Yorky Pud

Back in March we brought you the news that Jose Macedo had come forward and revealed that he was the so-called “Portuguese Poker Prodigy” that a Two Plus Two forum member was trying to track down. His story was amazing, some say too good to be true, where he ran a $30 deposit up to more than $1,624,000 profit in around a year or two of playing. The story of his rise can be found here.

The following month Macedo, going by the name of “Girah”, signed a sponsorship deal with Lock Poker on the Merge Network, a site endorsed by a number of top professional players including Eric “Rizen” Lynch. He also agreed to produce videos for Poker Strategy.com and his latest video was very well received. However, in May, just one month after signing a deal with Lock Poker, he was disqualified from what was essentially a rake race after he admitted to allowing a backer of his to play on his account, that backer being Haseeb “INTERNETPOKERS” Quershi, a CardRunners instructor.

Amazingly this was almost completely swept under the carpet and did not receive as much attention as one would have expected but it has now been revealed that Macedo has been involved in another scandal, one that has seen him stripped of his Lock Poker sponsorship, his deal with Poker Strategy.com and has also resulted in Quershi losing his role as a CardRunners instructor!

According to a Two Plus Two member “MossBoss” he and a few other players were part of a private strategy group that had been set up and Machedo apparently pushed MossBoss and others into playing someone called “sauron1989” on the iPoker Network, who Machedo had assured was a complete fish. However, sauron1989 went on to win more than $30,000 from players referred by Machedo and the players who lost said they had reasons to be suspicious so began to look for patterns and evidence of wrong doing and said they found a direct link between Macedo and suaron1989. MossBoss posted his story on Two Plus Two and within moments Macedo had cut and pasted his latest blog entry into the thread and it can be read in full below:

I'm going to be taking a break for a while. There is no right or wrong way to say any of this, so I'm just going to say what happened.

A while ago, I did something stupid. A friend of mine, who I introduced to poker, made a suggestion to me which was, I'm not going to sugar coat it, cheating. I had introduced this friend to poker and he was losing money, badly. He asked to play some of my poker friends and said why don't you sweat them and we'll see their hands. I don't know why I agreed. I don't know why I did it. I guess it was a mixture of guilt and stupidity and feeling ****ty for getting him involved in something which seemed to be bad for him.

This went on for a short while but I felt so bad, I had to say something. I confessed. I told the guys involved what I had done, I told my friends and the people who I respect and who respected me.

I told my Mum, confessed everything to her. I could see the disappointment moving across her face as she told me she was not proud of me despite all my success in poker; she was not proud of her son. She said how she hadn't raised me this way and what had poker done to me. Thats when it hit me, how badly I had let people down. I felt ashamed, I had no explanation; explanations don't cut it in situations like this and often come across as excuses.

There is a quote on the wall in my school which I always see as I pass the nurse's office. It says that the real mistake is not tripping up, but staying down. I thought of that and that's why I'm writing this.

I'm holding my hands up and taking whatever consequences come. I realise the severity of this, but I also realise that I have to take responsibility for my actions and so I'm paying back everyone involved and in addition paying them compensation of $30,000. I've also told my sponsor etc and whatever happens there I will take the consequences too. They have been really amazing to me and I've enjoyed every minute of working with them. Representing Lock and being part of their amazing team, witnessing the incredible growth, was a pleasure and an honor.

I'm young, I made a mistake and I hope that this doesn't define me; I hope that how I deal with this and move forward is the thing that does. And people will say I have no excuse and I know and understand that. I agree. I just want to let everyone know, I'm sorry. I apologise to the guys who lost their money, the people who I love and care about and I have disappointed and the guys in the poker world who have supported me for letting them down. I wish Ish I had something to say to you all, to say to my parents and my friends and all of those who thought I could do no wrong.

Again I'm really sorry.

A number of big-name players have since spoken out about Macedo including Sauce124, LuckyChewy and Daniel “jungleman12” Cates, the latter having always previously supported, coached and financially backed the young Portuguese phenom. Cates has yet to make an official statement but he did post in the thread, part of which has Cates admitting he had “made a mistake in trusting him” and that he had to “now question our relationship as a whole.”

