The World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP) will be back, bigger and better, in 2019.

It’s the most wonderful time of the year…for online poker players, anyway.

Today we can reveal the dates for the 2019 WCOOP, so you better mark them on the calendar. You’ll need a big, thick Sharpie though, because you’ll be blocking out 20 days in the diary.

Tournaments will kick off on September 5 and run until September 25, when the $5,200 WCOOP Main Event concludes. Arguably the most prestigious online poker series, there’s going to be almost three weeks of jam-packed poker, enormous prize pools, and tournament variations for all tastes.

We can’t wait.

Online qualifiers will begin to run on PokerStars from August 19. They’ll be worth checking out, as this year’s Main Event comes with both a Low and High tier.

That’s all the info we have for you now, but stay tuned for more over the coming weeks.

Opening a PokerStars account is easy. Click here to get an account in minutes.

Until recently, the only way for poker players to experience short-deck hold’em was to sit down at the high-stakes cash tables in Asia.

Things have certainly changed a lot in a short time.

PokerStars introduced 6+ Hold’em cash games at the beginning of this year, giving players at a range of stakes a chance to try out the game. Things went well, to say the least.

2019 WSOP Main Event runner-up Dario Sammartino won the first live 6+ Hold’em tournament in Monte Carlo earlier this year.

Multi-table tournaments arrived next. First came a live 6+ Hold’em tournament at EPT Monte Carlo, where Italian pro Dario Sammartino triumphed, and then a few online events during SCOOP.

Now PokerStars is rounding out our 6+ Hold’em offerings with spin-and-go tournaments. Beginning today, July 25th, you can play 6+ Hold’em in a classic single-table tournament format. Rake and payouts will be identical to those in standard hold’em spin-and-go tourneys, so the only change is the game that’s being played.

Professional poker players love 6+ Hold’em and it’s easy to see why. All cards below 6 are stripped from the deck, the player on the button pays a single blind, and everyone pay an ante on each hand. Aside from flushes beating full houses — they’re harder to make with a shorter deck — everything plays like a regular hold’em game. The end result is lots of action and lots of fun. With a fast-paced spin-and-go format in play, things should be even more exciting.

These new 6+ Hold’em spin-and-go tourneys will be offered with buy-ins of $1, $3, $15, $30 and $100. They are initially available to .COM and .EU players, as well as on .BE, .BG, .DK, .EE, .RO, .RU, .RUSO, .SH, and .UK licenses.

Interested in playing but want to get the lay of the land first? We’ve got you covered. Learn the basics of 6+ Hold’em, and read about what happened when the Blog learned 6+ Hold’em from Lex Veldhuis.

WSOP photography by pokerphotoarchive.com

Get started playing 6+ Hold’em within minutes. Open a PokerStars account today.

Here’s a quick catch up from the week on PokerStarsBlog… 

• Save the date: WCOOP 2019 confirmed
• 6+ Hold’em spin & go tourneys now available
• Remembering the 1979 WSOP Main Event
• Feel the heat: Playing poker in the summer
• How the Sunday Million was won (July 21)

SAVE THE DATE: WCOOP 2019 CONFIRMED

Yesterday (July 25) we revealed the dates for the 2019 World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP), so you better mark them on the calendar.

Tournaments will kick off on September 5 and run until September 25, when the $5,200 WCOOP Main Event concludes. Arguably the most prestigious online poker series, there’s going to be almost three weeks of jam-packed poker, enormous prize pools, and tournament variations for all tastes.

Click here for more info.

6+ HOLD’EM SPIN & GO TOURNEYS NOW AVAILABLE

PokerStars has rounded out our 6+ Hold’em offerings with spin-and-go tournaments.

Beginning yesterday, July 25th, you can play 6+ Hold’em in a classic single-table tournament format. Rake and payouts will be identical to those in standard hold’em spin-and-go tourneys, so the only change is the game that’s being played.

Find out more here.

REMEMBERING THE 1979 WSOP MAIN EVENT

While this year’s World Series of Poker was the 50th edition, 2019 also marked the 40th anniversary of what was arguably one of the most historic WSOP Main Events. In 1979, Hal Fowler stunned the poker world by topping a field made up primarily of professional players to become the first ever amateur to win poker’s most prestigious title.

1979 WSOP Main Event winner, Hal Fowler

PokerStars Blog’s resident historian Martin Harris did a deep dive into the University of Nevada Las Vegas’ Centre for Gaming Research, and found out some fascinating stuff about the original Moneymaker effect, Kenny Rogers, and Gabe Kaplan’s true profession.

