Yorky Pud

Over the weekend I was speaking to a few family and friends about the recent developments in the United States of America, in regards to online poker, that we have all collectively named “Black Friday.” A few of them were rather misinformed about the whole situation, which is to be expected as they are not poker players themselves, but one asked me if PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker and Absolute Poker actually did commit fraud and money laundering on a grand scale and how could they when they are regulated in places such as the Isle of Man.

This got me thinking so I did some digging on the internet and found a couple of articles and new pieces. Obviously, in a case such as this there will be a ton of rumours and unproven stories but some of them are going to either be true or be such a coincidence that they simply have to be linked.

The actual indictment states, “As charged, these defendants concocted an elaborate criminal fraud scheme, alternately tricking some U.S. banks and effectively bribing others to assure the continued flow of billions in illegal gambling profits. Moreover, as we allege, in their zeal to circumvent the gambling laws, the defendants also engaged in massive money laundering and bank fraud. Foreign firms that choose to operate in the United States are not free to flout the laws they don’t like simply because they can’t bear to be parted from their profits.” It is this “tricking some U.S. Banks” that I think the FBI and Department of Justice do have a real case against the sites.

Part of the same indictment alleges that a PokerStars document from 2009 shows they lied to banks by creating companies that strongly implied the transaction had nothing to do with PokerStars. I have so far read about companies pretending to sell golf balls and jewellery to fool banks into processing the financial transactions that were made illegal with the passing of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) of 2006. If this is true then that alone could be enough to charge the 11 defendants with fraud.

By all accounts it looks as if most of these fake company bank account were shut down by late 2009 and the sites are then alleged to have gone down a different route of offering to finance small and struggling banks and financial institutions in exchange for them processing gambling transactions for them. This is one of the reasons 76 bank accounts in 14 countries have been seized, one of which actually made the news in Arizona, USA.

The Vensure Federal Credit Union showed that on December 31, 2010 it had assets of $2.7m and 94 members and had net income of $592,000 for the year but has now closed, rumoured to be one of the 76 bank accounts seized by the FBI. The story of the poker sites buying banks in one way shape or form seems to apply to this particular financial institution. Record show that in 2009 they only signed off a single $5,000 loan, with 5% interest, yet still managed to being in income of $336,000 and pay out $82,000. Then in 2010 they had income of $1,800,000 and they paid out around $700,000. The full article can be found here and makes very interesting reading in my opinion.

All we can do is speculate about whether the sites in question are guilty of this but if these stories are true they are going to have a ton of explaining to do and nobody knows if they will be able to afford the reported $3bn fines that are being talked about. It should be a very interesting few months to say the least.

Join Betfair Poker Now and you will not only be able to choose your own sign up bonus of between $50 and $2,500 but you will also be able to sleep soundly knowing your funds are 100% safe from the hands of the FBI and DoJ

It's been all go in the Pudding household this past week or so and I am finally catching back up with everything, which should hopefully leave some time for playing some poker.

It was my 30th birthday last Tuesday and I spent most of it at Blackpool and a large percentage of that time trying to get to the sea to fill a bucket up. I know at Southport the sea is literally miles away from the beach but I can't remember Blackpool being the same once the tide was out. I nearly died of a heart attack by the time I'd jogged there and back. One of the reasons for going to Blackpool, apart from it's much closer than the other coastal towns for me, was the fact the kids could play on the beach and I could get seaside fish and chips, which are always better than the ones you get at home (much better than mine as my local chippy burned down at the start of the year.)

So on the way back home, after paying £8 at the car park, I stopped off at a chippy to order my fish and chips. Alarm bells should have started ringing when the woman hardly spoke any English but rather than risk being attacked by a machete-wielding Turk I ordered and paid. This fish eventually came out and you could have posted it under my living room door, the batter was rank and the chips not better. At least it served as fuel for my fat guts on the way home. After dropping the kids off I visited my olds and then went for a few beers with a mate of mine. Was a nice day, bit different to birthday's in my early 20s but there again I am a different person now.

