With a decent sample size of a few hundred hands then you can get a very good picture of how someone is playing. Even a few dozen hands is enough and we can condense that down even more to possibly one or two orbits. If you watched two orbits of play and you saw one player limp four times without raising then this player is very strongly favoured to be loose passive.

Data mining sites is very productive as it allows you t go into a poker game with your eyes open so to speak. Let us look at PokerTracker because I not only use it but also because I think it is the best on the market at this time. Usually any player in 6-max NLHE with a VPIP of 30% or more is a poor player. It is very difficult to be profitable in this form of poker when you play that many hands. That extra few percent expands your ranges too much and if you see a player like 31/7/1.1 then this is a clear indication that they are playing 31% of hands and are not raising with their hands.

This limping approach is terrible poker as they will likely limp-fold pre-flop or limp-call and then look to hit a flop. Most of the time you can represent hands and move these players away from hands post flop and raised pots will simply be donating you extra money. You see many players with a “fit or fold” type of mentality who have statistics like these. Or you may get players who love to see flops in the belief that they are playing “poker” and will outplay the constant raiser post flop when they flop something big. We all know of course that their implied odds are simply not there but in future articles I will be looking at more game dependent PokerTracker metrics in six max no-limit play.

Why not come and try out PokerTracker at bwin poker?

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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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Poker odds and probabilities are no problems for Stuart, 27, who used his experience as a poker professional and his mathematics degree from Oxford University to help him on the way to his maiden UK poker title. He will be hoping to continue that success in the £150,000 Champion of Champions tournaments he now has a seat in thanks to his win. 142 players lined up in Coventry to battle for the title with many players praising the tournament structure and organisation of the event. Stuart is now preparing to travel to the WSOP for a summer of poker and with the numerous examples of players enjoying success in two’s or three event combinations he might be a name to watch for a run at a WSOP bracelet!

Other well-known British poker players to make the final table were Nick Wealthall, Roberto Romanello and Jeff Kimber. Nick writes lots of very informative poker articles in the media and fans of watching Poker on TV will remember him sitting alongside poker hottie Kara Scott during episodes of The Poker Channel a couple of years ago. Unfortunately I am sad to say The Poker Channel is no longer on our screens. Nick and Kara still host a poker radio show on the Internet which you should check out if you get the chance, it is very entertaining.

After getting heads-up Rutter had a big chip lead having defeated Glasgow based poker player Darren Grosvenor out of his stack. What should have been a short affair lasted a little longer thanks to Toffel showing excellent resolve as he sought to claw back his chip deficit. The final hand was contested when Toffel put all of his chips into the middle with pocket four and Rutter happily called with pocket nines. They held and it was all over. Perhaps Stuart will now re-negotiate his rates with pokernews for his work now that he is a UK Poker champion?

The Final Table Results for the Coventry leg of the GUKPT were as follows,

1st Stuart Rutter £41,910
2nd Danny Toffel £29,460
3rd Darren Grosvenor £18,460
4th Hassan Mohammed £11,360
5th Tom Mannion £8,880
6th Jeff Kimber £6,740
7th Roberto Romanello £5,320
8th Rupert Elder £3,900
9th Nick Wealthall £2,840
10th Leon Campbell £2,480

The next leg of the GUKPT is in my neck of the woods in Newcastle with events over the next three months in Aberdeen, Dundee, Walsall, Luton, Sheffield, Manchester and London. I am unsure whether I will be able to play in any of the events due to work commitments but if I can, I will and you will hear all about it right here at British Poker.

Good luck at the tables, and well done to Stuart Rutter for confirming what everyone knew who has read his work and that is he is worthy of being counted amongst the finest poker players in the country.

By Malcolm Clarke

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Texas Hold ‘em is known as the Cadillac of poker; it takes a moment to learn and a lifetime to master. I bet you have heard that before, but it really is true. One of the quickest emerging markets in the world at the moment is Australia and lots of Aussie poker players are finding their home at bwin.com. I pointed this out to one of my friends that said there was no point in playing poker because there were no new players coming into the game that he could beat. He suggested I should wake up very early in the morning to play them and I might just do that.