Read the full article here.

FEEL THE HEAT: PLAYING POKER IN THE SUMMER

I think we can all agree, this heat is a bit too much. While some of you will be basking down the beach, others (like us) are choosing to hide away literally anywhere blessed with air conditioning.

Summertime? Time for poker

No matter how tempting the sun and sand might be, the lure of poker is ever present. This week we took a look at how you can keep playing while spending your time away from the tables soaking up the vitamin D.

Check out summer poker tips here.

HOW THE SUNDAY MILLION WAS WON (JULY 21)

The biggest weekly online tournament deserves a big weekly write-up, and that’s exactly what we’ve been bringing you these past couple of weeks.

Last Sunday’s edition of the $109 Sunday Million (July 21) was won by a very familiar face indeed: Conor Beresford. But how did he get it done to win $112K? And what was it like for the other players at final table?

Click here to find out how the event played out, featuring interviews from from a couple of those who came closest to keeping “1_conor_b_1” out of the winner’s circle.

Ready to sign up for PokerStars? Click here to get an account.

Among this summer’s offerings from D&B Poker is a book designed to help poker players learn how to learn, so to speak. Purposeful Practice for Poker by Dr. Patricia Cardner and Gareth James provides a wealth of concrete advice about the “right sort of practice” they should pursue in order to improve their games.

In this one Cardner builds upon her previous titles Peak Poker Performance and Positive Poker, sharing knowledge gained while earning two doctorates (including one in psychology), working as a licensed professional counselor, and her time at the poker tables where she’s earned more than six figures’ worth of cashes in tournaments.

For Purposeful Practice for Poker, Cardner collaborates with tournament coach Gareth “Gazellig” James to show players how to make the most out of their study time away from the tables. They present and explain “purposeful practice” and how it can apply to poker, providing numerous techniques and exercises players can do to start improving right away.

The book is divided into two sections — “The Theory” and “The Practice.” The first section on “The Theory” takes a broad approach to poker learning, addressing the importance of having goals and the right mindset when setting about improving your game.

“The Practice” then gets into more “nuts-and-bolts” in-game situations such as preflop opening ranges, blind defense, playing from out of position postflop, and short-stacked strategy while also covering ICM and final table strategy (among other tips). Each topic is presented as a “Learning Project,” incorporating both specific advice about the situation being addressed and ideas for how to continue your study of that topic going forward.

Below find an excerpt from “The Practice” section in which Cardner and James introduce the topic of defending your big blind, here addressing the topic in a general way before going on to address how to go about improving one’s skill in this area.

Defending Your Big Blind

This learning project is very similar to learning your preflop opening ranges but now you have a few more options when facing a raise — you can call, 3-bet or shove, depending on your stack size.

The strategies for defending your big blind in cash games and tournaments can be vastly different. There is generally no ante, the raise sizes are bigger and there’s usually a rake taken in cash games; whereas there is regularly an ante, the raise sizes tend to be smaller and there is no ongoing rake once you start playing in tournaments.

This means that defending your big blind in tournaments is way more attractive, but if you apply the same strategies in both formats without considering raise size, ante and rake, you’re probably costing yourself EV.

This means you have to play much wider from the Big Blind in tournaments than you do in a cash game. If there’s an open and a call before you, then your ranges should change again. One common misconception is that the better price you’re getting, because of the extra money in the pot from the caller(s), the wider you should defend. The problem with this thinking is it that it is much more difficult to realize equity multiway.

If you’re calling too many hands versus an open then you’re probably leaking EV. It’s tough to gain that EV back out of position however good you think you are at playing postflop. If you’re folding too many hands then you’re making it too easy for other players to steal your big blind. You’re also passing on opportunities to improve your win rate. Similarly, if you’re flatting hands that are more profitable as a 3-bet then you’re missing out on EV by just flatting. If you start defending your big blind at the right frequency through calls and 3-bets then you become tougher to play against and this can lead to future improvement in EV since your op- ponents will look to find easier targets at the table. Think about it like this: If you see a Big Blind defending his blinds at the right frequency and playing back at you, do you want to continue to open his big blind or will you target the player who folds too much and/or doesn’t 3-bet enough?

Remember, defending the big blind isn’t just about calling, but 3-betting too. Sometimes attack is the best form of defense.

Purposeful Practice for Poker is available for pre-order in paperback and as an e-book at D&B Poker.

