Yorky Pud

The dates for the 2011 World Series of Poker have been formally announced and it has been revealed there will be no fewer than 58 events from which players can potentially win one of the most coveted pieces of poker jewellery on the planet.

The $500 Casino Employees event kicks things off on Tuesday 31 May, with the only real break in the action coming on Tuesday 19 July when the Main Event is paused until November. Between those dates there are seven $1,000 events, twenty $1,500 buy-ins, ten $2,500 tournaments, two $3,000 events and 12 events commanding a $10,000 entry fee or more!

Last year over 70,000 players took part in the various events, winning around $180,000,000 between them but Harrah's, owners of the WSOP brand, have reshuffled the schedule in order to try and boost field sizes throughout six week series. The $50,000 Poker Player's Championship, which opened the 2010 WSOP, has been put to the back end of this year's series, starting just three days before the $10,000 No Limit Hold'em Championship Main Event. Opening this year's festival is a new $25,000 No Limit Heads-Up event that will be capped at 256 players and should fill extremely quickly.

Knowing many of their customers will come from online play, Harrah's has included a few mixed game events to its already impressive roster with Event #23 and #29 standing out from the crowd. Event #23 is a $2,500 buy-in that will see the entrants play fixed limit Hold'em, fixed limit Omaha split, Razz, Seven Card Stud, Seven Card Stud split, no limit Hold'em, pot limit Omaha and Deuce-to-seven Triple Draw in rotation, known as Eight-game. Event #29 is a 10-game mix and will see players play all the game in Eight-game along with fixed limit Badugi and no limit Deuce-to-seven triple Draw!

For the fourth consecutive year the “November Nine” will feature. Controversial in its first year, pausing the Main Event until November has been a success and although players still agree to disagree about the pausing of “The Big Dance” most have come to accept it. The $10,000 Main Event will be paused on Tuesday 19 July once only nine players remain and will then go on a fourth month hiatus until the players return to The Rio between Saturday 5 November and the seventh, with a prime time television show of the final table being aired on ESPN on November 8.

Various satellites for the World Series of Poker will be up and running in the Betfair Poker lobby very soon so keep your eyes peeled and your bankrolls at the ready for those. Hold onto your hats, this year's World Series of Poker could be quite a ride!

Sam Trickett has started 2011 just as he ended 2010, on fire at the tables! The previous 12 months saw the Nottingham -born former professional footballer net $1,071,356 from live tournaments and he has added a further $1,525,000 to that total after winning the Aussie Millions $100,000 Challenge.

Trickett has live scores dating back to 2007 but it was the following year that the poker community really started to take notice of him. He finished fourth from 805 entrants in a $5,000 No Limit Hold'em event for $245,927 and he followed that up a month later by winning the Luton leg of the GUKPT for £109,050.

Although 2009 was pretty quiet by his standards, netting “only” $94,894, he exploded in 2010 and took the world by storm. It started badly with his long-term girlfriend leaving him but it has turned out to be for the best as it allowed him to follow his dreams and move to London, where he has been plying his trade at the live cash game tables. In a recent interview he told of winning more than £100,000 in a week and that he had a renewed passion for poker and was playing the best he ever had.

This showed at the 2011 World Series of Poker with him cashing six times, including a runner-up finish in the $5,000 No Limit Hold'em event and a final table appearance of the $25,000 Six Handed event. He followed this up with a fourth place finish at EPT Vilamoura, the tournament eventually won by fellow Brit, Toby Lewis. Add to this the $200,000 he won for winning the World Open and the fact he is rumoured to have won hundreds of thousands playing the same high stakes cash games in Macau that Phil Ivey and Tom “durrrr” Dwan were smashing up and it is easy to say 2010 was his best year at the felt.

However, if his start to 2011 is anything to go by then he could be set to eclipse his achievements of last year and become one of poker's true superstars. He is currently in Australia for the 2011 Aussie Millions and he has got off to a blistering start by winning the $100,000 Challenge, an invite-only event that saw 38 of the world's best players take part in the largest buy-in tournament in the Southern Hemisphere.

