Unabomber Poker Blog

Thoughts on a Controversial Hand from Poker After Dark

Chad Holloway — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 16:25:00 +0000

Having reported on nearly a dozen tournaments for PokerNews, it is rare that a hand catches my attention. I’ve seen pretty much every situation, or so I thought before I watched Poker After Dark the other week and saw a hand develop between Phil Hellmuth and Mike "The Mouth" Matusow in the $100,000 Cash Game. What transpired left me dumbfounded and in shock, leading me to question whether or not such play has a place in poker.

The hand in question began when Peter Jetten opened for $1,400 with {Ad}{Kc} and received a call from Hellmuth’s {As}{Ks} on the button. Matusow then looked down at {Jc}{Js} in the small blind and three-bet to $5,300, which Jetten called. “Time for me to jump out the window boys,” Hellmuth exclaimed before four-betting to $18,000. Matusow, who explained earlier in the week that he was opening up his game, announced a five-bet to $53,300.

Jetten reluctantly folded, while Hellmuth anxiously counted down his stack. After some posturing, the “Poker Brat” moved all-in for $88,600 total. Matusow made the call and suddenly there was a $183,200 pot on the line. Needless to say, a flip for nearly $200K was exciting poker, and no doubt what viewers were hoping for. Unfortunately, that excitement was cut short and the $200K pot wiped from existence.

“What do you want to do here?” Matusow asked his opponent. “Wanna run it twice? You wanna play for real? It’s a big f***k’in pot, what do you want to do?” While Hellmuth was off on one of his patented rants, it became obvious that Matusow was nervous concerning the amount of money on the line. Eventually Hellmuth sat back down and asked Matusow what he wanted to do. “I say we put $10,000 apiece in and run it,” Matusow responded.

Excuse me?

It was at this point where I found myself shaking my head in disbelief. I’ve no problem with running it multiple times, but to take back money and play for 1/10th of the pot was something I had never witnessed. Why even create a pot that big in the first place if you’re not willing to play for it? Hell, why even play in the game? As it happened, Matusow was a 54 percent favorite to win the hand. In addition, he must have known that Jetten folded a strong hand, quite possibly one containing either an ace or king. For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out why he would want to take his money back? What astonished me even more was the fact that the producers let it happen.

After some negotiating and bickering back and forth, the duo decided to leave just $21,600 in the pot and watched as the board ran out {Jd}{3h}{9c}{Ah}{Qd}.

I’ll admit, when the $100,000 Cash Game week first began, I was pretty excited. The lineup was quite different than the usual players like Tom “durrrr” Dwan, Patrik Antonius, Phil Laak, and Phil Ivey. The new lineup featured famous players who were known for their tournament prowess but took a risk by venturing into the cash-game realm. I was really looking forward to seeing these new players in action, and I was entertained early on by the likes Jean-Robert Bellande, Chris Ferguson, and Michal Mizrachi. However, any enthusiasm I had quickly evaporated after watching the aforementioned hand.

Now I won’t go so far as to say Hellmuth and Matusow were colluding; clearly they’re friends and were just looking to remove the gamble. Also, Matusow was kind enough to ask Jetten, who had money invested in the hand, if he had a problem with it. I can tell you that if I were in Jetten’s shoes, I'd have a problem with it. Perhaps Jetten is more generous than I since he allowed his opponents to take their money back. In the post-match roundtable, Jetten expressed his thoughts to hostess Leeann Tweeden:

“I don’t have any problems with what [Matusow’s] saying, I just didn’t think Mike made a very good decision because I don’t think it’s really a coin flip. Once I’ve put in $5,000, you gotta start thinking that, you know, ace-king might have a couple of its outs killed. You might end up being a bigger favorite . . . If you’re 55 percent, I know you don’t want to be a sicko and get all your money in, but you know, it's poker. I would have gambled personally.”

Truth be told, I understand why Hellmuth and Matusow made the decision that they did, although I doubt it was respected by viewers. In the same post-match roundtable, Matusow explained:

“Basically the play of the hand was what the public got to see, and I thought that was a really pretty amazing play on probably both of our parts, and once the money’s there, I have no problems playing for $20,000 and taking the rest out on a coin flip. Some of these guys that they watch play, they’re worth $50 million, $20 million, or $10 million. $100,000 is a lot of money to me . . . $100,000 means something to me now. Four years ago it didn’t mean crap, and the bottom line is, when you get sick of going broke in your lifetime and money means something to you a little but more, you respect it a little bit more, and I just felt that was a spot against one of my good friends that always gets beaten to death on these TV shows, it was a good spot for us to play for a small pot. That’s all.”