D&B Publishing (using the imprint D&B Poker) was created by Dan Addelman and Byron Jacobs 15 years ago. Since then it has become one of the leading publishers of poker books with titles by Phil Hellmuth, Jonathan Little, Mike Sexton, Chris Moorman, Dr. Patricia Cardner, Lance Bradley, Martin Harris and more, all of which are available at D&B Poker.

The featherweight division had existed long before the UFC decided to bring the 145 pounders into the fold back in September 2010. But since the Octagon began hosting fights in the division, it has quickly become one of the premier weight classes in the sport.

Some of the most notable men and most notable fights in the UFC over the past decade have happened at 145 pounds. That’s something that will be true once again on July 27 when champ Max Holloway puts his belt on the line against UFC great Frankie Edgar.

So, who are the men who defined the UFC’s 145-pound division?

Urijah Faber

Urijah Faber’s time as featherweight champ came prior to the division making its debut in the UFC, but his place in history is no less important. Faber defeated Cole Escovedo in March 2006 to become the World Extreme Cagefighting (WEC) champion. In December 2006, Zuffa LLC, the parent company of the UFC, purchased WEC and continued running the promotion as a separate entity from the UFC until 2010.

During the time of Zuffa ownership, the WEC focus became on divisions between 135 and 155. Initially, Faber served as the promotion’s top star, successfully defending his featherweight belt five times. That included defeating UFC veteran Jens Pulver and future UFC bantamweight champion Dominick Cruz.

Faber’s charisma and fighting style was a perfect mix to bring attention and validity to a weight class previously thought to be “too small” to capture public attention. This despite men like Oscar De La Hoya being top drawing fight sport stars below 155 pounds at the same time.

Since losing the featherweight title in November 2008, Faber has fought in six title fights between featherweight and bantamweight, with an 0-6 record. But his contributions were important enough to land him in the UFC Hall of Fame in 2017 after his retirement from the sport.

Retirements don’t last long in MMA, however. Faber recently returned to the Octagon scoring a crushing TKO of up and comer Ricky Simon.

Jose Aldo

Mike Brown was the man who knocked Faber off the featherweight pedistal, but it was Jose Aldo who redefined the division for more than half a decade.

The Brazilian striker ripped into the WEC featherweight division, scoring five consecutive knockouts to land a championship opportunity in November 2009 against Brown. Less than two minutes into the second round, Brown was down and out and Aldo had claimed the title.

Aldo would defeat Faber and then Manny Gamburyan in the WEC. That was before the division was absorbed into the UFC, and where Aldo would be crowned undisputed champion by the promotion.

Aldo would make nine successful defenses of his title between the WEC and UFC from November 2009 until he lost the title to Conor McGregor at UFC 194 in December 2015.

He would also defeat Frankie Edgar at UFC 200 to win the interim featherweight title. That was before he was promoted again to undisputed champion. He lost that title to Max Holloway at UFC 212.

Conor McGregor

If you’re even passingly familiar with the UFC or boxing … or, really, pop culture in general, you know Conor McGregor.

The brash Irishman can talk almost as well as he can fight — and he can fight really damn well.

McGregor rebounded from some early career stumbles to win eight straight fights and earn a UFC contract. Once in the Octagon, his winning ways didn’t stop and his swagger got more outlandish.

After five straight UFC wins (four by knockout), McGregor was expected to face Aldo for the championship at UFC 189 only to see the champ suffer a rib injury and have to pull out. McGregor instead fought Chad Mendes, a dangerous wrestler, for the interim belt.

McGregor scored the TKO to become interim champion and set up an even bigger fight with Aldo, which took place at UFC 194.

Aldo vs. McGregor had a wild build up and was massively anticipated. And it only took McGregor 13 seconds to put Aldo to sleep and end a six year championship reign.

McGregor would never defend his championship. Instead he was stripped of the belt after moving up to lightweight and becoming champ at 155 pounds.

Max Holloway

Max Holloway is the current UFC featherweight champion and could stay atop the division a very long time.

Holloway lost his UFC debut and was only 3-3 after his first six fights in the Octagon. He was young, however, and would rattle off night consecutive victories to land himself in an interim featherweight title fight against former lightweight champ Anthony Pettis.

Pettis missed weight for the bout, but that didn’t stop Holloway from handling his larger foe and scoring a third round TKO to become interim champ.

He then unified the title by taking out undisputed champ Aldo at UFC 212 in June 2017. He would defeat Aldo in a rematch and then stop Brian Ortega in his next title defense to establish himself as the clear cut king of the featherweights. All four of his featherweight title fights have ended with Holloway the victor by knockout.