It has also come to light that Quershi has now been stripped of his role as a CrdRunners instructor. A statement on the CardRunners site reads:

Effective immediately, CardRunners has decided to part ways with Haseeb Qureshi. While Haseeb is a talented instructor, he has shown poor judgement in using a stakee's poker account for his own play. We've informed Haseeb of this decision and it is final.

CardRunners

For more information visit Haseeb Qureshi's blog.

In Quershi's blog he goes through, in great detail, the rise and fall of Macedo and it does make very interesting reading indeed and I would suggest you read all sides of the story before casting your judgement. Please feel free to discuss on this scandalous story by leaving a comment in this article.

Switzerland may be better known for producing watches than poker players but that could be all set to change after Ronny Kaiser took down the EPT Tallinn Main Event over the weekend, the first-ever Swiss EPT Champion.

Kaiser, 21-years old and from the Swiss capital city Bern, has been playing poker for three years and professionally for most of that time. He started off playing Pot Limit Omaha cash games online and is now a regular in the largest live PLO cash games in Switzerland, Germany and Austria, often playing in game with blinds as high as €100/€200, and after this result will probably become a regular in future EPT Main Events.

Final table seat draw

Seat 1: Grzegorz Cichocki: 2,059,000 chips
Seat 2: Raigo Aasmaa: 904,000
Seat 3: Jani Sointula: 769,000
Seat 4: Stuart Fox: 514,000
Seat 5: Arvi Vainionkulma: 258,000
Seat 6: Sami Kelopuro: 1,325,000
Seat 7: Erlend Melsom: 326,000
Seat 8: Ronny Kaiser: 2,394,000

It took less than 30 minutes for the first player to be eliminated and it was the short-stacked Arvi Vainionkulma who was the unfortunate player. With blinds starting at 10,000/20,000/3,000a Vainionkulma was in desperate need of a double up but it simply never came. Kaiser had min-raised to 40,000 from early position and when the action folded to Vainionkulma in the big blind he moved all in for 220,000 with AsKh. Kaiser called with pocket fours and the final board ran out 2s-7c-5d-6d-Qd Vainionkulma busted out.

Shortly afterwards Sami Kelopuro, better-known as “LarsLuzak” online, followed Vainionkulma to the sidelines. Once again it was that man Kaiser who started the better off with a raise to 40,000 from early position and Kelopuro made the call from the big blind. The flop came down 3h-2h-9s and Kelopuro check-called Kaiser's 45,000 continuation bet. The turn was the 5s and Kelopuro check-called again, this time a bet of 120,000. The river was the 8s and for the third time Kelopuro checked, Kaiser bet 225,000 only to see Kelopuro move all in for 830,000 in total. Kaiser made the call and showed As4c for the straight, much better than the ace-high made with AdKs.

Next out of the door was Erlen Melsom, known as “Sir_Winalot9” in online poker circles. The players had only just returned from a scheduled 15-minute break when Melsom opened to 50,000 from under the gun. Everyone folded to Jani Sointula in the big blind and after counting his opponents chips he moved all in. Melsom snap-called and showed AsKc, which was dominating the AdQs of Sointula. It looked as if Melsom was going to double up because by the turn the board read 7h-5c-8d-8h but the river was the Qd and with that Melsom's hopes of becoming an EPT champion were dashed.

Melsom's demise was a fantastic result for Britain's Stuart Fox, as it netted him an extra €10,000 for doing no work at all. Just before the break Fox has been all in against Sointula, the latter's kings holding up against Fox's ace-queen to leave Fox with just 50,000 chips and on the brink of elimination. He was eliminated almost immediately after Melsom had busted out and he called off his last 41,000 chips when Kaiser had opened to 50,000. Sointula also called and it was three-handed to the Kc-8s-2c flop. Both Sointula and Kaiser checked the flop but when the Kh landed on the turn Kaiser bet 30,000 and Sointula folded. Kaiser turned over KdTs which meant the 8d6d of Fox was drawing dead. The meaningless Ac fell on the river and with the tournament was down to just four surviving players.

Four became three as Finland's Sointula felt the wrath of Kaiser, the former raising to 60,000 and then shoving for 900,000 when Kaiser three-bet to 145,000. Kaiser held a pair of sevens, whilst Sointula was holding an un-suited Big Slick. The dealer put out the five community cards, 9s-8s-6d-4s-8h, which failed to improve Sointula and the big man was sent to the rail to collect €80,000.

