Jun
10
by Chad Holloway
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: 1st- $2,946; 2nd- $2,049; 3rd- $1,536; 4th- $1,191; 5th- $858; 6th- $659; and 7th- $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.
May
28
by Chad Holloway
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 4th and 5th 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.
Nov
1
by Chad Holloway
This past summer I worked free lance as a poker reporter/blogger for PokerNews at the 2010 World Series of Poker. I must have done a decent job because I was recently offered, and accepted, a position with PokerNews as a senior writer. This means I write articles on a daily basis for PokerNews.com and also travel to various locations and do some reporting assignments. In fact, I leave in a few days for the WSOP-Circuit event in Biloxi, Mississippi followed by a trip to L.A. for the N.A.P.T. event at the Bike Casino. I’ve never been to L.A., so I’m really looking forward to that.
I know I’ve mentioned the 2010 ESPN Fantasy Poker League and I’ve finally written an article about it. The article should appear in the December issue of Poker Pro Magazine, so please check it out. However, I do want to let you know how things turned out. If you recall, this year’s draft featured twelve participants including Daniel Negreanu, Eric Baldwin, Andrew Feldman, Gary Wise, Howard Lederer, Lance Bradley, Dennis Phillips, Bernard Lee, Mark Seif, Gavin Smith, Chops from WickedChopsPoker, and myself.
Here are how the teams shaped up with each individual player’s point total in parentheses:
Chops: Phil Ivey (63), Carlos Mortenson (69), David Benyamine (2), Faraz Jaka (59), Brock Parker (61), Abe Moussari (64), Thomas Marchese (53), Josh Arieh (3)
Negreanu: Daniel Negreanu (31), Scotty Nguyen (16), David Chiu (134), Justin Smith (22), Todd Brunson (25), Freddy Deeb/Steve Billirakis (97), Brett Richey (16), John Monnette (16)
Feldman: Jason Mercier (30), Bertrand Grospellier (17), Chau Giang (17), Scott Seiver (45), David Pham (0), Alexander Kostritsyn (96), David Sands (51), Ryan D’Angelo/Vladimir Shchemelev (35)
Wise: Allen Cunningham (2), Daniel Alaei (162), Andy Bloch (19), Eli Elezra (11), Isaac Haxton (21), Tom Schneider (7), Nick Schulman (46), Vitaly Lunkin (16)
Lederer: Barry Greenstein (11), John Juanda (223), Robert Mizrachi (125), Chad Brown (40), Matt Glantz (65), Amnon Filippi (6), Ralph Perry (0), Thor Hansen (0)
Phillips: Erick Lindgren (28), Jeffrey Lisandro (41), JC Tran (16), David Singer (15), Brandon Cantu (11), Greg Mueller (8), John Phan (1), Nam Le (14)
Seif: Tom Dwan (97), Phil Galfond (2), Ted Forrest (8), Doyle Brunson (0), Jennifer Harman (102), Johnny Chan (2), Mark Seif/Greg Raymer (3), Eric Froelich (2)
Bradley: Erik Seidel (85), Howard Lederer (0), Chris Bjorin (6), Yevgeniy Timoshenko (6), Patrik Antonius/David Baker (132), Kenny Tran (0), Andrew Litchenberger (0), Dan Kelly (117)
Lee: Chris Ferguson (12), Michael Binger (11), Paul Wasicka (1), Eric Baldwin (29), Max Pescatori (11), Dwyte Pilgrim (32), Roland De Wolfe (0), Jonathan Little (46)
Baldwin: Scott Clements (25), Matt Hawrilenko (0), Justin Bonomo (17), James Mackey (0), Shannon Shorr (13), Justin Young (10), James Van Alstyne (8), Michael Katz (1)
Smith: Huck Seed (14), Gavin Smith (80), Jeff Madsen (9), Steve Sung (0), Bryan Devonshire (2), David Oppenheim (76), Chris Bell (70), Vivek Rajkumar (19)
Holloway (Team Poker Pro): Phil Hellmuth (56), Sorel Mizzi (36), Mike Matusow (9), Annette Obrestad (13), David Williams (6), Jason Somerville (149), Phil Laak/Michael Mizrachi (91 + Main Event), Amit Makhija (50)
If you do the math, you will discover that I managed to take the whole thing down. Here are the official results:
Final Standings
1st- Chad Holloway: 576*
2nd- Howard Lederer: 470
3rd- Priess Chops: 374
4th- Daniel Negreanu: 357
5th- Lance Bradley: 346
6th- Andrew Feldman: 291
7th- Gary Wise: 284
8th- Gavin Smith: 270
9th- Mark Seif: 216
10th- Bernard Lee: 142
11th- Dennis Phillips: 134
12th- Eric Baldwin: 74
*Includes Main Event points up until November Nine, but will earn more based upon Mizrachi’s finish at the final table.
