Yorky Pud

Although I absolutely love playing live poker it is actually quite a rare occurrence when I do venture out to my local casino and rub shoulders with the complete donkeys who frequent it. Live poker is by its very nature a time consuming past time and when you have two kiddies in the house and a Mrs it is often much easier to simply sit on the sofa and play online poker.

That said I did actually leave the house to play poker last night and entered a £10+£4, yes you read that correctly, the tournament had 40% rake, but in its defence the casino did add £250 to the coffers, which coupled with 45 runners and the fact you started with 10,000 chips meant it was a nice little tournament to take part in. Early on I raised it up with 6c6d, flopped a set against two opponents but the four flushed board meant I only won a small pot. Then I basically didn't play a hand for a level as I watched in horror and bemusement as people showed down 86o, J3s and other such tripe regardless of the action before them.

I won a few nice pots, one with AxTx when I flopped two pair and managed to get paid off against a weaker ace then I played a hand that should have netted me more chips than it did. A young lad opened in the cutoff for the three millionth time and I re-popped with the monster that is Ts9s. He calls and we see a TdTh3c flop. He checks and I check behind. The turn is a king and he bets around the size of the pot, I then miscount his stack and move all in and he **** himself and folds, showing me pocket nines. This put me up to a quite healthy 1.5x average stack.

Then the most ridiculous thing every occurred. A new player joined the table, who we later discovered had only arrived in England from Pakistan three weeks ago, holding a sheet of paper with hand rankings on it! I kid you not. He plays his very first hand and the entire table is licking its lips. Four handed they get to the turn, at which point our new fish asks the dealer if it is OK to look at his cards now! He ends up getting lucky in several hands and finds himself amongst the chip leaders.

I've now moved up to around 34,000 with the average being 21,000 and find black pocket tens. Our fish raises, I bump it up bigger than usual to fold everyone out, they oblige and fish boy calls. The flop is 9x9x6x and he 300 into the pot of around 4,000! He's got about 17,000 behind and he's calling here with a bare ace so I put him in. He double checks his cards and if he is going to call with a bare ace he is also going to call with 9h6h for a flopped boat. Nice hand sir. No suck out for me and I now look like I could be going home relatively early. However, that changed when the next hand I get dealt AsJs and raise it up UTG, only our fish calls from the SB and the flop is a beautiful Ks-Qd-Td. He leads, I shove and he snap calls with Kx6x and I doubled back up!

A few mistimed moves later and blinds that have more jumps in them than the local slapper and I find myself with around 15 bigs and looking to make a move. I picked up the blinds, antes and some dude's raise when I three-bet shove with Qh9h then disaster strikes as an oldish woman opens with a min-raise, I shove my red sevens and she tank-calls with red jacks, which obviously hold as I never suck out and I bust 14/45. Oh I forgot to mention had badly I run in general. Finding myself hungry I decided to order a ham and cheese toastie only to discover, as it arrived at my table, that there was a free Chinese buffet for the poker players! So everyone is sat there scoffing spare ribs (my favourite), spring rolls and the like whilst I burn myself with grease and have hot cheese stuck to my chin, both of them.

The fella who I went with was still in decent shape so I decided to play some cash games whilst I waited for him. I sat down with £75 at the £0.25/£0.50 games and we were five-handed. The play was extremely passive but I couldn't take advantage of it as I was getting tripe like 74o, 92s, J3o which wasn't a problem for these fish but I have some sort of standards. I lost one pot after UTG straddles to £1 and the entire tables calls! I bump it to £9 and get two callers, and the dealer puts out the king-high flop but three spades. The small blind checks, I bet 2/3 pot, UTG calls but now the SB raises about £60! I muck, as does Mr UTG and the small blind proudly turns over 8s5s for a flush. Well played you tard. I then lost a significant pot when I flopped two pair with 97o on a 9x-Ax-7x flop. Villain, who is worse than our Asian fish from earlier leads out, I raise hoping to get action from him and he gives action by shoving. I snap-call and he flips over Tx8x for an open-ended straight draw, which hits on the turn as the 6d shows its ugly little face. No boat on the river and I am down almost a buy-in. Balls to reloading I thought as it was late, though I did manage to win more than half my losses back by firing pretty big on the flop and turn in two separate hands.