The tournament was paused after around ten hours of play on Day 1 as the 38 players were whittled down to the final table of eight, with only six of those getting any financial reward for their efforts. Trickett lead the way going into the final table with 961,000 chips, more than 300,000 extra than David Steike and Erik Seidel in second and third place. The first player to head for the rail was Chris “Jesus” Ferguson, who put his short stack into the middle with Ah8c and ran into the AsJc of Tony “The Lizard” Bloom.

Jeffrey Lisandro was the tournament's bubble boy, committing his entire stack with pocket tens on a 3c-Kd-3d flop only to find Steike, the preflop aggressor, held a pair of aces! With Lisandro out of the picture the rest of the table were each guaranteed to take home at least $150,000. David Benyamine was the first to pick up this amount after clashing with Trickett and half hour later James Obst was on his way to the cage to pick up $200,000 after making a play with king-ten offsuit and failing to outrun the pair of jacks in the hand of Bloom.

Four became three with the elimination of Steike at the hands of Seidel, with the latter being the third placed finisher a whole three hours after the demise of Steike. This left two Brits heads-up for the title and the $1,525,000 first place prize. Trickett held a 2,455,000 to 1,345,000 chip lead over Bloom but the latter, making his third consecutive cash in this event, was not phased by this fact. However, within 25 minutes he found himself down to 650,000 after Trickett had managed to make two straights in quick succession.

The final hand saw Trickett make his standard opening min-raise of 60,000, Bloom move all in for 650,000 and Tricket instantly call. Bloom turned over Qd9d which would need to improve against the AhKd of Trickett, who was more than a 62% favourite to get his hands on the biggest cash of his career so far. The 8h-3c-2c put some extra distance between the two hand value and when the 8c fell on the turn, Bloom was drawing thinly with only a 1% chance of victory. That was taken away from him as the 4c peeled off on the river, resigning Bloom to the $975,000 runner-up prize and gifting Trickett the huge $1,525,000 first place prize.

With this win Trickett now has more than $3,300,000 from live poker tournaments and will have added to his already growing reputation as one of the best players in not only Europe but the world.

Final table payouts
1.) Sam Trickett: $1,525,000
2.) Tony Bloom: $975,000
3.) Erik Seidel: $625,000
4.) David Steike: $350,000
5.) James Obst: $200,000
6.) David Benyamine: $150,000

Since as long as I can remember I have always been a stat geek, I don't know why but I just have. Back in the days when I was glued to my computer playing the then called Championship Manager I could literally tell you how many appearances players had made and goals they had scored from huge sample size. Quite sad really if you think about it.

When I discovered Holdem Manager I was over the moon because of the plethora of stats it produces but one of them has been masking problems and leaks in my game, the dreaded “$ EV Adjusted” column. For those of you who haven't heard of this evil stat what is basically shows is how much money you should have won had the cards fallen the way they should have over an infinite sample size. So if you win $100 with AA vs KK you would actually lose around $20 from the $ EV Adjusted stat because AA should only beat KK around 80% of the time. The opposite also runs true too and if you get your money in as a big favourite and lose you earn plenty of Sklansky Dollars.

The problem is with stats is you can mess around with them to tell whatever story you want them to. For example, do you know that almost 100% of people who have died in the world have drank water, therefore water must be dangerous. Far fetched and silly but it gets the point across. In my case I have been using this particular stat to paper over the quite obvious cracks and flaws in my game by simply blaming the cards for my short comings.

I recently spoke, I say spoke but it was all typed on Skype, to a high volume player, one who is going to try and make SuperNova Elite in the next couple of years and one who really talks sense. He asked me how poker was going and I said it basically wasn't and that my EV was all over the place. As soon as the text hit his screen he stopped me in my tracks and told me to completely forget about EV as it can not only do what it had done to me, give you a false hope or a reason to believe losing wasn't my fault, but it could drive some people to madness because they would think their account is **** and other such ridiculousness. He said to look for reasons why my EV was screwed such as getting my money in on flips or calling three-bets too lightly and getting my money in badly. Dude makes sense, check his blog out here.

I've actually gone as far as deleting the stat from all the reports on Holdem Manager so I haven't a clue if I am running under EV or not, I no longer care. As long as I am making decisions that, in the long run, are going to make me money that is all that I care about. The only stats I should be concentrating on is my win-rate and how to improve it. I have been on auto pilot for a long time and picked up a ton of leaks, leaks that need to be filled in quickly and filled in by going back to basics, probably playing one or two tables and actually thinking about the game rather than simply betting because my hand looks good, having a plan for every hand and owning the fishes again!