There are lots of new players coming onto bwin.com to play poker but you need to sign up quickly because they have the help at hand to improve via the bwin.com poker school tuition. At bwin.com there is even an EV calculator so you can analyse the real strength of certain hands against a certain amount of players in any position. Running a few hands through this calculator will really help you improve in the fundamental math that lies behind every hand and every decision you make. I plan on running a few hands through this calculator as I play more poker and seeing if my knowledge of when to play a hand hard is correct. If your math is right, your profits tend to follow over time because the math never lies.

It is important to have a structure and plan to your poker playing. I have found this incredibly important for me personally and I am sure others feel the same. I want to know the time spent in front of the computer is worthwhile which is why I would advocate playing in an office setting or in a particular timetabled way so you feel this is “your job” for this time. If you simply play every so often you can feel removed from the world and a little isolated. Poker is something that demands full concentration and when I am thinking about what I am not doing whilst sitting at the poker table this makes me play less than optimal poker strategy and is probably a major reason why I have not done a lot better at the cash game tables.

I have made most of the big decisions. I will play at bwin.com over four tables for a minimum of two hours per day and a maximum of three hours. I use poker tracker for my stats which automatically stores my hand histories for me to agonise over later and eliminate the errors that I will make in the beginning. I have a thirty unit bankroll and will drop down in limits if I get to less than twenty buy-ins and I will move up in limits when I get to 25 buy-ins for the next level up, again moving down if my taking a shot fails by five buy-ins. This seems sensible. I have no stop loss in mind but if I feel I am playing really badly I will stop playing, but I will push myself to do the two hours where possible.

Wish me luck! I will report on my website and in these articles how I am getting on. You will have some interesting and self-deprecating and some self-rewarding hand history articles to look forward to on this site as my challenge progresses.

By Malcolm Clarke

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195 players played in this large poker tournament and the final table was full of some of the most well-known and supported players including Billy Baxter, John O’Shea from Ireland, cash game pro David Benyamine and, of course, David Williams, the eventual winner.

John O’Shea received plenty of coverage from the UK poker scene and they had high hopes for a big result for him. Although 6th is a great finish his elimination by Billy Baxter will be seen as a “what might have been” story for John. He won $199,888 and he will undoubtedly receive much coverage in the UK for another great performance. Well done to him.

Baxter was unlucky when his A-J of spades lost out to Williams K-10. The flop of A-Q-J gave him two pair but also gave Williams a better Ace high straight. Needing any of the remaining two Aces or Jacks to improve to a full house Baxter was not fortunate enough to be dealt them and exited the tournament after a great run in 5th place. He won $246,921 and it was good to see a great player like him return to the world scene. It shows online poker players that the oldies can still mix it!

David Benyamine exited next for $329,228 which he must consider a good cash game session profit these days! He will have been disappointed with his seven days work as he would have been shooting for the big win, but 4th is a good result for him. Shawn Buchanan, who won a WPT event in 2007 for $700,000 added another great score to his Poker CV taking home $587,906 for third place.

The heads up battle between Eric Baldwin and David Williams started with Williams holding a three to one chip lead against Baldwin, a well-known poker professional who has 100 career cashes in large poker tournaments. Unfortunately for Baldwin he never got into the match and Williams would have been keen to finalise things before he gave this talented player the chance to get back into the tournament. When Williams caught a set on the turn with 2-2 Baldwin’s hand could not catch up and Williams, known as the best dressed poker player due to his flamboyant and expensive fashion tastes, had another title and $1.5 million to spend on new designer gear! Baldwin won just over $1 million for his runners-up finish.

The final placings of the final table and payouts for the WPT World Championship is as follows,

1. David Williams – $1,530,537
2. Eric Baldwin – $1,034,715
3. Shawn Buchanan – $587,906
4. David Benyamine – $329,228
5. Billy Baxter – $246,921
6. John O’Shea – $199,888

Stay tuned to this website for more tournament reports as many other large poker tournaments take place both live and online. I will be railing some of the big online poker tournaments at bwin.com to keep you up to date with the latest big online poker winners. You can follow the action at the bwinpokerblog.com.