I say a different person but I have reignited my love of Hard House and NRG music after my new headphones arrived, ironically, on my birthday. I was considering some of the Beats by Dr Dre or the Bose QuietComfort range but at between £180 and £400 they are way out of my price range. In the end I settled for these bad boys and after managing to get them for less than a third of the recommended price I can say I am very impressed with them. I've not tested them with my iPod yet but the sound from my computer has been great and the noise cancelling feature seems pretty good too, just need to jump on a plane to test them properly. Come on PokerNews give me a new gig, I need to try out my headphones!

This weekend I went with Pud Jr and Step Pud to the Royal Armouries in Leeds and it was good fun. We watched a “stunt horse show” which was entertaining and then had a look around at all the different armour and weapons which obviously two young boys enjoyed. I also got to fire a crossbow for the first time and Jesus Christ they are powerful. I managed to hit the target on all of my shots whilst Pud Jr seemed to be aiming for the ceiling! It made me want to go on a gun shooting range, guess that will have to wait until my first Vegas trip though, whenever that may be.

The on Sunday I thought it would be a good idea to go out for a pub dinner then onto a nearby nature reserve where I could test out my new camera, that I received for my birthday. Mrs P said she'd drive but then told me she couldn't get the car into first gear. Lol, women drivers! Anyway, after a couple of minutes of pratting around I tried and couldn't do it either but it would go into gear with the engine off! Once moving it will change gear if you really force it but I obviously thought this was a bad idea and just parked up outside. Looks like something to do with the clutch or gearbox has given up the ghost and will probably cost a small fortune to fix, as always. At least I still had my mixed grill and even sank a few pints as I didn't have to drive.

Playing poker has kind of taken a back seat over the past week with me playing a lot of, and completing, Call of Duty: Black Ops. It was enjoyable but not the game everyone raves on about, in fact I'd be pushed to give it a 6.5/10. Next up is Bullet Storm which I may play tonight once Game of Thrones has finished on Sky Atlantic. I watched the first part last week and although it was pretty slow moving it was also very good. Hopefully the second episode will also be a good watch. I have also started reading Jared Tendler and Barry Carter's new book, “The Mental Game of Poker” and I am so far very impressed. I'm only 23 pages in but I already know this book is going to be epic. I'll not write any spoilers here because I am going to do a full review of it once I have finished reading it cover-to-cover.

Right, I think I have waffled enough so will leave it there. I have to make the trip to go food shopping, without a car, for the first time in like ever and on a bank holiday. Should be fun. Anyway, thanks for reading and best of luck at the tables!

A full week has now passed since the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the American Department of Justice (DoJ) indicted PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker and Absolute Poker on a number of charges relating to the violation of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) of 2006.

When the UIGEA was passed in the United States of America the vast majority of online poker sites, Betfair Poker included, immediately stopped offering their services to American customers and are therefore not caught up in this latest development. The main effect we have seen since the indictments is that the three sites in question have now stopped allowing American citizens playing for real money.

At one point the FBI and DoJ had seized the “.com” domain names of each of the sites and 75 bank accounts associated with them, which prevented American-based poker players from gaining access to their funds and made it impossible to withdraw them. Thankfully this has since been resolved and American players can now withdraw their money. This scenario would never happen on Betfair Poker as 100% of funds are ring-fenced from operational funds making it one of the more safe online poker sites.

It is not only American poker players who are suffering but the upcoming World Series of Poker will almost certainly see a massive reduction in numbers for all their events, particularly the show-piece $10,000 No Limit Hold'em World Championship, better known as the Main Event. Last year's bumper field of 7,319 was made up of more than 2,000 satellite winners from the three sites under investigation and although they will send send a large number of players from other parts of the world the number will be drastically reduced.

Also, there has already been some fallout to do with televised poker, with a number of broadcasting companies distancing themselves from the likes of PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker. ESPN have confirmed they will be covering the 2011 WSOP but I have a feeling there will be strict rules on logos being on display if a player is representing one of the three sites especially as ESPN have already dropped their coverage of the PokerStars sponsored North American Poker Tour (NAPT) and removed all material that could be linked to the three sites from their advertising and their website. If television companies decide they will not allow PokerStars and Full Tilt logos to be worn then I am sure these sites will be reluctant to buy their sponsored pros into the larger buy-in events such as the $50,000 Poker Player's Championship because they will receive no airtime, which is what the sponsorships are generally all about.

