Card Runners
Jonas “Nebuchad” Danielsson, who was criticized for some comments about Hitler during an awards ceremony last year, recently put a new twist on poker site sponsorship. After he was eliminated from the Ladbrokes Poker Million, he dropped his pants to reveal a Ladbrokes tattoo on his backside. He said that he had “upped the ante” for players with site affi liations.
Ilari “Ziigmund” Sahamies recently provided some memorable chat when Brian Hastings asked him if he wanted to join another table on Full Tilt Poker. Ziigmund said he didn’t want to, because he had lost $1.7 million that morning because he had a “hangover and didn’t care.” Sahamies’ net loss that fi rst week of December was roughly $800,000.
A story about the AbsolutePoker and UltimateBet “superuser” scandal recently appeared on 60 Minutes hosted by Steve Kroft. Interviewed players included Serge “Adanthar” Ravitch, Michael Josem, David Paredes, and Todd Witteles. The story focused on the Kahnawake Gaming Commission and the security of online poker. Articles appeared in the Washington Post on the day of the 60 Minutes airing detailing the history of online poker and its related legislation.
It is rumored that there will be no rebuy events in the 2009 World Series of Poker. Players have complained that the tournaments give too great an advantage to players who are willing to play wildly and rebuy frequently during the fi rst phase of play. Daniel Negreanu and Mike Sexton are among the professionals who have spoken out in favor of replacing the tournaments with non-rebuy events.
The producers of High Stakes Poker have released the lineup for the show’s fi fth season, which will feature a $200,000 minimum buy-in. Doyle Brunson, Phil Hellmuth, Phil Ivey, David Benyamine, Tom “durrrr” Dwan, and Peter Eastgate will be among the players. The show will be fi lmed at the Golden Nugget.
PokerStars’s Latin American Poker Tour took a hit in December, as the tournament at Nuevo Vallarta had to be cancelled late on the fi rst day. It was shut down by local offi cials for reasons that remain obscure, while 89 players still remained. PokerStars has distributed the prize pool among the affected players and will host an online freeroll for them that will lead to a fi nal table at Vina del Mar.
Early last month, Phil “OMGClayAiken” Galfond went on a remarkable heater at a $500/$1000 NLHE table on Full Tilt Poker. He managed to run his stack up to an unprecedented $1.5 million. While doing so, he won a $492,000 pot against “Boosted J” when he made a straight fl ush with his pocket jacks.
HASEEB “INTERNET POKERS” QURESHI
Haseeb “INTERNET POKERS” Qureshi is the latest high stakes phenom to join the impressive stable of CardRunners video instructors. Though only 19 years old, Haseeb – a senior at the University of Texas at Austin – is acing his poker midterms with huge scores in a variety of high stakes games. We sat down with Haseeb to discuss life as a teenage poker prodigy.
BLUFF: Tell us how you got your start in poker. What sort of deposit did you make and what stakes did you start at?
Haseeb: Well, I fi rst learned about online poker when I was sixteen. I had read online that some college kids were playing poker on the internet and making absurd amounts of money. Although when I fi rst started I had barely played ten minutes of Texas Hold’em in my life, I decided that I wanted to try my hand at this game, try to master a new craft, and maybe make a little cash on the side. I eventually found a PartyPoker $50 no deposit bonus that they were offering to new users. After running it up to $200 not really knowing what I was doing, I decided to move the money onto PokerStars and start “grinding.” I started with twenty buy-ins at 5¢/10¢ full ring (eventually moving to 5¢/10¢ 6-max), and from there never looked back. To this day I have never deposited a cent.
BLUFF: How quickly did you begin winning? Did you naturally have a knack for the game or was there an “Aha” moment?
Haseeb: Well, back when I started I didn’t have access to any really good poker resources. Although I was winning when I started, since back then the micro stakes were easier than they are now. I remember looking up in PokerTracker several months later that over the fi rst two months of my poker career, I was averaging $1.75 an hour playing poker. I slowly managed to crawl my way up through stakes, but fi nding CardRunners was really the moment when I jumpstarted my brain – having unrestricted access to correct poker knowledge made it much easier for me to reformulate my game and bypass a lot of trial and error in fi guring out correct strategies. Since then I’ve had various small “aha” moments, as I think is true of most very good players, and if you imagine a graph of my skill over time, each of those “aha” moments would predict a sudden jump in skill.
BLUFF: How did wealth at such a young age impact your outlook on life?
Haseeb: Well, that’s a tough question, and it’s something I’m still trying to work out on my own. Some young poker players are able to fall into the idea of being rich very easily, but for me it’s hard to understand what exactly I’m supposed to do with myself or how to direct my life when in a way, most of my academic/intellectual pursuits have been rendered obsolete. I haven’t been in the possession of money for too long, so I can’t say I’m good at spending it other than putting it away or purchasing real estate or fi nancial instruments, but being desensitized to money is one of the unfortunate side effects of having achieved success at poker at my age, without having had a job or any fi nancial burden when thrown into adulthood.
My mother works at a senior center in Austin, so I occasionally donate money to elderly people in need. But easing my own conscience only takes me so far. I’m still in the process of fi guring out what I want to do with my life and how money relates to any goals I set for myself.
BLUFF: Tell us about your background in mathematics. Has this knowledge benefi tted you on the virtual felt?
Haseeb: Well, when I was fi fteen I entered the Texas Academy of Math and Science, an accelerated program that essentially takes juniors straight out of high school and lets them take two years of college early. As such, I took a lot of advanced math classes at a pretty young age and I’d say it was one of my strong points, but in reality, stuff like differential equations and multivariable calculus is pretty damn useless at a poker table. Memorizing standard equity situations and getting a feel for various frequencies is something that’s more a test of memory, not math skills, and the more you play, the more it seeps into your intuition. People can absorb and understand poker in a lot of ways, and although mathematical grounding certainly helps, by no means is it essential.
BLUFF: What types of videos do you plan to make for CardRunners?
Haseeb: I mostly plan to make mid to high stakes heads-up No Limit videos, as well as some 6-max videos and possibly some heads-up PLO as well. I intend to teach with a healthy mixture of theory and application, which I believe is generally the best way to effectively implant students with necessary concepts allowing them to adapt their own games. I think my ability to understand any hand in relation to the entirety of my game and how it relates to my opponent’s strategy and my other supporting strategies is what allows me to make decisions very well, and I intend to pass on that ability to all of my students, including those who I teach through videos.
