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They like full ring games as stated because they can fold more but this allows us a sneak preview into their mind-set. This is because if they will not commit a lot of chips unless they have a lock or a powerful hand then this allows us to build a framework for how they like to play and what their method of operation is. For example rocks in full ring games will steal and bluff but only pre-flop and on the flop. They may fire another barrel on the turn but they will never go for the big river triple barrel bluff. So when they show every sign of betting and raising early in the pot and that they want to play for stacks then you had better watch out.

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However you beat these players but not by defeating them in big pots when you play them in full ring. It is very hard to defeat them in bog pots often enough because they simply do not get all in for 100bb without the nuts or a powerful non-nut hand. You beat them by winning small and mediocre pots and you beat them by playing what is known as small ball poker. You will be on the wrong side of big pots as often as you are on the right side and so this isn’t where you make your money against rocks. Steal from them and force them to commit more money when they don’t really want to and you will basically own them.

Carl “The Dean” Sampson plays poker at www.pokerstars.co.uk

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Gus Hansen’s live tournament results in 2010 include a 1st place finish in The WSOP Europe event in London as well as a 1st place finish in the winner-takes-it-all Poker Million tournament hosted by Full Tilt Poker. In total Gus Hansen won around 1.5 million $ in live tournaments in 2010. However it was his online swings at the nosebleed stakes on Full Tilt Poker, which took the headlines in 2010:

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Gus Hansen’s 2010 online poker performance:

• January: $+1.743.125

• February: $+81.361 ($+1.824.486)

• March: $-1.617.936 ($+206.550)

• April: $-374.822 ($-168.272)

• May: $+895.070 ($+726.798)

• June: No information – to few hands
  

• July: $-176.303 ($+550.495)

• August: $-2.856.898 ($-2.306.403)

• September: $+208.806 ($-2.097.597)

• October: $+184.226 ($-1.913.371)

• November: $+173.546 ($-1.739.825)

• December: $+31.979 ($-1.707.846)

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As you can see if it hadn’t been for a catastrophically poor March and especially August, Gus Hansen would have been a huge winner in 2010. His almost 3 million $ August loss over around 43000 hands was the biggest monthly loss for any player in 2010. Gus Hansen’s main problem in 2010 was without a doubt his stubbornness to continue playing Pot Limit Omaha against players who have an edge on him – players like Tom Dwan durrrr and Phil “OMGClayAiken” Galfond. In 2010 Gus Hansen lost a whopping 4 million $ (give or take a few $) on Pot Limit Omaha. In comparison he was at the top of the charts when in comes to fixed limit H.O.R.S.E where he totaled a profit of 2 million $.

In conclusion, the rumors of Gus Hansen going broke in 2010 were only rumors. Although losing almost 2 million $ on the online felt, he won 1.5 million $ in live tournaments and don’t forget Gus Hansen is also hugely successful in backgammon, which has most likely given him a decent profit for 2010.

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Isildur1′s poker bankroll development in 2009

• As the story goes a young Swedish player deposited 2000$ on the Ipoker network under the nick Blom90 around the 1st of January 2009. 3 weeks later he had turned the 2000$ into a staggering 1,5 million!! $ by playing heads up no limit tables. At this point Viktor Blom – aka Isildur1 – and the person behind the Ipoker account was only 18 years old.
• In September 2009, Isildur1 appeared for the first time on Full Tilt. At this point Viktor Blom had built his bankroll to a level where he felt ready to take on the poker elite.
• Isildur1 first took on Haseeb Qureshi at the $100/$200 stakes. In an epic 24 hour session Blom was up half a million $.
• A month later he battled it out against Patrik Antonius, Brian Townsend, and Cole South and lost a million $ in no time.
• In late October 2009 he won back 2 million $ from Brian Townsend, and Cole South and inspired by his success sat down simultaneously at 6 500$/1000$ tables waiting for action. He got it from Tom Dwan Durrrr and won a record breaking 5 million $ in a week. In the same period he also won 1,6 million $ from Patrik Antonius.
• The next pro to take on Isildur1 in November 2009 was Phil Ivey and he did a lot better than the previous opponents. While multi-tabling against other pros, Isildur1 lost 3,2 million $ to Phil Ivey in a week.
• Ivey’s success gave hope to the other pros and Antonius challenged Isildur1 in omaha, which proved to be a good plan. Antonius won 3 million $ from Isildur1 in a period of 24 hours. The biggest single day loss in online poker at the time. The next day however, Viktor Blom won back 2 million $.
• Finally on December 8th, Viktor Blom’s amazing roller coaster ride on Full Tilt poker came to an end during a 5 hour session against Brian Hastings. Isildur1 lost 4,2 million $!!!! Later it was revealed that Brian Hastings had collaborated with Brian Townsend and Cole South, exchanging hand histories against Isildur1 to get an edge. Obviously displeased to learn about this unfair play by Brian Hastings, Isuldur1 left Full Tilt poker for several months.
• Amazingly, Isildur1 was involved in all of the top 5 biggest online pots in 2009.