The surviving three players were all guaranteed scores of at least six-figures and the first to pick his up was local player,  Raigo Aasmaa. He had played very tightly throughout the final table, partly handcuffed by those around him and was quite unfortunate that the first real hand he was involved in was also his last. Grzegorz Cichocki opened to 65,000 from the cutoff and Aasmaa moved all in from the big blind. The Pole snap-called and showed AhAd, which was well in front of the KhTh of the Estonian. The aces held as the final board ran out 5d-Qd-9d-7d-4s and the 282 players who entered the €4,250 Main Event had been whittled down to just the final two players.

Going into heads-up Kaiser held a 4,912,000 to 3,537,000 chip lead over Cichocki and it was a lead that he would never relinquish. The combination of playing well and running well is usually a deadly duo, and when this happens in a one-on-one scenario the match is not going to generally last very long. This is exactly what happened, Kaiser demolished Cichocki in less than half hour, the final hand saw a visibly frustrating Cichocki raise to 60,000 from the button, Kaiser made it 165,000 to play and then called as his opponent moved all in for just under 1,000,000 chips. Kaiser showed Ac9s and Cichocki 8d6d. The 5d-Ks-Ah flop extended Kaiser's lead and the Ts on the turn locked up the hand. The 9d fell on the turn, eliminating Cichocki and awarding the title to Kaiser.

The next stop on the EPT calender is on August 27 when EPT Barcelona gets underway. Kaiser will be there, looking to become the first-ever double winner of an EPT Main Event. Can he do it? Only time will tell.

Final table payouts

1st: Ronny Kaiser: €275,000
2nd: Grzegorz Cichocki: €180,000
3rd: Raigo Aasmaa: €110,000
4th: Jani Sointula: €80,000
5th: Stuart Fox: €55,000
6th: Erlend Melsom: €45,000
7th: Sami Kelopuro: €35,000
8th: Arvi Vainionkulma: €25,000

Today is the final fable of the EPT Tallinn Main Event and it could be one of the best final tables in EPT history. It really is a shame that there are no camera crews filming it because there are some very good players in the final eight including Ronny Kaiser, Jani Sointula, Samil “LarsLuzak” Kelopuro and Erlend “Sir_Winalot9” Melsom. At least I get to watch it!

Unfortunately this looks like it could be my EPT job for a while, which is a shame but I always saw it as a bonus anyway. All the freelance writers / bloggers received an email saying the ramifications of Black Friday have been hard hitting and that PokerNews will be trying to utilise their on-staff writers as bloggers for as many events as they can do. It is a shame but business is business at the end of the day and if budgets have been slashed then there is nothing we can do about it. In more positive news, my work at WPT Slovenia seemed to go down well and it looks like I will be covering The WPT Grand Prix de Paris at the start of September so maybe something will come of that that is more long term. Fingers crossed.

Watching the Main Event unfold and talking to those playing in it and the side events really gave me the urge to play in some online tournaments so I did just that on Friday night once I had finished in the casino. I only played five and didn't exactly set the world alight but I did finish 27/224 in the Betfair Poker $5,000 GTD to make it to the money. I actually played pretty good in this and was unfortunate to three-bet shove ace-jack into a loose player who made the call with ace-queen and that was the end of my tournament. It seemed like a good spot to get my money in and in the cold light of day it still looked +EV so I guess it was fine. I'll probably play some more MTTs once I am back on home soil and maybe even some tonight once the final table is completed.

I've also dabbled with some full ring cash games because I want to play more live poker in the coming months and nearly all live poker is played at a full table. I played 14,000 hands of short-handed cash games last month and won 17 buy-ins so I am pretty happy with the way my game is at the moment, just a few tweaks needed here and there and I should be able to start moving upwards again.

All this talk of rings has made me remember that I decided to pop the question to Mrs P whilst I was over here and she accepted. I guess it's been on the cards for a while, as we have been together for like four years and have out babies together and it seemed the right time to take things to the next stage. Let's see how it goes eh?