In other words, Hellmuth and Matusow were nits and wanted to nit it up. Fair enough, that’s what nits do and I get that. What I don’t understand is why the PAD producers would ever allow this to happen. If players wish to reduce variance, then they should be able to run it as many times as they want, I’m fine with that, but to have viewers become “invested” in a pot and suddenly take it away without closure, which is essentially what happened, well, that is just ridiculous and bad for TV. Secondly, if you want an entertaining show, be sure to find players who are willing to mix it up and have the proper bankroll to play a high-stakes game, otherwise all you're producing is a show as exciting as Face the Ace (Both shows are produced by the same people by the way).

As the roundtable wound down, Ferguson gave his two cents and stated that he wasn’t surprised with what transpired as reducing the pot is common practice in high-stakes cash games. While that may be true (I don’t play in high-stakes cash games), it was certainly unprecedented on television and, in my opinion, has no place in games designed for entertainment value. I don’t know if PAD will be back on the air given the events of Black Friday, but if it is ever resurrected, I hope the producers spend my two cents wisely.

Aussie Millions Satellites Coming Soon

jake — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 21:08:00 +0000

Unabomber Poker wants you to represent Down Under at the Aussie Millions next year, which is why it will start running satellites for it this September.

Aussie Millions is one of the richest and most prestigious live poker tournaments in the world. Taking place at the beautiful Crown Casino in Melbourne, Australia, the Aussie Millions tournaments attract players from around the world as they compete across 19 days of tournaments through January.

Unabomber Poker will soon be running Aussie Millions qualifiers. Prize packages will be worth $16,000 USD to cover the $10,600 AUD buy-in to the No Limit Holdem Main Event with plenty of cash left over to go towards travel and accommodation.

There will be a Final Aussie Millions Qualifier running on the last Sunday of each month with a buy-in of $250 + $18. There will also be various satellites including a $0.20 Super Satellite running every two hours.

Check the Unabomber Live Poker Satellites page in September for more information.

My First-Ever WSOP Event: $1,500 H.O.R.S.E.

Chad Holloway — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 02:32:00 +0000

On Friday, June 10, 2011, I played in my first-ever World Series of Poker tournament, an event at least 15 years in the making. I’ve always wanted to play in a WSOP event, and regretted not doing so in my previous visits. I decided this was the year and decided Event #17: $1,500 H.O.R.S.E. would be it. I’d have gone with a no-limit event, but I figured the limit format of the H.O.R.S.E. would ensure I’d get my money’s worth.

I wasn’t thrilled that the tournament started at Noon, considering I had worked until 3:30 AM that morning, but I was at the Rio and ready to go at the start of the tournament. Interestingly, I was in my seat (Table 53 Seat 5) in the Pavilion waiting for things to start, I got a phone call from the producer of the History Channel’s Pawn Stars TV show. I had submitted some old WSOP photos for consideration and they called me to schedule a time to film. Needless to say, I was super excited and it put me in a great mood for the tournament.

*I’ll be sure to write more on the Pawn Stars experience in a future post.

Now I’ve been working the WSOP for three years, having covered dozens of tournaments, but this was the first time I’d actually paid to be there. Instead of hovering around the tournament floor, bouncing from table to table, I paid $1,500 in cold hard cash. I was no longer a vulture scavenging for the remnants of action; I was a hawk eagerly looking for easy prey.

Things got off to a fast start. During the first round, which was hold’em, I picked up pocket queens and bet every step of the way as the board ran out 2-Q-6-2-7, giving me a full house. Surprisingly, I got paid off by two players. Not bad for the first hand I ever won at the WSOP. A few minutes later, Matt Savage took his seat to my immediate right. I’d never met Savage before, but I knew him as the Tournament Director for the World Poker Tour. Not long after, former WPT champ Tuan Le was moved two to my left. Needless to say, the table was getting tougher.

I managed to chip up to 5,600, from a starting stack of 4,500, by the end of Level 2.Come Level 5, I was sitting with 6,150, which right around the time 1998 WSOP Main Event Champion Scotty Nguyen sat down at my table in Seat 8. I love me some Scotty, baby, and I knew it was going to be a fun day. Win or lose, at least I’d get to play with a World Champion.

Two things happened right before the dinner break. First, Savage was busted by Le. Second, I took a shot at busting Nguyen in a hand of Omaha Hi/Low. Unfortunately for me, the distinction of the man who knocked Nguyen out of the $1,500 H.O.R.S.E. eluded me as he survived to triple up. Had I knocked him out, I had a nickname all picked out. I was going to insist people call me the “H.O.R.S.E. Whisperer,” at least for awhile.

After dinner, I returned to a stack of 9,800, which was above the average of 7,200. Nguyen busted a short time later, which was followed by our table being broke. I was moved to Table 41 where I encountered the second most-famous Chad at the table, Norman Chad. I was looking forward to some good conversation with ESPN’s color commentator, but he was unusually quiet. I chipped up a little at Table 41 before breaking again and being moved to Table 2. Obviously this table wasn’t going to break at all on Day 1, so I was happy to see the most notable players at the table were 2008 Main Event fourth-place finisher Ylon Schwartz and 2008 Ladies Event Champ Svetlana Gromenkova.