By Malcolm Clarke

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Players from the UK are winning at such a good rate at the moment that other Texas Hold’em poker players must be wondering when anyone from outside the UK will win an event. Maybe the British players should start a poker school to help the other poker tournament players catch up!

The other female poker champion from the UK was Vicky Coren, a journalist who recently appeared on the UK Politics programme Question Time. In an article this morning she praised Liv’s achievement and urged her to invest her money wisely. Vicky did just that when she won, she bought a new kitchen for her home and paid off her mortgage. Liv has said to pokernews that she plans on buying a pad in Las Vegas.

The signs that Liv may become a mainstream star in the UK are evident by press coverage of her achievements in The Sun today. They used the angle that “UK model wins €1 million playing poker”, accidentally on purpose failing to mention that Liv is actually extremely intelligent and nowhere near the stereotype of the usual model. Whilst very attractive, Liv is not the typical model and just as happy (in her own words) “in her grubby clothes” and blasting out some heavy metal on her electric guitar. She is a breath of fresh air to poker and being very photogenic and willing to take risks that include posing for a photo sitting on a toilet, she could be the new media darling of the UK in both standard and poker press.

The final table results, including how much each player won for their achievements are as follows,

1st € 1,250,000 Liv Boeree
2nd € 750,000 Jakob Carlsson
3rd € 420,000 Toni Pettersson
4th € 345,000 Michael Piper
5th € 270,000 Alexey Rybin
6th € 210,000 Giuseppe Diep
7th € 150,000 Claudio Piceci
8th € 90,000 Atanas Gueorguiev
9th € 63,500 Claudio Rinaldi

A special mention must also be made to Michael Piper who won €345,000 as he finished in 4th place. Michael is a poker professional from London and has appeared in various WSOP events and had a good cash in London a few weeks ago that he used to finance his EPT trip. He takes home a life-changing win for him and my congratulations on a great performance.

It is a true testament to the dedication of poker players that despite an air lockdown situation due to the Iceland volcano many players still made the journey by rail and by car to play. 1240 players is a remarkable turnout considering the travel obstacles each player faced to get to the tournament. As pokernews pointed out, Liv may struggle to get a flight home due to the Volcanic Ash situation but at least in the meantime she can afford to stay at the best hotel!

The EPT will hope that Liv Boaree will attract many new players to the game and negate some of the negative press regarding the now infamous raid in Berlin, which highlighted various security risks that needed to be rectified.

By Malcolm Clarke

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Because the players wanted to make a name for themselves this cash game was a crash course in both how to play poker and how to make a name for yourself with table talk. The banter was full of one-liners and teasing, but if you are to sit at the same table for 48 hours I guess sitting quietly gets a bit boring very quickly! Thanks to regular updates by pokernews we were kept up to date with the juicy bits in real time.

Viffer started fast and was contested some big pots early. Dusty Schmidt was voted off by the players with two player’s just writing “seat 2” on their ballot papers rather than his name! The biggest change to the normal format of these games was the players entering and exiting the game to their chosen entrance music tracks. Neil Channing, ever the showman, dressed up as the Karate Kid when he made his entrance at the beginning of the game.

At just after the 24 hour point Tony G entered the game on a bicycle and they started to play the 7-2 game. This is where any player that wins a hand with 7-2, statistically the worst hole cards in Texas Holdem; they win a pre-determined amount from everyone else at the table. This can have particularly amusing results like on High Stakes Poker when Mike Matusow folded Kings to Phil Hellmuth who held 7-2 and then jumped up from the table and starting ranting about it. Phil, of course, lauded this as an example of his excellent skills. Each player at the table paid Phil $500 as well as Phil scooping a large pot.

Back to our 48 hour game then. Andrew Feldman was cut from the game for giving too little action and replaced by Robert Williamson III, who made his second appearance in the game after being evicted earlier. The arrival of Tony G, who wanted the stakes raised but was rejected by the other players, spiced up proceedings and Eddie Hearn of Matchroom Sports said that he had a list of 26 players who wanted to get into the game. Neil Channing and Andrew Feldman played a large pot both holding sets with Channing spiking a miracle card for quads when Feldman held the bigger set. This summed up kilt wearing Feldman’s day, he never really got going.

