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Mark “Newhouse” Newhizzle has recently called out Dustin “Neverwin” Woolf as a “scumbag” and a liar who owes him $110,000. Newhouse, according to his blog, gave Woolf a series of $10,000 loans and lost money by taking pieces of Woolf’s action at high stakes online Limit Hold’em. He also claims that Woolf has hidden money in various online accounts to avoid letting his creditors know he has it; that he conspired to change the password on one of Newhouse’s online accounts; and that he threatened to refuse to pay the debt because Newhouse was too aggressive collecting it. These aggressive collection attempts added some drama to the World Series, as Newhouse went to the rail near Woolf’s tables, heckled him, and reportedly kicked a chip rack at Woolf’s chair. Newhouse also claims that “sick animal” Woolf is abusing drugs to the detriment of his poker.
High stakes pro Tom “durrr” Dwan recently lost a $55,000 prop bet to his housemate “Raptor.” Raptor had bet that Dwan couldn’t beat a Grandmaster chess player even if he were spotted a rook; Dwan eventually played a three-game series against an international master (and sit-n-go expert) who is known online as “Curtains.” Dwan lost decidedly. The big bet arose after Dwan lost $5,000 playing Curtains up a knight. By all accounts Dwan is a very weak chess player, but he thought that the rook would be too much for his opponent to overcome. Curtains has stated, however, that he would beat Dwan “100% of the time” in the bet, and most observers who are knowledgeable both in gambling and chess estimate that Dwan would have to increase his chess strength by hundreds of rating points to stand a chance.
A group of young professionals from Minnesota, including CardRunners pro Mike “Schneids” Schneider, is preparing to send one of their best to play John Esposito in a $100,000 Limit Hold’em freezeout. Esposito allegedly challenged the group late one night at the bar outside the Bellagio poker room, and after it was claimed that he backed out he dispatched David Sklansky to renew the challenge. Esposito has over a million dollars in career tournament winnings and has long populated high stakes cash games, but many in Schneids’ crew have consistently beaten tough high stakes live and online games for years, and they are enthusiastic about the challenge.
CardRunners instructor Brian Townsend has continued to supplement his online winnings in Bobby’s Room, where throughout the World Series he has beaten the $500-$1000, $1000-$2000, and $1000- $2000-$4000 No Limit Hold’em / Pot Limit Omaha mixed games. By all accounts Townsend is up seven figures against some of the best big-bet players in the world. Bobby Baldwin, the president of the Bellagio, has also impressed his opponents in the big game. His responsibilities as a casino executive have prevented him from focusing on poker for the past decade, but this former Main Event champion has inspired not only respect but fear in his opponents.
PokerStars has added a $10,000 Heads-Up tournament to its weekly schedule. The first week it drew 16 runners and was won by “stevesbets,” one of the winningest players in the high stakes Heads-Up sit-n-gos. Many of the participants seem willing to play the tournament regularly, and the community is speculating that the tournament might expand to 32 or 64.
After Cole “CTS” South booked a $50,000 win against “Bawankawonk” at 300- 600 No Limit Hold’em, it was widely rumored that Bawankawonk was Dmitri Nobles, famous for running up a huge stack in last year’s Main Event before busting 76th. This rumor, however, was later debunked by (among others) Cole himself, and according to new rumors, Bawankawonk is highstakes Norwegian pro Johnny Lodden.
Phil Hellmuth was filming a promotional video for UltimateBet in the RIO parking lot when he crashed the “race car” he was driving into a lamppost. Hellmuth was unhurt and maintained the racing persona as he showed up for the Main Event in driving garb, surrounded by eleven women who represented his eleven World Series bracelets.
Professional gambler and “Cash Poker” veteran Adam Richardson has won a five-figure prop bet with Daniel Negreanu. Richardson bet $50,000 at 5:1 that Negreanu would not win a bracelet in 2007, and despite Negreanu’s making two final tables (in a Hold’em shootout and a 7-card Stud event), Richardson locked up the money when Negreanu busted from the Main Event. Richardson is known for his prop betting and Negreanu surely remains confident, so we’ll see if they renew the bet in 2008.
“Yukon” Brad Booth, a regular in high stakes games both at the Bellagio and on Full Tilt, has lost heavily recently. He claims the losses were worst in online Omaha games. Whether Booth is broke, whether he plays on a stake, and the extent of the losses all remain topics of heavy speculation.
A group of young online professionals threw a legendary party at the Palms for the 20th birthday of CardRunners pro “Mr. Menlo.” Ringleader “good2cu” won a bet with “traheho” that the total cost of the room would be over $16,500; it was in fact over $20,000. Among the expenses were $2,000 of alcohol, many drugs, and “one of everything” from room service. Cole “CTS” South also topped off a $100,000 loss at blackjack by buying a $20,000 watch the next morning.
According to highstakesdb.com, here are June’s ten biggest winners in the high stakes No Limit Hold’em games on Full Tilt Poker:
Winners Results
1 . pr1nnyraid $1,268,000
2. mjorgenson13 $444,000
3. LarsLuzak $417,000
4. tkdcrew $296,000
5. whitelime $276,000
6. ZRC $258,000
7. Till_I_Collapse $250,000
8. John Juanda $176,000
9. perkyshmerky $165,000
10. Stinko_Mikko $157,000
>>>> Pr1nnyraid – known online as Krantz – led everyone with a million-dollar month. LarsLuzak, a relative newcomer to the highest stakes, parlayed a big win multitabling $300/600 against OMGClayAiken into a huge month. Emil “whitelime” Patel added a top-ten finish in the $5,000 six-max event at the World Series to his big wins online, and Till_I_Collapse continued his rush; he’s up almost $900,000 since March. John Juanda, the only Full Tilt pro in the top ten, made his $176,000 in only 18 hours of play.