You also have to take into consideration that although PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker have agreed a deal with the DoJ to release player funds they are currently struggling to process the sheer number of withdrawals, especially as payment processors are also distancing themselves from the organisations. This could mean that many of the American online grinders who planned to play at the World Series of Poker will not be able to as their available funds are currently tied up. Add to the fact that all the publicity is bound to both confuse and scare off a number of amateur players from playing and that even European players will not be able to access these sites whilst they are in Las Vegas and it points towards much smaller fields.

My own personal prediction is that we will see the smallest Main Event field since 2004 when Greg Raymer bested a field of 2,576 to scoop the $5,000,000 first prize. The following 5,619 players turned out, which is the lowest in the past six years so I would expect a number somewhere in the middle of these two, probably around 4,800 or so. This still makes for a massive amount of money to play for and a poker player's best bet to win the “Big Dance” in recent years.

Betfair Poker are currently running a number of promotions where our customers can win a $14,500 package to the WSOP Main Event safe in the knowledge Betfair Poker can buy you into the tournament directly and that your funds will be 100% safe and secure when you arrive back on home soil.

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Tallin is the largest and capital city of Estonia, with a population of 412,144 at the last count but over the weekend there were an additional 120 people in Tallin for the Betfair Poker Live! Festival that was taking place there.

The buy-in for the Main Event was €500+ €50 and the 120 entrants created a prizepool of €60,000 which was to be shared out amongst the top ten finishers. A whole host of Betfair Poker forum members were present, including Doobs, Bifta and The Klup but it was local poker player Tõnu Sodla who was crowned champion after a lightening quick final table that only lasted a record-breaking six hours, the shortest in Betfair Poker Live! history.

At the start of the final table all eyes were on the 2008 Swedish Championship winner, Ola Brandborn and he quickly set about trying to make the tournament his own with his loose-aggressive style but German Jörg Perleberg had other ideas and after winning a few substantial pots, became the table captain himself.

A massive hand took place when the table was down to just four players and it gave Sodla a huge chip lead. He moved all in with As2s on a board reading K-7-J-Q (with two spades) and was insta-called by Bradborn, who held a pair of queens which improved to a set. However, the ten of diamonds on the river improved Sodla to a hand-winning straight and sent a rather dejected Bradborn to the rail in fourth spot.

When Perleberg busted out in third place Sodla held a huge chip lead over Finland's Seppo Jokisalo but after an aces versus ace-ten confrontation, amongst others, Jokisalo had managed to claw back enough chips to be almost back on level terms. At this point both players decided that they wanted to split the remaining prizepool equally and just play for the trophy and the place in the title of champion. Once the deal was confirmed they pair went all in blind, Jokisalo turned over his hand to reveal ace-queen, nicely in front of the offsuit six-three of Sodla and the ace-queen stayed ahead on the flop and turn but a six hit the river to complete the tournament and eliminate Jokisalo in second place.

Prizepool distribution

1. Tõnu Sodla (Estonia) - €13,062**
2. Seppo Jokisalo (Finland) - €13,062**
3. Jörg Perleberg (Germany) - €7,158
4. Ola Brandborn (Sweden) - €5,225
5. Henri Käsper (Estonia) - €3,500
6. Teemu Kankkunen (Finland) - €2,821
7. Imre Leibolad (Estonia) - €2,194
8. Mikko Pisto (Finland) - €1,933
9. Marek Boczkowski (Poland) - €1,724
10. Arvi Meeksa (Finland) €1,567

** donates 50:50 deal done heads-up

The 2011 World Series of Poker is literally just around the corner and Betfair Poker are planning on sending dozens of players to Las Vegas, Nevada to take part in the largest poker festival on Earth. The two main ways to win a seat to the 42nd Annual World Series of Poker are "The Good, The Bad and The Ugly" and the "6 Shooter" promotions, both of which are explained below.

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

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Every point you earn will help you climb the weekly leaderboards, which run form 00:00:01 on Friday until 23:59:59 on a Thursday. Depending on where you place in the weekly leaderboard will influence how many Master Leaderboard Points you get. Finish in the top 3 of the Master Leaderboard and you will win a $10,000 seat to the WSOP Main Event, place 4-150th and you will win a share of $40,000. Happy grinding!

