Yorky Pud

Hello boys and girls and anything else in between, Yorkshire Pudding here back on home soil in God's own County of Yorkshire, but I won't be here for long. No. On Monday I jet off again, this time to help PokerNews cover the opening tournament of Season 8 of the European Poker, in Tallinn, Estonia.

I only returned home from Portoroz, Slovenia on Friday afternoon and if I had actually realised how close WPT Slovenia and EPT Tallinn were together when I was asked to cover it then I may have reconsidered. That said I am still really looking forward to being there because it will be the first time I have worked with Lee Davy since my very first EPT back in 2010 when we covered Barcelona. I'm not sure who else is blogging with us or indeed who is travelling over in other capacities but I believe Sarah Grant is and she is someone I have virtually met but not yet in person, so again something to look forward to.

Working at WPT Slovenia made me realise how great the vast majority of people are. At the start of my journey to Slovenia I felt very alone, especially when I hit foreign shores and I suppose even more so once I got to the media room. Once here I was basically on my own, not in the sat by myself sense, but seated between some Italian bloggers, some Slovenian bloggers and having to liaise with my Italian photographer and cameraman. The first day is always strange, there is the obvious language barrier issue but then the issue of people not knowing how to approach you, how to take your jokes or mannerisms but as the week goes on everyone comes into their own.

If you spend 12-16 hours a day with a group of people, working along side them, eating with them and socialising with them, then they quickly become good friends. Those last two points are the most important of bonding with those you don't know, in my opinion. When you are dining you all sharing in something that is vital but also something enjoyable and just the very nature of sitting down together to eat means conversation starts to flow. As for socialising, I think you learn much more about a person from spending downtime with them than you would if you just worked with them all day long.

By the end of the week all the media had spent some time dining together and going to the various parties and by the last day I was having a conversation and joking with some Italian bloggers who had very limited English but we had that bond, that understanding of each other because we had been around each other for so long. It really amazes me does the human race, and in a good way. It's just a crying shame you have nutjobs like that clown in Norway who royally bugger it up for the vast majority of us. So that is my first World Poker Tour out of the way and I really enjoyed it, hopefully it won't be the last one I do.

I've kind of waffled on a bit now and gone off on a tangent so I will leave it there! Until next time, enjoy yourself at and away from the tables and interact with your fellow man / woman!

The World Poker Tour has crowned its latest champion and it is Miha Travnik who has had that honour bestowed on him after he outlasted 140 opponents to win WPT Slovenia.

Travnik, 20, was so overwhelmed with taking down the inaugural WPT Slovenia Main Event that he shunned all requests for an interview, refused to pose for photographs from the media and even called his mother to come and pick him, his trophy and the €102,700 up from the Grand Casino Portoroz.

Day 4 started with nine player and after the eliminations of Manuel Blaschke, Patrik Hirvonen and Hugh Cohen the official final table if six was set. The first player to head for the cashier's cage was the high stakes cash game guru known as “luckexpress10” or to give him his full name, Marcello Marigliano. The Italian opened with a raise to 34,000 from the cutoff, Johannes Korsar three-bet from the small blind, Marigliano then four-bet all in and was called by his Swedish opponent. Marigliano's AcTh needed to improve against the JcJh of Korsar but when the board ran out Qc-8h-4d-3c-6c he was eliminated.

Thirty minutes later and Gaetano Fortugno joined his fellow Italian on the sidelines as a spectator instead of a player. Korsar opened the betting on the button and Fortugno wasted no time in moving all in from the small blind. Travnik, seated in the big blind cold-called, which worried Korsar and he folded. The Slovenia had called with AdKc, which was nicely in front of the AhJc of Fortugno. The final board read 9h-Td-Ks-5h-2c and with that the final table was down to four players.

Just five minutes later and the table lost yet another player, this time a young Romanian by the name of Ferdi Ciorabai. He had been short stacked all day long and seemed to be struggling to stay ahead of the rising blinds so must have though all of his Christmases had come at once when he moved all in with ThTc and was called by Vincenzo Natale with just Qc8d. However, if that was the case he was given the worst Christmas present ever as the flop came down Qh-8s-Qc! The turn and river were the 6h and 3h respectively and Ciorabai was eliminated in fourth place.

