Yorky Pud

Ever since “Black Friday” there have been dozens of rumours circulating around the various poker forums and newsgroups, most regarding if any of the three sites involved in the indictments by the American Department of Justice (DoJ) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) would be able to continue their operations without being able to service American customers.

Most of these rumours were immediately quashed as both PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker both reached an agreement with the DoJ and FBI to release the seized funds so they could reimburse their, now banned, American customers. According to reports PokerStars has begun processing withdrawals from American players but Full Tilt has run into problems finding a payment processors but their representatives have said they are looking at solving this problem in the near future.

Players who had money on these two sites are quite confident they will receive their bankrolls back but that confidence is not shared by customers of Absolute Poker and its sister site UB.com, formerly Ultimate Bet, who appear to be in real financial difficulties at present after seeing their traffic plummet by almost 80% since “Black Friday.” Although these two sites on the Cereus Network are allowing Americans to play for real money, they are not allowing any financial transactions whatsoever and have even severely limited the withdrawals for non-American customers too.

An email from Madeira Fjord of Norway ,which represents shareholders in the poker sites' parent company, Blanca Games Inc., appeared on the TwoPlusTwo forums showing that they planned to file for bankruptcy protection due to having “no prospects for any cash flow  for the foreseeable future.” The full email is show below:

Dear xxxx Shareholder,

Since the last meeting of shareholders, there have been a number of developments that affect our Company.

Most importantly, Blanca Gaming has provided notice to our subsidiary Avoine that it is currently unable to make any payments toward its debt obligations. Additionally, Blanca has further advised that there will be no future payments.

Over the past 60 days, the Company has accumulated current debts in excess of $250,000 which are increasing at $100,000+ per month. These obligations are primarily legal and professional fees in Norway.

With no cash on hand and no prospects for any cash flow for the foreseeable future, the Board of Directors is required by Norwegian law to enter the bankruptcy process. The Oslo court will appoint a Receiver who will review the affairs of the Company including the assets, liabilities, and its recent transactions. After a full assessment, the Receiver will make a determination how to enforce any applicable rights, obligations, and obtain the maximum value for its assets in the best interest of the Company.

As the Receiver is a court appointed 3rd party, we can be assured that the Receiver will evaluate all relevant options including any applicable soliciting proposals from interested parties related to the assets of the Company. Funds accumulated through the Receivers’ efforts will be disbursed according to Norwegian law.

As of the date of the filing, the Board of Directors is relieved of duty, and all future matters are in the sole control of the Receiver.

Sincerely,
Madeira Fjord, AS Board of Directors

More correspondence appeared on TwoPlusTwo in the form of a memo that was informing Absolute Poker and UB.com's staff that there were going to be wide-scale redundancies at their Costa Rican headquarters, with 95% of the current workforce believed to be now out of work with immediate effect. The initial email and then the memo combined seemed to cause panic in even the most high profile of players, including Isaac Haxton, fearing the worst, was offering to sell the $300,000 in his poker account for as little as $0.20 in the dollar. Haxton does not seem to have much luck with poker legislation as he fell victim when Neteller closed their doors to American customers back when the UIGEA became law in 2006. Then Haxton had over $1,000,000 tied up, thankfully he received all of his money back but whether he gets this money back from Absolute Poker or UB.com remains to be seen.

The parent company of Absolute Poker and UB.com, Blanca Games Inc., were more than aware of the furore being caused and late yesterday afternoon they released an official statement commenting on the downsizing of operations and if Absolute Poker or UB.com were going to be declared bankrupt.

The statement reads as follows:

As previously stated, Absolute Poker and UB ceased their U.S.-facing operations due to recent legal developments in the United States. The company is currently restructuring and is focusing its resources on consolidating its non-U.S., rest-of-the-world operation and software business. In order to have a more efficient and successful future business, an immediate need to downsize and streamline operations significantly at both online poker rooms has been required.  Absolute Poker and UB continue to operate their non-U.S.-facing business.