Over the past week I have played 200 of the 10-man turbo SNG on Betfair Poker but I won't be playing them anymore, I hate them. I basically broke even after rakeback and bonuses, and they are very good for doing just that, but I am more than a rakeback ****, plus to be honest the three minute blinds are a joke and the fact the buy-in isn't altered to accommodate the fact they are turbos kind of tilts me. One positive thing I must mention is the instant play client, which is pretty awesome. My laptop is a complete dinosaur but using the browser client I could 12 table quite easily and have iTunes running with no lag at all. Just a shame the hand histories aren't saved when using it.

In the online poker sense I'm not too sure what I am going to do but my local casino has started spreading cash games and some half decent low buy-in tournaments so I'll probably hit those up in the next week or two as live poker is much more fun and the standard is generally LOL-bad! No poker reporting for me this month but its in France so I'm not too fussed. I've heard bad things about France and the French, though the only Frenchman I have met is a great laugh and nothing like the stereotypical Frecnhy we get told about. Fingers crossed I get to go to Copenhagen in February as I've never been to a Scandinavian country and would like to do so.

Right, this has gone on for long enough so I'll leave it there and get on with some other stuff. As always, thanks for reading and best of luck at the tables!

Annie Duke looks set to become the commissioner of a brand new poker league that is looking to become for poker what the PGA is for golf. Although no name has been officially released yet it is thought the new league will be called the Federated Poker League and will see 200 hand picked players take part in four tournaments per year, the fourth being a $1,000,000 freeroll Championship event.

The newly formed company calling itself Federated Sports and Gaming released a statement that highlighted their intention to create a new professional poker league where players will earn two, three or five year passes that will be issued on a similar basis to the “tour card” on the PGA circuit. It was also revealed that there will be fewer than 10 lifetime passes issued for those with truly outstanding results and poker-related achievements. Federates Sports and Gaming are fronted by former World Series of Poker Commissioner, Jeffrey Pollack and three businessmen Jeffrey Grosman, Michael Brodsky and David Goldberg, who were the men behind one of the largest horse racing betting sites in the United States of America, Youbet.com

Up to 200 players from around the world will be selected based on the current performances, along with previous history but amazingly there will be no credit given to any player's cash game prowess or online results, something that is sure to stoke up some major discussions in recent months as it would suggest the likes of Tom “durrrr” Dwan and Patrik Antonius would not be eligible to play, meaning they would not be considered in the top 100 players in the world at present! The exact selection criteria has not been created yet but both Pollack and Duke have said it will be made public as soon as everything has been ironed out.

Each of the 200 players will take part in three tournaments to be held at the home of Federated Sports and Gaming, The Palms Casino Resort, to be held between August and December each year with a fourth tournament, a Championship event, taking place in January. This Championship is thought to be a $1,000,000 freeroll, whilst all the tournaments are said to be 100% rake-free with overlays guaranteed on top of any prizepool generated.

According to Duke the reason for the formation of the league is simple. In an interview she said, “Fans have shown over and over again that they love the stars of this game. It's the stars of this game that they really want to be watching on television, and I think the stars should get something in return for that."

As would be expected the announcement has been met with mixed responses on forums around the world with one poster stating, “if its good for TV, its good for us” and another positive poster wrote, “If nothing else, this sounds like a great deal for the players who get to play, and is definitely a step in the right direction. I hope it takes off.” Some were much more sceptical about the league, even hinting that the league is being formed because the live “TV Pros” simply cannot cut it in today's competitive climate, “TV pros want their own league where they can just eliminate the incredibly tough fields in just about all poker tournaments these days and just pass money round to each other while convincing Joe public they are the best in the world.”

This is not the first time a new poker league has tried to muscle in on the action, as in 2005 the Professional Poker Tour was unveiled as a way of extending the reach of the World Poker Tour, which also had a similar incite-only policy and the equivalent of “tour cards” but after five tournaments the league was scrapped as players were simply not willing to turn out for the low payouts along with a number of broadcasting rights issues.

Many think the league is doomed from the start and the fact they are excluding online and cash game players seems absurd to say the least but if it brings new fish into the shark infested seas that we all now swim in then I am all for it.