Third place went to Korsar who looked set to win the entire tournament at one point but Natale had become his nemesis. They clashed several times prior to Korsar's exit hand, the most costly being when Korsar held 6d5h against the Italian's 4d3d on a board reading 4h-4c-2d-Qd-3h and it was Natale who sent the Swede packing. Korsar opened to 50,000 on the button, Natale made it 127,000 to play in the big blind and then called as Korsar moved all in for 600,000. Korsar's 4d4s held a narrow advantage over the KcJc but that was not the case for long as the board ran out 3h-Kd-2c-Qc-9d, to send the tie to heads up.

Natale held a 3,150,000 to 1,204,000 chip lead over local lad Travnik and he extended this to a 10-to-1 lead within the opening few minutes after Travnik seemed happy to let Natale walk all over him. But Travnik then went on a mini heater and first pulled almost level then took the lead when Natale four-bet shoved with 9d8d whilst Travnik held a pair of jacks, which held to give him a huge lead. The Italian staged a small comeback but any hopes of a complete revival were dashed when he moved all in with Kc8d and was called by AcJd. The 7d-Jc5d flop improved Travnik to a pair of jacks and when the turn and river were the 2d and Td respectively, improving him to an unnecessary flush, WPT Slovenia had found it's champion.

The WPT has now packed up and is heading to the legendary Bicycle Casino in Bell Garden, California on August 25 for the WPT Legends of Poker, before it returns to Europe on September 5 for the WPT Grand Prix de Paris.

If you look at the attendances for any major European poker tournament, be it a World Poker Tour or European Poker Tour you will discover a quite telling trend when it comes to tournaments held in France and Italy. The trend is that events held in these two countries are always the best attended and by a large margin.

Is this because France and Italy are beautiful countries and the perfect places to have a break from life? Possibly and I certainly wouldn't not argue with that fact but I can tell you the real reason if you want me to. Yes? It's because the completely suck at poker and when I say suck it is because there are not enough negative non-swear words to describe how the vast majority of them are. They are truly terrible.

I used to think the French were the worst players but after covering WPT Slovenia over the last week I now state that our Italian brothers and the worst poker nation on the planet. Never have I seen so many fundamentally wrong plays made by so many people in such a short period of time, you would honestly think this was a $2 rebuy not a €3,300 World Poker Tour Main Event.

Over the course of the week I have seen on Italian lose 630,000 chips in an hour by calling three-bet shoves with the likes of ace-ten off and betting twice the pot on the river with king-high when it polarised his range so badly it was not even funny. I've also seen players, Italian ones, open-limp the button and then fold with six big blinds, seriously, and then one Italian dude folded ace-king blind versus blind on the bubble despite getting more than three and a half to one. Absolutely terrible I can tell you.

Today is the final table of WPT Slovenia and despite not having anyone to root for after Toby Lewis, Thomas Macdonald and John Eames busted out I am looking forward to it just so I can have a giggle at the play by the majority of the fishes out there! Talking of Eames, his was involved in a hand that was just horrible. The spewy Italian fish mentioned above opened with a raise from MP, a Finnish dude three-bet shoved for 116,000, Eames reshoved for 135,000 and the spewmeister called, with AdQd of all hands, LOLERSKATES! The Finnish dude held AhTh and Eames JcJd. The flop came down Js-6c-5h and Eames was now more than a 95% favourite to win a 400,000+ pot, but the turn was the 3h and the river the 7h and the Finn won with his runner-runner flush. So sick, but he took it well despite never recovering from it.

I've learned a lot from the British players this week, just by listening to them talk amongst each other and when they've answered questions about hands I've seen them play. You can see why players who live together and travel together get better at the game than those of us who don't have that opportunity, I guess I am lucky that I get to rub shoulders with them from time to time.

Well I better disappear now as there is less than 20 minutes to the final table starts and I need to prepare a few things. Before my next entry I am going to start a campaign to let the Italians back into worldwide online poker because if they are allowed we will be all rich! This time next year Rodders.....