In his most recent fight, Holloway attempted to jump to lightweight and become interim champion at 155 pounds. But he came up short in a valliant effort against the much larger Dustin Poirier.

Now back at featherweight, Holloway is looking to once again prove his place as the now and future king of the 145ers.

It’s hard to not like a fighter like Frankie Edgar. Edgar has often found himself as the underdog in big fights but manages to scrap and compete at a high level.

He was a massive underdog at UFC 112 when he took on then champion BJ Penn. Penn was as high as a -1100 favorite, but Edgar came out with the unanimous decision win and the lightweight championship. He also won their rematch, where he was again the underdog at the betting window.

For 12 years Edgar has been an “anyone, anytime” type of fighter in the UFC and has continued to have a high level of success even after dropping the lightweight belt and moving to featherweight.

While he’s come up short in two featherweight championship bouts to date, he’s now in line to face champ Max Holloway for the title at UFC 240.

This shot at the title has been a bit of a long time coming as Edgar was scheduled to face Holloway in March 2018 before an injury to the champ derailed the fight. While Edgar could have sat on the sidelines and waited for the title fight, he chose instead to help the UFC “save the card” by facing the very dangerous Brian Ortega.

Ortega scored a first round knockout of Edgar, becoming the only man to ever stop the former lightweight king, and propelled himself into Edgar’s spot as title challenger.

Edgar scored a comeback win over Cub Swanson and Holloway defeated Ortega, setting the stage for the two to finally meet.

“Frankie’s getting the shot because Frankie earned the shot,” UFC President Dana White said. “Frankie’s a guy who always steps up. He’s one of the best ever. As a lot of these guys are getting older, you see a lot of these guys getting older and retiring, Frankie Edgar is still one of the best in the world and on top of his game.”

By comparison, only three of his nine UFC wins at lightweight came by stoppage.

While the pair of wins over B.J. Penn in 2010 vaulted Edgar into the spotlight as a true top player, his back-to-back title defenses against Gray Maynard earned him a reputation as a sort of Rocky for the MMA world.

The two had met in 2008 with Maynard taking a unanimous decision victory but both men had improved in the years that followed.

When they rematched at UFC 125 in January 2011, Maynard blitzed Edgar in the first round, coming very close to scoring a stoppage before Edgar came back strong in the second.

The two battled to a rare championship fight draw that was named Fight of the Night by the UFC as well as winning multiple Fight of the Year awards at various media outlets. The fight still stands as one of the greatest to ever take place in the Octagon and was one of the first clear showcases of Edgar’s unbelievable fighting spirit.

They would rematch at UFC 136 and the first round would play out almost identical to the previous meeting. Maynard blasted Edgar repeatedly with massive shots, seemingly on the verge of a stoppage, but Edgar survived and this time managed to score a knockout in the fourth round to dispatch his rival and retain the championship.

Edgar’s ability to survive that level of punishment led White to recall Rocky and how the champ had changed his view of the classic boxing film.

“I loved ‘Rocky,’” White said after the fight. “But even when I watched ‘Rocky,’ it was like, this is such bullshit. Nobody can take that many punches and come back and win a fight. It could never happen.”

Maynard himself seemed as though he couldn’t believe the punishment Edgar could take and still keep coming forward.

“I hit him on a knee, I hit him with a right, I hit him on a hook,” Maynard said. “What else? If there was a bat, I probably could have hit him with that, too. I couldn’t find one.”

As for Edgar, he just saw it as being the fighter he has always been.

“Sometimes you get hit like that and you’re in survival mode,” Edgar said. “I have fight in me. That’s what it is. You can hit me, rock me and I’ll keep coming no matter what.”

“(Rocky) was my hero. I guess I kind of walk in his same footsteps.”

Sometimes fight sports are defined as much by fights that never happened as those that did.

This is true of fights such as Georges St. Pierre vs. Anderson Silva, Randy Couture vs. Fedor Emelianenko and, our subject today, Ronda Rousey vs. Cris Cyborg.

The road to women being allowed to fight in the UFC was long and winding, with women establishing themselves as more than capable of high level MMA competition long before the Octagon door was opened to them.

But it was Ronda Rousey, with her charisma, good looks and brutal fighting style who finally brought the right recipe to the table, getting UFC President Dana White to sit up and take notice.

While Rousey was tearing through the competition in the UFC bantamweight division, becoming a household name and flirting with the idea of becoming a full-blown Hollywood star, Cris Cyborg was destroying featherweights in any promotion that would have her.