Before you get too excited and are expect a story about Antanas “Tony G” Guoga having his head kicked in by some middle-aged man or him losing hundreds of thousands of dollars to a complete amateur I have to admit the title is a little misleading, but at the same time it is true! Read on.

As most of you will recall, in the middle of November 2010, Peter Eastgate announced that he intended to sell the bracelet he was awarded for winning the 2008 World Series of Poker Main Event, a result that also netted him a life-changing $9,152,416. Many saw this Eastgate's way of having closure on his career, a career that he decided to end four months previously, others saw it as a disrespectful act but most changed their tune when he informed he was going to donate all the proceeds from the sale to the children's charity, UNICEF.

Some people decided to cash in on the sale of a WSOP bracelet and use it for their own publicity, much like Cake Poker did when they bought the bracelet TJ Cloutier pawned during 2009. One such man was the larger-than-life and twice as ugly Tony G, with the Lithuanian loud-mouth stating that he would not be outbid on the bracelet by anyone as he planned on having the 168 grams of 18 carat white gold turned into a collar for his pet Alsation dog, “Zasko.”

Over the week-long auction the price gradually rose and it was quite apparent Tony G was getting worried about the price, which at the time of one of his blogs was around the $50,000 mark, and when the auction finally closed the selling price was an almost unbelievable $147,500, despite its face value being only $16,000. After a couple of gloating free days from Mr Guoga it was pretty obvious that he had not bought his dog the jewellery and had been beaten by an unknown bidder.

Well that unknown bidder is now known, in fact he is well-known in the world of charity donations as he has personally given away more than £5,000,000 in the past five year alone! William Haughey is a 51-year old businessman and philanthropist who has an estimated personal fortune of £150,000,000 made mostly from his global company City Refrigeration Holdings UK Ltd, which employs more than 11,000 employees worldwide.

Haughey was photographed with UNICEF Ambassador and Manchester United manager, Alex Ferguson and Joanne Andrews, a UNICEF representative, handing over a cheque for £100,000, a rounded up figure for his $147,500 (£94,000) purchase from Peter Eastgate. It is believed Haughey was touched by Eastgate's charitable gesture and vowed to win the bracelet at any cost, unlike Tony G who seemed to be all mouth and no trousers.

His plans for the bracelet are unknown at present but he did say he was going to try and use it to create more funds for charity but was unclear about how he was going to do so. At least it will not end up around the neck of someone's pooch for the time being.

Twenty-four year old Galen Hall from San Francisco is the latest in a long line of poker players who have become multi-millionaires after he won the 2011 PCA Main Event for a wallet-bursting $2,300,000 payout, defeating Chris “ImDaNuts” Oliver heads up, despite trailing him by more than 20,000,000 chips going into the one of one section of the tournament.

For the first time in live poker tournament history the final table was broadcast almost-live on ESPN, with an hour delay between what happened being shown on television. If the show was well received it could prove to be the latest gimmick in tournament poker.

The first player to be shown busting out was Canadian Phillipe Plouff who looked down at QsQh and decided to three-bet all in after he saw Oliver open-limp and Hall raise the action up. Oliver folded to Plouff's shove but Hall, holding AcKh was going nowhere and made the call. No help for Hall on a Jc-Td-Th flop, and when the 4d peeled off on the turn it looked like a timely double up for the shortest stack at the table was on the cards. However, all thoughts of that were dashed as Hall paired his ace on the river to send Plouff to the rail, a result worth a career-best $202,000.

An hour later, with blinds at 60,000/120,000/15,000a, Hall min-raised from the cutoff seat with JdTc and when the button and small blind folded, Max “$Kill Game” Weinberg moved all in for around 900,000 holding Ac8s and Hall wasted little time in calling his opponent. He was rewarded for doing so as the final board ran out 9c-Td-Kd-Qc-Kc, condemning Weinberg to seventh place and the $300,000 prize money.

Hall continued hoovering up chips during the next blind level, again choosing to open the betting with a min-raise and then call his opponent's all-in three-bet. This time around he made it 320,000 to play then quickly put in the required number of chips when Bolivar Palacios went all in for 1,600,000 holding KdJh. Hall's Ad4s was already in front preflop and it extended that lead on a 9h-8h-4c flop. The Qc on the turn gave Palacios some extra outs but they failed to materialise as the 3d fell on the river to take the tie to five handed play.