6 Shooter

The 6 Shooter promotion is not about how many attempts on goal the Arsenal strikers need before they hit the back of the net but about the six tournaments that will take place on consecutive days, awarding a total of 12 WSOP side event packages worth $5,700 each! Each package consists of entry to Event #54 ($1,000) and Event #56 ($1,500), flights, eight nights accommodation, access to the Betfair Poker party and spending money!

The only way to take part in one of these six tournaments is to earn yourself a ticket to them and how do you do that? Easy. Just move up through the various VIP levels on Betfair Poker, and the higher you manage to get, the more tickets you will earn. As the meerkats say, "simples." Progress through all the levels, Bronze, Silver, Gold, Sapphire, Diamond and Master and you will get six shots at winning a $5,700 package.

To earn the necessary points for the "The Good, The Bad and The Ugly" and "6 Shooter" promotions you will need to play real money cash games and tournaments. You will earn 3.25 points per $1 in rake (according to the Essence System) in cash games and 5 points per $1 in fees for all forms of tournament poker. All points and rake you generate throughout the promotions will count towards earning up to 40% Valueback and if you are a new customer attracted to our 100% financially secure site the points will count towards the welcome bonus of between $50 and $2,500 making this one of the best-valued online poker promotions ever!

For full terms and conditions see the excellent Betfair Poker WSOP micro-site.

In all walks of life panic causes more panic. Just look at situations where crowds of people have caused innocent people to be tragically crushed in the ensuing mass exodus or take a look at the stock market when a company announces lower than expected figures or when people withdrew everything they owned from Northern Rock.

Panic is exactly what many in the online poker industry are doing now and it could do more harm than good. A few friends asked me to comment on the recent developments in the USA online poker but to be honest I am not qualified to do so, nor are 95% or more of the scaremongers currently spouting a load of tripe over Twitter and various forums. The truth is that nobody knows what is in store the American online poker or the sites being chased by the FBI and I would be lying if I pretended otherwise. What I can comment on is the fact that all funds, that is 100%, that belong to Betfair customers are ring-fenced and completely safe. My bankroll is on here right now and I wouldn't want it any other way.

I can see why people are worried, sure I can. There will be some players with tens, maybe hundreds of thousands of dollars on these sites and if that was me I would be, as they say, **** a brick. I also have friends in the media who rely heavily on work from some of these sites and indeed the European Poker Tours I have had the pleasure of reporting on are sponsored by one of the sites in question but it is out of my control so I will therefore not worry about it one iota. It is an unfortunate set of circumstances but panicking and spreading gossip will only make matters worse so try to refrain from re-Tweeting anything unless you know it is gospel. Do you really want to scare away the recreational fish from your site when there is absolutely no need to. I guess it is like not tapping the glass so to speak. That is all I will say on the subject.

Today is my 30th birthday, 30 bloody years old! When I was in my early teens I had a few friends in their 30s and I thought they were ancient but now I am here I'm like 30 is still young! I'm not really one for celebrating birthdays, even milestone ones, so there isn't much being planned, the fact I am writing this blog highlights that, but a trip to the coast this afternoon may be in the pipeline. Fish and chips, sun, sea and possibly a couple of beers would be welcome.

My own poker playing has suffered over the past week and I have hardly played to be honest. I am lucky that I have had plenty of work on and I have been beavering away to get that out of the way so I can take this afternoon off and then spend the rest of the month concentrating on writing stuff for Betfair and the upcoming promotions we have, especially the World Series of Poker promos, which I really need to knuckle down and be part of myself! Hopefully when I next update I'll have a few decent results to talk about.

So until next time, thanks for reading and best of luck at the tables.

Antanas Guoga, better known as the loud-mouthed Tony G, is one of poker biggest characters. His opinionated and often obnoxious trash talking at the table creates a larger-than-life image. Now he is winning pots even larger than his substantial ego, this won being more than £63,000!

Over the weekend he was one of the players who took part in the “Big Game V,” a 48-hour cash game that was played with blinds of £25/£50, though most hands started with a  £100 straddle with some even having a £200 double-straddle! He was joined by the likes of Roland De Wolfe, Dave “Devilfish” Ulliott, Roberto Romanello and Mike Matusow at the Dusk Till Dawn poker club in Nottingham where tens of thousands were won and lost for the duration of the 48 hours.

