Lina Wang runs an interesting poker blog over at pokerhotchick.blogspot.com. Lina has kindly recorded a short interview with me that you can listen to by clicking play in the media player below. I highly recommend her blog. She works for a Poker software company and her blog is unique in that it deals with the science surrounding the delivery of online poker that many of us take for granted.

Thank you for Lina for the interview, her blog is linked in our poker blog link section in the right sidebar under the name “The Princess of Poker”.

Look out for more interviews in the future and remember to check out our Live Poker Show this coming Tuesday 2.30pm EST/7.30pm GMT.

Isildur1 and Patrik Antonius played the biggest ever pot seen in online poker ever recently.

Tom Dwan and Di Dang had the previous record at $723,000 of real cash, but in a session that made the other games look small Isidur1 and Antonius broke the record twice before playing out this monster.

Click play below to watch the hand in action. Basically Patrik has KKA3 and Isildur1 tries to bet him off the hand with a straight draw which fails to fill. Antonius is 55% in the hand and it holds up to win $1.3 million in a single hand. The hand is amazing to watch and frightening too! Isildur1 had inflicted a bad beat on Phil Ivey earlier in a pot worth $800,000. We all hate variance but that has to hurt even Phil Ivey!

Click here to be taken to poker table ratings for the full hand replay.

UK Poker player James Akenhead, a member of the hit squad, has managed to secure a seat alongside Phil Ivey at the World Series of Poker Main Event.

I know of James although do not personally know him from my time as a Pool player. James has gone from top uk pool player & train driver to world class poker pro with over $1.7 million in tournament winnings. We hope that he can go all the way in November and win the main event. He will undoubtedly be famous as a result of this excellent achievement.

Here is an interview with James from Pokernews.

Good luck James!

Jeffrey Lisandro has got three World Series of Poker bracelets, all of which have come in the discipline of Stud! An amazing record for Jeffrey who has had four cashes in the 2009 WSOP and is enjoying a brilliant run. Read on for details of his dominance of the Stud tournaments at this years WSOP.

(more…)

20,647 of 50,000 have been played with a monster session being logged at the World Series of Poker (which was quite unexpected).

Durrr overturned a $-500,000 hole to move $+726,546.50 into the lead, giving Antonius a massive loss himself to overturn. As we move closer to the final hands, things are sure to heat up in this challenge with the action definitely going to be insane.

Durrr is proving himself one of the best players in the world, with even Phil Hellmuth recently commenting on how he has massive respect for him in a recent interview.

Stay tuned for further Durrr Challenge updates.

I sent a message to poker pro Eric Rizen Lynch who kindly posted an answer on his blog. Here it is:

Q: Rizen, I have a bankroll of around $300. What site would you play on and how would you utilise a similar roll to build it in the current poker environment?

A: This is a really tough one for me to answer as it’s been so long since I’ve tried to build a bankroll. Back in the day (I sound old now) I used to use deposit and reload bonuses to build my roll quickly. But then it was easier to move money around with neteller from site to site and take advantage of the bonuses. Today it’s not that easy, so I would think you’d probably have to stick with one site. Some of it would depend on what my goals are. If you’re looking to pick a site and build up a bankroll to eventually play in big games you probably want to pick a bigger site that will have a lot more game selection as you move up in limits. By bigger site I mean some of the obvious candidates like Poker Stars and Full Tilt Poker. If you were looking to simply be able to build that $300 into a larger amount (by larger I mean probably double or triple it in a reasonable amount of time) going with a smaller room with good rakeback and deposit bonuses would probably be more ideal.

As far as how I would utilize it, it really depends on the individual’s strengths and weaknesses. If someone were truly a great all around poker player equally skilled at cash, MTTs, and SnGs, then in my experience with students at the micro levels SnGs often ofter the easiest way to build your bankroll while once you get properly bankrolled to play $.25/$.50 and higher cash games seem to be a better way to go. So provided the player was equally good at both (better to stick to your strengths) I’d have them grind SnGs until they get to about $1250 (usually want 25 buy ins for a NL cash game) then switch over to cash.

Thanks to Eric for answering our questions and good luck at the world series where he is playing in numerous events. Visit his blog by clicking here

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.

(more…)

Tony G has moved away from poker and is concentrating more on the businesses he has bought into and is growing with his team. He is an owner of chipmeup.com, neverwinpoker.com and pokernews. These are massive sites that put him in the forefront of poker online.

Tony is a good example of a player who did well and has now tried to protect his interests moving forward. He understood that the poker boom will not necessarily last forever, recent legislation suggests the game may be heading underground again. He does not play poker much these days but certainly has taken advantage of the opportunities his play gave him.

This is a good interview and surprisingly, Tony G has become a bit of an example for how a successful poker player can become a good business person. Poker players probably do make great business people. They can manage risk and are not scared to move all-in and take a chance at a big pay-off, Tony’s ventures have certainly paid off and he continues to build a poker-based business portfolio with his team that looks to set him up as a major force off the poker table as well as on it.

Joe Hachem trash talked his way to $7.5 million in 2005, he followed this up with a WPT win worth over $2.5 million. He is basically an idol of mine. If your gonna win two tournaments then make them worth $10 million!

Check out this great chat with Joe Hachem.

I do not claim to have hand-to-hand analysis of the Durrr challenge. But read on for my thoughts on the challenge itself. Patrik Antonius and Tom Dwan are involved in a massive 50,000 hand high stakes poker challenge. It is four-tabling $200 / $400 PLO and NL Holdem. Durrr is putting up $1.5 million to Antonius $500,000 that he will be ahead after the alloted 50,000 hands of poker.

(more…)

Stu Ungar was a fantastic Poker player. Whilst I carry on updating the website I have posted a set of videos from Pokertube that I know you will enjoy.

More updates about the Cake Poker Challenge to follow very soon once the site is up and running fully with all features added.

(more…)