This year's World Series of Poker Main Event was the third-largest in WSOP history, with a staggering 6,865 exchanging $10,000 for 30,000 and a dream of winning poker's “Big Dance.” Over the past 12 days these players have been riffling chips, running bluffs and discussing bad beat stories but the dream is well and truly over for 6,856 of them. However, for a select nine men, from different corners of the globe, the dream is most certainly alive as they have made it through to the November Nine.

Day 8 saw 22 players return to their seats at the Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, each of them guaranteed to walk away with at least $302,005 but not one of them would have wanted that money at the start of the day as it would mean they no longer had a shot at becoming World Champion, winning the special edition WSOP bracelet and of course the $8,711,956 first place prize.

Lars Bonding was the first player to hit the rail getting his money in good with pocket aces against the pair of fours of Konstantinos Mamaliadis just 20 minutes after the restart only to see the latter flop a four. After Bonding's demise there was a slow but constant trickle of eliminations until the field had been reduced to just 10 players, at which point they were moved onto an unofficial final table. Here they played 10-handed for almost four and a half hours, nobody wanting to be the tenth place finisher and miss out on all of the hype surrounding the November Nine. But someone had to finish tenth and finish tenth they did.

John Hewitt will go down in the history books as the man who narrowly missed out on November Nine glory and many will say he threw away his chances. He first called Matt Giannetti's all in shove with AdTh and missed, then called another shove with KcQs against Badih Bounahra who held KhKs. He got the rest of his money in, 3,875,000 chips, three-betting all in after Eoghan O'Dea raised to 1,100,000 preflop. O'Dea called and his KsJd was up against Hewitt's pocket threes. The final board ran out Qc-Td-7s-Ah-Kd and with that Hewitt was eliminated in tenth place and the tournament is now on an extended break until November 5.

Leading the way when play resumes is Martin Staszko of the Czech Republic, his 40,175,000 chips making him the chipleader. This is Staszko's fifth cash of the 2011 WSOP but this is the one that really counts. Also making it to the final table is Samuel Holden, a young English pro and someone for people back in the UK to rail in their usual ferocious style. Another man sure to be well supported is the aforementioned O'Dea, son of Irish poker legend Donnacha. He is almost certain to bring a huge following with him when the tournament resumes in a few months time. Over the next couple of weeks we should hear more and more about these nine players, as soon as we have information on them we will relay it to you fine people.

Seating plan for WSOP Final Table

Seat 1: Matt Giannetti: 24,750,000
Seat 2: Badih Bounahra: 19,700,000
Seat 3: Eoghan O'Dea: 33,925,000
Seat 4: Phil Collins: 23,875,000
Seat 5: Anton Makiievskyi: 13,825,000
Seat 6: Samuel Holden: 12,375,000
Seat 7: Pius Heinz: 16,425,000
Seat 8: Ben Lamb: 20,875,000
Seat 9: Martin Staszko: 40,175,000

The third largest-ever World Series of Poker Main Event saw 6,865 players enter over the four starting days and this massive field has now been reduced to such a degree that only 57 players still have chips in front of them.

Each of these players are now guaranteed to take home no less than $130,997 but the vast majority of them will not be thinking of that as they will have one eye permanently fixated on the gargantuan $8,711,956 first place prize, which is accompanied of course by a covered gold and diamond WSOP bracelet.

The chip leader going into the official Day 7 is Ryan Lenaghan, a player who has had some decent success in low buy-in events in the USA over the past few years. He will start the day with a massive stack of 12,865,000 and the knowledge that he is guaranteed to smash his previous best cash by almost $100,000.

Hot on his heels is Ben Lamb who has been in the form of his life at the 2011 WSOP. Lamb finished second to Sam Stein in the $3,000 Pot Limit Omaha event and followed that up with an outright victory in the $10,000 Pot Limit Omaha Championship. Not content with those great results, Lamb then finished 12th in the $10,000 No Limit Hol'dem Six-Max event and then eighth in the $50,000 Poker Player's Championship. Absolutely amazing run of form by the extremely talented cash game specialist.