Around this time I did an interview for PokerNews which was really cool. Being a part of the PokerNews team is great because everyone is in you corner and pulling for you. Unfortunately, with only two levels to go in the night, the cards went cold. The big blinds and antes began eating away at my stack and before too long I was well below the chip average. With only 6,500 remaining, I made a stand in the Stud Hi/Lo round after making a 6-5-3-2-A low on sixth street. Schwartz bet the entire time and I had a bad feeling he had made a better low; however, with just 1,600 back, I called off on the river. Sure enough, Schwartz rolled over a wheel to scoop the pot. Good game me.

While I didn’t cash, I was happy with my performance. I busted around 200^th place (out of 963), meaning I cracked the top 20% of the field. I truly look forward to my next WSOP event, and hopefully my first cash. In my next post, I’ll bring you up to date on my various fantasy poker leagues, and also fill you in on some of the more interesting things that have happened in Las Vegas and at the WSOP. In the meantime, be sure to follow me on Twitter @ChadAHolloway.

*Picture courtesy of PokerNews

WSOP/Vegas/Fantasy Poker Update

Chad Holloway — Fri, 10 Jun 2011 00:28:00 +0000

It’s really nice to be back in Vegas for the summer and getting to see so many poker friends, both players and media members alike. This year PokerNews has been kind enough to put me up in a house along with four other media veterans in Eric Ramsey, Mickey Doft, Paul Oresteen, and Jon “Jon Bon” Boncek. I get along with them all, the house it sweet, and I can tell it is going to be a much more comfortable summer than the one I experienced last year (I spent seven weeks in the Hard Rock with no kitchen, washer/dryer, etc.).

The cash games here in Vegas have been tearing me up, but I’ve managed a couple of tournament scores that have evened me up. First, I played an $85 buy-in NLHE tournament at Caesar’s Palace and chopped that four ways for around $900 each. The second tournament was also at Caesar’s, but was a part of their Summer Mega-Stack Series 2011. The event was the $130 buy-in Limit Omaha 8 or Better tournament took place on June 2, 2011. Players started with 12K in chips and the event attracted 132 players. I made it all the way to the final table and we decided to chop seven-handed, which was a good idea considering the big stack only had around five big bets. We chopped based on chips, which looked as follows:

Seat 1: 230,000

Seat 2: 160,000

Myself: 265,000

Seat 5: 505,000

Seat 6: 100,000

Seat 7: 345,000

Seat 9: 290,000

As you can see, I was sitting fourth in chips which allowed me to lock up $1,367. I was happy with the chop considering the original payouts were: 1^st- $2,946; 2^nd- $2,049; 3^rd- $1,536; 4^th- $1,191; 5^th- $858; 6^th- $659; and 7^th- $538. Like I said, the betting limits were so high (40,000-80,000) that it was a matter of luck at that point. Plus, I brought up the idea of a chop right before the blinds hit me, so I’m sure I got some extra value there.

Speaking of poker tournaments, I’m really excited to play my very first World Series of Poker bracelet event on Friday, June 10, 2011. I am already registered to play the $1,500 H.O.R.S.E. at noon that day, and I’ll finally be able to check “Play a WSOP Event” off my bucket list. That’ll just leave “Play the Main Event!” I’ll be sitting at Table 53/Seat 5 in the Pavilion White area. I sold some of my action in that event and am looking to make a lot of people, myself included, a great deal of money. It sure would be nice to finish in that top ten percent. I’ll obviously be posting about that experience in a future blog.

In other Vegas news, I went to see Daniel Tosh of Comedy Central’s Tosh.O do standup at Mandalay Bay last week. There were like 8,000 people there, but it was still a great show. I’m a huge Tosh fan, so it was great to get the chance to see him live. He’s also a Miami Dolphins fan, so that makes him alright in my book.

In fantasy poker news, I am not doing so hot. In the 2011 ESPN Fantasy Poker League I am in dead last with zero points after ten events. It didn’t help that I had Phil Ivey and he decided to skip the 2011 WSOP. That’s like losing your star player to injury reserve in fantasy football. I hated to do it, but I used my one-time drop on him and picked up Steve Billirakis in his place. I think that was a good pickup, but I’m not thrilled I had to use it in that spot since I was planning on dropping one of my no-limit specialists and replacing them. I understand and support what Ivey is doing, but it sure wreaked havoc on my fantasy team. Here is a look at the standings through ten events:

Feldman: 207 (8 points from Mercier in Event 11 coming)

Bradley: 185

Baldwin: 117

Pilgrim: 94

Lee: 65

Chops: 63

Phillips: 43

Wise: 32

Seif: 17

Negreanu: 6

Holloway: 0 (Points for Billirakis coming)

*Billirakis ended up finishing third in the $10K Omaha Hi/Low Championship which bumped me into 5th place!