Isildur1′s poker bankroll development in 2010

• It took a while for Viktor Blom to get back on the horse after his nightmare session with Brian Hastings, but slowly during February and March 2010 he gained momentum and the wild million $ swings were back. First winning 2,3 million$  Justin “ZeeJustin” Bonomo, Durrrr, Ziigmund, and Brian Hastings only to lose 1,6 million $ again to Bonomo, Hastings, and OMGClayAiken.
• Viktor Blom returned to Full Tilt poker a couple of times during 2010 only to lose some medium size amounts (according to his own standards).
• Then in December 2010 Isildur1 was announced as a new pro at PokerStars and soon after his true identity was revealed.

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Viktor Blom’s live tournament results

According to Bluffmagazine, Isildur’s biggest (and so far only) live tournament cash in from the 2010 WSOPE No Limit Hold’em Championship where he finished in 16th place taking down around 50000$. Until then, Viktor Blom’s most memorable live tournament moment (for others, not himself I guess) was when he was one of the chip leaders in the 2009 WSOPE No Limit Hold’em Championship and bluffed away his entire stack against Ian Munns (you can find a video of the hand on Youtube).

Here’s how the hand went down:

Blom raised to 3,000 pre-flop with K-2 of diamonds and Munns re raised to 9,000 with A-7. Blom called and the flop came A-A-3. Blom checked, Munns bet 9,000 and Blom made it 58,000. Munns put another 116,000 into the pot and Blom shoved all-in for 231,000 not being able to put Munns on an Ace or hopin he would fold a weak Ace. Munns ended up calling and Blom was history and calmly and almost silently left the table.

After his sign-up with Poker Stars, Viktor Blom will be attending a lot more live tournaments in the future and it will be exciting to follow his progress.

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LadyMaveric’s early gambling days

While attending Duke she proved herself to be quite the brainiac and she became interested in game theory, which is about how you relate complex mathematical decision strategies for everyday life. Although having dabbled with chess, her choice of game fell on poker due to its aspect of human psychology (as you know, the best hand doesn’t always win in poker). In 2003 she graduated from Duke with a major in economics and a minor in political science. She completed her college time in only 2 and a half years which was the fastest completion in the history of Duke. Vanessa started law school in 2004, but never finished after playing tournaments in her summer holiday. Having played poker since the age of 5 and playing online throughout college building a substantial poker bankroll, she realized that this was the career for her and she turned professional in 2005.

Vanessa Rousso’s major tournament wins

If I’ve forgotten soon please let me know.

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Vanessa Rousso’s other achievements

When Vanessa is not playing poker, she finds time for a lot of hobbies. She describes herself as an adrenaline junkie, so she is often outdoors and skydive and bungee jumping. She has also provided strategy articles to several poker magazines.

Vanessa has also engaged herself politically in an attempt to overthrow the Unlawful Internet Gambling Act, which all American poker players hate and find very unfair.

In 2009 Vanessa Rousso started her own poker training camp in Florida tailored to poker tournament play. The Big Slick Bootcamp instantly became very popular (a 399$ entry fee sounds cheap if you get the chance to spend time with one of the hottest female poker players)

In this article I will give a recap of Elky’s path to the poker tables in addition to summarizing how Bertran Grospellier built his poker bankroll.

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The early gambling / gaming days of Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier:

“Elky” was already an online star player before he became a poker player. After he moved to Korea in 2001, ElkY was a regular participant in the World Cyber Games and the Korean Pro Gaming leagues thanks to his talent for computer strategy games. His specialty was Starcraft (great game by the way…Protos FTW), a game where he still ranks among the best. His major gaming results are quite impressive:

• 3rd – KBK Jeju (Seoul, South Korea)
• 2nd – World Cyber Games 2001 (Seoul, South Korea)
• 4th – World Cyber Games 2002 (Daejeon, South Korea)
• 4th – SKY 2 Ongamenet Starleague (Seoul, South Korea)
• 2nd – Ongamenet WarCraft Retail League (Seoul, South Korea) [WarCraft III: Reign of Chaos, all others StarCraft: Brood War]
• 1st – Euro Cyber Games 2003 (Paris, France)
• 5th – World Cyber Games 2003 (Seoul, South Korea)
  
• top 16 – World Cyber Games 2004 (San Francisco, California, U.S.A.)