Although most media eyes will be on Lamb there will be plenty of support in the UK for our two surviving players in the Main Event. The little known Samuel Holden returns with 2,220,000 chips whilst JP Kelly will sit down with 3,750,000. Kelly has a great record at the WSOP where he has won two bracelets, both in 2009. He won a $1,500 Pot Limit Hold'em event at the 2009 WSOP and followed that up with a win in the £1,000 No Limit Hold'em event at the WSOPE. Amazingly, he almost won the same £1,000 event at the 2010 WSOPE but fell just short, losing to Scott Shelley heads-up. Kelly's table draw is quite favourable and I sincerely hope he managed to get an early double up so he can dominate the rest of his opponents. Bring home the bacon for the Brits JP and good luck to everyone still involved in this epic event.

Day 3 of the World Series of Poker Main Event has been completed and the money bubble, although not burst, is fast approaching. The 1,864 surviving players from Day 2a and 2b took their seats in the Amazon Room and Pavilion Room of the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino and after 10 long hours of play they had been whittled down to just 852.

Amongst those players returning later today is Betfair Poker's Thomas “Nunchok” Pedersen who will start the day over on Table 313 Seat 7 in the Amazon room armed with an impressive 416,500 chips, almost double the 241,725 average. Pedersen has more than $45,000 in live tournament cashes, the bulk of which was earned when he came second in a $300 Deep Stack tournament at the Venetian last year. If he wants to best the $31,212 he won that day he will need to finish at least 351st but everyone at Betfair Poker will be hoping he goes on to win the $8,711,956 first place prize.

Currently leading the way is Patrick Poirier who is only one of two players to have passed the 1,000,000 chip mark. Poirier will return to his seat armed with a colossal 1,328,000 chips and must be odds on to secure at least a min-cash when the bubble bursts. Daryl Jace is the other player with a monster stack, his containing 1,282,500 chips.

There are a number of notable players still in with a chance of WSOP Main Event glory including Germany's Sebastian Ruthenberg who starts Day 4 with 889,000 chips which is a scary proposition for anyone who faces him when play resumes. He has over $3,300,000 in live tournament cashes and will be a formidable opponent now he has chipped up. As will the likes of Peter Jetten, Sami Kelopuro, Daniel Negreanu and even Phil Hellmuth, though the latter finds himself short stacked with only 77,000 chips.

A number of British players are also still in the hunt of poker's biggest prize, some of whom have well over the average stack size. Rupert Elder is the best placed of the Brit-pack, his 606,000 chips enough for 20th place when play resumes. Also flying the flag for Britain is double WSOP bracelet winner JP Kelly, EPT London winner David Vamplew and Jake Cody amongst others.

The money bubble bursts when the 694th player heads for the rail, at that point everyone will be guaranteed no less than $19,359 for their efforts over the past week. Tune in over the weekend to see who has made it to the money and who has been left high and dry.

Are you all sitting down? Good. I Matthew Pitt has actually stuck to something poker related and managed to play 10,000 hands so far this month. Impressed? Didn't think so, but you should be.

I hardly ever played cash games on Betfair Poker when they had five-handed tables, mainly because they seemed alien to me having played on dozens of other sites that were all six-handed. But since they made the switch over to the industry standard I have been playing four tables on a regular basis and have now played 10,030 hands in July, which for me is monster volume.

During these 10,030 hands I think I have seen everything possible in poker and I have to say I honestly think that the players on Betfair Poker are the worst on the internet, well maybe if you discount Sky Poker that it, but they are pretty bloody horrible! I suppose you could say that about every network at my stakes as I have been forced to play $0.05/$0.10 due to the last few months being uber expensive in the Pudding household. Moving house, a ton of car related problems and having to pay for my flights to Slovenia completely wiped me out and I had to withdraw almost all of my bankroll to cover these costs, and I may still have to withdraw what I have online this weekend.

The last time I put any sort of volume in at the cash tables was when I was playing €0.25/€0.50 on the Entraction Network so playing for a fifth of the stakes was quite demoralising in the first instance but I think it did me some good in all honesty. I say this because “great” winning sessions were not so large that I thought I was a poker genius and losing sessions were not crushing to my ego and soul. At one stage I lost eight buy-ins in two days, which equated to $80 or around £50 but if that had been at my old stakes I'd have been nursing a £350 loss and quite possibly recovering from a suicide attempt.