I checked the clock and it was rapidly approaching 0145 so I did one as I was completely knackered from watching the Super Bowl, pissed, and later found out my mate came fifth. Congrats. The standard was ridiculously bad and I am definitely going to go down again in the near future and maybe even make it a regular bi-weekly or monthly trip, maybe using my rakeback as my live bankroll as I'm pulling in about £50 a week on that front so a four buy-in shot once a month could be quite profitable!

I'll leave it there and let you know about the rollercoaster ride I am having playing online cash in another post. Until then, thanks for reading and best of luck at the tables!

Betfair sponsored pro, John Tabatabai is on course for another massive score as he finds himself seventh in chips with only 18 players remaining at the Venice stop of the World Poker Tour.

With increased competition from the various poker tours in the United States of America the World Poker Tour has struggled in recent years and has seen attendances dwindle, especially in American-based events. Nethertheless, since the decision was made to make the World Poker Tour (WPT) a true world poker tour, one that literally has stops around the world, the turnouts have increased, particularly in the various European destinations.

One such stop that has seen an increased audience is WPT Venice where 396 players took part in 2010 but this has grown by more than 24% as 523 hopefuls made their way through the doors of the beautiful Casino Muncipale di Venezia over the course of two official Day 1s.

Day 1a saw 208 players enter and 101 of them leave, whilst Day 1b's field grew to 305 of which only 118 players had chips remaining when play drew to a close. These 219 players then converged during Day 2 and only 57 if these survived to make it through to yesterday's Day 3.

Of these 57 players only 54 of them would be paid meaning it would be a short and disappointing day for three of them. One player to leave empty handed was the British pro John Eames, an extremely talented individual who has an amazing record in the various side events spread by the various tour organisers. He found himself all in holding Kd9d against the 7d7s of Nicolas Cardyn and when the board ran out Ad-4s-2s-Js-2h it was game over for Eames, who was eliminated in 57th place on the very first hand of the day!

The unfortunate bubble boy was Mario Spurio who may count himself a little unfortunate to bow out as he did. He got himself into a raising war with Alessia Isaia on a board reading Td-2d-Js whilst holding TcTh for middle set, with Isaia holding KdJd for top pair and a flush draw. One of the players said he had folded Ad5d, which took away some of Isaia's outs but another diamond found its way to the turn, the 4d completing Isaia's flush. The 5s on the river failed to improve Spurio to a boat and he left with only a round of applause to show for his efforts this past week.

Over the next few hours the players were being gradually whittled down but one man who seemed to be accumulating chips at an alarming rate was our hero, Tabatabai and he managed to do it whilst still flying under the radar so to speak. I personally know the reporter at WPT Venice and having spoke to him this morning he confirmed that Mr Tabatabai is playing extremely well and we both agreed he could be about to take down his first WPT event, something that would net hiom €380,000!

It has been a rather barren couple of years for Tabatabai and he will be the first to admit it. He burst onto the live poker scene when he finished as a runner-up to Annette "Annette_15" Obrestad in the inaugural World Series of Poker Europe Main Event back in 2007, a result that netted him £570,150. Since then he has won $127,584 for besting a field in the All Africa Poker Tournament in 2008 won the AUD$5,000 Heads Up Event at the 2009 Aussie Millions for AUD$100,000 and last year's solitary cash was for £17,318, awarded for his seventh place finish in the £2,500 Six Handed Event of the 2010 World Series of Poker Europe. Our hero has had some horrific luck when deep in tournaments over the past couple of years, here's to him running like God for another couple of days!

Top ten chip counts

1.) Alessio Isaia: 1,900,000
2.) Maxim Lykov: 1,534,500
3.) Sandor Mayer: 1,281,000
4.) Andrea Ferrari: 1,235,000
5.) David Vamplew: 1,178,500
6.) Alexandre Rodriguez: 1,167,500
7.) John Tabatabai: 1,143,000
8.) Allessandro Speranza: 991,000
9.) Camille Garrigues: 950,500
10.) Christian Fabri: 861,000

As a reader of many poker forum posts each week I frequently see new members posting their hand histories from micro-stakes games asking how is it possible to beat the fish who will call you with raggedy hands regardless of the action before them. The most common tongue-in-cheek response is to move up in stakes where the players respect your raises. Although this is completely wrong as if you cannot defeat the fish you are not going to be able to beat the better players found in higher stakes games, it seems to have worked for me!

If you read my previous post you will have discovered that I have been playing the dizzy heights of NL50 after realising that playing for any lower was basically pointless and a waste of my time and effort. For as long as I can remember fellow blogger and poker player Amatay has been telling me to ditch the micro-stakes and play much higher but I have always held back for one reason or another but now I am glad I have grown a pair and tested the, apparently, shark infested waters.