Around 2004, “ElKy” was introduced to  the poker scene by a friend and instantly fell in love with the game. His background in professional gaming gave him an enormous advantage during long multitabling sessions where mouse dexterity, the abilty to see perfectly with the corner of your eye, fast reflexes and obviously quick thinking are key skills. Elky started playing at PokerStars at became the first player ever to achieve Supernova (100000 VPPs) and Supernova Elite (1000000 VPPs) status. What’s even more impressive is that he achieved Supernova status in 2 weeks and Super Nova Elite status in 4 and a half months. That’s insane! To illustrate his multitabling skills he also currently holds the Guinness Book record for most SNGs played in hour…62 in total!

Elky’s major live tournament results

Table taken from the PokerStars player profile page for Bertrand “ElKy” Grospellier.

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Elky’s other interests

As fellow poker pros will attest to, there isn’t much spare time when you play as many live tournaments as “ElKy”. In the little spare time he has, he still enjoys to play online real-time strategy games. In addition Elky has also appeared on numerous TV shows including High Stakes Poker.

A fun anecdote from the 2009 WSOP

During the 2009 WSOP Sorel Mizzi and Elky had some serious sidebet action in an equivalent to the Olympic Games. Here’s the series of events:

Day 1:
Bench press
Bicep Curl
Shoulder Press
Triceps Pull Down
Chin-ups

Day 2:
Angled Leg Press
Leg Extension
Squats

Day 3:
Tennis (best out of 3 sets)

Day 4:
Skipping rope (most in a row without missing)
Arm wrestling  (Bedst ud af tre)

Day 5:
Kick Boxing (9 rounds)

Day 6:
Swimming (Who can stay longest in the center of the pool without touching the bottom)

Day 7:
Rowing (longest in 15 minutes)

Each side bet was worth 10000$ and as an extra bonus, the loser had to hand in 15% of his WSOP winnings (up to 300000$ as the maximum). If one person won more than 80% of the disciplines there was an additional 50000$ bonus to the winner. I wonder what the results were?

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The early days of Chris Ferguson’s bankroll

Ferguson began playing poker at the age of ten and would play for play money in chat rooms via Internet Relay Chat (IRC). It was 1993 though before he started to regularly play live, real money tournaments in his hometown state of  California. In the following two years Ferguson had a dozen or so minor cashes but in 1995 he came within a $1,500 Razz event at the World Series of Poker for a career-best score of $10,350, the first of his 63 cashes at the long-running series and a total he will be looking to add to at this year’s WSOP.

Chris Ferguson’s major tournament results

Over the next five years he had numerous scores but 2000 was the year of the man they now called “Jesus” (due to his long hair and beard). He won his first WSOP bracelet in the $2,500 Seven-card Stud event for $151,000 before winning the $10,000 Main Event, defeating T.J. Cloutier heads-up to win $1,500,000 – still his largest tournament cash of his career.
Fast forward to today and Ferguson has an extremely impressive tournament record, including five WSOP bracelets, an NBC Heads-Up Championship gong and almost $8,300,000 in winnings. However, despite his obvious tournament prowess he is better known for something completely different.

The Chris Ferguson Challenge

Back in 2007 Ferguson set about what is now known as “The Chris Ferguson Challenge” where he started with a completely empty poker account and attempted to win $10,000. Not only did he manage to reach $10,000, he actually continued and was at more than $20,000 at one point. He started by playing daily freeroll tournaments, available on any safe online poker sites, and then progressed to cash games. On numerous occasions he lost the little amount he had won in the freerolls but he was determined to prove solid play and good bankroll management were enough to see poker players succeed.
Chris Ferguson bankroll management followed strict rules where he would never buy into a cash game or sit ‘n’ go that represented more than 5% of his total bankroll and no multi-table tournament that would cost him more than 2% of his bankroll. Finally, if he was having a good cash game session in a pot limit or no limit game and his stack represented 10% of his overall bankroll he had to leave the table as soon as the blinds reached him. Eventually, Ferguson went from playing freerolls and was spotted at the $25/$50 tables from time to time proving “The Ferguson Challenge” does indeed work and has since resulted in many players attempting to follow suit.