I’ll be posting a lot of fantasy poker updates throughout the WSOP, so be sure to keep checking the blog for those. In the meantime, be sure to follow me on Twitter @ChadAHolloway. Also, I’m trying to get Phil “Unabomber” Laak to do our PokerNews Podcast sooner than later, so if you have any questions for him, shoot them to me on Twitter and I’ll do my best to ask them on the air.

The 2011 ESPN Fantasy Poker League

Chad Holloway — Sat, 28 May 2011 20:06:00 +0000

One of the fantasy poker competitions I am doing this year involves a great deal of the PokerNews crew as well as some other members of the poker community. The league, run by Tim Duckworth (who writes a great blog called “Tilted Behaviour”), costs $100 and allows each participant to draft a team by choosing players to fill certain categories. There are two chances to win: a prize for the team with the most cashes at the WSOP, and another prize for the team that earns the most money throughout the WSOP. Here is a look at my team:

Categories:
Female: Kathy Liebert
American Nationality (USA, Alaska and South America): Phil Ivey
Canadian Nationality: Pat Pezzin
European Nationality: Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier
Other International Nationality (includes far east Europe such as Russia and everywhere else not mentioned): Eugene Katchalov
Previous WSOP/E Champion (includes WSOPE): Phil Hellmuth
Online Player (must have honed his skills playing online - ie more none for his online game than anything): Vivek Rajkumar
Full Tilt Sponsored Player: Erik Seidel
PokerStars Sponsored Player: Daniel Negreanu
Minor Site Sponsored Player (includes Doylesroom etc and even Ultimate Bet as we will disregard the dumping of their pros): Phil Laak (Unabomber Poker)

The real difference maker in this draft is the non-traditional picks as most teams have Ivey, Seidel, Negreanu, and the like, which just cancels everything out. If I succeed, I have a feeling it will be because of Liebert, Pezzin, Rajkumar, and Laak.

In other fantasy poker news, I took part in the 2011 ESPN Fantasy Poker League along with Dwyte Pilgrim, Lance Bradley, Dennis Phillips, Daniel Negreanu, Chops from Wicked Chops Poker,Andrew Feldman, Gary Wise, Eric Baldwin, Bernard Lee, and Mark Seif. If you recall from this blog, I managed to win the title last year. The league proved very popular with poker fans and this year was no different. Here is a look at the teams, with the roster listed in the order they were drafted.

PILGRIM: Eric Baldwin, Scotty Nguyen, Thomas Marchese, Shaun Deeb, Steve Gross, Allen Kessler, Darren Alias, Josh Brikis

HOLLOWAY: Phil Ivey, Alexander Kostritsyn, Andy Frankenberger, Sam Trickett, Galen Hall, Justin Young, Phil Laak, Sorel Mizzi

BRADLEY: Erik Seidel, Scott Clements, Robert Mizrachi, David “Bakes” Baker, Isaac Haxton, Brett Richey, Chris Bjorin, Allen Bari

PHILLIPS: Daniel Negreanu, Phil Hellmuth, Allen Cunningham, Bertrand Grospellier, Mike Matusow, Chris Ferguson, Jeff Madsen, JC Tran

NEGREANU: Erick Lindgren, Daniel Alaei, Scott Seiver, David Benyamine, Justin Smith, Michael Thuritz, Yuval Bronthstein, Yueqi Hu

CHOPS: John Juanda, Men “The Master” Nguyen, Ted Forrest, Dwyte Pilgrim, Shawn Buchanan, Alexander Kravchenko, Chris Bell, David “Doc” Sands

FELDMAN: Jason Mercier, Tom Dwan, Vivek Rajkumar, Justin Bonomo, Matt Hawrilenko, David Oppenheim, Ali Eslami, Yevgeniy Timoshenko

WISE: Barry Greenstein, Jeffery Lisandro, Huck Seed, Vanessa Selbst, Nick Schulman, Jason Sommerville, David Pham, Roland De Wolfe

BALDWIN: David Chiu, Eugene Katchalov, Carlos Mortensen, Andy Bloch, Frank Kassela. David “ODB” Baker, Vladimir Schemelev, Michael Chow

LEE: Michael Mizrachi, Shannon Shorr, Chau Giang, Phil Galfond, Faraz Jaka, James Mackey, Jen Harman, Jonathan Duhamel

SEIF: Mark Seif, Gavin Smith, John Racener, Michael Binger, Matt Glantz, Chad Brown, Freddy Deeb, Todd Brunson

First and foremost, Pilgrim taking Baldwin with the #1 overall was both unexpected and amusing. Pilgrim was diligent in his defense, but it put me in a quandary . . . Ivey or Seidel? I assumed Pilgrim would have taken one or the other and my decision would have been made for me; however, that was obviously not the case. I decided to play it safe and go with Ivey, despite Seidel’s amazing 2011. Needless to say, Seidel was drafted immediately after.