This decision comes after considerable review and analysis of the impact that ‘Black Friday’ has had on the business as a whole. The workforce has been liquidated, and the process of rehiring approximately 20% of staff in key positions has commenced. All affected employees have been informed of this necessary restructure.

A company spokesperson said: ”We regret that we have been compelled to take these actions.  We have worked tirelessly to create a truly amazing company that is filled with extraordinary people. We have always been and still remain fully committed to our employees and players. At the same time, we are confident that this restructuring will strengthen the company and its future.”

The Company spokesperson also addressed erroneous reports that Blanca has filed for bankruptcy. The apparent confusion over this issue stems from the fact that Blanca recently informed a debt holder, Madeira Fjord, that it was terminating debt payments to, and its relationship with them.  As a result, Madeira Fjord apparently filed a notice of bankruptcy in Norway. This notice has no negative impact upon Blanca, the operating company, or its brands. As stated previously, Absolute Poker and UB continue to operate their non-U.S. facing business around the world.

For non-U.S. players, Absolute Poker and UB have increased their maximum withdrawal limits to $1000 for Visa withdrawals and $500 for all other methods.  The number of transactions being processed per day has been significantly increased as well.  Players are still restricted to one transaction per week, but we are working to return non-U.S. withdrawals to
normal service levels as quickly as possible.

As confirmed earlier this week, the company’s legal counsel is in continuing discussions this week with the U.S. Attorney’s office to formalize an agreement that would facilitate the return of funds to U.S. Players.

Whether or not Absolute Poker or UB.com can recover from this latest in a long line of crisis and negative publicity remains to be seen but at present it looks like their customers are voting with their feet and leaving the sites in their droves. According to PokerScout.com traffic on the Cereus Network (the network created and shared by the two sites in question) has an average of just 540 cash game players at its tables over a 24 hour period, down from more than 2,000 just a few weeks ago. This means that the network as gone from being one of the top ten most popular to play on down to a very disappointing 27th.

The effects of “Black Friday” do not effect customers of Betfair Poker, simply because Betfair have never accepted American customers and the fact that 100% of customers funds are safe, secure and kept separate from operational funds. Betfair Poker is one of the safest online poker sites available to non-US customers and will always be that way.

Although the title of this blog entry is a Britney Spears song and the picture accompanying it is also of the head-shaving nutcase the actual entry has nothing to do with her. Long time readers of my ramblings will be more than aware that I am the undisputed king of starting poker related challenges without ever completing them and it looks like I have gone and done it again, though this time through no fault of my own. Well sort of.

A few days ago I wrote the entry “Pot Limit Omayha” which essentially highlighted plans of learning how to play pot limit Omaha on Betfair Poker. One of the main reasons for this was the fact I had almost finished the Mental Game of Poker by Jared Tendler and Barry Carter and was going to put my new found mental game skills to a serious test. That was until Mr Carter chirped up over on his blog.

Now I have known of Barry for a few years now as his was one of the first blogs I discovered when I started writing myself. Over the past six to nine months I have spoken to him on a more regular basis, in fact he was the person who put me in touch with PokerNews for the live reporting gig that I do from time to time and has also passed the odd article my way too for the UK PokerNews site. With that in mind I know he was not trying to derail me in his blog, merely point out I could be switching to PLO for all the wrong reasons and that I could be setting myself up for failure.

Part of Barry's post says, “One of the things we strongly stress in the book is that you should work on your biggest leaks first before trying to develop new skills. You really need to work on the issues in your 'C game' before moving towards mastery, otherwise they are just going to show up again (and probably sooner and much worse in a game like PLO),” which is a very valid, much akin to using the book to learn  to run a marathon before you've even managed to run a mile (something he said to me over Skype.)