At time of writing I have played 3,076 hands and I am in profit by €87.76 for a win rate of 5.72bb/100, more than adequate for anyone, especially a newcomer to this level. My profits should be much higher too, €192.28 to be exact, but we all know that I run like dog turn when I am all in with the best hand but what I am most impressed with has been my discipline and lack of tilt when matters have not been going the way I would have wanted them to. By hand 1,500 I was down more than €110 and the old Yorkshire Pudding would have completely given up, withdrawn his bankroll and moaned to all and sundry. However, this new me simply kept playing, albeit over no more than two tables simultaneously, as I know I am better than most of the players, if not all of them, that I have come up against so far.

Concentrating on just two tables has allowed me to actually play some poker and take so many pots without a showdown that it is almost criminal! I have actually managed to win €81 of the €86 without showing down my holecards, which goes to show how badly I am running when I do have to showdown cards. The standard of players is obviously better than those I have come across at NL10 but only because they are more aggressive but aggression does not always equal skill. In fact some of these players just love to go broke with top pair and some are so transparent in their betting that they are essentially giving away their money to anyone observant enough to spot their tells.

One of the aspects of poker I have always struggled with is the money side of things, which is a big hindrance as money is what we use to keep score in this crazy game. I'm not sure if it is because I have always worked for my money so know its value or what but I have always found it difficult to disassociate the monetary value of my chips and view them as simply that, chips. For some reason moving up seems to have helped me do this, strange I know, but I've not thought about the money side of things for at least the past 2,500 hands. The only time I had previously was when I went with my gut instinct and moved all in with pocket jacks over the top of a turn bet on a board reading Qc-3c-8d-Qc only to see I was completely wrong and the villain held 8c8h for a flopped set and turned boat. At this point I thought that the €54.29 could have been better used but then I realised that if I had have been correct and won the hand then I would not be moaning about it. I must admit though that the old heart gets pumping when I find myself all in or running a big bluff!

My confidence is sky high at the moment but I need to be careful not to get carried away as it is very early days at my new level. I'll leave you with the biggest pot I have won so far, not surprising that I held aces, and the biggest pot I have lost so far too against an aptly-named “fish ****”.

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

One of the most popular applications on the social networking site Facebook is Zynga Poker, an aplpication that allows users of Facebook to play poker against friends, family and strangers from around the world, much like any other poker site except this one is played for a virtual currency rather than actual money.

Although no real money changes hands between players on the site, it is possible to buy extra virtual chips to top up those that are awarded to new players when they sign up for an account and by all accounts Zynga do very well financially from players wanting to buy what is essentially worthless currency.

Wherever there is money involved there will always be someone looking to get their hands on it cheaply or illegitimately and Zynga Poker is no different. Ashley Mitchell, a 29-year old man from Paignton, Devon, UK, now faces a jail term after admitting that he hacked into the servers of Zynga Corporation and “stole” no less than 400 billion chips from them! He then used a well-known auction site to sell these chips for £430 per billion and had made profits of £53,000 by the time he was tracked down. Had he managed to sell all 400 billion he would have made £184,000, however had Zynga sold this many through the proper channels they would have made a staggering $12,000,000!

Judge Phillip Wassall informed Mitchell that he would face a substantial jail term for his “sophisticated” offences, which were likened to steal from the National Mint. Mitchell pleaded guilty to four charges of converting criminal property and a fifth charge of violating the Computer Misuse Act.

Unsurprisingly, this is not the first occasion that Mitchell has used his obvious talents for a dastardly deed, as back in 2008 he was given a suspended 40-week jail sentence for hacking his former employees website and altering information there so he would receive a payment of £3,498. This latest offence violates the conditions set by that particular sentence.

Mitchell's defence solicitor, Ben Derby informed Exeter Crown Court that these offences took part whilst his client was “wrestling a gambling addiction” that had seen him lose more than £3,000 to online games. Mitchell was remanded in custody until a date for his trial can be decided.

Following on from the excellently written article by Marcus Bateman on “Raising With Sets” I thought I would use a couple of hand examples from my own database to show the different approaches you can take in order to get your money into the middle when holding a set.

For the purpose of this article we are not going to look at the preflop play as much as the actual flopping of the set. Also, some people refer to all three-of-a-kind holdings as a set but we are only going to consider a set as holding a pair that hits another one of its cards on the flop, the other is trips and a completely different animal.