Cyborg won gold in Strikeforce and Invicta FC during a 20-fight win streak that saw her score 17 stoppage victories.

Still, seemingly every time Rousey was preparing for a fight or speaking with the media, the subject of Cyborg would come up.

In 2011 it seemed likely a still somewhat green Rousey and the seasoned Cyborg would meet, possibly in Strikeforce where both fought. The question was one of which division they’d compete in, with Cyborg insinuating she couldn’t make 135 pounds and Rousey possibly being undersized at 145 pounds.

Rousey seemed on board with the idea she “wasn’t ready” for Cyborg, but then things took an unfortunate turn.

The heavily muscled Cyborg tested positive for a steroid after her December 2011 win over Hiroko Yamanaka and was stripped of her title, suspended for a year and never competed in Strikeforce again. Cyborg claimed the steroid use was to help her make weight and not to add to her considerable strength.

In the time between the Yamanaka fight and Cyborg’s next bout, Rousey won the Strikeforce bantamweight title, successfully defended it and took part in the first ever women’s fight in the UFC.

Cyborg would return and fight in Invicta FC while Rousey continued quickly dispatching of UFC opponents. The two simply couldn’t avoid each other in conversations with the media. At this point, things began to turn nasty.

“I’ve said before, I don’t care if she’s injecting horse semen into her eyeballs, I’ll fight her, but that’s just my personal decision,” Rousey told Yahoo! Sports in 2014. “But I can’t make a decision for the whole division. I can’t say it’s the right thing. This girl has been on steroids for so long and [has been] injecting herself for so long that she’s not even a woman anymore. She’s an ‘it.’ It’s not good for the women’s division. It’s not good at all.

“If she comes in the UFC and I beat the [expletive] out of her and then I retire and become an action movie star, then the UFC is still going to be stuck with her. The division could die. She could ruin the whole sport. Even though it’s a fight a lot of people want to see, even if I beat the living crap out of her, it won’t be good for the sport because then she’d still be in the UFC.”

UFC President Dana White piled on Cyborg.

“It’s not that she’s beyond redemption,” White said. “She’s a nightmare in every way, shape or form to bring in as a professional athlete in an organization like this. At the end of the day, it’s not worth it in the big picture. It’s easy to sit there and go, ‘Oh, everybody wants to see that’. She’s a 45 pounder, Ronda’s a 35 pounder. She said she couldn’t make the weight. She’s got steroid issues. She’s got a lot of issues. That’s a lot to take on. But who knows? I’m not saying it could never be done.”

Cyborg thought White’s words were less about her and more about protecting Rousey, who she called a “paper champ.”

Rousey, however, was having none of it, saying, “The delay is all about money, not her weight,” Rousey said. “She made 145 pumped full of steroids. She can healthily make 135 without them.”

Cyborg responded to the constant back-and-forth between Rousey, White and herself on Facebook.

“”For the past five years this same Ronda Rousey and Dana White have used the media to bully me, opening the door for other opponents to try the same tactics,” Cyborg wrote. “Instead of talking about my fighting skills, they would rather use the media attention to say like I look like a man, or that I walk like Wanderlei Silva in a dress.”

Then, November 15, 2015 came and with it, Holly Holm’s devastating head kick knockout of Rousey.

The loss halted talk of a fight with Cyborg, who fought twice in the Octagon in 140-pound catchweight fights before Rousey returned and suffered another brutal knockout loss — this time to Amanda Nunes.

With that, the superfight was all but dead. Cyborg went on to win UFC featherweight gold, twice defending the belt before suffering her own knockout loss to Nunes. Rousey went to the world of sports entertainment, becoming a WWE superstar.

In 2017, Cyborg summed up the now-dead talk of a superfight in an interview on the MMA Hour.

“When I wanted to fight her, it was because she was at the top of her game and she had all of the confidence in the world,” Cyborg said. “She had not been KO’d twice in a row, and some people were actually saying she could beat Floyd Mayweather in a fight. I wanted the challenge so bad I almost killed myself trying to make the lowest weight possible just to give this fight to the fans, and she made every excuse for it not to happen.

“Both of us are now at different chapters in our careers, and for me that chapter is finished.”

APPT Manila runs from July 26 to August 4, 2019, at PokerStars Live at Okada Manila, Philippines. We will have live updates from From the three main tournaments in this 24-event festival. Click below for latest details from the tournament floor.