In the past I have, quite ironically, played PLO because I was frustrated with the variance in Hold'em. This sounds ridiculous because the variance in PLO is massive compared to Hold'em but in my little world I had convinced myself that I would be able to deal with it better because it was more expected, if that makes any sense, but the truth is I do not feel 100% ready to take PLO by the horns so it is probably best not to try and tackle it at this moment in time.

Another reason is that I have been doing some matched betting and there is no way to separate my Betfair Poker bankroll from my Betfair Sportsbook bankroll. This is only a problem because the tight-ass bookies I am placing matched bets with do not return my stake for the free bet they award me so I have to place this free bet at much higher odds to make it worthwhile. An example of this was last night's Scum versus Shalke where I stood to “lose” £180 and change if the score was 2-0 but “win” £225 on another bookie if it was that score. Having to tie up big chunks of my bankroll means I could be left unable to play if I had a few buy-in loss, and I don't want to go redepositing every five minutes.

That leaves me still playing NLHE is one way, shape or form and I will update properly in my next blog post, which will be tomorrow if I manage to bink a decent score or probably on Sunday/Monday if not. LOL! Until then, thanks for reading and good luck at the tables.

British poker pro Rupert Elder woke up this morning with an extra €930,000 in his back pocket after winning the penultimate European Poker Tour event of Season 7 in San Remo, Italy. He defeated Max Heinzelmann heads up to resign the German to his second consecutive runner-up finish in EPT Main Events, having come second at EPT Berlin just a few weeks ago.

The final table of eight were all guaranteed to walk away with no less than €81,950 but one man who would have never thought he would be the one to pick up this amount was Roberto Spada who started the day third in chips behind Elder and Heinzelmann. But he had a disastrous start and doubled up Xuan Liu not once but twice and was left with just 480,000 chips with blinds at 40,000/80,000/5,000a. These found there way into the middle with the Italian holding just Kd3c and fell foul to Max Lykov's Ah9d when the board ran out Td-4s-7s-Js-8s.

Another hour passed before a flurry of eliminations so the play go from seven-handed to just four remaining players! First Costantino Russo three-bet shoved with 9h9s over the top of a Liu opening raise and lost the race against her AdQc, then less than five minutes later Massimiliano Manigrasso found himself all in with pocket queens only to be more than an 80% underdog to Elder's black kings. And the bust outs did not stop there, just ten minutes later and Francesco de Vivo, the last Italian in the field, found himself down to less than eight big blinds and he called them off with Qs9h when Liu shoved into him with Jh4d in a blind-versus-blind battle. A four on the flop was enough to send him to the rail, albeit with €220,000 to console himself with.

The surviving four players were all respected professional poker players and any one of them would have been deserving of the title. Lykov of Russia had the chance to become the first-ever double EPT winner but the poke3r gods were not shining down on him and sent him packing in very unfortunate circumstances. After seeing Heinzelmann open to 200,000 from the button and Liu three-bet to 490,000 in the small blind, Lykov must have thought he was in heaven as he had been dealt pocket kings in the big blind. He made it 925,000 to play and then called Liu's shove after Heinzelmann had folded. Liu was in a lot of trouble, her pair of tens a massive underdog and they fell further behind after the 2s-3s-2c flop. However, the dealer put out the Th on the turn to put the ball firmly back into her court and when the river was the 9c it was gave over for Lykov and he will have to wait to add to his 2009 EPT Kiev title.

Liu was next to go, ironically after getting her money in good against Elder. With blinds now at 60,000/120,000/15,000a, Elder opened with a 250,000 raise only to see Liu, the last-woman in the tournament, move all in for 2,480,000 chips. Elder reluctantly made the call with Ac7h and looked disgusted when Liu revealed AhJh. Any negative thoughts were soon banished though as Elder spiked a seven on a board reading 4h-5h-7d-Ts-6s to send the diminutive Liu to the rail.