I’m really happy with landing Ivey and felt it gave me a little security to gamble a bit on my draft picks. Kostritsyn is a solid performer and a pretty conventional pick in the late stages of Round 2. In Round 3, I went with World Poker Tour Player-of-the-Year Andy Frankenberger. This is one of those gamble picks as Frankenberger plays primarily no-limit hold’em events. However, he has been on a heater as of late and is hungry to qualify for the Federated Sports + Gaming League, so I expect him to play a lot of events.

I’m really pleased with my 4^th and 5^th Round picks in Sam Trickett and Galen Hall. Both are young and have hit their stride. I believe both are playing at their peak and will play a lot of high buy-in events, which could translate into some major points. The only downside is that Trickett is a no-limit hold’em specialist, meaning he’ll pass on the mixed games.

Rounding out my team was Justin Young, Phil Laak, and Sorel Mizzi. Young is a solid performer, although I’m not sure of his schedule. Like Frankenberger, Laak is intent on qualifying for the FS+G League, so he has said he’ll be playing a full schedule of events. I’m really counting on the Unabomber to pull through. Finally, I got Mizzi in the last round, which I believe was a nice way to end the draft. He hasn’t been putting up results like he did in 2010, but if he can recapture some of that fire it’ll mean big points for my team.

I will say that I had my eye on both Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier and David “Bakes” Baker; however, they went taken by Dennis Phillips and Lance Bradley respectively, right before my next pick I might add. That left me scrambling and I rushed into picking Trickett. He is a great player, but I’d probably do things differently in hindsight. For a great analysis on the whole draft, be sure to check out Feldman's article on ESPN.

I’ll be posting a lot of fantasy poker updates throughout the WSOP, so be sure to keep checking the blog for those. In the meantime, be sure to follow me on Twitter @ChadAHolloway.

The Chad Holloway Poker Path

Chad Holloway — Tue, 24 May 2011 21:30:00 +0000

This write-up on my rise to Senior Writer of PokerNews that was done by Ken Leiviska and appeared on the front page in the Saturday, May 14, 2011 of my local small-town Wisconsin paper, the Reedsburg Times Press. I thought it might be fun to repost it here to allow my readers the opportunity to get to know me a bit. Enjoy!

North Freedom native Chad Holloway went "all in" following his life's passion, and now he's cashing in with the job of his dreams. The 28-year-old Reedsburg resident has made his living as a senior writer for PokerNews.com since October 2010. He likens the website to "the CNN of the poker world." Writing daily poker articles for the website is one of his duties, but Holloway also covers major poker events about once a month. He gets to stand in the background of famous poker stars such as Daniel Negreanu and Madison native Phil Hellmuth as he blogs the live action.

"That's my favorite part of the job because it allows me to travel," he said, adding that he's been to Argentina, the Bahamas, Los Angeles and Las Vegas in the last eight months. But the job also is a big challenge, he said. Some days will be 14 hours of work as he follows the action at the poker tables, Holloway said.

"At times it's grueling and you're tired, but when you really have a passion, or love it like I do, there's nothing else I'd rather be doing," he said. That passion has been tested in the last few years. Holloway had to give up other career paths to follow his dreams. That story is something that's in high demand, he said. "I get asked all the time, people always want to know the story of, ‘How'd you get into that? How'd you get that gig?'" Holloway said. He said it all started when he dropped out of law school at Tulane University to pursue a career knew he'd enjoy.

"After two semesters of law school, I just did not have a passion for it at all," Holloway said. "I realized I would be very unhappy doing that for the rest of my life." While studying law in New Orleans, he found a passion he wanted to pursue at Harrah's Casino. Holloway said he turned $400 of spare cash into nearly $2,000 in his first week at school. He knew starting a career as a poker player was unlikely, but he wanted to stay in the industry. Holloway found a Craigslist job to write about poker and did so for about a year, building up a portfolio of work. "That was my first foot in the door for poker writing," he said. But at only $12 an article, it wasn't a career. Holloway picked up other odd jobs along the way to support himself.

In January 2009, he took a leap and emailed all the poker industry personalities he knew and asked them how they got the jobs they had. The response was not encouraging. "The overwhelming response that I got back was that you just don't make it in this business," Holloway said. "But I did get one back that said you're best bet is to basically work freelance and submit your articles to publishers and see if they like your stuff. I took that to heart." Holloway said he knew it was important to find a niche to get noticed, so he started writing articles about fantasy poker, which is like fantasy football. The publisher of Pro Poker Magazine liked his column and picked him up in May 2009.

