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A recent episode of PokerRoad’s radio show included a list of the ten players certain Bellagio dealers most dislike dealing to. The list included some players who are notorious for poor behavior, such as Sam Farha, Johnny Chan, and Men “the Master” Nguyen; more surprising entries included David Grey, Todd Brunson, and Jen Harman.
Some chat on Full Tilt Poker between Mike Matusow and “Hoss_ TBF” suggested that the site is planning to link every account that plays in the highest-stakes games to a specifi c IP address. This security measure would be in response to increasing complaints that high-stakes players have used others’ accounts in order to mask their identities. Hoss, for example, claimed that Patrik Antonius won $240,000 from him on someone else’s account.
Annie Duke has released a statement about the continuing UltimateBet superuser scandal. She said that she was initially skeptical of the management, but that she now has “no reason to believe that management is not pursuing the investigation fully and completely.” Nat “N82” Arem, who was involved in the investigation of Absolute Poker scandal, also stated publicly that, despite the fact that players still have not been reimbursed for losses to superusers, he is confi dent that the investigation is proceeding acceptably and will be resolved satisfactorily.
In a recent interview, “Yukon” Brad Booth admitted to being cash poor after some heavy online losses. Booth said that he has deposited hundreds of thousands of dollars of his live cash-game winnings, and lost it online exercising bad bankroll management and playing tough opponents. Many players have expressed their admiration of Brad’s honesty in reporting and discussing his online results.
Andrew “good2cu” Robl, one of the highly successful group of young online players known as the “Ship It Holla Ballas,” will cap off his WSOP with a fi ght. He has agreed to a match against Mikey Stotz, in which UFC rules will apply, for at least $10,000 and likely more. Phil “Jman” Galfond and other poker players who know both fi ghters have said that Stotz is the current favorite.
Full Tilt Poker held the $25,000 buy-in World Heads-Up Poker Championship on May 24 & 25. The fi eld of 64 included 22 of the red Full Tilt pros and another 42 of the toughest online poker players. The two-day event culminated with David Singer beating Brian Hastings in the semi-fi nal before besting Emil “whitelime” Patel to win the title and the $560,000 fi rst place prize. Patel, who earned $320,000, had defeated 2008 NBC Heads-Up runner-up Andy Bloch in the semi-fi nals.
CR SPOTLIGHT SPOTLIGHT ... ... MARK ‘RANDALLIN’ FLOWERS JR.
Mark “Randallin” Flowers Jr. is one of the hottest young players in the tournament world today. Despite being merely 19 years old, the Greenville, North Carolina native has amassed nearly $250,000 in live tournament winnings – all having never played a WSOP or WPT tourney. Oh, and did we mention his hundreds of thousands in online winnings as well? BLUFF sat down with the popular CardRunners instructor to get his backstory and plans:
BLUFF: How did you fi rst fi nd poker? What attracted you to it?
MRF: When I was younger, in high school, I was just starting to quit baseball when the poker boom took off. I put in a lot of effort in practicing and staying in shape for baseball. Because I had free time in the afternoons instead of baseball practice, some friends and I would have small home games. It was during the period that Moneymaker won the WSOP, so we were playing tournaments. We would have anywhere from 5 to as many as 25 people at a friend’s house. It was for small amounts of money like $5-$20. What I noticed early on about poker is that it was possible to have an edge. I found that the more I played, the more I improved, and the bigger my edge. A game in which people allow their emotions to affect their decisions when money was on the line became appealing to someone with apathetic emotions like me.
BLUFF: Many CardRunners members focus only on cash games. What do you enjoy about tournaments?
MRF: I had a lot of free time when I started, so the long sessions didn’t bother me. I enjoyed the competitiveness in tournaments to begin with. I do enjoy the feeling of being able to win whatever the top prize is in a tournament on any given day. Live tournaments are great as well. You get a lot of information with which to make decisions and there are a lot of different variables. The biggest live tournaments are bigger than online. When playing online, I tend to just 4-6 table and take it easy these days. When I fi rst started playing, though, I would grind whatever tournaments were running when I wasn’t in school.
BLUFF: How did you get so good so quickly? How did you improve? Did you have close poker friends?
MRF: I put in a ton of volume. I don’t think I can emphasize enough how much I owe to experience and [the downloadable application] Poker Stove. Every day that I play, I improve. Making friends who were also good at poker and enjoyed talking about it all the time defi nitely helped my game as well. Today, I am friends with the majority of the poker community in the tournament world, so I credit all my friends I discuss hands with. Some people I talk to most frequently to Bond18, Luckychewy, and Gobboboy.
BLUFF: What are your goals for the future? Do you plan to pursue poker for years to come?
MRF: My main goal for the upcoming year is to win a major live tournament for a seven-fi gure score. Setting myself up for fi nancial security in the future would be something I value as a top priority. I have also recently been working on learning cash games. Trying other facets of poker (especially cash) should really improve my game a lot. Improving my game is a daily goal of mine. That said, being in the poker community and playing poker are two very different things. I plan to always be involved, though not necessarily always playing. So, yes, in a sense, I will be involved with poker somehow for a very long time.
BLUFF: You recently began recording videos for CardRunners. Why open up your game to such a large audience?
MRF: There are a few reasons I decided to join CardRunners. I am improving when I make videos. For one thing, I don’t want to make a bad play on camera, so I fi nd myself always focused (as I should be anyway) forcing myself to never really make too big of a mistake. My friends in the poker community also give me feedback on my videos. They tell me when I mess up, what they think I might have done wrong, and how I can improve. I am all in favor of anything that gives me constructive criticism.
BLUFF: Tell us about your phenomenal live successes.
MRF: I have run way above expectation in my short live career. I fi nished 2nd in a small $1k Main Event at this 18+ cardroom in Minnesota last year for about $52,000. I also recently fi nished 10th out of 700 entrants in EPT San Remo for about $72,500. The most success I’ve had is at the Turning Stone Casino in upstate New York. It was there, last August, that I chopped the $5k Main Event 4-handed for $105,000. Then, this past May in 2008, I won back-to-back tournaments: the $300 6-max tournament on May 8 and the $500 tournament on May 9th. They were worth a little over $13,000 and $23,000, respectively.
HIGH STAKES HIGH STAKES REPORT
So much of the biggest action online is taking place at Pot Limit Omaha tables that we’ve begun combining PLO with NLHE results in our monthly high-stakes reports. Phil “OMGClayAiken” Galfond was the biggest winner on Full Tilt this month, coming out half a million ahead despite nearly $150,000 in Omaha losses. CardRunners instructor Brian Hastings celebrated his new red-pro status by winning at both games for a total of $334,000. Hold’em experts “tsarrast” and “Urindanger” were right behind him, ahead of “MclovinLovin” and Markus Golser, whose winnings came entirely at PLO. Ilari “Ziigmund” Sahamies had a tough month, losing $539,000 at NLHE, and David Benyamine’s $33,000 in NLHE winnings were swamped by nearly $300,000 of losses at PLO.
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