So how have I done over these 10,030 hands I hear you ask. The answer is pretty damned good. The figure I'm pretending you're interested in is my winnings of $152.28 which is a bb/100 of 15.18 or in other words I'm crushing mofo! I have run pretty well overall with my adjusted EV winnings being $125.54 and me being on the right side of some real cooler hands but I have also been playing pretty good too. I've been trying to be more loose and aggressive and it kind of worked with me running at 27.4/22.7/2.08 and a three-bet of 7.1% but there is still room for improvement that is for sure. My aggression stats is a tad skewed due to me check-folding a lot of boards when three or four players saw the flop but I am still going to work on increasing that closer to the 2.8-3.0 range.

I ran the “Plugging Leaks” reports on Holdem Manager and all of my stats fall within the ideal range, though my check-raising stat was only just in, but a lot of the guys at these stakes are so passive that going for the check-raise is often a pointless exercise as they will just check behind. The reports also highlighted that I am a significant loser with unsuited connectors smaller than KQ, though this is warped slightly by me losing this hand here (http://www.pokerhandreplays.com/view.php/id/3518339) and some questionable plays with queen-jack, so that is something else to work on for sure.

Currently I am undecided on whether I should move up to $0.10/$0.20 or do another 10,000 hands at these stakes. Whatever stakes I finish up playing my goals will be the same. They are as follows:

1.) Stop checking my profit/loss during a session, a massive problem of mine
2.) Reduce the number of hero calls I'm making on the river
3.) Plug my unsuited connector leak
4.) Stop levelling myself. These guys are mainly fish so I need to think like one of them
5.) Continue to run above EV :o)

Well I'll leave it there for now as I have a busy day ahead and later today I start my journey to Slovenia for WPT Slovenia. I won't sleep until Saturday night and I had a crappy night's sleep last night so it should be a barrel of laughs! Until next time, thanks for reading and best of luck at the tables!

Phil Hellmuth has had a rather amazing World Series of Poker but his Main Event, his last chance this year of winning a WSOP bracelet on Las Vegas soil, almost came to a premature end without him even playing a single hand on Day 2.

Hellmuth participated in Day 1c which meant that he and 2,030 others, who had survived Day 1a and 1c, were due to play in Monday's Day 2a. Still with me? Good. But for some reason the 11-time bracelet winner got it into his head that he was playing Day 2b and he failed to turn up to the Rio on time.

The poker community was first informed of Hellmuth's absence via Mike “The Mouth” Matusow's Twitter feed, with him revealing, [sic] “@phil_hellmuth is such a idiot hes getting blinded off has 5k left has his phoneoff and a do not disturb on his phone at hotel” before adding “how can one be this dumb.”

Although Matusow and Hellmuth have frequently clashed on televised poker cash games and tournaments the two are good friends off the felt and it appears Hellmuth owes Matusow a decent percentage of any winnings after he went to great lengths to contact “The Poker Brat” and get him to the Rio. [sic] “sorry @phil_hellmuth that you4 wsop comes to a nd this way I even got them to ring inside your room with a do not disturb on it,” tweeted a resigned  Matusow but whatever he did obviously worked as shortly after Hellmuth's Twitter feed burst into action.

“Security broke into my room, “I'm like, “What's going on?!?” SGuard says, “You're playing in the World Series of Poker today,”” before adding, “I jump out of bed, dress, and run down to my car. Didn't know you could drive 75 on side roads!! Thought I played Day 2 Tuesday...” How wrong he was.!

Hellmuth eventually took his seat an hour and 40 minutes late and informed his fans, and haters, that his 11,800 stack had been whittled down to just 6,975 chips. British pro and double UKIPT winner Nick Abou Risk mocked Hellmuth by tweeting, “Hellmuth just showed up. Already 3x'ing w 12bb...” referring to Hellmuth's unorthodox style of play. Howver unorthodox Hellmuth's style seems to be it has certainly been effective during his WSOP career and yesterday was no different because he ended the day with an impressive 64,900 chips, which is way off the pace for being chip leader but considering he eventually started the day with 6,975 chips and was playing to 250/500/50a blinds then it is a great achievement.

Day 2b starts today at 1200 noon (Las Vegas time) and will see the 2,490 survivors from Days 1b and 1d take to the felt. Whoever makes it through Day 2b will then return to the Rio on Thursday along with those who navigated through Day 2b for the official Day 3.