Whenever you flop a set the first thought in your mind should be how we are going to get our and our opponent's stacks into the middle of the felt but this planning stage is where many players go wrong and often back themselves into a corner, allow their opponent to outdraw them or finish up winning a much smaller pot than they should. Once you have flopped a set who you get your money in depends on factors such as the preflop action, your opponent type, stack sizes and the ever-so vital board texture.

The following two examples from my own cash game database show different ways to play sets depending on the factors mentioned in the previous paragraph. In the first we are six handed $0.25/$0.50 and I make my standard raise to $1.75 from under the gun holding 3s3h and only the big blind calls. Villain is running at 65/18/3.3 from a small sample size but I've already pegged him as a donkey. The flop comes down 3c-9d-4h and villain bets $2.81 into the $3.75 pot. Here many people would simply raise and hope villain either calls or comes over the top of us. The problem with this is that he only called preflop, which does not indicate great strength and he has donk-bet into me despite the fact I am going to continuation bet here with my entire range.

At this point I am thinking he has nothing and hopes me to fold AK or AQ or has a weak hand such as 98 or T9 something like that. If I raise here I am saying I have a hand that beats his most likely holding and unless he is nuts he's going to fold. By calling, which I did, we allow him the chance to make an expensive second best hand. The turn is the Jc and he now checks and I opt to bet $6.80 into the $9.37 pot because it looks like I am stabbing at the pot and I also think the jack helps his range a lot. It looks like it has when he makes a min-raise taking the pot to almost $30 and leaving himself $21 and change behind so I shove on him and he snap-calls with Jh9s and has less than 10% equity.

In the second hand we are four-handed and I make my standard opening raise to $1.75 from UTG holding 8s8d. The action folds to the small blind, who is playing 33/25/0.7 with a 3-bet percentage of 20%, who makes it $6 to play. I make a marginal call and I am rewarded as the flop comes down 8h-5h-Tc and villain checks. Here we have two options, we can lead out and try to protect out hand against the plethora of draws out there or we can check with the intention of raising our opponent's bet. The last option is by far the worst because out opponent is passive post flop so is likely to check behind with hands that he would likely call a bet with, such as flush draws, and there are a number of cards that have the potential to kill our action if they arrive on the turn and they do not help him Plus he has three-bet out of position so is likely to have a stronger hand than usual and could be going for the check-raise. So I lead out with a bet of $10 into $12.50, probably a little on the large side to be honest but I am protecting against the flush and he calls. The 5d hits the turn and again he checks. Now the pot is $32.50 and I have $36.05 left so the only move left is to shove. Not only do we now have a full house, if he liked the flop then he likes the turn and the only two holdings we're bothered about are 55 and TT and if he has those than we are paying him off. I shove and he insta-calls with a rather shocking 7h7d.

Both hands resulted in our stacks going in but both needed different approaches due to the villain involved and the board texture. Think about these two major factors each time you flop a set, think about what range of hands they could hold and how would you a.) play that range yourself and b.) how would you react to aggression and shows of strength if you held villains range.

Back in November 2009 we brought you the breaking news of professional poker player Marcus Bebb-Jones being arrested at his Kidderminster home and being accused of murdering his American wife, Sabrina, in Colorado 12 years previously. Now we can inform you that his appeal against being extradited to the United States of America to face these charges has been dismissed by the High Court and he will be extradited to the US, where he will face a trial for murder in the first degree, concealing death and domestic violence.

Bebb-Jones lived in the US for eight years before returning to the UK a year after his wife disappeared. He told police officers that his wife had walked out on him after a fight they had in the Dinosaur National Monument park in north-west Colorado on 16 September 1997. The following day he flew, with his then three year old son Daniel, to Las Vegas where his wife's family lives in order to search for her.

Four days later Daniel was found alone in a hotel room and taken into state care and the following day Bebb-Jones was found in another hotel room suffering from what investigating officers described as a “self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head.” Further investigation revealed Bebb-Jones had run up charges of $5,700 during his five day “Playboy weekend” and had a further $7,000 of charges refused, some of which he used his missing wife's credit cards to fund.

Despite finding Sabrina's blood in the family car, Bebb-Jones faced no official charge and returned to the UK with his son in 1998. Then in 2004, a rancher discovered a skull near Douglas Pass, which is in between the Dinosaur National Monument and Grand Junction, which later turned out to be the skull of the missing Sabrina Bebb-Jones. A further five years of investigations took place and eventually a warrant for the arrest of Mr Bebb-Jones was issued.