I'll stick a report of the final table up for you guys on Monday morning but if you can't wait until then you could always follow Lee Davy, Marc Convey and myself over at the PokerNews Live Reporting page and read about the action as it unfolds. Until next time, thanks for reading and best of luck at the tables.

One hundred and ninety players entered the Olympic Casino inside the luxurious Swissotel in the centre of Tallinn, Estonia and exchanged €4,250 for 30,000 tournament chips. By the end of seven one-hour long levels 60 of them had busted out and the 130 survivors from Day 1b of EPT Tallinn were being lead by the phonetically sounding Oscar Lima of Spain.

The 23-year old from Zaragoza is playing in his first-ever EPT event and revealed that the only reason he chose this particular event was the fact it was the first stop on the calendar for this season. His decision has paid off so far as he not only ended Day 1b as the chip leader but leads the Main Event overall with 132,000 chips. Although Lima has no major live cashes to speak of due to him being a predominately online poker player, he does regularly play some of the higher buy-in multitable tournaments on a weekly basis.

Somebody else who had a great Day 1b was Jani Sointula who finished with a stack of 123,950 enough to put him in second place going into Day 3. Sointula is a very talented poker player and one who has accumulated close to $1,800,000 in live tournament winnings but he has not won a major tournament since he took down the Monte Carlo Millions back in 2004. Although there is still a long way to go in this event this could be the Finns best chance to rectify that as there are only 198 players remaining and he is well chipped up with more than three times the average stack.

But if he is to progress through to Day 3 and onwards he is going to have to overcome a very tough table today as he has drawn Table 12, which will be officially known as the Table of Doom. Sointula will be kept company by Britain's Mathew Frankland, fellow Finn Ville Wahlbeck, double WSOP bracelet winner Praz Bansi and John van Til, though the latter only has eight big blinds so could be off that table early doors.

Play resumes at 1200 noon local time (two hours in front of the UK) and the plan is to play at least five 75-minute levels with the possibility of a sixth depending on how frequent the eliminations are. They will not reach the money places today as only the top 40 finishers will receive payouts of between €6,500 and €275,000. Join us tomorrow to find out who is one step closer to EPT glory and who will have to wait until the upcoming EPT Barcelona to get their hands on that coveted trophy and prestigious title.

With the World Series of Poker effectively over until November, the eyes of the poker world have turned to Estonia for their fix of first class tournament poker. The European Poker Tour is currently in the Estonian capital city of Tallinn for the first stop of their eighth season and Day 1a has been completed.

A total of 92 players passed through the doors of the luxurious Swissotel in the heart of the 2011 European City of Culture and exchanged €4,250 for 30,000 tournament chips, one of the best blind structures in the game and the chance to become an EPT Champion. Amongst them were five former EPT Main Event winners, Arnaud Mattern, David Vamplew, Kent Lunmark, Roberto Romanello and Rupert Elder. All five players survived the day and will return on Thursday for the official Day 2.

The chip leader after seven levels of play had been finished was Russian Maksim Kolosov who managed to turn his 30,000 starting stack into a more than impressive 102,725. What makes Kolosov's performance even more impressive is the fact he had to share a table with some of Europe's best players. At one point Table 1 was the home to the aforementioned Lundmark and Romanello, but also Kevin Vandersmissen (runner up at EPT Snowfest), current EPT Player of the Year Fernando Brito and British pro Mathew Frankland. Being surrounded by these talented individuals did not seem to phase the young Russian and he will certainly be one to watch as the tournament progresses.

Day 1b begins at 1200 noon local time on Tuesday and the tournament staff and media are preparing themselves for a very busy day as around 200 players are expected to participate. Already confirmed to play are Sebastian Ruthernberg and JP Kelly, both of whom had very deep runs at this year's WSOP Main Event, Ruthenberg finishing in 55th place and Kelly 26th. Also due to take part are EPT regulars Juha Helppi and John O'Shea along with John Eames and Annette Obrestad.

Stay tuned to find out which players make it through to join the 68 survivors from Day 1a and feel free to follow all of the action as it happens via the PokerNews Live Reporting team.

I am writing this blog from the 22nd floor of the luxurious Swissotel in the heart of Tallinn, Estonia, which is by all account the 2011 European City of Culture. Not exactly the place you would find Yorkshire Pudding but I am here reporting for PokerNews on the Tallinn stop of the European Poker Tour.