APPT National
Dates: July 28-31
Buy-in: ₱33,000 ($645)
₱5 million ($98,000) guaranteed

NOW LIVE: DAY 1B LIVE UPDATES

TO COME:
DAY 2 LIVE UPDATES
FINAL DAY LIVE UPDATES

PREVIOUS: Alex Lee Leads at End of National Day 1A

APPT Super High Roller
Dates: July 31 – August 1
Buy-in: ₱500,000 ($9,800)

DAY 1 LIVE UPDATES
DAY 2 LIVE UPDATES

APPT Main Event
Dates: August 1-4
Buy-in: ₱65,000 ($1,270)
₱20 million ($391,000) guaranteed

DAY 1A LIVE UPDATES
DAY 1B LIVE UPDATES
DAY 2 LIVE UPDATES
FINAL DAY LIVE UPDATES

FULL APPT MANILA DETAILS | EVENT TIMELINE | RESULTS

Here’s everything you need to know from the weekend on PokerStars…

• Jakub “Olli444” Oliva wins the Sunday Million ($97K)
• Patrick “pads1161” Leonard claims High Roller Club title
• Top 5 results from the High Roller Club
• Top 5 results from the weekend majors

JAKUB “Olli444” OLIVA WINS THE MILLY ($97K)

This week’s $109 Sunday Million was a big’n, with 11,300 entries. That set up a huge $1.13M prize pool, with just shy of $115K reserved for the winner.

When play got down to three-handed, however, the remaining hopefuls opted for a chop. The Czech Republic’s Jakub “Olli444” Oliva would end up taking it down for $97,937, while runner-up “Goatse113” won $77,365, and third-place finisher “IIewxa” banked $83,556.

The most recognisable name on the final table was none other than long-time high roller crusher Ole “wizowizo” Schemion. He’d ultimately fall in fifth-place for $31,874.

Ole “wizowizo” Schemion

That win smashed Oliva’s previous biggest score of $32,000 (a Bigger $109 win back in 2014), and now takes his total online winnings up past $1.6M. He is currently ranked eighth in the Czech Republic for online poker, according to PocketFives, and also boasts more than $300K in live earnings.

As for our PokerStars Ambassadors, only Ben “Spraggy” Spragg and Lex Veldhuis made the money, cashing for $224 and $200 respectively.

PATRICK “pads1161′ LEONARD WINS HRC TITLE ($37K)

Over in the High Roller Club, the biggest winner of Sunday’s session was Macedonia’s “pwndidi”, who took down the $530 Bounty Builder for $32,180 plus $31,780 in bounties.

Patrick “pads1161” Leonard

The biggest name on the winner’s sheet, however, belonged to the prolific Patrick “pads1161” Leonard, who claimed yet another tournament win in the coveted $2,100 Sunday HR, good for $37,895.

Leonard outlasted the 78-runner field, overcoming a final table which included Steve “Mr Tim Caum” O’Dwyer and Sami “Lrslzk” Kelopuro.

TOP 5 RESULTS FROM THE HIGH ROLLER CLUB

TOP 5 RESULTS FROM THE WEEKEND MAJORS

Opening a PokerStars account is easy. Click here to get an account in minutes.

If you sit down to play a Spin & Go this week, you’ll probably notice something in your Stars Rewards chest afterward. Don’t snooze on this one — it could bag you a bunch of extra cash.

Starting today, everyone who plays a Spin & Go will be given a ticket for a Sunday $10,000 freeroll to be played in the style of a Spin & Go, with 3-minute blinds and a 500-chip starting stack.

When you unlock the chest containing this ticket, you’ll also be given a chance to opt into our new Spin & Go 10 promotion, which will give away more than $350,000 over the next three weeks.

Spin and Win

Players will earn points toward the Spin & Go 10 leaderboard for the first 10 Spin & Go tourneys they play each day. The bigger the multiplier, the bigger your point reward — and if you win, you’ll get double the points.

A few things to keep in mind:

Even if you don’t win your spins, you can still win by qualifying for the daily Spin & Go 10 leaderboard.

• You can qualify daily for leaderboards on each of four tiers: Micro ($1 & $3), Low ($7 & $15), Medium ($30, $40, & $60), and High ($100+)
• Only your first 10 tourneys in each tier count for that day
• Regular Spin & Go tourneys with stakes of $1 or higher qualify for the promotion; live qualifiers, Spin & Go Max, and UFC Spin & Go’s don’t
• Leaderboard starts every day at 00:00 ET and ends at 23:59 ET

If you’re new to the Spin & Go — or if you just want to make sure you’re playing your best game as you participate in the promotion — be sure to check out the PokerStars School Spin & Go Course. It’s free and full of excellent strategy tips that will help you get the most out of the game.