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Chris Ferguson anecdotes

Along with his trademark image and the fact he sits completely motionless during hands, Ferguson is also known for a rather fun fact. I am unaware how he learned how to do this trick but he can cut vegetables and fruit with a playing card! There is even a YouTube clip of him slicing carrots, bananas and even a water melon with instructions on how to throw the card like “Jesus!”

• “Honey, honey, I was supposed to go broke on that hand: Honey. But they forgot one thing: I can dodge bullets, baby!“
• “This fricking donkey stuffs $15,000 in with king-jack. I mean … the guy can’t even spell poker.“
• “When I watch myself on TV, I am a bit compelling …”
• “What’s my name? You know what my name is? I forgot my name even. Who am I?… Am I Phil Hellmuth?“
• “If there weren’t luck involved, I would win every time.“
• “Poker is 100% skill and 50% luck.“

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Phil Hellmuth was born the 16th of July 1964 in Madison (hence the nick “The Madison Kid”) Wisconsin and currently resides in Palo Alto California with his wife Katherine (a child psychologist) and two sons Philip and Nicholas. Throughout his career, Phil Hellmuth has won more than 11 million $ in live tournament prize money. This puts him on a 4th place on the All Time Money list behind Phil Ivey, Daniel Negreanu and Jamie Gold.

The Poker Brat’s early gambling days

Growing up in a middle class home as the oldest of 5 siblings there was always someone to play games with and from a young age the competitive nature of Phil Hellmuth was developed. His father being an assistant dean and professor at the University of Wisconsin had an academic career envisioned for his oldest son and Phil also studied for some years at the University of Wisconsin. However it was the game of poker, which he learned while studying at university that quickly became The Poker Brat’s main passion and to his father’s disappointment Hellmuth dropped out of school to become a professional poker player. Later in his career his father came to terms with his son’s choice of life, especially after Phil Hellmuth bought him a brand new Mercedes after his 1989 WSOP main event win.

In his early gambling days, Phil Hellmuth built his poker bankroll playing professors, doctors and businessmen in high stakes local games. However, as every aspiring poker pro, Phil dreamt of making it big in Las Vegas. His first attempt ended in disaster and a busted bankroll and Phil returned to Madison to rebuild and develop his game. Eventually he was able to beat the low stakes games in Vegas and grind his way to a living. In 1989 he decided to pay 10000$ for an entry ticket into the WSOP main event despite this being way over his bankroll. He went on to win the event at the age of 24 – beating legend Johnny Chan heads up -  thus becoming the youngest winner of a WSOP main event at the time. The rest is history……

Phil Hellmuth’s major tournament wins

The WSOP is definitely Phil Hellmuth’s playing ground. He has won a record 11 WSOP bracelets along with a whopping 79 WSOP cashes and 41 final tables. In total, Phil Hellmuth has won over 6 million $ at the WSOP. He has never won on the WPT, but has collected more than 1 million $ in prize money. In 2005, The Poker Brat won the first National Heads Up Poker Championship beating players such as Huch Seed and Antonio Esfandiari before crushing legend Chris Ferguson in the final.

Below is an overview of Phil Hellmuth’s WSOP bracelet wins:

Table taken from Wikipedia (gotta love them!)

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Other anecdotes and controversies regarding Phil Helmuth

• Phil Hellmuth is infamous for his blow ups when people suck out on him and admittedly hates when people get lucky (something I can totally relate to). If you go on Youtube and type in Phil Hellmuth you will find numerous examples.
• Phil Hellmuth endorses UltimateBet.com.
• Phil has written many articles for Cardplayer magazine and numerous books including “Play Poker like the Pros”, “Bad Beats and Lucky Draws” and “Poker Brat”.
• In 2008 Hellmuth launched an online store (www.pokerbrat.com) selling both brat and non-brat poker merchandise.
• Hellmuth is an active philanthropist, donating money to help developing villages in The World’s poorest countries.
• The Brat’s favorite movies are The American President and The Matrix and he like 80s and 90s rock and roll.

