The Poker Lab Rat

Here’s a quick run down on the bare bones basics that differentiate each of the following “top 4” poker games.

TEXAS HOLDEM
Each player is dealt two “hole” cards which only he/she can see. One round of betting is followed by the first three “community” cards, also known as “the flop”. Two more community cards (“the turn” and “the river”) are turned at a time, with a round of betting after each card. The remaining players must make the best five-card hand possible from the seven in total order to win the pot. The amounts bet can differ in Hold’em according to whether the games is “pot-limit”, “limit” or “no-limit”. Here’s a run down of the 3 basic types:

POT LIMIT:  The maximum raise allowed is defined by the size of the pot. This is defined by the total in the pot plus all bets on the table.
LIMIT: A maximum of four bets is allowed per player during each betting round. These are: 1 A bet, 2 A raise, 3 A re-raise and 4 The cap (the last permitted raise in any round of betting).
NO LIMIT: The amount you raise is restricted only by the size of your stack (chips on table).

OMAHA
Each player is dealt four hole cards (which only they can see). Five community cards are dealt in the same way as in Hold’em, punctuated by the same rounds of betting. The players must use two of their hole cards with three community cards to make the best possible five-card hand.

SEVEN-CARD STUD
Each player is dealt two cards down and one “door” card up. Whoever has the lowest door card initiates the betting. Each player is allowed one bet and three raises in each betting round. Three more cards are dealt face up (“fourth”, “fifth” and “sixth” street), with rounds of betting in between initiated by the person with the highest value card showing. The seventh and final card (the “river”) is dealt face down, and the player with the best five-card hand takes down the pot.

FIVE-CARD STUD
Played like Seven-card Stud, except that the players are dealt one card down and one card up. The only other difference is that the remaining three cards are all dealt face up.

There is one variation that is often used in conjunction with Stud (and Omaha):

HI/LO
Betting and dealing remains the same but the crucial difference is that the pot is divided between the best hand for “high” and the best hand for “low”. You really need to know your hand ranks for this variation.

The online poker site we recommend most for new poker players – or old hands wanting to try a new game is CarbonPoker.com.  Carbon’s table layout, betting and chip displays make it easy to just focus on the game. Players from around the world are welcome at Carbon Poker, including Americans.

For a detailed review of Carbon Poker check out PokerLabRat.com.

Jerry Yang wins the 2007 World Series Of Poker Main Event  and $8.25 Million !!

After 11 tournament days - and after surviving 6,300 other players - it all came down to a typical Texas Hold-em race and a gutshot suckout - as Jerry Yang eliminated Tuan Lam to win all the chips and the 2007 WSOP World Championship.

After a bit of pre-amble both players got all their chips in preflop with Yang holding pocket 8’s while Lam had AQd.

>> Which hand would you rather have ? Pockets or over cards? << 

The flop comes out Q95 (no diamonds) and Lam takes a big lead with top pair and a double up would put him back close to level chips.

>> Changed your mind yet ? <<

The turn is a 7 meaning that Yang picks up a gut-shot straight draw, potentially winning with an eight (for a set) or a six (for a nine-high straight). Just 6 outs.

>> Still sure ? <<

Yang is a 13/87 underdog on the river but a six of hearts appears giving Yang the best hand with a 9-high straight … showing that in the end winning a tournament requires Lady Luck.

>> Damn Suckouts !! <<

Tuan Lam earns $4.8m for second place - but the main event bracelet and the most coveted title in poker of WSOP Main Event World Champion belongs to Jerry Yang.

It took 14 hours today as the organisers wanted to cut the field to 36 players, and that did not happen until 2am when Ayaz Mahmood busted out in 37th place.

David Tran takes over at the top of the leaderboard with an impressive haul of just over 10m chips - but overall it was a day when previously featured players busted out - nearly all the same way by ignoring the basic premise that while AK is a good starting hand … it’s still only a DRAWING hand.

Let’s start with “Super” Dario Minieri who busted out early, trying a few internet poker tricks and really mixing it up, but he pushed into a flopped set of 3’s from Reagan Silber and then tried to river rat a flush, failed and was out in 96th place ($67K)

Gus Hansen also finally ran into trouble with his aggressive style, calling a big all-in pre-flop with AK against Ryan Elsons JJ. No improvement and Hansen was effectively crippled finishing in 61st for $154K.

Humberto Brenes also fell going too hard with “Big Slick” going all-in with AKh and getting called by the pocket Aces of Hevad Khan. The flop gave Brenes hope with a K, but all cards were spades, and a 10s on the river gave Khan a winning flush with his As.

Also going out were yesterday’s leader Dag Martin Mikkelsen who had (you guessed it) AK, re-raising all-in pre-flop and getting called by David Tran’s pocket Aces. End of tournament Dag. 42nd place and $237K.

So for all poker readers out there of all experience - we’ve just seen three top players who were involved deep in the biggest tournament of their lives who ALL over-valued AK and busted out. Lesson learned? I hope so.

Now just 36 players remain - including 1998 WSOP champion Scotty Nguyen on 1.9m in chips - and they’ll do all all again tomorrow. How many will Big Slick claim ?

The official top ten in chips entering Day Six play:
David Tran ——- 10,280,000
Philip Hilm —— 9,950,000
Ray Henson —-— 8,250,000
Hevad Khan —-— 7,585,000
Kevin Farry —— 7,400,000
Scott Freeman  7,360,000
Lee Childs ——- 6,520,000
Jerry Yang ——- 5,090,000
Kenny Tran ——- 4,955,000
William Spadea 4,575,000

We’ll we’ve just seen the end of the fourth “Day One” - rather boringly titled Day 1d - but there has been plenty of action after the first official “day’s play”.