My journey into Tallinn was pretty non-eventful, which compared to my recent trip to Slovenia was welcomed indeed. I flew from Manchester to Copenhagen and from the Danish capital to Tallinn in Estonia. At Tallinn airport I met up with fellow blogger Lee Davy and he was with two poker players, Jeremy Nock and a certain Martin Jacobson, the latter won an award last year for being the best online qualifier for the EPTs after he came second in Deauville and then fourth in Berlin. We had to hand around for a while as both Jeremy's and Martin's bags didn't make it through to Estonia but you could tell they travel a lot because they didn't give a monkeys, they just filled in a form and we jumped in a taxi. I'd be having a bitch fit and running around like a headless chicken!

Anyway, we got to the hotel and it is, as the cool kids say, pretty sick! My room is amazing, I'd have been happy with it if it was only the size of my bathroom. The bathroom looks the mutt's nuts and the bath probably holds a couple of hundred gallons! If I had any complaint it would be the sink is a sod to empty just because of it's design and this morning the shower leaked onto the bathroom floor, but I was in there 20 minutes, plus this is just nit-picking. I'm going to have to get rich at some point so I can show the Mrs some of these beautiful places, until then it's Premier Inn darling!

After we had checked into the hotel Lee and I had a couple of drinks in the hotel bar and we were joined by Martin and then two British pros in Dan Carter and Matthew Frankland, the latter having gone really deep in the WSOP Main Event this year. Joe Ebanks, the man who won the $10,000 No Limit Hold'em Six-Handed Championship in Vegas this summer, beating Chris Moorman, also joined us and we headed off into town for some grub. It was a little bit surreal sat eating a steak dinner with a WSOP bracelet winner and some poker hotshots but full credit to them, they never make you feel like an outsider and there is never any bragging about money or anything like that. Martin, Joe and Mathew mainly spoke amongst themselves about poker whilst Lee, Dan and I talked about everything and I was a really enjoyable night. When we got the bill it was something like €230 and they played credit card roulette for it but being the hobo that I am I bought out and they didn't have a problem with that and even used the money I paid as a prize for the second to last card to be chosen!

Yesterday was Day 1a of the Main Event and it attracted 92 runners, which is lower than expected but with the close proximity to the WSOP and the fact that you can't play poker in the States so players won't have been able to enter the online satellites it isn't a bad turn out for a €4,250 event. We are expecting around 200 runners today which will make it much busier but we are also only playing seven levels so we should be done and dusted by around 2030, which is great and means I can catch up with some work that I find difficult to do when the Main Event takes up so much time. I'm really looking forward to today as some of the bigger names will be playing and one of those names is Annette Obrestad, the former Betfair sponsored pro, I've never seen her in person but how she approaches the game is superb and I'm looking forward to seeing her in action.

I've also played a little online poker myself but the less said about that the better at the moment. After running like baby Jesus for 10,000 or so hands I have come crashing back down to Earth with a bump and although I am still up more than 20 buy-ins after 13,700 hands the last 2-3,000 hands have been a LOLfest with villains catching miracle cards and me playing like a donkey. I'll try do a poker related post again this week as I should be moving up if I can log enough volume in the next couple of days.

Until then, thanks for reading and best of luck at the tables!

**late edit** A massive shoutout to my mate and fellow Raise The River member Dave “No Shoes” Garden who won a seat to the Palm Beach Big Game the other month and he has only gone and taken it down! Looks like he chopped it because the Hendon Mob page says he won £30,100 but his Facebook says £22,000 and change. It's great to see “one of my own” having some deserved success at the felt. The field was stacked with pros too like Toby Lewis, Neil Channing, Karl Mahrenholz and James Akenhead!

When Federated Sports and Gaming announced their professional poker league, now known as the Epic Poker League, many were wondering how they would award the different passes to each of the events (see this article for a full explanation). Whilst the formula for doing so is still under wraps we can now see the top 300 players it has ranked via the Global Poker Index.

The Global Poker Index, or GPI, contains a secret formula that takes into account the buy-in of a tournament, the size of the field and the player's finishing position as long as it is in the money. It also gives less credit to past results so that more recent and relevant results are weighted more heavily, but at the same time limits the player to three results in a six month time-frame and a to 18 scores in a 36 month period. For a player to be awarded points their tournament must have a buy-in of at least $1,500, be completely open to the public and start with a field of at least 21 runners.