Tony G was nicely in profit for the weekend but after a massive hand where his overbet shove was called in two spots he become the player with the most profit in the Big Game V. In the hand Tony G's fellow Lithuanian Kristijonas Andrulis raised to £150 and when the Dusk Till Dawn founder, Rob Yong looked down at QsQh he made it £700 to play. After a couple of folds Martins Adeniya came along for the ride holding AdKd. With the action then on Tony G he checked his cards, AsAh, and announced he was all in, a huge over-bet an a bet that covered both players. Yong made the call for £19,500 and after much deliberation Adeniya called off his £21,825! Both players looked disgusted when Tony G turned over the bullets and when the board ran out 9h-2s-3c-9d-8h and the £63,350 pot slid in the direction of Tony G. “This is the greatest show in the world” said the Lithuanian amongst other brags and mini rubdowns as he stacked his chips high.

The charismatic Tony G has long cited that he is one of the world's best cash game players but he is also no slouch when it comes to live tournaments as he has already won close to $4,400,000 in his career, despite not having a single cash $600,000 or over. He never lacks confidence but now he has won the biggest pot of life it will be interesting to see if he goes to the upcoming World Series of Poker and walk away with a bracelet and a $1,000,000+ score.

Poker players are known for going on so-called heaters where they seemingly cannot do anything wrong at the felt. One player who is certainly on the mother of all heaters at the moment is Erik Seidel. The 51-year old poker pro has already won more than $4,000,000 this year alone and currently sits atop of the Hendon Mob's all-time money listings.

Seidel has already won eight World Series of Poker bracelets and one World Poker Tour gong and it looked as if he was going to make it two WPT Main Events but he narrowly missed out at the Hollywood Poker Open, finishing second out of 97 runners for a score of $155,103, which pushes him ever closer to the $15,000,000 earnings mark!

Going into the final table of six, Seidel found himself in third place, his 645,000 chips just slightly behind the 654,500 of Mike Scarborough but way behind the 1,169,000 of William Reynolds. It only took three hands befor the table lost a player and it was a real cooler of a hand. With blinds at 2,500/5,000/500a, Reynolds raised to 11,000 from the cutoff and only Ali Eslami, in the big blind, made the call. The flop came down Jc-7c-7d and both players checked but when the As arrived on the turn, Eslami bet 13,500, Reynolds raised to 36,000 and then insta-called when Eslami moved al in. Eslami turned over 9h7h for trip nines but Reynolds could beat that as he had flopped a full house with JsJd. The river was the Kc and Eslami was eliminated.

Four hands later and Andy Whetstone was sent to the rail by Scarborough and 21 hands after that Tom Marchese, who last year went on a similar yet less lucrative heater as Seidel is riding now, busted out also. Marchese's exit hand was another full of drama, his money going in preflop with AsKh against the TdTh of Reynolds. The flop came down Ac-Jc-Ts improving Marchese to top pair but Reynolds to a set but the turn changed everything as the Qh made Marchese a straight. But the drama was not over as the river was the Qs and the pairing of the board gave Reynolds a wining full house and resigned Marchese to a fourth place finish!

The flurry of eliminations ended there though and it took almost six hours until the next player headed for the rail and that unwanted honour went to Reynolds, who had taken several hits to his stack which forced him to three-bet all in over a Scarborough raise with AdTd only to find himself dominated by AcJh. No three outer on the board and the 2010 PCA High Roller winner busted out.

This left Seidel to try and overcome a 601,000 to 2,336,000 chip disadvantage to Scarborough but it proved a task to hard even for the most on-form player on the planet. Twelve hands into the heads-up encounter Scarborough made it 62,000 to play (blinds 12,000/24,000) and Seidel moved all in with his Ad9d. Scarbrough made the call with JhTh and it was off to the races. It was a rather short-lived race though as the flop came down Tc-9s7h improving Scarborough to top pair, which went even further in front when the 8s on the river turned his hand into a straight. The Td on the river failed to alter anything and with that Seidel was eliminated and Scarborough became a WPT Champion!