Many saw Mike Sowers as Oliver's biggest threat at this final table but that threat was nullified an hour after Palacios' demise. Sowers got the ball rolling by raising to 340,000 from early position with pocket fours, a bet that was re-raised to 775,000 by Oliver on the button. Only Sowers called before checking to the hyper-aggressive Oliver on a 3d-8h-2s flop. Oliver continuation bet to slightly over 1,000,000, Sowers check-raised all in for around 5,000,000 chips but knew he was in bad shape when Oliver snapped him off. His hand? The lowly 8s2h, which had made an unlikely two pair. Sowers looked disgusted as the dealer put out the Kc and 7s on the turn and river respectively to send him home in fifth place, worth $700,000, and meaning everyone else would take home at least a million dollars!

Less than 30 minutes later and Stein was on his way to pick up his million dollar cheque. With blinds now really starting to bite at 100,000/200,000/20,000a, Oliver raised to 455,000 on the button, Stein three-bet to 1,189,000 only to see Oliver quickly move all in. This sent Stein into the tank and rightly so because his Ah9h was ahead of Stein's range of late as he seemed to be playing literally any two cards. He came out of the tank and announced call, but quickly wished he could take it back as Oliver showed he had a real hand this time, AdQd. Neither player improved in a Kh-Ts-5s-Kd-3s board and Stein left the table $1,000,000 richer than when he started.

Three became two just ten minutes later when Romanian businessman Anton Ionel was caught making a move by Hall. The latter raised from the button, Oliver flat-called and Ionel quickly moved all in with just Ks6s. Hall, who had shown a willingness to gamble with less than premium hands, called with KcQs and when Oliver folded, the dealer got to work with the community cards. Hall paired his queen with the first card out of the deck and when the other four cards read 9c-7d-5d-3s the tournament was taken to the heads up stage.

Oliver, who started the say with 12,000,000 chips more than Hall, now held a 33,395,000 to 13,100,000 advantage over his opponent but Hall did not seem bothered in the slightest, even when he dropped to around 6,000,000 chips. When the tournament is shown again keep an eye out for the world-class fold by Hall, who mucked a wheel when Oliver had hit an unlikely full house on the river. I simply cannot do it justice in words!

A major turning point came when Hall raised from the button to 650,000 holding Ad2h and Oliver made a loose call with 4s2s, which turned out to be his downfall as the flop came down 2c-4h-As, giving both players two pair. Oliver checked, Hall bet 675,000, Oliver then made it 1,575,000 to play before Hall clicked it back for 2,675,000. Strangely, Oliver also made a min-raise of 3,775,000 then quickly called when Hall shoved. He looked extremely angry, even slapping the table, as he realised he was drawing very thinly indeed. The 8s on the turn and the 6d on the river failed to change anything and Hall was back in contention with 19,700,000 chips.

Hall doubled again the very next hand when Oliver raised to 750,000 with Ah9s and Hall made it 1,900,000 with a pair of black kings! Oliver then put in another raise, this time to 4,300,000 and then shoved over Oliver's min-five-bet! Oliver called and again looked disappointed when he saw Hall's hand. The final board ran out 8h-7d-3d-4s-Qh and suddenly Hall had almost 40,000,000 chips in his stack and was in a commanding position.

Half hour later and it was all over as Hall opened with Ac8c and called Oliver's all-in bet holding QhQc. The flop was queen-cracking As-Kd-8s, giving Hall the advantage. His two pair stayed ahead with the arrival of the 2h on the turn and when the river was the Ks, it was game over for Oliver who picked up the consolation prize of $1,800,000.

Hall, a worthy winner, picked up the $2,300,000 first prize and informed the press and media representatives that he planned to use the money to help him through University in 2012. We wish him the very best of luckk in his future endeavours and offer him many congratulations on his break-through victory.

Last Saturday one of the longest running rumours in online poker was finally confirmed as being true when it was announced that the mystery high stakes cash game player known only as “Isildur1” was indeed who everyone thought he was, Viktor Blom.

Blom was forced to reveal his identity after signing up for a sponsorship deal with PokerStars but it has been brought to our attention that the move could end up costing Blom a staggering $149,000,000 in the form of a tax bill that could be owed to the Swedish Tax Agency.

