The Final Table for the $40,000 WSOP Event 2 No-Limit Holdem Championship is in place. Here are the participants with starting chip counts.

Isaac Haxton 5,955,000

Vitaly Lunkin 4,565,000

Lex ‘RaSZi’ Vedlhuis 3,805,000

Greg Raymer 3,345,000

Alec Torelli 2,340,000

Justin Bonomo 1,685,000

Dan ‘Ansky’ Stern 1,300,000

Noah Schwartz 660,000

Ted Forrest 560,000

All quality players. Check out World Series of Poker Live for up to the minute updates on this and other events.

Hopefully one day we will be there giving updates, but for now we will probably comment more on wins and discussions surrounding the World Series.

Guest Article by Carl “The Dean” Sampson

Tapping into what your opponents are doing and the patterns that they have is without a doubt, one of your biggest money earners in poker, if not the biggest. The player pools are usually quite small in the games that I play and I use Poker Office 5 to assist me in locating exploitable patterns of behaviour with my opponents.

I play mainly full-ring cash games as they suit my individual style. Here I would like to show you one such pattern that I spotted a few weeks ago on a player before he apparently left the site. His pre-flop raising frequency was higher than what it normally should be but this statistic coupled with the fact that he nearly always fired a continuation bet made this pattern very exploitable.

Here I am going to change the stakes of the game somewhat but it still highlights the concept clearly.

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www.itsawinner.co.uk is happy to provide you with quality pokercasts featuring some of the experts of online poker.

Our first interview is with Online Cash Game pro Gary Hurst has over 5 years of being a professional poker player and is just about to head to Las Vegas to play in this years WSOP. Check out this podcast which includes us discussing Las Vegas Cash Games at the WSOP, the Durrr Challenge, How to manage a small bankroll, online pokers security and his feelings on the potripper scandal. Do not miss it! Gary also gives me a hand analysis on a hand played by me at a tournament and is really good at explaining how he sorts through a poker hand which is a must listen for any player. This a great podcast and we will feature Gary again in the future!

Please feel free to comment!

Most higher stakes poker players over the age of 21 (and no doubt some under 21) are heading to Las Vegas this coming week for the start of the 2009 World Series of Poker. They just cannot bear not to be there. There is almost the feeling that in order to be a poker player you just have to try and go to Vegas and sample the atmosphere. Many players who specialise online will step away from their multi-widescreen monitors for a once a year trip to play live poker searching for bracelets, fame, sponsorship and cash profits.

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I was given this video to watch by a friend and it really is funny. Only poker players could enjoy it because it is actually laughing at someone taking a bad beat.

Please note there is swearing in this video, so if you don’t like that don’t play it! For the rest of you poker players…enjoy.

We all love poker podcasts. I personally do anyway, I really can’t get enough of them.

Obviously I should go out more.

Here at itsawinner.co.uk we are going to offer anyone out there the opportunity to be part of the site by being interviewed by me in a 40 minute to 1 hour show. Contact us using the form if you wish to be involved.

We will be announcing our first of a series of shows very soon. We already have our first professional lined up for a tell-all look at his poker career, how he started and how he lives day-to-day as a poker professional.

Stay tuned for more information…

Many people question their odds when it comes to gambling. That’s why there are many who prefer real casinos over online ones, and many people who haven’t even tried an online casino out. They’re worried that somehow over the course of adapting casinos to the internet, the odds are all out of balance, and you’ll always lose. This is simply not true.

There are many reasons why internet casinos and online gambling have the same (if not better) odds as a real casino. First, if they did have unfair odds, they wouldn’t be around; no one would give them any business. So why are they thriving? Since online poker and internet casinos are on a level playing field, they have to the exact same (or sometimes better) odds of winning. Most offline casinos don’t have to worry about territory because they’re divided by distance – while all online casinos are right next to each other, and can easily take business from one another.

So they have to give good odds, so people will choose their site over some other. This legitimizes all internet casinos. But the main question – can you win with them? That’s pretty simple.

Can you win with a real casino? If you can’t, then you’ll probably have a better chance online. If you can win in a real casino – then you’re golden online. With online poker and gambling sites, you can go at your own pace on some games, and when it comes to casino games like poker, you don’t have to deal with the noise or people of an offline casino.