Upon his arrest, Bebb-Jones, who has live tournament winnings of $242,569, was remanded in custody due to his ability to obtain cash at short notice and was therefore a risk of absconding. US officials have been fighting to have the well-liked poker player extradited to the US to face trial but it looked as if their quest had failed but on Friday 28 January the High Court dismissed his appeal and he will now be extradited to face trial in the US.

Under US law the maximum punishment Bebb-Jones could face is lifetime imprisonment with no chance of parole, so he will die behind bars, or the death penalty, which is still active in Colorado. However, under agreements draw up between the US and the UK, the death penalty is quite unlikely.

Last week I made the decision to stop being a wuss and start to play for stakes a few levels above what I usually do. Whilst I've not been rubbing shoulders with Tom Dwan and company, I have been playing a few hands of NL50, which I guess is five times the stakes of my previous micro-stake adventures.

Writing about poker strategy, discussing poker with good players and getting to watch some of them in action at EPT events has got me thinking on a higher level than the majority of micro-donks and I find it not only boring but extremely difficult to play the robotic ABC style needed to beat these droolers, not to mention I do not see the point in grinding all month to make $100, seems pointless.

Anyway, the first session went pretty badly and saw me drop very close to a buyin after only 78 hands. I wasn't overly worried as I lost a large percentage of the money in a blind versus blind scenario where my opponent slowplayed a pair of aces all the way to the river after I had flopped top pair, and another where I called down a complete fish with ace high after picking up the nut flush draw on the turn, only for him to be sat there with a pair of sixes on a board reading Jd-Kd-Jc-2d-7h.

My second run at NL50 saw me play 511 hands, not bad for two tables at once, and saw me win almost three buyins despite getting stacked early doors when me read was completely off and villain was sat their with the effective nuts. Basically I completely destroyed the game, it was great fun and very profitable too, something I could quite easily get used to. But as Newton so eloquently said, "What goes up, must come down" and he was certainly correct as I got completely hammered last night, completely.

Nothing I did worked, if I had a strong hand they had a slightly stronger one, it was a complete nightmare. Oh and it doesn't help when the craziest mofo you have ever played against, playing a 94/61/3 style turns a Royal Flush, plays it like a pansy then you pay him off on the river when you hit a well disguised straight. Short-stackers raped me too, I lost 12 hands that were in the $10-$20 size due to basically not winning flips. AK versus deuces, AQ versus QJ, AQ vs AK, TT versus JJ, as an example. And then there are the complete tools who hit two outers on you like they are going out of fashion. ****!

All in all that puts me around 1.25 buy-ins down after being two up, but I do recoup around half of that through rakeback and I have only played 1,500 hands so a lot of it should just be variance and bad luck running into the top of people's range. I've not felt out of my depth once yet so I am 100% confident I can turn it around.

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

The 2011 Aussie Millions Main Event came to an exciting conclusion over the weekend with 71-year old Australian, David Gorr emerging victorious, defeating popular British poker pro James Keys in an intense heads-up battle that lasted more than 200 hands!

In total 721 players entered the $10,000 Main Event but all eyes were on the final eight remaining players who each had a realistic chance of walking away with the $2,000,000 first place prize money. There were new fewer than three British players at the final table, Chris Moorman and Sam Razavi joining Keys in their quest for their first major live title but all would ultimately fall short.

Twenty-six hands into the proceedings and the tournament lost a player in the shape of Finnish superstar, Patrik Antonius who paid the price for slowplaying a premium holding preflop. He looked down and saw KhKc staring back at him and opted to limp in, Randy Dorfman also limped, Gorr followed suit and Moorman checked in the big blind. A flop reading Qs-Th-7s saw Moorman check, Antonius bet 125,000, Dorfman lay down his hand and Gorr pop it to 500,000. Moorman got out of the way and Antonius said, "I guess it's time to go all in" and did just that. Gorr snap-called him and turned over QhTs for top two pair and when the turn and river were the Ac and 5c respectively Antonius was eliminated in eighth place, worth $130,000 though probably not the finish he was looking for.

Not long after, Moorman joined him on the rail after himself tangling with Gorr. With blinds at 15,000/30,000/5,000a, Gorr raised to 70,000 from the cutoff seat and then called when Moorman made it 190,000 to play from the big blind. The dealer put out the Td-Th-7d flop, which prompted a shove from Moorman and a quick call from Gorr, the latter being in front holding KsTs for trip tens and Moorman holding 8d4d for a flush draw. The 5h on the turn gave Moorman additional outs to a straight but none of them arrived as the 2s made an appearance on the river to knock out the young British hopeful, though his did pick up a career best $175,000 for his efforts.

