Card Runners
Full Tilt Poker recently held its second $25,000 headsup tournament of the year, this one in Pot Limit Omaha. “Slaktarn”, a young Swedish professional, won the tournament and $560,000, defeating Patrick Antonius in the championship match. Antonius took $320,000 for second place. The 64-man fi eld is considered one of the toughest in the history of poker tournaments. The quarterfi nalists included David “Raptor” Benefi eld and brothers Di Dang and Hac Dang.
Filming has recently begun for House of Cards, a reality TV show featuring the young online superstars collectively known as “Team Israel”. Jay “Prinnyraid” Rosenkrantz, Ariel “DaEvils” Schneller, Emil “Whitelime” Patel, and Brian “Flawless Victory” Roberts have spent two weeks in Las Vegas fi lming the pilot. The show will feature them playing poker, spending time in the “tilt room”, and enjoying the Vegas nightlife.
The House Financial Services Committee recently approved HR 6870, the Payments System Protection Act of 2008. The act would halt the implementation of most of the 2006 UIGEA legislation, including that related to online poker, and it would force lawmakers to precisely defi ne what the UIGEA stipulates. Many legislative steps remain before the act would become law, but poker advocates are hopeful that this could be a fi rst step to reversing the damage done to poker by the 2006 legislation.
“theASHMAN103”, also known online as “lwrunner103”, is in the middle of one of the most severe up-anddown swings in the history of online poker. “Ashman” turned a 784 bankroll into almost $1 million in a year; since then, however, he has lost approximately $850,000 at Full Tilt Poker’s high stakes NLHE, PLO, and HORSE games. In his blog he claims to still think that he is a favorite in those games; we will see if he keeps playing them in upcoming months.
PokerStars recently followed Full Tilt in hosting a $25,000 heads-up NLHE tournament. The fi eld of 64 players was topped by Steven “stevesbets” Jacobs, a professional who has played high stakes heads-up sit-and-go tournaments for years. Jacobs has long been a controversial fi gure in the poker community. His online behavior is erratic and occasionally abusive, and many well-respected players (most recently Ariel Schneller) have said that they consider him a bad player, despite his excellent results. Jacobs earned $560,000 for the win.
CR SPOTLIGHT Corwin ‘[vital]Myth’ Cole
23-year-old Corwin “[vital]Myth” Cole is the latest poker professional to open up his mind and poker secrets at CardRunners.com. The former video gamer has experienced heavy successes at the tables and has always had his heart in teaching. With numerous successful students under his belt, we can’t wait to see his mind in action through CardRunners instructional videos. His fi rst instructional series, “Exploitability versus Exploitation,” was hailed as one of the fi nest learning tools on all of CardRunners.
BLUFF: How did you get your start in the poker world? Rumor has it you were an avid video gamer?
CORWIN: Like some other well-known players, such as Rekrul, PoorUser, ElkY, RaiNKhAN, and Empire2000, I was a StarCraft: Brood War player for a few years. I became acquainted with online poker through my best friend Sean (Day[9]), who had begun playing and taught me how it worked. After picking up some books and learning what the skill in poker actually was, I was hooked.
BLUFF: A number of your close friends have said your mind was born to think poker. Who do you discuss hands with and how does this process help you progress as a player?
CORWIN: I discuss hands with my coach (whom I won’t name) whenever I can, and with Rekrul, PoorUser, Eric Liu, my current and former students, and some others quite frequently. Talking over strategies about specifi c hands and about more general overall styles is helpful because it exercises the proper form of thinking about poker. In the end, the only correct way to think about the game is to weigh every possibility, of which there are thousands or millions, and try to create the most profi table outcome.
BLUFF: What are some of the toughest lessons you’ve learned as a poker player?
CORWIN: The toughest lesson I have learned is that I’m not very good, and that’s alright. Like many competitive people, I want to fi nd some way to call myself one of the best – but that’s a bad habit in poker. It makes you try to win every pot, or refuse to accept that somebody else has an advantage on you, or refuse to cut short a session that is going badly. But to accept that you aren’t the best, and not to feel down on yourself for it, is to embrace poker for what it’s really about: money over ego.
A few other particularly hard-learned lessons for me have been: that what people SHOULD do is not what they ACTUALLY do, and that every possible way of playing a hand can have merit in the right circumstances, so just because somebody seems like a bad player doesn’t mean he is incapable of putting the hurt on me.
BLUFF: What attracted you to CardRunners? Have you always enjoyed teaching?
CORWIN: I came to CardRunners because I love to teach, and, to be honest, I like the notoriety and minor slice of fame that it brings. More than I was “born to think poker,” I was born to deliver information in a comprehensible manner. My ability to explain diffi - cult concepts in a clear and simple way is my greatest strength, hands down.