The month’s big losers included Ellipses, who was responsible for one of pr1nnyraid’s big scores, and traheho, who despite recent losses is one of the year’s biggest winners.
TIPS FROM THE PROS
>>>> Every poker player aspires to be the best he can, but not many understand that at every level of poker, very little separates break-even players from winners. Even fewer know how much of the great players’ edges is personal management.
Personal management covers everything from game selection to tilt control to bankroll management. It’s not about poker strategy but about the way you control your poker career. Start by examining your game selection: You usually make far more money choosing a good game than with any single in-game decision. If you’re a midstakes player, the best place to start is tables with high “VP$IP” statistics. The higher this statistic, the looser the players and the better the game.
Do everything you can to keep yourself from tilting. Tilting has devastated many winning sessions, bankrolls, and careers. Don’t just tell yourself not to tilt; have a predetermined activity that you do instead of poker. Buy an Xbox, join a gym, or find a favorite computer game. Anything that gets you away from poker will do the trick and save you lots of money.
Poker players are better at talking about bankroll management than practicing it; make yourself an exception. You should have at least 20 buy-ins for the level you play. If you’re playing heads up, your minimum bankroll should increase by at least 50% because the swings are likely to be so much bigger. You should also consider implementing a stop-loss. Five buy-ins in a day is a standard figure: If you lose that much, it’s probably best to quit. Even if you’re not tilting, conditions can easily be bad for you. Your opponents might be playing unusually well; you might be misjudging them; and your table image might be such that people are playing more correctly than usual against you. Whatever the reason, it’s probably not a good game for you. Personal management aspects of poker can seem boring and unimportant, but you can’t avoid them. They determine whether your profitable situations are marginal or significant, and whether you will avoid catastrophes. I estimate that strong personal management has increased my win-rate by 1 to 1.5 BB/100, and I attribute much of my success in poker to it. I hope you’ll take t he time to give the broader aspects of your poker career the attention t hey deserve. — Taylor Caby (Green Plastic)
MEMBER IN THE SPOTLIGHT: Michael Graves
The 2007 World Series has seen poker’s youth continue to succeed at the game’s highest levels. The first days of the Series saw 21-year-old Steve Bilirakis win Event 1, and in the final weeks, 23- year-old Michael Graves won the second No Limit Hold’em rebuy event for $742,000. We caught up with Michael, an online cash game grinder who shared his thoughts on developing his game and advancing his career.
CardRunners: What allowed you to win the bracelet in the rebuy tournament?
Michael Graves: I ran very well throughout the tournament, and I played well also. The hidden luck element was huge; I never really ran into a huge hand when I had a good one, and every time I got it all in my opponent seemed to have a hand that made it a coin flip.
CR: How did you handle the rebuy phase?
MG: I came with $10,000, knowing that I would spend at least $4,000 and planning to play based on the table. My first table was tight and nitty, so I just played solid poker. The second table, where I spent the last 30 minutes of the rebuy period, was utterly insane. The second-place finisher in the $5,000 six-max event [Alex Bolotin] was there, as were Jeff Madsen and David Singer. There were lots of shoves pre-flop, so I just waited for spots to take a stab, and I was given one on the very last hand. [Bolotin] pushed blind under the gun, a player who had been calling him loosely called, and I woke up to K-Q in late position. They had Q-7 and K-9, and I tripled up to 14,000.
CR: Did you have all of your action in this tournament?
MG: No, I didn’t. I was being staked.
CR: How was it to play on a stake?
MG: It was a great opportunity. The fields in live tournaments are very, very soft. A winning $1-$2 No Limit player online with any sense of tournament theory would utterly dominate nearly all of them. Staking allows players like that to enter these kinds of tournaments at a fraction, or even none, of the cost.
CR: So where do you plan to take your career from here?
MG: I mostly play cash games now, but I’ve always had a soft spot for tournaments. I built my first bankroll in the old PartyPoker sit-n-gos. I’ll likely play some multi-table tournaments from here on out, but my main games will still be cash games.
CR: What’s your regular game?
MG: It was $5/10 No Limit before the 2006 legislation, but when that passed I withdrew nearly everything and started 12-tabling $1/2 No Limit. The money was still great and it paid for most of my trip and Main Event buy-in. Now I’ll probably be moving back to $5/10.
CR: Why did you join CardRunners?
MG: I wanted to make the switch from sit-n-gos to cash games, and I had some experience but not a great amount. I felt that CardRunners had a lot that simply could not be found elsewhere.
CR: What have you learned?
MG: The advice is great, but the deeper elements you learn are particularly useful. I saw the videos’ creators deal with many situations that could have put me on tilt. I saw how when their opponents three-bet them excessively or checkraised them, they just analyzed the situation thoroughly instead of getting emotional. That is one of the most impressive skills I’ve seen, and observing it has allowed me to detach myself emotionally from the game.
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