Last week a Swedish daily financial newspaper, Dagens Industri, revealed that the Swedish Tax Agency had begun to crackdown on online poker sites that claimed to be based overseas but have much of their operations based in Sweden because under Swedish law, the countries residents have to pay tax on gambling unless they play on sites based in the European Union or on the state-run Svenska Spel. The majority of Blom's play, which shot him to fame, was on Full Tilt Poker, a non-EU site and therefore he would be liable to pay tax on his gambling.

Hailing from Ed, a city in Western Sweden close to the Norwegian border, Blom has recently moved to London, UK where all gambling income is not taxable but he could still face a bill of one billion kroner ($149,000,000) from the Swedish authorities as their rules state that all gambling is taxable, even poker hands that the player loses, hence the astronomical figure being banded around the Swedish press.

There has been no official word from Blom or his sponsor at time of writing but a spokesman for the tax agency, Erik Boman, confirmed they were aware of Blom but would not reveal if he had been targeted at this present time, telling a local newspaper, “Internet poker is something we're looking into and I know this poker player, but I can't comment on whether we've opened a case.”

In a little over three weeks I will become the ripe old age of 30, something Mrs P frequently takes the piss out of me for with her only being a baby at 22-years old. Approaching my more mature years shall we say, has got me thinking of late and something that popped into my head was school.

I don't even know what made me think of school but it kind of knocked me off my feet when I realised it is almost 13 years since I last studied, I really am getting old! I enjoyed school but I was very spotty and very shy so wasn't one of the popular kids. Don't get me wrong, I was popular amongst my group of friends but if I hadn't have been in all the top sets for everything and half decent at football I'd have been in trouble.

At school I was very good, lazy, but very good. I sailed through my GCSEs without much studying or revision, some say it is a natural intelligence but having that is bad for someone as laid back as me because you can become lazy. I'm veering off course here, back to it Matthew please. What has school life got to do with playing poker I can hear you asking, well one specific part of my school life actually told me what variant of poker I should be playing, believe it or not.

Around the age of 15-16 we were all asked to do some aptitude tests and meet up with a career's advisor who would then take reports written by our teachers and these tests and find us ideal jobs in the real world or subjects if we planned on studying further. At the time I thought it was complete bollocks to be honest but it turns out they were actually talking sense, shock horror! One of the things that was advised was that I should stick to what they called “black and white” subjects and try to stay away from those that did not fit into this category.

A black and white subject are those that have a proper structure to them and have a definite correct or incorrect answer to them. For example, mathematics is one as five plus three is always eight regardless of how you dress it up, as is chemistry as chemical A mixed with chemical B causes reaction C. Those that do not fit in are psychology (something I was interested in), art and many of the creative subjects.

You see, I was told they way my mind and brain works is very methodical, very “black and white.” Either an answer is right or it is wrong and if it deviates from that I have to really work to grasp it. I need structure and routine otherwise it really stresses me out, which is probably why I like writing (though this is a non black and white subject for th emost part) as it has a start, a middle, an end and I know when it will finish. This is where poker comes in.

This mentality is why I have been struggling with cash games and getting bored of them and always chopping and changing. One of my biggest problems is dealing with variance because I struggle to see the long term. I don't care that I will win 82% of the frigging time “in the long run,” and I can't get my head around cash games basically being one big session. SNG and tournaments however have a definite start, middle and end. You know how much money you are going to invest in one session and you know the most you can win. Very black and white.

Also, decisions you make in SNG and MTTs are more clear than in a cash game. Although everything in poker depends on a variety of factors, there are decisions in tournament poker that are either mathematically correct or completely wrong and this should appeal to my silly little brain as I can learn these things easily and remember very quickly, almost in an autistic capacity.

With that in mind I am going to try and learn SNG and MTT play, with the vast majority of my play being on Betfair Poker. Some will say SNG are dead as everyone knows how to play them perfectly but I've never played more than 200 of them lifetime so they will be something new for me. I'm a geek and learning ICM and equities of situations will detract away from the fact I will probably be folding most of the time. Look out for me at the tables, I'm Y0rk5h1r3Pud on Betfair. See you at the tables!