That summer Holloway was able to land a freelance job with Bluff Magazine to cover the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas, the biggest poker event of the year. He described it as an unpaid internship since he had to pay his own way and the small wage he made was only enough to make it a break-even experience financially. Believing his poker writing days likely would be limited to covering the WSOP, blogging and writing his fantasy poker column, Holloway got his teaching certificate and was student teaching in the spring of 2010 at Sauk Prairie High School. He applied for a freelance job with PokerNews to cover the WSOP in 2010. To his surprise, he got the job. But it wasn't an easy decision to leave a stable career in teaching."Just like the game of poker, it was a gamble," Holloway said. "In hindsight I'm so glad I made that choice."

His father, Larry Holloway, is one of the people who gave him some advice with the decision. "I always told him he could do anything in life he wanted and he would succeed at it," he said, adding that he supported his decision to go to the WSOP. "I'm truly proud of him."

When the WSOP was over at the end of summer, Holloway emailed the editor-in-chief at PokerNews, Matthew Parvis, to see if there was other freelance work he could do. He was happy to learn there was an opportunity for him to cover a poker tournament in Argentina in September. When he was in the Southern Hemisphere, a longtime PokerNews writer quit. Holloway was offered the full-time job.

"It was really a no-brainer for me," he said. "It was the opportunity I always hoped for as far as breaking into the industry. It just doesn't happen. Luckily for me, it did."

Offering Holloway the job was a no-brainer for Parvis, who said he met him at the WSOP in 2009. "Chad brings a very unique attitude to the table," Parvis said. "Working events can be very tough with long hours and it can really be a grind. "Chad has the ability to take those things with a grain of salt," he added. "He's really positive all the time."

*** Don’t forget to follow me on Twitter @ChadAHolloway.

The World Series of Poker Circuit Harrah’s St. Louis

Chad Holloway — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 04:42:00 +0000

On Wednesday, April 6, 2011 I set out from Wisconsin with my cousin Dan Almerli (@Almerli on Twitter) for the World Series of Poker Circuit at Harrah’s St. Louis. I was assigned to cover the Main Event for PokerNews.com, but decided to go down a few days early to play some cash games and take some shots in various tournaments. I was really looking forward to playing poker instead of watching and actually getting to enjoy the experience as opposed to flying in, working, and flying out.

After driving six hours to the venue, I jumped right into the action by entering the 4 PM Event #18 $245 limit Omaha Hi tournament. It is rare to see limit Omaha being played, especially in a tournament format, so I was looking forward to it. On top of it, I felt I had an edge given that I’d played a few such tournaments in the past, even managing to win one. The tournament drew 40 players, which was about what I was expecting, and I got off to a fast start by winning the first two hands.

Since it was a limit tournament, the action was long and grueling. Slowly but surely the players began to bust and I found myself holding a pretty decent stack. Fast forward a few hours and we were down to the final table of ten. Most of the remaining players wanted to make some sort of deal, but I wasn’t too excited about it considering I was top three in chips and two players were extremely short stacked (one had 400 with the blinds at 500-1,000 or so). When those players inevitably busted, the table once again brought up the idea of a chop. I was open to the idea since only four players would make the money ($6,940 prizepool of which $3,100 was set aside for first), but I was looking for a good deal given I had chipped up close to the chip lead.

Here was the situation: three of us had big chip stacks and were in good shape, two players were sitting in the middle of the pack, and three players were on life support. The top three chip counts got together and discussed what to do. I came up with the following deal, which I never expected to get accepted (I know I wouldn’t have taken it had I been in anyone else’s shoes): the top three players would get $1,600 each, the woman who sat fourth in chips took $800, the next guy got $545, and the three short stacks would get their buy-in back. The blinds were high and it really was anyone’s game, but to my surprise the entire table agreed. I would have been more than happy to play it out, but I was ok with a deal that favored me and provided me the funds to freeroll into a couple more events. “Officially” I was listed as taking third in the event (it was a non-ring event so I didn’t care all that much).

I used part of my winnings to buy into the $565 Event #20 NLHE tournament at noon on Thursday. This was a ring event that drew 272 players, including my cousin Dan, who ultimately busted around the halfway mark. On the other hand, I found myself slowly chipping up and made it to the dinner break. When we returned, there were about 100 players left with the average stack at 34K. I was sitting with 25K when an under-the-gun player, who had just lost 47K out of his stack, moved all in for his lat 7,700. A middle position player flatted and I looked down at pocket queens in the big blind (600/1,200 with 100 ante). It was the best hand I had seen in a couple hours and by far the best since returning from the dinner break, so I decided to push all in. I knew the UTG player was pushing extremely light (he ended up having 10-6), but unfortunately the middle position player had flatted with kings. I couldn’t catch and I busted in what I estimate to be 90^th place (only 30 got paid).