Spin & Go 10 runs every day through August 18th. If you win big, reach out on Twitter and let us know!

Liv Boeree isn’t just a Team PokerStars Pro. She’s also a past EPT and WSOP champion with more than $3.8 million in lifetime live tournament earnings. In other words, she’s exactly the type of person whose brain a new tournament player would want to pick before playing live for the first time.

Read on for some thorough advice from Boeree that will help you make the most of your first live event, courtesy of PokerStars School — plus some useful advice from Pete “Carroters” Clarke on some of the few situations where making a decision to call ahead of time can actually be profitable.

• Liv Boeree’s live tournament tips
• Folding now or never

Liv Boeree’s tips for playing your first live poker tournament

Two weeks back we brought you tips for players new to live tournaments from Team PokerStars pros Chris Moneymaker and Fatima Moreira de Melo. Last week we followed that with a masterclass from Maria Konnikova. This week we keep the theme going with Liv Boeree.

Boeree who won her first live poker tournament back in 2008. Since then she’s collected not just money and titles but a wealth of experience to draw on when she finds herself at the table with other top players. Her advice for live tournaments is thorough and hard-won — exactly the kind that will help you get ahead.

One of the best places to start is to copy what successful players before you have done.

Liv Boeree after winning the 2010 EPT San Remo Main Event

“Find a few players with good results in a similar tournament to the one you’re playing and then try to emulate their thought process,” Boeree writes.

“You can find players on Twitch or YouTube. Watch how they play, check out any interviews they have, and try to really dig into how they think throughout a hand and tournament. Doing this will allow you to understand what the ideal benchmark is, allowing you to take advantage of more amateur players, and therefore moving you out of the amateur category.”

That’s just the tip of the iceberg. Boeree covers a wealth of topics including whether to register late in a deep-stacked tournament, what to do when you’re card-dead, how to get comfortable with opponents staring at you, and what to do when there’s a tough player on your left, among others.

Read Liv Boeree’s tips for playing live poker tournaments and you’ll be ready for a deep run when you sit down to play your first live event.

Folding Now or Never

In game theory, each poker player neutralizes the other’s exploitative chances by maintaining a balanced approach at the table.

Deciding ahead of time whether to call multiple streets can be a profitable strategy against certain types of opponents

Thankfully, as Pete Clarke writes, in reality, things are often very different. This week he looks into two common situations where an aggressive opponent’s tendencies mean that you can simplify your potential actions down to two choices right away: either call down multiple bets to showdown, or fold immediately and invest no more chips on this hand.

You can save yourself from needlessly throwing away chips by deciding ahead of time when to stack off and when to fold and wait for a better spot. This is especially true when you’re facing a pot-size donk bet or playing a pot with a shallow Stack-to-Pot Ratio (SPR), two situations Clarke looks at in detail this week. Check out his advice right now and begin learning how to navigate these tricky situations with ease.

Other PokerStars School content you might enjoy

• Promotion: Path to the Sunday Million
• Question of the Week: What would be your Sunday Million mental preparation advice?
• Video: Showtime Hold’em tournament tips & strategy
• Video: Practical Pot Odds Calculation
• Video: Ramon Colillas PSPC Analysis, Part 4
• Trip Report: My WSOP Event 32 Three Day Run, Part 1

WSOP photography by pokerphotoarchive.com

Open a PokerStars account today and start learning from PokerStars School. Click here to get started, and then click here to register for PokerStars School.

The definitive account of the Sunday Million (July 28).

They say the cream rises to the top.

Two weeks ago, long-time crusher Conor “1_conor_b_1” Beresford took down the $109 Sunday Million for a massive $112K score. This week another beast–Ole “wizowizo” Schemion–came close, finishing in fifth for $31,874.

But while it’s always exciting to see big names like Schemion (almost) go the distance, the biggest weekly online tournament continues to provide life-changing scores for both pros and recreational players alike. Heck, even an “average Joe” or a shrimp fisherman can make the final table and a five-figure payday–both of which happened this week, on July 28th.

We think that’s pretty exciting, too.

The tournament saw an uptick to 11,300 entries, producing a $1.13 million prize pool and $114,934 reserved for the winner. However, the final three players made a deal to chop it up, and when Czech poker pro Jakub “Olli444” Oliva came out on top, he won $97,937 for his largest online score to date.