The player who the system rates as the best live tournament poker player in the world is Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier, who has been awarded 2,450.09 points for his performances over the past three years. His cause was helped by a great summer at the World Series of Poker where he won his first bracelet in the $10,000 Seven card Stud Championship event and finishing third in the $10,000 No Limit Hold'em Six handed Championship. The third result that counts for the last six month is his victory in the €25,000 High Roller event at the EPT Grand Final. ElkY's score is so high due to his career performances, in the past three years he has won no fewer than seven major tournaments and thoroughly deserves his place at the top of the standings.

He is currently been chased by Jason Mercier on 2,434.30 points, this total boosted when Mercier won his second WSOP bracelet in the $5,000 Pot Limit Omaha event. Making up the top ten are Erik Seidel (2,415.23), Eugene Katchalov (2,248.83), Samuel Stein (2,168.85), Fabrice Soluier (2,133.87), Sorel Mizzi (2,118.97), Thomas Marchese (2,035.66), David “Bakes” Baker (2,027.32) and John Juanda (2,013.63).

This latest system looks to have found a way to rank tournament players in a fair manner, much better than listing players in terms of bracelets or money won. It is just a shame the formula has not been released as it could be a fun way to run competitions with friends and family!

Two suspected robbers of a high-stakes home game in Raleigh, North Carolina have been shot, one fatally, on Monday night, according to police reports. Police were called to a house shortly after 2300 and they discovered 28-year old Brandon Dwain Shelton's dead body inside and the injured 23-year old Brian Matthew Onley laying on the lawn nursing a gunshot to one of his arms.

One of the witnesses recalled how two men burst into the property wearing ski masks and hoods and carrying guns in an attempt to rob the players participating in the home game, which had been billed as high-stakes. It is currently unknown who was responsible for the shootings but the fatally wounded Shelton was killed with his own gun, police can reveal.

Caren Freundlich, a neighbour, said she heard as many as five gunshots but she hoped they were actually fireworks. "I always tell my kids that this is a safe neighbourhood," said Freundlich before adding, "It's really unsettling that it would happen right here."

Other neighbours and witnesses told police and reporters that Gregg Maluchnik regularly held well attended home games and that there was never any trouble. Police confirmed that they have never been called to Maluchnik's property previously. Maluchnik was charged with a misdemanour gambling offence.

Police are still interviewing those present at the home game in an attempt to establish what happened and how both robbers were shot. The surviving robber, Onley, has since received treatment for his gunshot wound and when he was released from hospital on Wednesday he was charged by police with 11 counts of armed robbery and two counts of conspiracy to commit armed robbery. He is currently being held in the Wake County jail with a $1,150,000 bond on his head.

The eyes of the online poker world were yesterday focussed on reports coming out of the Victoria Park Plaza Hotel in London where the Alderney Gambling Control Commission (AGCC) were holding their planned hearing with the lawyers and executives of Full Tilt Poker.

The hearing was expected to reveal the reasons behind the decision the AGCC took to suspend Full Tilt Poker's operating licence on June 29, action that saw all of Full Tilt Poker's games to come to a sudden halt and has left all of their customers, not just the American's affected by “Black Friday”, unable to access their accounts in any way, shape or form. However, the hearing was not only very disappointing and limited in the information that was passed through the various reporters who were camped out in the function room of the Victoria Park Plaza Hotel but it turned into a shambles as Full Tilt Poker essentially blackmailed the AGCC into giving them a private hearing away from the prying eyes of the disgruntled public.

The hearing started at 1000 and those present were told to turn off all mobile communications devices so information emanating from the hearing was quite limited but at 12:24 Barry Carter of PokerNews wrote an update on the PokerNews site that said the only new piece of information that had come to light was the fact that Full Tilt Poker actually owe the AGCC fees of around £250,000 and that Full Tilt Poker would happily pay this amount within seven days “if there was still a chance that they could remain licensed by the AGCC.” This alone shows how shady and underhand Full Tilt Poker is, basically telling the AGCC that unless there was a chance of having their licence reinstated that they would walk away whilst owing nearly a quarter of a million pounds, this whilst having their hands on the hundreds of millions of dollars apparently sat in their bank accounts. Disgraceful.

