picking up £66,533 in the process.

Amazingly this wasn’t the only connection with the final table of the main WSOP event next month as Barry Shulman is the father of Jeff Shulman who will be taking his place at that final table and also seventh place finisher Antoine Saout from France will be there as well. The final table itself lasted a gruelling seventeen hours but it didn’t take long for Akenhead to fall as his A-Q was outgunned by the pocket kings of Negreanu. Daniel Negreanu then started rolling along like a freight train and rapidly took the lead.

But almost the entire night, Barry Shulman went unnoticed and when the action went three way between Negreanu, Bansi and Shulman, not many people were predicting a win for the quiet American. Bansi actually doubled Shulman up when his KK was outdrawn by the Americans A-9 when an ace appeared on the turn. The home support had strongly been behind the two British players but that crushing blow left Bansi as the short stack and he was eliminated shortly after.

The heads up confrontation looked to be ending early as Negreanu had pocket aces against the flush draw of Shulman. The flush came in and suddenly Shulman had doubled through again. But Negreanu was sticking to the strategy in his no-limit hold ‘em book and was taking lots of tiny uncontested pots. But then Negreanu ran into an unfortunate situation where he was then on the receiving end of pocket aces.

The flop was Jc-8d-5d and Negreanu had the Qc-Jd. There had been some heavy flop betting and raising and Shulman moved all-in….Negreanu eventually called. Then amazingly Negreanu catapulted into the lead when a jack came on the turn but just like the title of another great book by Barry Greenstein……Ace on the River and Negreanu was crushed.

Negreanu soon shoved all-in with pocket fours and ran into pocket tens for Shulman, no such luck for Negreanu and he exited in second place after having looked the likely winner for long periods of time. This was one of the most remarkable final tables of the year and is certainly one that will live long in the memory for anyone who was there to witness it.

By Carl “The Dean” Sampson

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He appeared around the 6th August and began challenging the best players to heads up matches and full ring games. Dwan obliged and the two have battled it out over the last couple of weeks logging some monster pots. Martonas has managed to get the best of it, causing Dwan to admit that he has been forced to deposit money for the first time since his initial deposit of $50 at the beginning of his poker career. According to a high stakes website, Martonas is showing a profit of $1.85 million since early August of this year! Contributing to his cash haul is a big win posted over top player Phil Ivey also.

Naturally the forums are alight with speculation on who this player is. The “Who is Martonas” thread on the forum has had around 33,000 page views with over 100 replies. Apparently the player is from Sweden which is a hotbed of aggressive poker talent. There has been major speculation that it is an already well known cash player under a different username, but this is unlikely. Martin De Kniff is a name that has been mentioned more than once by numerous forum posters either alone or as part of a collaboration between Swedish poker professionals. Regardless of his identity the tables are filling up very fast when he plays which suggests that the top players are not convinced he can continue to crush the biggest games as he has been so far this month.

One of the hands Martonas played shows just how fearless this player is. Playing $500 / $1000 he re-raised before the flop with K 10 diamonds. Aejones bluffed at the pot three times with 6 8 firing three quarter pot size bets on each street, the final bet being $93,000. Martonas called with top pair, slightly weaker kicker! He had also called with King high on a rainbow flop as he hit the king on the turn. As we have discussed previously, because cash players hold deeper stacks they are more willing to call the standard continuation bet due to it being a standard move whether players hit or miss after a pre-flop raise. At the moment players believe they get more “honest” bets in relation to their opponents hand strength on the turn and the river. Martonas obviously has the heart of a lion to call a player down but the play at these high stakes tables is usually loose and aggressive with big swings. Considering the players do not know his identity, it is difficult for them to know if he has a hand so he always gets action in his pots.

High stakes poker action is alive and well at the top of the poker pyramid. Every so often a player emerges that sets the high stakes game alight. This is going on at the moment so if you enjoy watching the biggest games surf over to the high stakes tables and rail the best players. If you have never railed before the high stakes tables can be a great place to learn how the best players play their hands. David Benyamine, Tom Dwan, Patrik Antonius and Phil Ivey often play together and where else can you watch live poker from your own home like this for free?

By Malcolm Clarke

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As I mentioned in a previous article the poker player who has cash and cares about their profile would be interested in playing this match with Dwan, as the positive PR they will receive will be huge. They will instantly become a face in the poker industry and probably secure some high profile sponsorship and invites to big tournaments. Sammy George is a player whom being in the spotlight and in the action comes naturally to this player. He is a controversial character with an imposing presence at the table and he is tailor made for the image of the action player that many poker rooms enjoy associating with.