I was disappointed I couldn’t go further, but felt I played pretty good overall. I decided to skip the cash games, get some sleep, and enter Event #23 $345 NLHE on Friday. Unfortunately, that event was similar to the one prior. I played for 8-9 hours, made the top third of the field, but subsequently busted. Luckily, my early score and cash games results ultimately saw me coming home with more than double what I took. It was a fun and profitable trip to say the least.

When Sunday rolled around, I had to transition from player to reporter as I had to cover the Main Event for PokerNews.com. All told, 449 players entered, creating a prizepool of $646,762 with a first-place prize of $142,290. Both 2004 WSOP Main Event Champ Greg Raymer and St. Louis native Dennis Phillips were in attendance, and managed some deep runs. Unfortunately, they were both eliminated shy of the money on Day 2. In the end, it was Kyle Cartwright who emerged victorious. Cartwright, who had won the “Casino Champion” designation at Harrah’s Tunica a few months prior, won his third WSOP-Circuit ring. That is amazing since he played his first live tournament just a few months earlier and the record for most rings held by a single player is only four. Cartwright’s performance cemented his legacy a WSOP-Circuit beast.

Here is a look at the final table:

WSOP-Circuit Harrah’s St. Louis Final Table

Seat	Player	Chips
1	Kyle Cartwright	2,875,000
2	Mitch Franks	460,000
3	Nick Jivkov	206,000
4	Ron Segni	983,000
5	Asheesh Boyapati	1,138,000
6	Chris Viox	346,000
7	Troy Weber	1,006,000
8	Steve Goff	1,270,000
9	Phil Stelzer	637,000

Zynga Buys MarketZero

jake — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 22:59:00 +0000

MarketZero, the company behind the poker stat tracking portal PokerTableRatings, was recently purchased by Zynga, the company behind numerous highly successful social games for Facebook.

Zynga has been on a company buying tear having bought 11 studios in the past 11 months. The PokerTableRatings purchase is particularly interesting as its their first poker related purchase. Zynga described MarkeZero as a "pioneering force in the online poker world.”

Could Zynga, with its 37 million free play Texas Holdem players, be possibly gearing up to dive into the real money online poker game? If so, you can expect they'll be significant player in the industry.

The Bicycle Casino Bounty Shootout and the NBC National Heads-Up Championship

Chad Holloway — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 17:50:00 +0000

In my last blog I talked about the first half of my trip to Los Angeles for The Big Event at the Bicycle Casino, which you can find somewhere on here. This time I’m going to continue with Part II and the Bounty Shootout (BSO) that took place at the same venue, the Bicycle Casino. It started with nine tables of nine players each, for a total field of 81 players. Each table played down to a winner, which comprised the final table that was filmed for broadcast on ESPN. Some of the players who played, but failed to make the final table, were Chris Moneymaker, Orel Hershiser, Richard Lyndaker, Daniel Negreanu, Vanessa Rousso, Allen Kessler, Shaun Deeb, and many more. The final table ended up being pretty stacked, including an appearance by Victor Ramdin, who was the winner of The Big Event Main Event just two days prior. Talk about a heater.

Aside from Ramdin, the final table also included John Smith, Shane Schleger, Matt Woodward, Alex Keating, Pat Walsh, Ali Eslami, Joe Tehan, and Jonathan Duhamel, the reigning World Series of Poker Main Event Champion. Unfortunately, Ramdin was the first player eliminated after he ran middle set into Smith’s top set just twenty minutes into play. Any BSO tends to be long, boring, and tedious, at least until the blinds pick up. This one was no different. It took 16 hours before the final table wrapped at 6:30 in the morning. Here is how the final table of that event ended up:

Place	Player	Bounties	Prize
1st	Pat Walsh	5	$241,700
2nd	Ali Eslami	4	$56,000
3rd	Alex Keating	3	$62,000
4th	Joe Tehan	4	$56,000
5th	John Smith	5	$58,000
6th	Jonathan Duhamel	5	$58,000
7th	Matt Woodward	1	$42,000
8th	Shane Schleger	3	$46,000
9th	Victor Ramdin	4	$48,000

So while I was in L.A., the NBC National Heads-Up Championship was being held in Vegas. One of my favorite things to do is fill out a bracket with predictions prior to the event, much like filling out a March Madness bracket for the NCAA. Many others do the same and it has turned into a friendly competition in the poker community. As the reigning ESPN Fantasy Poker League Champion, and an expert in fantasy poker, I was looking forward to putting my knowledge to use and constructing some successful predictions. Unfortunately things didn’t quite turn out as I planned. Here is how my bracket looked:

If you compared this with the actual results, you’ll see I went a pathetic 18-45! Not the magnificent run I was hoping for; in fact, I didn’t have either Chris Moneymaker or Erik Seidel, the eventual finalists, making it out of the first round. It didn’t help that I picked Eric Baldwin to win and he was eliminated in the first round; likewise, Laak, who I also had in the finals, exited in the second round. At least I did a little better in my March Madness bracket.