Hand 92 of the final table was the last hand Razavi would take part in as he was caught with his hand in the proverbial cookie jar by fellow Brit, Keys. Finding himself short stacked and in the need of a double up, Razavi had become very active and for the second time in a row he open-shoved, this time holding Ad7d. Unlike the previous move that saw him pick up the blinds and antes, this time he found a caller in Keys holding 7h7s. A Qs-Js-Jh flop kept the pocket sevens of Keys in front and they stayed in the lead as the 5c fell on the turn and the 9s peeled off on the river.

Just six hands later and five players became four as Dorfman headed for the cashier's cage to pick up $325,000. The action folded to him in the small blind and despite having more than 32 big blinds in his stack, he moved all in for 1,300,000! Gorr, in the big blind, deliberated for a couple of minutes before making the call, turning over Ac9c, which would need some help to best the pocket tens of Dorfman. No help arrived in the 8c-Qh-8d-4s board but the Ad spiked on the river to bust Dorfman and give Gorr almost half of the chips in play!

Michael Ryan was the next to fall in one of poker's classic coin flip situations. From under the gun he made it 155,000 to play, with blinds now at 30,000/60,000/5,000 only to see Jeff Rossiter re-raise the action to 430,000 from the small blind. With the action back on Ryan he made it 850,000 to play, which prompted an insta-shove from Rossiter and n even quicker call from his opponent. The hands? Ryan held 9h9c against AdKh. It looked as if Ryan was going to double up as by the turn the board read Qd-2h-3d-2s but he was cruelling "Greensteined" as there was an ace on the river, this one in spades, to eliminate Ryan in fourth place, a finish worth a cool $450,000.

An hour later and Rossiter called off all of his stack with an unknown hand as he mucked as soon as he found he had run into the nuts, you decide for yourself what his holding was. He got the action started with a raise to 180,000 from the button and then called when Gorr re-raised to 550,000 from the small blind. Both players checked the Qc-Jh-5h flop, and Gorr checked again as the turn brought the 3h into play. Rossiter was in no mood for checking it back again and fired a bet of 720,000, which was check-raised by Gorr to 1,720,000, a bet Rossiter called. The seemingly blank 5d on the river saw Gorr move all in and a minute or so later Rossiter called for his tournament life, but quickly mucked face down as Gorr turned over AhQh for the nut flush.

Going into heads up the Australian Gorr held a massive 12,025,000 to 2,445,000 chip advantage but that did not deter the Brit who was quite obviously the better player of the two, something that became apparent as he fought his way back into contention over the next 150 or so hands. On the 153rd hand of heads-up play Keys actually completely turned the tie around and took more than a 10-to-1 lead over his opponent. He managed to get Gorr to commit his stack holing AcKs against his Kc5c on a board reading 5s-3h-Kd-2s. The Jd on the river saw Keys move to 13,310,000 chips and left Gorr hanging onto 1,160,000.

But Gorr was not dead and buried yet and was running insanely hot throughout the final table so it was unsurprising that he clawed his way back level. Then on hand 415 of the final table, the 212th of heads up play, the final hand took place. Keys opened with a raise to 225,000, Gorr called and they both saw a flop that read 7s-6c-3h. Gorr checked then called Keys' 275,000 continuation bet. The dealer burned a card and put the Kh out on the turn and again Gorr checked, Keys bet again, this time 650,000 but then Gorr check-raised to 1,650,000. Keys did not look comfortable but he moved all in and was snap-called by Gorr. Keys was actually in front, his 7c3c making two pair to be beating the Kc4c of his opponent. But once again Lady Luck was shining down on the Australian as the dealer put the 4s on the river, giving Gorr a higher two pair and the title! So unlucky from Keys, who fought back valiantly only to be crushed by a disgusting river card.

The $1,035,000 Keys picked up for his splendid efforts over the past week represent his biggest cash to date and there is no doubt in my mind that we will see him on many more final tables in years to come. Congratulations to David Gorr, who now finds himself $2,000,000 richer and the oldest winner of any Aussie Millions event ever.

