Snapshot: Welcome to Ivey World

It took five episodes of High Stakes Poker Season 6 to bring us an episode with some real action.

Episode five, which aired yesterday, had just that – and loads of it.

We had Dario spazzing vs durrrr, Gus getting felted for 200k vs. Negreanu, Mercier vs. Ivey and, of course, durrrr three-barelling Ivey.

Any one of those hands would make a great strategy snapshot. But, sadly, we had to narrow it down to the single greatest.

IMO, it’s a close race between Ivey “picking off” Mercier’s bluff and durrrr’s three-barrel.

Though the Ivey-durrrr hand might have been more exciting, I believe there’s more to talk about in the Mercier-Ivey hand.

The durrrr hand was just a sick three-barrel in a three-bet pot. Of course, had Ivey called like he was contemplating with his pair of sixes, we would really have something to talk about.

However, I wouldn’t be able to provide much insight on fifteenth-level soul-reading so it’s a good thing he folded.

The Mercier hand, though, is very interesting and not just because he’s a PokerListings blogger.

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Video of Phil Hellmuth’s Bust at Bay 101 (Crying)

A couple of days ago we got really excited about a WPT final table. Something we thought might never happen again after being forced to sit through this year’s LAPC finale.

The reason was Phil Hellmuth. He made the final six of Bay 101 and, as you’ve probably heard, had a bit of a breakdown when he took a bad beat and busted in sixth.

We had only heard accounts of the scene, and seen a few pics, but today we’ve dug up video evidence.

Some sneaky fan recorded this on his mobile device so it’s not exactly HD, but it does get the point across.

Hellmuth gets it in with queens against an ace and gets rivered. He stands up, shakes hands and then gets down on his hands and knees in the corner for five minutes.

In the past Hellmuth’s antics have been unsportsmanlike, obnoxious and just plain rude but never before has he got down on his hands and knees and wept. This final table is a great accomplishment and the fact he went out to a bad beat shouldn’t ruin that for him.

Don’t be sad. Be glad!

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Jason Mercier: Home for a Minute

In my last post, I talked about how I was on to round 2 of the NBC Heads-Up Championship after I defeated Daniel Negreanu.

I faced Pieter De Korver in my next match and ended up beating him as well. I had the chiplead for almost the whole match and was winning probably 70-75% of hands, but when the blinds went from 600/1200 to 1k/2 we got it in for his 11 bb stack, him holding A10 vs my A9… 9 on the river, no big deal!

If I had lost this pot, we would have been back to even in chips with 20 bbs each.

In my next match, I faced Phil Laak. This match started out completely opposite to the match with Pieter. Laak crushed me in the beginning stages of the match beating me on almost every hand.

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ADZ124: LA to Las Vegas Trip Report

Hello, hello. Just wanted to give you guys an update on the weekend’s activities.

I believe we last left off with me running super bad at the LAPC and losing the high-roller to a one-outer on the river, the main event kings to aces in the first level like a fish, losing to a free roll in PLO for $50k nuts vs nuts and losing a $45k pot with a wrap and a flush draw to middle set which we ran twice.

So basically, I needed to get out of LA.

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ADZ124: LA to Las Vegas Trip Report

Hello, hello. Just wanted to give you guys an update on the weekend’s activities.

I believe we last left off with me running super bad at the LAPC and losing the high-roller to a one-outer on the river, the main event kings to aces in the first level like a fish, losing to a free roll in PLO for $50k nuts vs nuts and losing a $45k pot with a wrap and a flush draw to middle set which we ran twice.

So basically, I needed to get out of LA.

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Stout’s Sunday Report: March 7, 2010

Poker pro Matt Stout is back with another installment of The Sunday Report. Stout will track all his results for his full online MTT Sunday schedule, complete with profits and losses.

Keep track right here on the PokerListings Blog.

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Snapshot: Ivey Goes Vegetarian

Though there were basically no big hands of note on Episode 4 of GSN’s High Stakes Poker last night, there was at least one interesting twist.

After some haggling, Tom Dwan bet Phil Ivey $1 million that he couldn’t go vegetarian for an entire year.

Now chances are this bet doesn’t go an entire year, either one side or the other will buy out before the year is up. But it got me to thinking what would your price be?

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High Stakes Poker Snapshot: Ivey Goes Vegetarian

Though there were basically no big hands of note on Episode Four of GSN’s High Stakes Poker there was at least one interesting twist.

After some haggling Tom Dwan bet Phil Ivey $1 million that he couldn’t go vegetarian for an entire year.

Now chances are this bet doesn’t go an entire year, either one side or the other will buy out before the year is up but it got me to thinking what would your price be?

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On to Round 2 of the NBC Heads-Up Championship

After my 3^rd place finish at the High Roller event in LA, I knew I needed to make my way back to Las Vegas. I had an invitation to play in the NBC Heads Up Championship, how could I say no to that? 

I came back that same night after the finish of the High Roller event. I rode back with a couple buddies crammed in their tiny 2 door car… I rode in the back seat! 

We left around 2 am and arrived in Vegas around six. It was a miserable drive, but I was happy to finally get here. 

I chilled out the first day I was here, just hanging with friends, drinking some beers and having a good time. The next day was the drawing party for the event. It was pretty cool, I was able to bring two of my good buddies, Andy and the one and only- Daniel O’Brien, and two of his friends as well. 

We all had a great time there and I found out who I was matched up against, Daniel Negreanu.

He’s not exactly my first choice from the field, as there are plenty of much weaker opponents. However, I was not totally opposed to the thought of playing him as I knew there would be a good chance our match would be the featured one. 

I have also played a lot against Daniel and feel like I have a good read on how he plays. 

Our match did end up being on the featured table, and also the fastest one. I knocked him out of what I would guess to be around the 10^th hand of the match. 

I got all the money in on a board of J-3-3-2 holding QQ vs his 55 in a 3-bet pot. The structure of these matches are fairly fast paced, as they are made for TV.  

Saturday, I will be playing Pieter De Korver in my first match. If I win this match, I will be in the money and down to the final 16. Hopefully I can win both matches tomorrow and be on the final day on Sunday when only 8 players are left. 

First place in this tournament is a cool half million.  Not bad eh?

Stay tuned to pokerlistings.com to follow the action

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Olympics, Spring Training, Pokers

About a week ago now the Olympics wrapped up with a Canadian Gold in Hockey. It was a story book ending to a pretty amazing Olympics.

Kind of sad to see the Olympics go, Vancouver was an amazing place for those 17 days.

You could go downtown at any time of day, any day of the week and it was a party, and the typical Vancouver douchebags were nowhere to be found.

It was just people from Vancouver and around the world partying and having a good time.

I didn’t get to take in many events first hand but I did watch almost everything on TV.

The two events I did see were Men’s skicross, which we bubbled the podium, and USA vs Finland semifinals.

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