Despite starting the heads up battle with a substantial 20,290,000 to 9,245,000 chip lead over Heinzelmann, Elder actually found himself down by a similar margin after just 45 minutes of one-on-one action and was actually a single card away from finishing second, but Lady Luck was certainly shining down on him to keep him in the game. Heinzelmann min-raised to 320,000 and Elder made the call, meaning both players saw a 7h-6c-9h flop. Heinzelmann lead out with a 300,000 bet, a bet that was raised to 825,000 by Elder then to 1,700,000 by Heinzelmann. Elder smooth-called the four-bet allowing the dealer to put out the As on the turn. Heinzelmann now checked then raised all in when Elder bet 2,410,000, Elder snap-called and turned over 6h6s for a set, but was being crushed by the Tc8s of Heinzelmann that had made a straight. Elder needed the river to pair or he would be eliminated and it did indeed pair as the Ac arrived to double him him and give him the advantage once again.

Elder won another massive pot 15 minutes later that saw him lead by almost 3-to-1 chips and then the final hand took place. Heinzelmann open-shoved from the button with Qd5s and after a brief pause Elder made the call with Ad5c. The board ran out 3s-2c-7c-Th-Ks and with that Heinzelmann was eliminated in second place, again, and Elder had become the EPT San Remo Champion.

The last stop on the EPT circuit is in a couple of days time, between May 7-12, in Madrid for the Grand Final. It would be quite amazing if Heinzelmann could make it to his third consecutive EPT final table, tune in to find out if he can indeed do just that.

Final table payouts

1st: Rupert Elder - €930,000
2nd: Max Heinzelmann - €600,000
3rd: Xuan Liu - €360,000
4th: Max Lykov - €290,000
5th: Francesco de Vivo - €220,000
6th: Massimiliano Manigrasso - €170,000
7th: Costantino Russo - €125,000
8th: Roberto Spada - €81,950

The World Poker Tour visited Florida for the first time ever and hosted the WPT Seminole Hard Rock Showdown, a $9,600+$400 Main Event that was the only US-based stop where 18-20 year olds ere allowed to play. The decision to have one of the stops in Hollywood, Florida looks to have paid off as a bumper crowd of 426 poker players exchanged their $10,000 for 30,000 in tournament chips and the chance to become a millionaire.

The televised six-handed final table had all the ingredients for being a great spectacle, a mixture of complete amateurs and respected professional players. One of these pros, Tommy Vedes, was the first to be eliminated from the tournament after 77 hands of play. Vedes, who won the 2009 WPT Festa al Lago, called a 125,000 middle position raise from Curt Kohlberg in the small blind and when the flop came down 9c-6h-5h he check-raised Kohlberg's 175,000 continuation bet to 475,000. Kohlberg wasted little time in moving the rest of his stack in and Vedes quickly called, before turning over Kh9h for top pair and a flush draw, which needed to improve against the 6d5d of Kohlberg that had made two pair. The 8d and 2s were not outs for Vedes and he became the first player to be eliminated.

Twenty-two hands later and he was joined on the sidelines by Allen Bari, a well-known grinder who is not one to mince his word. Shortly after Vedes' demise, Bari wrote on his Twitter page, “5 handed with 2 nits a clown and a question mark. Gonna try grind back to 1.3 mill,” but he never actually made it to his target, instead he fell just short. Justin Zaki raised to 135,000 from the cutoff (blinds 30,000/60,000/10,000a) and Bari moved all in for 1,195,000 chips. Zaki asked for a count and decided to gamble and called with his 5c5h, which was off to the races against bari's AdTd. The Qs-4s-4c flop failed to help Bari, neither did the Jd on the turn, or the 5s on the river and he was eliminated in fifth place. He then wrote on his Twitter page, “Thank you for all the support..Card dead for 6 hours watching morons smash buttons..Gl Taylor, the rest can rot in hell..”

Not long after the table was being played four handed did it lose another player, this time Abbey Daniels was the one losing all of her chips, with Kohlberg being the beneficiary. With blinds now at 40,000/80,000/10,000a, Kohlberg raised to 200,000 from under the gun only to see Daniels move all in over the top of him. After a quick count of the chip Kohlberg called and turned over 6h6d, which was up against As8d. The final board ran out 5c-3h-2h-7s-3d sending the last woman standing to the rail.