The final table payouts were as follows:

1.) David Gorr: $2,000,000
2.) James Keys: $1,035,000
3.) Jeff Rossiter: $700,000
4.) Michael Ryan: $450,000
5.) Randy Dorfman: $325,000
6.) Sam Razavi: $225,000
7.) Chris Moorman: $175,000
8.) Patrik Antonius: $130,000

With the exploits of Sam Trickett in the $100,000 and $250,000 High Roller events at the 2011 Aussie Millions grabbing all the headlines, many have forgotten that the $10,300 Main Event is in its final stages with only eight of the original 721 entrants still in with a chance of claiming the $2,000,000 first place prize money.

Eighteen players returned to their seats in the early hours of this morning whilst the majority of us were still in bed (due to the time difference in Australia) and the plan was to play until only six players remained but the unofficial final table of eight battled it out for more than six hours without losing a player so the tournament has been paused until tomorrow when the players will return to the Crown Casino and play until a champion is crowned.

Of those eight players still in the hunt for glory, three of them are British! James “skolsuper” Keys is the best placed of the three at the close of play as he finds himself in second place with a 2,395,000 stack, with Sam Razavi ending Day 4 with 1,360,000 chips. Online superstar Chris “Moorman1” Moorman started the day as the chip leader but will begin Day 5 as the shortest stack at the table with 955,000 chips, blinds will be 15,000/30,000/5,000a  at the start of play tomorrow. Moorman has won more than $6,500,000 in online tournaments but that big live score still eludes him, though he looks like he could put an end to that in this event.

Mark Vos started Day 4 second in chips but he was the first player out of the door after suffering several strokes of bad luck. He first had a set of eights lose to the turned flush of Jeff Rossiter to be left with only 15 big blinds but he did stage a recovery of sorts and last for another 40 minutes. However, he then lost with AcJd against the pocket threes of Tyler Bonkowski with the money going in preflop and the three flopping a set, then the very next hand a severely short-stacked Vos shoved Ad2d and lost to the AcTc of Bonkowski, who made an unnecessary straight by the river.

It then looked as if the day was going to draw to a close rather quickly as there were a flurry of eliminations over the next couple of hours. Tobias Reinkemeier, Cliff Lee, Manny Stavropolous, Bonkowski and Eli Heath all busted out within an hour of Vos' exit and they were soon joined by David Menz, Shane Sigsbee and Randy “Nanonko” Lew to leave just nine players remaining.

Sorel Mizzi finished third in this very tournament last year and he was odds on to reach back-to-back final tables until disaster struck and he lost a massive pot in cruel fashion. With blinds at 8,000/16,000/2,000a Michael Ryan opened to 35,000 from the cutoff, Mizzi called on the button and Keys called from the big blind. The flop of Ac-8h-3h was met with a check from Keys, a continuation bet of 85,000 from Ryan, a call from Mizzi and finally a fold from Keys. The dealer burned a card and put out the turn, the 8d, a card that seemed to light the blue touch paper. Ryan lead out with a 135,000 bet, Mizzi then moved all in for around 360,000 in total and Ryan made the call, telling his Canadian opponent, “I just had to pay you off,” before turning over AsKc, a massive underdog to the 3d3c of Mizzi that had made a full house! Mizzi was preparing to double up and be in with a real chance of winning this tournament when the 8c peeled off on the river to give Ryan a better full house! Sick beat.

This left the final table of eight players, each guaranteed at least $130,000 for their efforts in this tournament. As mentioned it was the intentions of the tournament staff to play until just six of these eight players had chips in their stacks but six and a half hours later all they had done was pass chips around to each other so they paused the action. Moorman did try his best to bust out, triple barrel bluffing into Patrik Antonius when the Finn held trip tens to leave himself with less than 15 big blinds but the super-talented Brightonian fought back to end the night with 32 big blinds.

When play resumes at 1230 local time the members of the final table will be seated as follows:

Seat 1: Chris Moorman: 955,000
Seat 2: James Keys: 2,395,000
Seat 3: Patrik Antonius: 1,300,000
Seat 4: Jeff Rossiter: 1,235,000
Seat 5: Randy Dorfman: 3,895,000
Seat 6: David Gorr: 2,370,000
Seat 7: Sam Razavi: 1,360,000
Seat 8: Michael Ryan: 960,000

Just three days ago we brought you the news of British poker pro Sam Trickett winning the 2011 Aussie Millions $100,000 High Roller event for a career best cash of $1,525,000, well just hours ago he added another $1,400,000 to his bankroll by coming second in the most-expensive poker tournament ever played.