As always, thanks for reading and best of luck at the tables!

Today's poker players are a knowledgeable bunch thanks to the sheer amount of information out there on the internet, on training sites and in books. A move that is extremely common is that of stealing the blinds both in tournaments and cash games.

Stealing the blinds, and antes if they are in play, is more important in a tournament than in a cash game due to the fact the blinds increase in tournaments and you need to continually accumulate chips to stay ahead of these increases. Likewise, protecting your blinds from steal attempts is equally as important because if you allow your opponents to constantly attack you, you will become an easy target to bully. The problem is how do you differentiate between a steal attempt and a legitimate preflop raise?

Whilst there is no concrete answer to that particular question, the following brief check list should help you come to a decision. Firstly, you need to ascertain the playing style of your opponent; i.e. are they a loose-aggressive player or do they play tightly? The former is more likely to be trying to steal your blinds whereas a tighter player, although capable of stealing, will be more often raising for value. Also, be aware of the differences between a loose-aggressive and a loose-passive player. The LAG will be entering plenty of pots with a raise but a LAP will rarely raise preflop without a strong hand despite them playing many pots.

It should be quite obvious that the position at the table that the raise comes from has a major bearing on whether your opponent is stealing or not. Although some people do make moves from under the gun, a steal attempt is almost always going to be a raise that opens the betting and from one of the later positions, such as the hijack seat, the cutoff or the button.

How many chips your opponent bets is another indication of whether they are on the rob or not. A min-raise is often a steal attempt as they are trying to win the blinds and antes as cheaply as possible, but also be aware that some players will also do this with very strong hands in the hope someone yet to act will come over the top of them with another raise. This is where player notes and a heads-up display come into their own as you will have a plethora of information to help you make your decision.

Finally, the size of your opponent's stack is another major factor. Villains with a big stack are more likely to be opening for a raise in late position with a much wider range as they can afford to fold if they are re-raised and they are using the fact they can bust out everyone else at the table to their advantage. Players with short stacks are more likely to be simply open-shoving from late position so be very weary of any player who makes a standard opening raise from late position when they have around 12 big blinds in their stack, as they likely have a monster hand!

The 2011 PCA Main Event is now officially in the money after the record 1,560 strong crowd has been whittled down to just 173 players, and there are still a number of British players well in contention for the $2,300,000 first place prize.

Day 1a saw 647 part company with $10,300 and after 10 levels of play only 272 of those still had chips left. Amongst those who would return for Day 2 included Phil Ivey and the overnight chipleader, Pieter de Korver, who won the 2009 EPT Grand Final. The second of the Day 1's saw a bumper crowd of 913 reduced to 373, meaning 645 players would return to the Atlantis Casino & Resort on the beautiful Atlantis Paradise Island each with a chance of winning a life-changing sum of money.

One by one the players headed for the rail after being eliminated, including EPT San Remo Champion Liv Boeree, Dario Minieri and the aforementioned Ivey. However, the man who's elimination everyone will remember will be that of Marco "CrazyMarco" Johnson who finished in 233rd place, also known as the money bubble.

In the hand the action folded around to Johnson in the small blind and finding himself with slightly over five big blinds, moved all-in for 26,000. William Reynolds, who won the 2010 PCA High Roller Event, snap-called from the big blind and both players revealed their hands, Johnson held Kc9c whilst Reynolds held the advantage with Ad9h. Both players paired their nine on a flop reading 9d-2c-7d but Reynolds was way in front with his ace-kicker. The Tc on the turn brought some "ooohhhhs" from the gathered crowd of media and players as it gave Johnson extra outs to the flush draw but it never came as the Qh fell on the river to bust Johnson on the bubble. All he gets for his trouble is a round of applause from the surviving players, each now guaranteed $15,000.

Amazingly, in the hour that followed another 59 players headed for the rail, many willing to gamble in order to pick up chips for Day 3 or go bust trying. Sat at the top of the chip counts when play came to an end for the day were Adam "csimmsux" Geyer on 909,000, Ilan Rouah with 795,000 and Chris Oliver who will return with 792,500 chips. As mentioned a number of British pros are safely through to Day 3 including Tom Middleton (410,500), Toby Lewis (402,500), Jake Cody (357,500) and two-time WSOP bracelet winner JP Kelly (254,000)