The flurry of eliminations was ended after it took another 97 hands for the table to lose another player. On hand 212 of play Taylor Von Kriegenbergh looked down at 7c6c and decided the best play would be to move all. However, he did not bank on Zaki waking up with AdJs in the big bling. The Ks-Td-Th flop kept Zaki in front but the 6h on the turn gave Von Kriegenbergh a pair of sixes. The 5d on the river completed the hand and sent Zaki to the rail in a very respectable third place.

Von Kriegenbergh, who started the day as chip leader, held an 11,125,000 to 1,850,000 lead over Kohlberg, who was making his fifth World Poker Tour final table appearance but all the experience in the world would not have helped him overcome the gargantuan chip disadvantage. Just eight hands into the battle Von Kriegenbergh moved all in with Qc8d and he was snap-called for his last nine big blinds with AsTc. The final board ran out Qs-4s-4d-Kj-Qh and with that Kohlberg was eliminated in second place and Von Kriegenbergh became the WPT Seminole Hard Rock Showdown Champion.

Final table payouts

1st: Taylor Von Kriegenbergh: $1,122,340
2nd: Curt Kohlberg: $586,109
3rd: Justin Zaki: $415,680
4th: Abbey Daniels: $286,819
5th: Allen Bari: $211,997
6th: Tommy Vedes: $166,272

The San Remo leg of the ever-popular European Poker Tour has reached the final table and it promises to be an extremely entertaining affair, with the perfect blend of experienced professional players and rank amateurs alike.

Yesterday 24 players returned to the Casino San Remo safe in the knowledge that they all had at least €25,000 locked up but six hours later these 24 had been reduced to the final table of eight and each of the players who had survived with their chip stacks intact had seen their guaranteed payout massively increase to €81,950.

At the start of the day the eyes of the media were on Joe Cada, the 2009 World Series of Poker Main Event champion, who had finished Day 5 fifth in chips and in with a very realistic chance of adding an EPT gong to his WSOP win but he fell short of making it to the final table, busting out in 13th place at the hands of Max Heinzelmann.  Cada was followed to the rail by British pro Andrew Teng, who was also eliminated at the hands of the aggressive Heinzelmann.

Local player Marco Bognanni exited in 11th place and when the last-woman standing, Xuan Liu took care of Antonio Venneri shortly afterwards the last nine players all joined up on the unofficial final table. Whilst the camera crews set up their equipment and the tournament staff moved the stacks of chips to the new table the players were sent on an impromptu 15-minute break but they will have wished they had not have bothered as when they returned they only played one more hand!

With blinds at 30,000/60,000/5,000a Costantino Russo opened from under the gun to 125,000 and when the action folded around to Luigi Pignataro in the big blind he decided the best course of action was to move all in for 850,000. Russ snap-called and turned over a pair of black aces, which were crushing the red eights of Pignataro. The final board ran out Kd-Jh-4c-4s-Kc and with that the tournament was paused for the last time before a champion will be crowned later today.

Leading the way is Rupert Elder, a member of the Blonde Poker forum and a popular figure in online poker circles. His 8,005,000 stack is just in front of Heinzelmann who has now made back-to-back EPT final tables after finishing as runner-up at ET Berlin just a few weeks ago. Someone to watch out for is Canadian Xuan Liu, the first female final tablist of Season 7 of the EPT. The last woman to reach a final table in an EPT Main Event was Liv Boeree who won this very tournament 12 months ago. Could Liu follow in her footsteps? Check back soon for all the action from the EPT San Remo final table.