The same update revealed that at 1145 the decision was made to hold the hearing in private, which the case of the missing £250,000 almost certainly helped, which prompted boos and jeers from the crowd. Professional poker player Harry Demetriou was outraged at this decision and became very vocal, “What about the players?” he shouted before adding, “Why are you protecting this corrupt company?” at which point he was escorted out of the building to a small round of applause.

Then at 1800 a spokesman for the AGCC revealed that the hearing had been adjourned and would now take place no later than September 15. The official statement, taken from the AGCC website says the reason for the adjournment says as follows, “As a result of the arguments on behalf of FTP during the pre-hearing application the Commissioners decided to adjourn the hearing as they felt it was in the best interests of FTP’s customers. A key consideration in their decision was to allow FTP licensees ‘to further pursue advanced commercial negotiations which could lead to a more beneficial outcome for player interests”

This last statement has caused confusion to many in the online poker world as they have been lead to believe that Full Tilt Poker have been in talks with various companies and organisations that would see them receive major financial investment that would then allow them to pay back the customers who they have effectively stolen from. If this was the case then why have they not tried to rush through this hearing and why has a new hearing been scheduled for a date more than six weeks away. To me this suggests that Full Tilt Poker were and are nowhere near sorting out their sorry mess and that they have tried to blackmail the AGCC with this £250,000 so that they can get out their and actively seek some financial investment, investment that is needed on a massive scale.

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Almost every poker player worth his or her salt knows that stealing their opponent's blinds and antes can be very profitable, but one area where a lot of players struggle is when they are having to defend their blinds from being attacked.

As much as blind stealing is a profitable business, so is blind defence. In fact a quick check of my last 12,000 hands in my Holdem Manager database show my winrate from defending my own blinds is around a third higher than when I am helping myself to the blinds of my opponents and it would be even higher had I not lost some real cooler hands after defending my small or big blind.

Often the best forms of defence is to attack the stealer and come over the top with a three-bet, though you need to ensure you have plenty of information on the stealer before you consider taking them on. The main reason for this is that if your three-bet is called you are going to be forced to play a bloated pot out of position, which is a far from ideal scenario.

The first piece of information I look at, on my Heads Up Display, is how often villain has been stealing from the cutoff and the button, which may seem obvious but you will be surprised at how many people treat any raise from late position as a steal, remember that people do get legitimate hands in these seats too. If it is on the high side, say 30% or greater, I see them as a prime player to re-steal from with a three-bet. Next I look at their VP$IP and PFR (Voluntarily Put Money Into the Pot and Preflop Raise) to see if they are generally tight or loose and from here you get a good foundation to base your decisions on. Obviously, you would prefer a habitual raiser to be loose-aggressive as they are more likely to be raising a wide range of hands compared to the tight player but this is only half of the story.

As mentioned two paragraphs up, if your three-bet is called you are not in a great spot, that is unless you have a premium hand yourself, so the next statistic to look at is how often villain folds to three-bets. If it is very high, coupled with a high steal percentage, then three-bet them until your heart's content and expect to take the pot down preflop but if it is low to average then you need to start to tighten up your three-betting range otherwise you are going to find yourself in plenty of tricky spots. That said, many players will attempt to steal then call a three-bet only to completely give up when they face a continuation bet, so keep a close eye on this statistic also because it will help you to plan ahead if you are called.

For what hands to three-bet, it is completely down to how comfortable you feel playing out of position and the opponent you are going to three-bet. If they fold most of the time they are three-bet from the blinds then your cards simply do not matter because they will rarely be needed. Three-betting premium hands is a no-brainer but as a general rule I  personally like to use suited connectors and suited one-gap connectors for three-betting the typical villain, mainly because they can flop so well and you are often left with an easy decision post flop.

As with most situations in poker it is important to keep your opponents guessing to your holding. If you only three-bet aces and kings then you will become easy to read, your opponents need to know that a three-bet from you could indeed mean aces or kings but you could also have 7s5s. Build a profile of the players around you and adjust your range based on that player. Happy re-stealing!