** SPOILER WARNING ** If you read on then you will find out about some high profile eliminations … you’ve been warned.

Several former World Champions started the day, including 2006 Main Event Champion Jamie Gold and 11-time bracelet winner Phil Hellmuth. Also falling by the wayside were Phil Hellmuth, Chip Reese, Michael Craig, Dutch Boyd, Freddy Deeb and Cyndy Violette while notable survivors included Daniel Negreanu, Ted Forrest and Gus Hansen.

Jamie Gold was eliminated when he moved all in pre-flop with a rather dodgy Q9s and he was called by an A7o. Neither player improved and Gold was eliminated by the Ace kicker.

All around the world poker fans can rejioce in the knowledge that we will not have to put up with the smug-faced gnome grinning at us during the ESPN WSOP coverage this year.

Our oldest player 94yo Jack “Jeffrey” Ury had some good fortune early in the day When his AQd was helped by a flop of Q4Q and he doubled up to around 21,00 in chips - but by the end of the day it appears that he had been eliminated - at least I cannot find him in the current chip standings.

So onto day 2a then - to be followed by day 2b - as this 6,300+ player marathon continues ..

Event #28 is the $3,000 No Limit Hold’em and these events seem to be dragging the same old players back to the tables.

This time we saw 827 entrants get around the tables and by the end of the day that had been whittled down to 81 players.

This years WSOP seems to be suiting Phil Hellmuth completely and the 11 time bracelet winner ended the day 4th on chips with 129,000 behind leader Tsai Chen on 171,000.

Other notables still alive among the 81 Day One survivors are Greg ‘FBT’ Mueller, Dannenmann, Taylor Caby, Ng, Nick Frangos, MacDonald, Schmiech, Tony Cousineau, Thomas Wahlroos and Phil Laak 

They’ll be back tomorrow playing for a prize pool of $2,282,520, with first place worth $527,829.

Saturday provided one of the 2007 World Series of Poker’s most interesting days of play yet, as a quality final table in Event #24, ($3,000 Seven Card Stud High/Low) took place.

Starting the day with the chip lead was ‘Big Game’ regular and high-stakes cash-game player Eli Elezra. Elezra, one of the few remaining players in the Big Game previously without a WSOP bracelet.

The chip lead would switch hands several times as both Scotty Nguyen and David Sklansky (the poker author) made runs at the number one spot throughout the day. 

Elezra bust Sklansky in 5th place, and then Russell “Dutch” Boyd in 3rd place to take himself into a heads-up match against Scotty Nguyen. After a momentous battle that saw Elezra pull ahead, Nguyen finally fell when he ran into Elezra’s ace-high straight during Hand #177.

Elezra won $198,984 for finishing first, and he also won a $25,000 prop bet with Barry Greenstein over whether or not he would win a bracelet at this year’s WSOP.

So much for our Nostradamus touch … as the stars we featured yesterday were unable to deliver in Events #19, #20, #21 …

But we’ve been scanning the net to find you some WSOP stuff of interest and we’ve found a couple of links to YouTube Video interviews.

Marcel Luske - has arrived into Las Vegas one week late.
Listen why.

Daniel Negreanu - looking casual on the couch.
Starts off pushing sponsor. (yawn)
But eventually gets into talking about the WSOP tourney structures.

Of course if you want to play online then we recommend our own sponsors - over there on the left hand side …

;-)

Hard on the heels of bracelet wins by Allen Cunningham and Phil Hellmuth we are starting to see other stars starting to shine as they reach final tables.

Here are updates from three more events still in play :

EVENT 19 : $2,500 No Limit Hold’em
A final table situation with Humberto “The Shark” Brenes taking on John Phan with top online players Devin Porter and Alex Bolotin all there.

EVENT #20 : $2,000 Seven Card Stud Hi-Low Split
Greg Raymer is at the final table in 3rd position - but there are a lot of small stacks so the “Fossil man” really does have a good shot here.

EVENT #21 : $1,500 No Limit Holdem Shoot Out.
Also at the final table stage with everyone starting on 300,000 chips after clean out their tables.

And we have the biggest clash of the WSOP so far as this final table will feature both Daniel Negreanu and Erick Lindgren.

This one will surely feature on ESPN shows later this year.

We had a feeling it might happen didn’t we ?

Phil Hellmuth has won Event #15 ($1500 No Limit Hold ‘em) this afternoon taking his total number of WSOP bracelets to a record breaking 11.

The “poker brat” that nearly everyone loves to hate seemed a little overcome by the moment - with none of his usual brashness as he accepted the bracelet from fellow legends Doyle Brunson and Johnny Chan.

Hellmuth won the final hand with an A-3, beating an A-10 held by Andy Philacheck win he flopped a 3 that held up through the turn and river - but it was the pressure of the 6-1 chip lead that had forced the move from Philacheck.

Love him or hate him - he’s one hell of a player …

Congratulations Phil !

* NEW : VIDEO INTERVIEW *
In response to many requests - we’ve found a page with a video interview of Phil after his win … but it’s a proprietary format so it takes a while to load.

(look for Event #15 videos if it gets bumped off the first page)

It looks like we’re going to have a good race to see who will be the first person to win bracelet #11 after both Doyle Brunson and Phil Hellmuth put themselves in good position in their respective events.

Hellmuth has the edge as he has battled to the final table of Event #15 ($1,500 No Limit Hold ‘Em) in second position with just under a million chips.

But Brunson is also making a good effort in Event #18 ($5,000 Limit Hold ‘Em) as he is in 7th place of 257 remaining players after the end of day one.

Events #19 ($2,500 No Limit Hold ‘Em) and #20 ($2,000 Seven Card Stud Hi/Lo) get underway today.