After all was said and done David Viffer was the games big winner being around £100,000 in profit. He created a crazy image from the outset and was able to profit from this image throughout the game. As the stakes were £25-£50 Viffer had an amazing run and was certainly the story of the match. Jesse May in the commentary box, surrounded by pro-plus, coffee and throat lozengers was also amazing, giving commentary throughout the entire 48 hours. This was a first for live poker and I expect to see this repeated in the future, it certainly caught the imagination of the poker playing public.

It was also nice to watch a cash game inhabited by players other than the normal line-up of durrrr, Ivey, Antonius, Ziigmund and Brian Townsend. We love these high stakes players, but it is nice to watch other people show us some new moves for a change.

By Malcolm Clarke

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Howard Lederer was unsuccessfully sued by female poker professional Clonie Gowen over an unwritten agreement that she claimed was made with Lederer and co-owner Chris Ferguson that she would be a representative of the site and accept a 1% share holding in the company. The case was thrown out of court in late 2009 due to a lack of evidence, which I thought was hard on Clonie as she did wear a logo for two years of Full Tilt and was not recompensed for it.

More recently in the news Full Tilt suffered another corporate bad beat when it was reported that they were under investigation for money laundering. No specific details have been released but they are one of various American poker sites in the frame for this charge, but it appears that this is another legal step to restrict their trade. It appears that the government is seeking a landmark ruling setting a precedent for a full ban of online poker.

This week there was more bad news for the company. Pokernewsdaily reported that the Kentucky Gaming Commission was suing Full Tilt under what is considered a loose lawsuit claiming that, ”The complaint charges that Full Tilt Poker conducted business inside of the Commonwealth of Kentucky, solicited action from residents, maintained accounts belonging to individuals in Kentucky, collected rake, and had its software installed on computers inside its borders: “The Full Tilt Defendants have done, or have caused to be done, tortuous acts in the Commonwealth for which the Commonwealth has a substantial and compelling interest in exercising personal jurisdiction.”

This law suit comes in the same week that Barney Frank has presented legislation that would effectively end the spectre of the UIGEA bill over online gaming. It is clear that the online gaming issue needs resolving in America. It would appear that the “tortuous acts” claimed by the KGC is the fact residents of the area have lost money online. Looking simply (probably too simply) at the case you would expect Full Tilt to use the fact in their terms and conditions they ask the user, before playing at the site, to agree that they cannot be held responsible for any losses that occur whilst playing on the site. It was claimed by one source that Full Tilt may counter-sue for malicious litigation given the loose legal footing this case appears reliant upon.

For online poker players this casts another shadow of uncertainty over the state of poker gaming in the USA. This does not stop me playing on American sites but makes me pleased that I play my online poker on bwin.com which is completely exempt from this legal jostling. The domain name of Full Tilt is said to be under threat despite the company moving Tiltware into UK juristiction seeking protection from the UK courts. It will be interesting to see what ramifications this will bring to the case.

I am always aware that the online poker sites do hold my bankroll in their third party accounts and I like to be re-assured I can get to this money whenever I need to. The thought that the accounts could be frozen whilst these issues are resolved again makes me pleased I play my poker at bwin.com.

By Malcolm Clarke

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James, a 20 year old student of Black Belt poker which is ran by top UK poker pro Neil Channing, beat a field of 708 players including himself for his first major poker tournament win. 72 players cashed and other notable finishers included Ben Roberts in 5th place winning €130,600, Nik Persaud finishing in 15th place, Marty Wilson in 18th place and snooker player Ken Doherty among the top finishers in 65th place. Andy Black also cashed.