There had been rumours of a $250,000 Super High Roller event taking place but they were dismissed as that, rumours. However, late yesterday evening news broke that the quarter of a million Australian dollar buy-in tournament was definitely going ahead and that 13 players had already bought in. By the time the tournament kicked off there were 18 players who had parted company with the equivalent of twenty-five $10,000 WSOP Main Event entries, split across two tables. Anyone who pays $250,000 to play in what was essentially a turbo sit 'n' go needs their head's testing and deserves a mention here!

Table One consisted of Tom “durrrr” Dwan, Phil Ivey, Alexander Kostritsyn, Richard Yong, Chris “Jesus” Ferguson, John Juanda, Tony Bloom, Nikolay Evdakov and Roland de Wolfe. Table Two was the home to Annette Obrestad, Wang Qiang, David Benyamine, James “Andy McLeod” Obst, Trickett, Paul Phua, Erik Seidel, Daniel “jungleman12” Cates and 2010 WSOPE Main Event winner James Bord.

Within 30 minutes of the start the tournament lost a player in a cruel kings versus aces situation. With blinds at 1,500/3,000/500a Obst opened with a raise to 9,000, Trickett called but Seidel was not in calling mood and made it 30,000 to play. Obst then put in another raise, this one to 66,000, which caused Trickett to fold but Seidel was going nowhere and he made it 103,000 to play! This was met by a quick all in bet from Obst and an even quicker call from Seidel, with the latter turning over AhAc, a huge favourite over the KcKd of Obst. No miracle board for the youngster and he was the first man eliminated. At this point two more players, Andrew Feldman and Eugene Katchalov bought in, taking the prize money to a staggering $5,000,000, which was to be shared out between the top three finishers.

One by one the players headed for the rail empty handed until just the final table of nine remained, with Trickett leading the pack with a 1,219,500 stack, way in front of his nearest rival, Ferguson. Trickett added to his stack when his tens prevailed against the ace-queen of Evdakov to bust the Russian. Ten minutes later and Trickett was at it again, taking out Ivey with a turned straight after calling the eight-time WSOP bracelet winner's all-in preflop bet with KhQd. Ivey held pocket fives.

Feldman was the next to go, around 20 minutes after Ivey's departure, when his nine were crushed by Benyamine's kings all in preflop. “Jesus” Ferguson then suffered a cooler of a hand against the on-form Trickett, committing his stack with a set of deuces on a 7h-2d-5c flop, only to see the Nottingham lad sat there with a set fives! No miracle for Jesus and he was sent packing.

Two of the Hong Kong businessmen made famous by the nosebleed cash games in Macau were next to go. Richard Yong eliminated in fifth place by his countryman Wang Qiang when his AdQh failed to out run the red tens of Qiang and then Qiang himself was eliminated in fourth place, bursting the money bubble. Qiang was left with egg on his face when he came over the top of Trickett's opening min-raise to 60,000 with a 650,000 all-in bet with just 3h2d. Trickett is running like God at the moment and it was no surprise when he turned over bullets, which held with no drama to burst the largest bubble in poker history.

Just ten minutes later and Benyamine was on his way to pick up his $1,100,000 third place prize money after more bad luck at the hands of the golden boy Trickett! A raising battle ensued on a board reading Ts-Ad-8c-As and it looked like a split pot was on the cards as neither player's kicker came into play, Trickett holding Ah4s against the Frenchman's Ac6c. However, when you run good you can run unbelievably good and Trickett was testament to this as the river was the 4h, giving him two pair and the best hand!

Going into heads up Trickett held a 4,196,000 to 804,000 chip lead over the vastly experienced Seidel but the American did not let the gulf in chips bother him, instead he chose his spots well, applied constant pressure to his opponent and eventually turned the match around on its head. Finding himself with an overwhelming chiplead over Trickett, Seidel limped on the button with Jh9c and then called a raise to 175,000 from Trickett, who held AsQh. A flop of 3s-5h-9h saw Trickett check to Seidel and then move all in over the American's 150,000 bet. Seidel called and had Trickett in a whole world of pain. The turn brought the Ks and the river the Td to bring the contest to and end.

Trickett's $1,400,000 won here means he has won $2,892,889 already this year and now had lifetime tournament winnings of $4,598,947, placing him third in the UK all-time money listings behind de Wolfe and Dave “DevilFish” Ulliott. Seidel's year has been even better with him cashing for a total of $3,460,000 so far, putting him just $330,000 behind current all-time money winner, Daniel Negreanu.