My next stop is going to be the World Series of Poker Circuit in St. Louis between April 6^th-13^th. Not only will I be covering the Main Event for PokerNews, but I’m going down early to play a few rings events. Who knows, maybe I’ll capture one and have to hit the circuit trying to qualify for this $1 million National Championship Freeroll. That would sure be nice, but it’ll be fun either way. In the meantime, be sure to follow me on Twitter @ChadAHolloway and check out my daily articles on PokerNews.com.

The Big Event and Bounty Shootout at the Bicycle Casino

Chad Holloway — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 18:22:00 +0000

My latest adventure for PokerNews.com was a jaunt back out to Los Angeles for The Big Event at the Bicycle Casino. I wasn’t particularly excited considering I was just in L.A. back in November for the NAPT stop, but the trip ended up being one of my favorites thus far. I stayed at the Millennium Biltmore, the same place as last time, and was joined by members of Team PokerNews Donnie Peters, Eric Ramsey, Kristy Arnett, and Will Thomas, as well as Garry Gates of the NAPT. They’re some great people and it is hard not to have a good time when they’re around.

The Big Event was held at the Bicycle Casino in Bell Gardens and they treated us great. Their tournament structure was the best I’ve covered as far as getting the media out at a decent hour. I managed to have some free time which is a rarity on these trips. In addition, Kelley O’Hara, the Director of Marketing, treated us like VIPs, comping our food (which is fantastic by the way . . . try the chicken kabob) and often arranging for transportation back to our hotel.

The Big Event Main Event was a trip in and of itself. It drew 417-players including some pretty big names. Jennifer Tilly was there, although she busted on Day 1, but unfortunately Phil “The Unabomber” Laak couldn’t attend due to prior commitments in Chicago. Others in attendance included Tom McEvoy, Kathy Liebert, Matt Affleck, Nacho Barbero, Barry Greenstein, Jerry Yang, just to name a few. What was really special was that two poker superstars managed to make it all the way to the final table in former World Poker Tour winner Victor Ramdin and 2005 World Series of Poker Main Event Champion Joe Hachem.

The final table was broadcast live on the Bicycle Casino’s popular Live at the Bike webcast. The program allowed viewers to see the player’s hole cards, which is quite revolutionary for a live broadcast. In actuality, it aired with a slight delay in order to ensure the security of the game. Nonetheless, the program, which was the brainchild of O’Hara and her crew, was a big success and highly entertaining. Live at the Bike also airs live cash games throughout the week, which you can watch at LiveattheBike.com.

The final table was one of the best I’ve seen and ended with Ramdin defeating Hachem in heads-up play. Here are the results of that final table:

Finish	Player	Winnings
1st	Victor Ramdin	$500,000
2nd	Joe Hachem	$300,000
3rd	Jeremy Ausmas	$190,000
4th	Taylor von Kriegenbergh	$140,000
5th	Bryan Leskowitz	$100,000
6th	Govert Metaal	$75,000
7th	Jose De Noronha	$55,000
8th	Santiago Nadal	$35,327

It is also worth noting that during the final table we were all informed of the earthquake that struck Japan as well as the subsequent tsunami. It is rare to see a poker room to grow quiet and come to a halt, but that is exactly what happened. Disbelief, empathy, and shock are words that can be used to describe the atmosphere as all eyes were glued to the television. Ramdin and Hachem even stopped their heads-up match during this time and even discussed breaking until the following day. I thought that even contemplating such a move was an amazingly generous gesture.

On a lighter note, I actually had the opportunity to do some tourist stuff on Wednesday, March 9, 2011 when our tournament ended in the early evening. I really wanted to go down to Hollywood Boulevard and was fortunate enough to have Will volunteer to go with me. He lives in L.A. and it was nice to have a sort of guide show me around. I took my first subway ride ever, saw the Grauman’s Chinese Theater, the Walk of Fame, and all kinds of movie-related things. From there we went to Little Tokyo were I enjoyed my first Mochi balls, which were awesome. If you don’t know what they are, look them up and try them the first chance you get. I was really glad I got the chance to see some of L.A., however limited it turned out to be, and it ended up being one of my favorite days of the trip.

In my next blog, I will talk about the Bounty Shootout event as well as some other fun things that happened in Los Angeles, so be sure to check back in the near future. In the meantime, be sure to follow me on Twitter @ChadAHolloway.