Next stop on the WPT circuit is the Seminole Hard Rock Showdown, followed by the WPT World Championship and the WPT World Championship Super High Roller.

Final table payouts

1st: Mike Scarborough - $273,664
2nd: Erik Seidel - $155,103
3rd: William Reynolds - $110,788
4th: Tom Marchese - $77,551
5th: Andy Whetstone - $62,041
6th: Ali Eslami - $50,962

Some poker players will go through their entire career having never won a single tournament but that is not something Vanessa Selbst will ever have to worry about as in the early hours of this morning she won the NAPT Mohegan Sun Main Event for a cool $450,000. What makes her win even more remarkable is the fact she won the exact same event one year and two days ago, amazing!

Last year the event saw 716 players take part but this year the field was drastically reduced to 387, but the prizepool was still a substantial $1,746,330, which would be shared out amongst the top 56 finishers who would each take home between $7,500 and $450,000. Going into the eight-handed final table Selbst was second in chips, her 2,249,000 trailing only the 3,021,000 of Tyler Kenney. Other notable players on the final table included Dan Shak and Joe Tehan, the latter looking for his second NAPT title after winning the Los Angeles leg just a few months ago.

It took around 90 minutes before the table lost its first player, Steve O'Dwyer being that person. The action folded around to Vincent Rubianes in the small blind and he moved all in to put the maximum pressure on O'Dwyer, who only had around 12 big blinds in his stack. O'Dwyer called and discovered his Ah7d was in front of Rubianes' QdTs but it did not stay that way for very long as the flop came down Qh-Jc2c and when the Qc arrived on the turn O'Dwyer was drawing dead. The Td on the river improved Rubianes to an un-needed full house and sent O'Dwyer to the rail to pick up $32,330.

He was followed to the rail just 20 minutes later when another short-stack, Aaron Overton, opened shoved to 530,000 from the small blind with KhQd and found a customer in Selbst who made the call with Ah2h. She stayed ahead as the board ran out Th-6s-Ac-3h-5s and Overton became the 7th place finisher, worth a bankroll-boosting $50,000.

Another hour and a half passed and the blinds had risen to 25,000/50,000/5,000 which was putting pressure on some of the shorter stacks at the table, Joe Tehan in particular. Finding himself down to 450,000 chips and the action folding to him on the button, Tehan moved all in whilst holding Kd6s in an attempt to pick up the pot uncontested but Thomas Hoglund Jr re-shoved from the small blind with 8s8d, which stayed in front on a board reading Ts-9h-2d-4c-Jh.

One more hour went by before two eliminations in quick succession made it three handed. First to go was Rubianes who found himself with a ridiculously short-stack. Kenney opened from under the gun to 140,000, Shak called in the small blind and Rubianes moved all in for just 15,000 extra chips. Both active players made the call and saw a 4d-3c-2d flop. Shak checked then folded AsTs face-up when Kenney continuation bet to 165,000. This left him heads-up against the at-risk Rubianes, his KhTc trailing the Ad7c. However, he did not stay behind for long as the Ks followed by Kd fell on the turn and river to send Rubianes to the cashier's cage to collect $90,000.

Less than 20 minutes later and Hoglund Jr was eliminated at the hands of Kenney. With blinds of 30,000/60,000/5,000, Hoglund Jr open-shoved from the button for 700,000 with Qh9s and Kenney called with As7d. The board ran out Ac-Qd-6h-5c-8d and the final table of eight had been reduced to just three players, each guaranteed at least $170,000!

Astonishingly it was Kenney was busted in third, despite holding over 4,800,000 chips at one point. Eighty minutes into three-handed play and Shak raised to 200,000 from the small blind, Kenney three-bet shoved for 1,625,000 and Shak instantly called turning over AhQs, which was dominating the As7c of Kenney. By the turn Kenney was drawing to a chop at best as the board read 9h-Jh-8h-Tc but the 4c sealed his fate and sent him packing.