Final table seat draw

Seat 1: Francesco De Vivo: 1,090,000 chips
Seat 2: Max Lykov: 1,495,000
Seat 3: Rupert Elder: 8,005,000
Seat 4: Max Heinzelmann: 7,885,000
Seat 5: Xuan Liu: 1,740,000
Seat 6: Roberto Spada: 4,775,000
Seat 7: Massimiliano Manigrasso: 2,000,000
Seat 8: Costantino Russo: 2,565,000

Before you start leaving comments saying how I have misspelled Pot Limit Omaha I'll let you know that it was completely intentional. With it being the month of May and me wanting to learn how to play Omaha I thought why not Christen it Omayha month for me on Betfair Poker? I know it is cheesy but whatever.

Lifetime I have probably only played around 6,000 hands of Omahahahaha and although I am up a little bit of cash during this time I also think a large chunk of that is down to good old Lady Luck shining down on me from wherever it is she shines from. The game is exciting, can be extremely profitable but we all know what a variance monster it can be too, something that has always put me off from playing the game on a more regular basis.

Long-term readers will know about my constant battle with the mental game of poker and until recently I have not been able to do anything about it but thanks to the book by the same name, written by Jared Tendler and Barry carter I feel I am now ready to take on the challenges that playing Pot Limit Omaha will throw at me. A review of the book is coming up this week so I will not give too much away until then but I honestly feel like I can take PLO by the horns and not give a monkeys about the variance in the game. It should be a good challenge anyway.

I am not setting any monetary or volume based goals for the month of May, instead I am going to set myself the following targets. Firstly, I am going to attempt to play the best I possibly can each time I sit down at the virtual felt. All too often I play poker just because I can, sometimes on auto-pilot, but this month I will endeavour to give 100% every time I pick my seat.

Secondly, I am aiming to spend at least half of my playing time studying the game either through the hands I have played or through various forums and books. Although I know the basics of PLO I am also a novice at the game and there is so much I do not know. For example, I know the vast majority of odds and probabilities for No Limit Hold'em but I am completely lost from time to time when playing PLO. This knowledge comes with time but you can also speed matters along by studying the game.

Thirdly, I am aiming to blog at least twice a week with my progress, or potentially lack of it, so that players who are wanting to delve into this amazingly crazy game can see how PLO treats newcomers! I'll be playing mainly five-handed PLO with blinds of $0.10 on Betfair Poker under the alias Y0rk5h1r3Pud so if you see me on there say hi and try not to take my hard-earned monies!

Until next time thanks for reading and best of luck at the tables!

The European Poker Tour is currently in Italy for the penultimate stop of Season 7 and some of poker's biggest names have taken to the felt at San Remo over the two official Day 1s.

There were 438 players who entered on Day 1a whilst a further 549 passed through the doors of the casino armed with €5,300 apiece, which they exchanged for 30,000 tournament chips. Although the total attendance of 987 is way down on last year's 1,239 the prizepool on offer is still a very impressive €4,786,950 and that will be shared out amongst the top 144 finishers, each of those walking away with between €7,500 and a mammoth €930,000.

Across the two starting days there were 460 survivors, but Liv Boeree is not amongst them. Boeree won this very event last year but she never got going in this event and slipped away during Day 1b. Some of the players who did make it safely through to Day 2 included five-time World Series of Poker bracelet winner Ted Forrest and living legend, Barry Greenstein.

Going into Day 2 at the top of the chip counts is Ruben Visser, a Dutch tournament specialist who has more than $830,000 in online poker tournament winnings and a further $325,000 from live events. His best finish in an EPT was in 2009 when he came 14th at EPT Vilamoura but he will be looking to best that finish and carry the momenttum from Day 1b with him, a day of poker that saw him finish with 251,500 chips. He is joined at the top by the Lebonese pro, Nicolas Chouity on 233,400 chips. Chouity is currently ranked 91st in the World for online tournament play and has winnings in excess of $1,580,000 from them. He is also extremely dangerous in the live arena, having won more than $2,450,000 from live tournaments, the bulk made up from his win in the EPT Grand Final last year, which netted him a life-changing €1,700,000.