Mitchell had been very close to defeat. In a heads up post against Paul Carr towards the end of the tournament when Carr went all-in with QQ and Mitchell called with A-6. The flop was a blank for the A6, as was the turn. Mitchell’s fans screamed for the Ace and on the river they were rewarded as the miracle Ace hit. Carr was shocked and it decimated his stack. After a short break play resumed and on a flop of J-J-8 Carr shoved all in with Q-5 and was called by Mitchell holding A-8. The Queen that Carr needed to stay alive did not come and the championship was over. It was a great performance by both players but special praise for Carr who was so close to winning the title.

James already had a good poker pedigree in UK poker tournaments. He finished 6th in the Dusk Till Dawn £1 million series and won £45,000. In October 2009 he came second in the World Heads up Championships in London and won £30,000. Although this is the first time that he will be known to the wider poker world he is already considered a great young player on his home shore. Unfortunately for Irish poker fans, a home-grown player will need to wait another way before they can snatch back the trophy. James will certainly hope to retain his title in 2011 in this tournament that will hold so many good memories for him.

The Irish Open final table results are as follows,

1st James Mitchell – €600,000
2nd Paul Carr — €312,600
3rd Santeri Valikoski — €205,200
4th Rob Sherwood — €163,300
5th Ben Roberts — €130,600
6th Edmund Sweeney — €100,800
7th Declan Connolly — €75,000
8th Peter Murphy — €56,300
9th Yann Dion — €37,700

My favourite online poker site is bwin.com. They sent a lot of players to the Irish Open this year via their satellite qualification tournaments. Check out the bwin poker blog to find out how they got on at the event. Congratulations to James and I hope he makes the most of the poker opportunities that comes his way. Although he was partially staked into the event he now has a decent bankroll boost that should allow him, if he wishes, to buy into more tournaments and maintain his poker profile that has been given such a boost following his big win.

By Malcolm Clarke

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So how will his big debut go? Firstly I believe the whole thing will be a great big anti-climax! We will all look at this guy and think; “there is Isildur1…..so that is what he looks like….cool!” Then we will sit back and watch him play in a live setting. The massive interest in Isildur1 was the fact that he came from nowhere to challenge the best poker players, seemingly acting alone with his own bankroll. This is highly rare for online poker and although the Internet does on the surface appear anonymous, most players are known in real life by their online usernames. Everyone except Isildur1.

Matchroom Sport are once again involved and this means each players entry and exit from the game will be done to entrance music. They tried this recently in snooker and it was met with bemusement rather than turning the event into a more raucous occasion like you see in the Premier League Darts evenings.

Slightly frustrating news is that in order to guarantee the appearance of Isildur1 the organisers of the event agreed to let him wear a mask to the event if he wishes to continue concealing his identity. If he has a PR team they may decide to take everyone up on that offer. In my mind he should reveal himself. He is not going to suddenly be revealed as Phil Ivey or a player everyone knows, so a drum roll moment will certainly be anti-climatic when the person is a relative unknown. The mask may be worthwhile, but again in my view the only reason to wear a mask is to build suspense for when you take it off which is only worth doing it if people know you when you remove the mask!

Isildur1 has also not fared so well in the high stakes poker games recently, particularly in Pot Limit Omaha. A quick look at pokertableratings suggests that Isildur1 has not yet won the money back he lost in November 2009. He has some way to go to convince me he is as good as everyone appears to think.

Fellow contestants in the event will be Tony G, Phil Laak, Jennifer Tilly, Luke ’FullFlush’ Schwartz, Neil Channing, Issac Haxton and others. This should at least give Isildur1 the chance to show what he can do, with the field looking less threatening that Tom “Durrrr” Dwan, Brian Hastings and Patrik Antonius and this game should provide him with a welcome relief from the amazing play exhibited by these top professional poker players on a daily basis. He will need to play well though, as all of these players are more than competent.

The aggressive play Isildur1 utilises is ideal for the live poker setting. It will mean exciting spots, big bluffs and agonising river decisions, all the things we love to rail when we can see their cards through the TV. The programme should heighten the railing experience of Isildur1.

Whether he unmasks or not, the television should be pure gold for poker supporters, particularly as Tony G is staking Isildur1 in this event meaning he has nothing to lose. It should be very exciting!

By Malcolm Clarke

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