Going into heads-up Shak held a substantial 8,685,000 to 3,025,000 lead over Selbst but she did not panic, probably because he bread-and-butter game is heads up cash games! She won eight of the first nine pots and within an hour she found herself with a significant lead thanks to a relative cooler of a hand. She min-raised on the button, Shak made it 600,000 to play, Selbst then re-raised to 1,300,000 and Shak quickly called. The flop came down Ad-Kh-2s, Shak checked, Selbst bet 800,000 and then snap-called when Shak moved all in. Shak turned over KcQc but was way behind the KsKd of Selbst. The Jc gave Shak some more outs but the Js on the river was not one of them and Selbst took the lead.

Two and a half hours later and Selbst had taken all of Shak's stack. Shak limped on the button and Selbst checked her option. When the flop came down Ks-7d-3s Selbst checked then check-raised Shak's 200,000 bet to 625,000, only to see Shak move all in for 2,800,000 and Selbst had called before Shak's chips had crossed the line. Shak knew his Jh7h must have been in trouble and he was correct as Selbst held Kc7c meaning Shak was drawing to running jacks! The 5h on the turn locked up the hand and the match for Selbst and when the 2h completed the hand, Shak was eliminated in second place and Selbst had successfully defended her title!

Selbst now has over $4,100,000 in live tournament winnings, not bad at all especially when you take into consideration the fact she is only a part-time player as she is currently studying for a law degree!

Final table payouts

1.) Vanessa Selbst: $450,000
2.) Dan Shak: $254,000
3.) Tyler Kenney: $170,000
4.) Thomas Hoglund Jr: 120,000
5.) Vincent Rubianes: $90,000
6.) Joe Tehan: $70,000
7.) Aaron Overton: $50,000
8.) Steve O'Dwyer: $32,330

Things have been a little hectic in the Pudding household since returning from Austria where I covered EPT Snowfest so my poker playing has been quite limited to say the least. That said I have been playing a little on Betfair Poker and I'm slightly in front for April.

By hectic I refer to the fact I have been moving around like there is no tomorrow. I spent a night on my mate's sofa (remember Cadmunkey?), then a week at my sister and brother-in-law's house in Otley and I am writing this blog from the Crown Inn, Wrexham, North Wales. Boyo. Obviously all the moving around has not been the ideal scenario for playing poker but I have managed some as I said.

I was checking through my emails and found an old email from Betfair telling me they had a bonus for me. This dated back months so I initially dismissed it but then decided to enter the code to see if it would work and to my amazement it did, so I stuck some pennies on Betfair and played some Double or Nothing SNG whilst I worked, basically because my grandfathered account from the stand alone software coupled with the bonus meant I would be getting around 84% “valueback” which is pretty damn amazing in my book!

I managed to play 100 of them before I decided that attempting to stab myself to death with a chip fork would be more exciting and enjoyable but since I stopped playing them I have hardly played anything else. I played a few hands of micro-stakes cash when the counter on my bonus seemed to freeze then I played two short-handed SNG, and the standard shocked me a little.

Short-handed poker means you have to play more hands than in full ring for obvious reasons but someone should tell the fish at the $5.50 games that they do not have to play every single hand! Actually don't tell them! I only played two so my sample size is really LOL and I managed to come 5/5 in each of them thanks to running into KK and QQ when down to 8BB but they look like they could be quite profitable to say the least. Maybe these two games were full of higher stakes whales blowing off steam? Who knows. They are quite unique in that they are five handed yet pay out two spots so you ITM and therefore ROI should be much higher than the standard 10-man games. I may try my hand at a couple of hundred of them and see how I do, though the crazy game of PLO has also caught my eye.

When I woke up yesterday I was full of wind which then developed into horrific stomach cramps and finally, well you don't want to know. Needless to say I wasn't in good shape at all and was almost in tears but it did allow me to watch the Pot Limit Omaha edition  of Poker After Dark and reignite the PLO spark that sits firmly inside my heart. I played a few thousand hands last year and loved each and every one of them but I must admit I am a bit of a PLO fish so need lots of work on my game and maybe the time to do that is now as I have this bonus running for 60 days which will help limit any losses somewhat, we'll see.

I'll leave it there for now as this post has got pretty large and I am running out of time to tell you about a new project that I am attempting to get off the ground, which I think you guys and gals will find fun and entertaining. Guess you'll have to tune in to read my next entry! Until then, thanks for reading and best of luck at the tables!