Also in with a shout of going deep at EPT San Remo are Ivan Demidov, John Eames, Roberto Romanello, Vitaly Lunkin, EPT London winner David Vamplew, Vanessa Selbst and the 2009 World Series of Poker Main Event winner, Joe Cada. Each of the players will have to play five 75-minute levels today if they are to make it back to the beautiful Casino San Remo for a third day.

The inchworm is a type of caterpillar that belongs to the Geometridae family of moths. The Geometridae moths have over 1,200 species in North America alone and are sometimes known as spanworms, loopers or cankerworms and get the name inchworm from the fact they inch along by lifting their back end towards their head then stretching out their front half. When they have lifted their back end they look like a “bell curve” as seen in the picture that accompanies this post.

So has Yorkshire Pudding completely lost the plot or has he given up poker and become a biologist? Whilst I may be a little nuts I'm not completely gaga just yet and I love biology but I'm far from a biologist but believe it or not the little inchworm could be the single one thing that propels me and my inability to progress as I want to in the world of playing poker!

I have been fortunate enough to be given a copy of “The Mental Game of Poker” to read through and then review and it could quite possibly be the only poker book you ever need. I am only 55 pages into it so far but one of the first chapters is entitled Foundation and covers a number of subjects including The Inchworm. I mentioned that the inchworm looks like a bell curve when it is moving and you can apply this to your poker playing. At the very back is when you play your worst or C-game, the majority is the middle where your solid B-game is and the front is when you play your very best A-game.

How the inchworm moves is similar to how humans learn and become better at something, especially poker players. Moving forward, ie learning new plays and theories, can only happen if the back end, ie your mistakes and weaknesses, move forward with it. If you continue to learn and improve but fail to work on your weaknesses all that happens is the range between your C-game and A-game becomes wider and wider and your range flatter and flatter.

This is exactly my problem, I am always learning new approaches to the game but I do spend enough time trying to sort out my demons and my weaknesses, either because I am too lazy to do so, do not think I have that many weaknesses or just hope they will disappear as I learn new skills. Some consequences of this include not playing your best that often because it takes too much effort to do (because your inchworm is stretched so far that the gap between your C-game and A-game is huge), you make mistakes, often very basic ones, that just appear from nowhere and you can feel like your game has plateaued.

That last problem is me all over and that one in particular can lead you to become disillusioned with the game and demotivated so that you play less often or less volume. For a long time many of the people I spoke to said I should be playing much higher than I do but even they've stopped saying that because I have plateaued. I know 100% that I am 10 times the player I was just two or three years ago but I still toss it off at micro-stakes games because my own personal inchworm is probably the longest, most-stretched out in the entire poker world. This is something I am going to work on massively in the coming weeks, that is after I have finished reading this book, only another 190 pages to go!

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

We are now well and truly into our fourth week of our "The Good, The Bad and The Ugly" promotion and things are really hotting up all over the Master Leaderboard. It looks like everyone wants to get their hands on the $10,000 World Series of Poker Main Event buy-in that is awarded to the top three finishers and they are putting in some tremendous volume.

Week 1 was won by Jorno. who claimed the maximum 50,000 Master Leaderboard points for his impressive 25,790 Betfair Points haul. He was chased all the way by DoinGodsWork on 20,650 points and st-kilda with a not too shabby 14,340.81 Betfair Points.

The following week had some almost identical names with Jorno. leading the way with 17,387.5 points, which pipped the 14,142.37 points of Riverfortuna and the 12,431.35 earned by st-kilda. Week 3 saw everyone really ramp up their volume and DoinGodsWork grinded out 29,435 Betfair Points in a single week, the biggest total on the promotion so far. St-kilda kept their foot on the gas too, earning 23,257.67 points, which was some distance in front of the 17,360 of slomopoe.

There are still a couple of days left of Week 4 and it looks like a three horse race for the maximum 50,000 Master Leaderboard points. At time of writing DoinGodsWork leads the way with 24,540 points, Jorno. on 18,047.5 and arbboy sat on 15,742.5.