It was really exciting to win this league. I’ve long prided myself on my Fantasy Poker knowledge and this gave me the reassurance and credibility I needed. I just wish I would have taken some of the other player’s offer to bet at the beginning of the year. I can’t get into specifics, but many of the participants were making bets in the five figures! Oh well, I’ll just have to be content with the sweet taste of victory.
Sep
13
by Chad Holloway
I had the opportunity of working at the 2010 World Series of Poker as a blogger/field reporter for PokerNews, and it turned out to be the best summer of my life. I met a lot of great people and had the experience of a lifetime. One of the goals I set for myself before heading to Las Vegas was to work hard and do the best job possible. Evidently, I must have done a decent job since PokerNews has thrown a bit of post-WSOP work my way. I’ve done some recaps on an online poker tournament series, some ghostwriting, and even a recap of a WSOP broadcast on ESPN.
Although those were all great writing opportunities, the thing I’m most excited about is PokerNews’ offer to send me to Argentina to cover the Latin American Poker Tour Rosario Grand Final tournament. The event takes place between September 23-26 at the largest casino in South America, City Center Casino. Aside from covering some great poker action, I am looking forward to experiencing a whole other culture and taking a much needed (working) vacation. I’ve never been to South America, or to the Southern Hemisphere for that matter, and to have the chance to go, especially to do something I love, is beyond unbelievable. You can rest assured that I’ll post some pictures and discuss my exploits in a future blog.
I’ve also got a new article that appears in Poker Pro Magazine, as well as on their website, that recaps the Fantasy Poker action from the 2010 WSOP. If you want to check it out, here is the link. This year proved to be my most successful year in Fantasy Poker. I took 343rd out of over 20,000 in an online Fantasy Poker competition and participated in the 2010 ESPN Fantasy Poker League against the likes of Daniel Negreanu, Howard Lederer, Gavin Smith, Dennis Phillips and Eric Baldwin, just to name a few. The official results haven’t been released yet, but I am pretty sure I managed to take that one down with Michael “The Grinder” Mizrachi’s deep run in the Main Event. I plan on writing a lot on that league once the winner is announced, so you can look forward to that as a future blog as well.
Now that it is September, I’ve had to switch gears from Fantasy Poker to Fantasy Football. This year I am in four leagues, which is the most I’ve ever attempted. My most prized league is one I do every year with my closest friends. We actually made it a keeper league last year and I managed to win my first Fantasy Football championship. I’m looking to defend my title and feel I have the team to do it. Let me just give you three names that’ll let you know just how good my team is: Chris Johnson, Andre Johnson and Brandon Marshall (I’m a huge Miami Dolphins fan). Those three players alone would have won me most games last year.
Another league that I’m in is the PokerNews Pigskin Invitational. There are twelve teams and I’m not overly excited about my chances. I was unable to make the online draft so the auto-draft feature was used to choose my team. I had some great wide receivers chosen in Larry Fitzgerald and Roddy White, but my QB situation was dire (it drafted me just one in Jason Campbell). The waiver wire had no decent options, so I immediately sought out a trade. Luckily for me, Jonathan Aguiar had WR and RB needs and we struck a deal. I gave him Steven Jackson, Mike-Sims Walker and Kellen Winslow (I have Brent Celek as my starter) in exchange for Donovan McNabb, Jonathan Stewart and Hines Ward. I think this is a pretty fair trade and feel a lot more comfortable having a proven veteran QB on my roster. I guess only time will tell as the NFL regular season kicks-off on Thursday.