I never hit my draws when I need to. Ace-king always hits for my opponents but never for me. Why do they always have aces when I have kings? How often have you heard or read these statements and questions, or have come out with them yourself when discussing a cash game session or a recent tournament you participated in? Quite frequently I would imagine.

But how often do you hear tales from the other side of the coin, such as “I played like a total donkey and managed to suck out on the river,” or “I called villain's all in with nothing but a gutshot straight draw and busted villain's top set.” Almost never would be my guess.

Poker players tend to have this biased view on their play, and that of their opponents, because they almost always believe they are better players than they actually are. When they win it has to be because they outplayed their opponent and they are more skilled than them, but when they lose the only reason they can come up with, at least the only one they will accept as true,is that their opponent got lucky in the hand.

Thinking in this manner is dangerous for any poker player and it is a mindset that is only going to set them up for failure in the long run. The human mind is a powerful tool and if a player constantly reassures him or herself that they only ever run bad and do not receive their fair share of luck then they will eventually believe this is completely true. When this happens they will recognise even more when they are on the receiving end of a bad beat, when their flush draw misses or when they run into an overpair or set on the flop. This then makes the possibility of going on tilt increasingly likely, which in turn makes them play worse, lose more money or chips all whilst their opponents continue to get lucky time after time against them, or so they believe.

One way to combat this is to acknowledge when you have been running well or have enjoyed a spell of positive variance and reassure yourself that you do actually have some good fortune when you play poker. Go through your hand histories at the end of a session and look at every hand you were involved in. Use all the filters you have to hand to see how often you flopped a set and were up against an overpair, or when you hit the perfect flop from the blinds, anything that will show you that not all of your winnings were down to your skills being superior to those of your opponents.

Remember that running good is not just cracking an opponent's aces or winning coinflips but also picking up strong hands when they also have a hand strong enough to pay you off with. Acknowledge when you have run good and I guarantee it will make the times that you run badly seem much less severe.

Ever since the passing of “Black Friday” the poker community has been busy speculating the potential turnout for the World Series of Poker Main Event. With the likes of PokerStars and Full Tilt completely closing their doors to American customers many believed that the total number of participants would be 5,000 or less.

This figure looked to be on the cards when only 897 players passed through the doors of the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino for Day 1a, though the first starting day is traditionally the least attended. Day 1b improved slightly with 985 players parting company with $10,000 in exchange for 30,000 tournament chips but it was the third and fourth starting days that have seen the attendance soar to levels that make this year's WSOP Main Event the third-largest in history.

Day 1c saw 2,181 players take part and this number was eclipsed by the staggering 2,802 who turned out for Day 1d on Sunday. A quick tot up of the figures shows a fantastic turnout of 6,865 players for the Main Event, only 2006 and 2010 Main Events have attracted more players at 8,773 and 7,319 respectively.

This bumper attendance has created a prizepool of $64,531,000 which is going to be shared out amongst the top 693 players. Finishing in 693rd place will see the player walk away with $19,359 whilst anyone making it to the final table and become a member of the November Nine will walk away guaranteed $782,115, with each subsequent player becoming a poker millionaire. But the prize everyone still in the tournament wants to get their hands on is the $8,711,956 first place prize. Simply, WOW!

However, there is still a long, long way to go before the money places are reached as the 2,031 surviving players from Day 1a and 1c will combine and return to their seats later today, with Tuesday seeing those who made it through Day 1b and 1d do the same. Then Wednesday will see everyone seated and playing together for the first time and the field will continue to be whittled down until only the final table of nine remain, which will occur at some point on Tuesday 19 July. The tournament will then be paused until November 5 when they will return to the Rio and continue to play until just two players have chips in front of them, and they will then fight it out for the title on November 7.

The official chip counts are still not in for Day 1a so the provisional chip leader going into the two Day 2s is Fred Berger of Las Vegas, Nevada who managed to turn his 30,000 starting stack into an impressive 209,000 on Day 1a. Day 1b's leader was none of than Ben Lamb with 188,925, the man who has been on fire at this year's WSOP and is currently in second place in the Player of the Year listings. The leader from Day 1c was Kevin Song with 163,325 chips and the unofficial leader of Day 1d was Mory Little with 179,450 chips.