As things stand right now, without taking into consideration Master Leaderboard points from Week 4, it is st-kilda, DoinGodsWork and Riverfortuna who are on course to win the $10,000 WSOP Main Event buy-in though hot on their heels are Jorno. and arbboy who stand to win $5,000 and $4,000 cash respectively. Down at the opposite end of the Master Leader board it is even tighter, with 151st placed BFWingding2 only 25 Master Leaderboard points behind SERIALCALL, the difference of between winning $50 and nothing!

So there is still everything to play for in The Good, The Bad and The Ugly promotion which when coupled with the potential for 40% Valueback, a $50 to $2,500 sign-up bonus and the fact you have the peace of mind that your funds are 100% safe and secure, is surely the best value WSOP qualifier available.

Until yesterday Irish poker player Niall Smyth only had around $41,000 in live tournament winnings but this morning he will be grinning from ear to ear after beating Surinder Sunar heads up in the 2011 Irish Poker Open for a cool €550,000. In addition to the huge first prize Smyth also received €100,000 for being the “Sole Survivor” in the tournament, the last satellite qualifier from the sponsors online poker site.

A total of 615 hopefuls parted ways with €3,400 over the weekend to be in with a chance of winning Europe's longest-running tournament and the World's second longest-running tournament behind the World Series of Poker. Over the course of three days they were whittled down to the final table of nine, which was played out to completion on Monday.

Each of the nine players were guaranteed to walk away with no less than €30,000 but all would have had eyes on the Terry Rogers memorial trophy and the first place prize of more than half a million Euros. The first player to pick up this amount was Niall McCann, nine big blind shove with king-jack being called by the pocket jacks of Smyth and when the board ran out 5s-4d-3d-2h-4s it was game over for McCann and he became the ninth place finisher.

Next to go was John Eames, who actually started the day second in chips. He found himself down to 423,000 and with blinds of 20,000/40,000/4,000a he moved all in with king-queen and found a caller in the shape of Seamus Cahill holding ace-jack. Both players caught a pair on the flop but Cahill's aces were by far the best and for good measure he hit trips on the river to send Eames to the cashier to pick up €45,000. Although obviously disappointed, Eames wrote on his Twitter account that he was disappointed more with how he played over the last two days and admitted he did not deserve to be on the final table.

Rob Taylor was next to go and he was followed by Sweden's Karl Rudwall and then the 18-year old Aleksi Savela. Another four hours passed after Savela's elimination before the table lost another player. Cahill had been making a real nuisance of himself all afternoon and looked set to take a commanding chip lead when he got his stack in the middle having made two pair on a board reading 4c-7x-9c-5x with his seven-four and was up against Smyth's Tc7c. The river was the 3c, completing Smyth's flush and Cahill was eliminated in fourth place, a finish worth €145,000.

Martin Petri joined him soon after, which left Smyth to take an 8,800,000 to 3,400,000 chip lead into the heads up battle against British veteran Sunar. Despite drawing level at one point Sunar just could not seem to get any momentum going and found himself back down to 1,300,000 with the blinds now biting into his stack. He must have been quite happy to call off his remaining stack with ace-nine when Smyth moved all. Smyth turned over queen-five and a double-up for the Brit looked on the cards. The flop of Th-3c-3d kept Sunar in front and the 2d on the turn put extra distance between the two hands. However, the 5h on the river paired Smyth's five and that was enough to bust Sunar, who picked up €290,000 for his four day's of poker playing. Not bad work if you can get it.

Final table payouts

1st: Niall Smyth - €550,000
2nd: Surinder Sunar - €290,000
3rd: Martin Petri - €180,000
4th: Seamus Cahill - €145,000
5th: Aleksi Savela - €115,000
6th: Karl Rudwall - €85,000
7th: Rob Taylor - €63,000
8th: John Eames - €45,000
9th: Niall McCann - €30,000