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The early gambling days of Patrik Antonius

It was never in the cards (cheesy pun I know) for Mr. Antonius to become a professional poker player. As a kid and teenager he excelled playing tennis but a back injury at the age of 15 meant he had to quit the game for 18 months to recover. During this time – being no stranger to poker since the age of 11- he regularly played poker live games at the local tennis club. Later Patrik Antonius finished a degree from the Helsinki Business college and was on track for his first match as a professional tennis player when he suffered another back injury, which ended his tennis career altogether. After pursuing careers as a male model, a tennis coach and even a door-to-door salesman, Patrick settled for the game he had played as a hobby since a kid and practiced at the local casino in Helsinki from the age of 18. in 2003, as a personal goal prior to attending college in the US, Antonius started a serious attempt to build a poker bankroll after depositing 200$ into an online poker room. In a few months the roll grew to $20,000. He moved to the United States of America to attend college and play poker. In the US he took a break from school and started playing 12 hours a day, 7 days a week and his bankroll grew to 80000$. During Antonius’ early poker pro days he was mentored by Marcel Lüske and later female pokerstar Jennifer Harman.

Patrick Antonius’ major tournament results

To date, The Brad Pitt of poker has accumulated more than 2.8 million $ in live tournament winnings. A lot of these winnings came from his massive tournament heater in 2005, where he among other tournaments won the EPT event in Baden bei Wien taking down close to €290000 and later that year finished 2nd in WPT 5 Diamond World Poker Classic in Las Vegas for a whopping 1,04 million $. Antonius has yet to win a WSOP event but has made close to 800000$ in his appearances so far. His biggest WSOP cash came in a 2007 Pot Limit Omaha even where he took a third place and 311394$.

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Other achievements and anecdotes

• Has wagered 200000$ in tennis game vs. fellow poker pro Gus Hansen. I don’t actually know if the game was ever played. Rumors have it that Patrick Antonius backed out of the bet due to his old back injury causing him problems.
• In 2008 Patrick Antonius became a member of the prestigious Team Full Tilt.
• Patrick regularly appears on the televised High stakes poker where he was involved in the biggest pot so far in the show against Sammy Farha (a pot where the Finn won a cool 749100$.
• Antonius has also won the largest online pot (at the time in November 2009) against the infamous Isildur1 worth close to 1.4 million $.
• In his spare time he likes to play golf.

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Matusow was born on April 30, 1968 in Los Angeles, California and is almost as well known for his trash talking (hence the nickname “The Mouth”) and his inexplicable blow-ups deep in major tournaments as he is  for his poker playing ability. When you take away his brash and often crude demeanor at the felt you are left with a player who has won more almost $7,800,000 from live tournaments and had no fewer than three World Series of Poker bracelets to his name.

His first taste of poker came when he was just 18 years old and came in the form of video poker in the Maxim Casino. Here he would play for several hours at a time and even suffered with a repetitive strain injury to his arms and shoulders as a result of his excessive play on these machine. Then in 1989 he met a rounder named Steve Samaroff, who taught him Texas Hold’em, which would ultimately change “The Mouth’s” life.

After honing his skills he decided to play in the 1997 World Series of Poker and almost won his first bracelet in the $2,000 Omaha Hi/Lo Split event but fell just short, finishing in second place. Two years later though and he won a $3,500 No Limit Hold’em event at the WSOP and in 2001 he came ever so close to winning the $10,000 Main Event but busted out in sixth place.

He won his second bracelet the following year in a $5,000 Omaha Hi/Lo Split event before reaching the final table of the Main Event again in 2005, this time he was eliminated in ninth place. Then in 2008 he won his third WSOP bracelet in the $5,000 No Limit Deuce to Seven Lowball event but since then he has had a rather barren spell both on and away from the tables and was at one point rumored to be completely broke, rumors that were reignited at last year’s WSOP after a huge prop bet with Ted Forrest went horribly wrong for Mike The Mouth.

Matusow, who a few years previously had won a large prop bet with Forrest in relation to Matusow losing weight, offered Forrest odds of 20:1 that Forrest could not get down from a healthy 188lbs to 139lbs in two months. Forrest bet $100,000 and amazingly managed to lose more than 50lbs in two months to leave Matusow with a $2,000,000 bet he was too broke to pay. Matusow tried to joke about the matter saying, “I don’t have the $2m to pay out. I made the bet because I didn’t think it was feasibly possible. I could pay him a big lump, but I’m going to wait six months to see if he dies first.”

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Whether Matusow is so broke he will have to enter some 2011 WSOP qualifiers rather than buy in directly remains to be seen but it sees that he simply cannot stay away from unwanted attention and negative publicity. Just as he was getting over the stigma surrounding his six month jail term for supplying cocaine in 2004 this failure to pay his prop bet comes out of the woodwork.