High Stakes Poker Action This Week

High Stakes poker is a crazy world inhabited by skilled and fearless gamblers. Whilst not all of us wish to one day be competing at these levels (few could take the swings without a major breakdown) we all watch with admiration and awe whilst they battle for pots with seemingly no reaction when they lose. The past few weeks has seen a new player join the high stakes tables and they have taken around $2 million from the top players. His name is Martonas. What is most interesting about this player is, despite speculation, no-one knows his true identity.

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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Tags: durrrr, high stakes poker, patrik antonius, Phil ivey, poker