Have you ever gotten nervous at a black jack table? Like you weren’t sure whether to hit our stand? If that were to happen online, it wouldn’t be embarrassing at all. And in that sense, you’ll always win with online poker.

Considering that I had to look up online only two months ago which games were played in a H.O.R.S.E. game of poker, I think I did ok by increasing my stack in each of the first three levels of poker in the Full Tilt 17.40 ET freeroll which is ran daily.

Check out my review of Full Tilt here.

I particularly enjoy a game of 7 Card Stud, but know that my Omaha Hi/Lo, Stud 8 or Better and Razz are just bad. Work is required to improve (particularly on Razz which I am horrifically bad at!) The good news is that if you learn these games there is a noticable drop in overall standard against many of the other players at the table. No-one seems to know strategy for the non-holdem games, although bare in mind it’s a freeroll!)

If you do wish to enter this freeroll for a shot at $15 free dollars (top 27 pays of 2400 and it is ALWAYS full) then get there quick because immediately upon opening for sign-ups 1200 or so places are gone. Bankroll challengers take note as this may be an opportunity to grab those illusive first dollars that you need to kick start your $1,000,000 heeb run. We can hope…..

I am happy to recommend Stanley Casinos website by clicking either the image below, the words above or the link on the right of this page. Stanley Circus is a casino I visit regularly in Newcastle and play Poker there when I hit the live scene. It is a highly recommended place to visit and a must-see for poker players in the north east in particular.

It was the first casino that I visited having never been to one before. Myself and my brother-in-law are planning a Blackjack trip to Stanleys at some point soon which we have been planning for ages, after watching the film “21″.

I was pleasantly surprised to get Stanley Casinos support for my blog and urge everyone to check out their website by clicking the image below.

I found this video on my daily trawl of pokertube. It is a well described video on how to use Camtasia to make a good poker video. Certainly worth a look if you fancy doing video and some good advice on how to pre-empt pokertubes compression of your videos. Just imagine creating a great video and fantastic commentary only for it to be barely watchable due to bad settings.

Enjoy.

My wonderful bank refuses transactions to Full Tilt, which is a shame because I have a rakeback deal and wanted to take full advantage of using it. Here is how the session played.

I decided to take advantage of some of the freerolls and registered for the Late Night Poker freeroll for UK players. I played fairly tight to begin with, was unlikely to raise at 15/30 to 90 and get no callers with AA. I overplayed 9h 10h with 10 high flop rainbow and did some of my stack. Stupid move. Several slaps later I decided no more of this type of rubbish.

On a drawy board I made a nice fold with top two pair and good kicker and my opponent showed me the straight which was nice as I knew he had it. Doubled up when my pocket 10’s beat my opponents 99. Managed to hit a runner runner flush on the last hand before the break to go up to 6100!

The play in this tournament was pretty bad considering Full Tilt has a reputation for playing better than the average poker room. With blinds at 150/300 with a 25 ante the 165 player field involved 50 players with less than 4 tournament M’s!

I finished in 154th position to a bit of a beat. The hand in question I was given 66 with 3600 or so left. I raised to 1200 with blinds at 200/400 25 and received 3 callers all of whom had middle sized stacks. The flop came down 2h Kd 4d which gives me middle pair. I shoved my remaining 2400 and received a call with Q 2 offsuit. The turn is a 2 and just to rub salt into my gaping wound the river is also a 2 giving the guy quads and kicking the crap out of my pocket pair. I had some fold equity there and the play was ok, just bad cards. 154 is not bad out of 912 and if luck was there I had a 6000 pot up for grabs which against a decent player (whom I believed my opponents to be somewhat) I would give folds here to anything apart from a king and because I was not re-raised I did not fancy them to have it.

Enjoyed the tournament and look forward to the next one.

Check out this quote.

“No one has ever taught me a single thing about poker. I’ve never read a book, not a single page…”

Nothing too spectacular about this you say as there are many losing players that never ever read a book on poker and simply play because they enjoy the game or the gamble. But when Patrik Antonius is saying this, we sit back and take note.

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