A quick search online after the announcement of George’s participation in the challenge saw a flurry of forum posts asking who George was and there is a surge of interest in this larger than life character. George does have one good poker tournament result to his name with a 21st place finish in the WPT Bellagio Cup V No Limit Championship held on 13th July 2009 for $23,245. George is primarily a cash game player and avid poker viewers may know him from his appearance on the Pokerheaven.com European Cash game which featured notable players including Peter Eastgate, Andy Black and Neil Channing. He is also a regular at the £25 – £50 cash game at the London Victoria casino and his nickname comes from his propensity to play a hand with any two cards.

George is often dismissed as a bad player due to his gambling style of playing any two cards at any time. This is a dangerous style that few players can show a profit utilising. Sammy is a successful businessman in the UK and uses this wealth to fund his poker activities. This style may be dangerous for the player, but it also creates doubt in the mind of his opponents who find it very difficult to put him on a hand. What do you do if he raises you? It is not easy to play unpredictable players and we will see big pots with Dwan and George not believing their respective bets indicate strong hands. For this reason the first challenge match should be full of action and be fantastic viewing.

George has commented in a previous interview on Dwans skills. He said “I’ve watched him play a few games online. I’ve watched him on TV, I’ve watched him live and to be honest, he has some moves, but you want to see if they have the same moves when their pockets are short”. (CardplayerEurope.com August 01 2009). This suggests that he believes that Dwan is a player who, like Sammy, makes elaborate moves at the poker table because he can afford to lose. Perhaps George is the best man to face Dwan, a player who has played in the largest cash games in Europe and will face the young superstar and dare him to bluff. Dwans skill comes from reading his opponents and betting his hands strongly. Facing a player who does likewise will be explosive.

This match up is eagerly anticipated and will certainly start the challenge match series with a bang. Make sure you tune in to find out if “Any 2” can beat “Durrrr” when the challenge begins.

By Malcolm Clarke

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Teaming up with Matchroom Sport, Dwan has laid out the conditions to his challengers wishing to participate. The matches will be played over 500 hands, with a $500,000 buy-in. The blinds will be $500 – $1000 so action will be fast. Each player is not allowed to quit unless they go broke or the 500 hands have been played. There has been no announcement who his opponents will be, or exactly when or where the challenge will take place. It is pencilled in for November. This may mean that WSOP final table participant Phil Ivey may be unable to take part. This may or may not be deliberate on Dwans part, although Ivey would probably play the match the day before the final table and fly over to Las Vegas to make the final table!

His challenge against Antonius was expected to move at a faster pace than it has done. There were numerous short sessions until a long 14 hour session in June, which turned out to be the last session played so far. Interestingly, it was Dwan who overturned a large deficit in the session to take a $726,000 lead with 20,000 hands played of the scheduled 50,000 match. Antonius may now revert back to shorter sessions where he dominated the match until the longer session.

Dwan is something of a phenomenon in poker. He is a player of great skill and at 21 was already an online poker legend. He built up his bankroll quickly and became a feared player, due to his hyper aggressive style, in the biggest cash games against some of the best players in the world. He famously outdrew Phil Hellmuth to knock him out of a heads up tournament ending in another Hellmuth rant where Dwan continually challenged him to a heads up match at any stakes he liked. Hellmuth accepted but the match never took place. Often criticised is Dwans gambling nature which sees him endure massive swings each week. If you read some of the high stakes match commentaries published online each week he is normally either the biggest winner or the biggest loser. He plays a risky style with major conviction that he has the skills to be a long term winner. So far that has been the case with huge wins each year.

British pro Dave “The Devilfish” Ulliott may be a player keen to challenge Dwan in London later this year. Devilfish is a skilled heads up player who has an excellent record in heads up matches against the likes of Sammy Farha and other top players. Phil Ivey may also play, if the schedule fits in with his WSOP preparation, and the $500,000 will be no problem to him. Players like David Benyamine and possibly Patrik Antonius himself are a possibility.

Some of the more unlikely may be Illari “Zigmund” Shahmies, another big online winner or the very outspoken Luke “Fullflush1” Schwartz who claims to be the best player in the world. Phil Hellmuth may be tempted by the T.V. exposure to make an appearance both for himself and his poker brand, Ultimate Bet.

One thing is for certain that with Dwans style of play these matches will be amazing viewing for poker players and you should definitely look out for more updates and tune in. Hopefully Zigmund and Fullflush1 will showcase pokers top young talent and make a name for themselves in live poker.

By Malcolm Clarke

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