Here’s how it all went down, with help from some of the final table players.

OLE OLE OLE

When the Sunday Million had just nine players remaining of the 11,300 who entered, all eyes were on Ole Schemion. Playing under his PokerStars screenname “wizowizo”, Schemion’s presence at the table didn’t go unnoticed by the others.

“I was aware it was Ole Schemion right next to me, my friends railing me made sure of that,” the eventual runner-up—Finland’s “Goatse”—told PokerStars Blog. “I was fortunate to have position on him. I just happened to run better than him in this tournament, but it is always great to go up against the very best.”

Ole “wizowizo” Schemion: one of the best

It was Oliva who entered the final table with 45 big blinds and the chip lead, and he rated the German highly too. “I think only ‘wizowizo’ was among the best players, otherwise the rest were average players,” Oliva said a couple of days after his victory had sunk in.

Oliva started playing poker a few years back, and developed his game through what he called “intense studying”. Now a professional, he makes his living grinding both online and live in mid to high stakes tournaments.

“My biggest result was in a World Series of Poker (WSOP) circuit event four months ago. I came third for $101K,” he said, just pipping the amount he won Sunday night. “For the whole Sunday Million I was above the tournament average. It was only on the last two tables that the journey to the final table became complicated, and I found myself on a short stack. I won some pots again, though, and I entered the final table as a chip leader.”

“Goatse213” recognised that Oliva was a good player. “I think I had a bad spot having ‘Olli444’ on my direct left, he was playing really well and limited my options,” “Goatse213” said.

Meanwhile Schemion’s stack sat around the middle of the pack. He quickly found a big boost when he eliminated Uruguay’s “IlDepredator” in ninth ($8,840).

Schemion min-opened the button with A♦4♥, and “IlDepredator” defended his big blind with K♣6♠ to see a 3♦6♦5♠ flop fall. This gave Schemion an open-ender and he put in a c-bet when checked to. “IlDepredator” then shoved his 11-big-blind stack with top pair, and Schemion made the call. A deuce hit the turn to complete Schemion’s straight draw, and he then had a comfortable stack to play with.

Belgium’s “moneymach301” was the next to fall. His stack has dropped down just three big blinds when he picked up K♠K♥ under the gun, and naturally all of it went in. Action folded around to “Olli444” in the small blind who made the call with A♥J♣, and he ended up rivering a straight to eliminate “moneymach301” in eighth ($12,181).

Down to seven, the money jumps were already huge. “esbjerdr”, a shrimp fisherman from Denmark, told us this was his best result to date.

“One time I finished in the top 16, but that was maybe five or six years ago,” he said. “I lost most of that money in a cash game, but I learned from it and now I only play tournaments. I also play a lot of live tournaments where I live in Denmark.”

Another player enjoying his time at the final table was Finland’s “Goatse213”.

“I started playing poker with a few friends back in 2005 or so,” he explained. “We played in home games and I got intrigued really quickly. I normally focus on live poker, mostly cash games, but from time to time I like to play some online tournaments.”

That decision proved particularly fruitful on July 28^th. While it ended with nice scores, their journeys towards the final table were far from smooth.

“Throughout the Sunday Million I was near the top of the chip counts,” “esbjerdr” remembered. “At one point I had almost 21 million in chips, but then I doubled up a lot of small stacks and lost a lot.”

“Goatse213” had the opposite experience. “I lost a big flip with like 250 players left and was crippled down to about eight big blinds, but managed to claw my way back up.”

By the time he reached the final table, he had one of the biggest stacks. One nice pot which went “Goatse213”’s way at the final table happened during seven-handed play. Holding the chip lead, he opened with J♠9♠ from early position and picked up one caller—“esbjerdr”–who had 10♣10♦ in the small blind. The flop produced two nines giving “Goatse213” trips, and when “esbjerdr” check-shoved and couldn’t find another ten, his tournament came to an end ($16,786).

“Goatse213” continued the good all-in form when he won a huge flip to KO Belarus’ “Dj_Sun_Rusma” in sixth ($23,131). The latter jammed for 16 big blinds under the gun with A♦K♣, and “Goatse213” called with 7♦7♥ in the cutoff. The pocket pair held up.

“Obviously you need to have your good hands hold up on the final table,” “Goatse213” said. “I don’t remember a specific hand which helped me get that far, but obviously I won all of the big all-ins when I needed to.”

The same can’t be said for Schemion. He went out in fifth.

Schemion min-opened the cutoff with 16 big blinds left holding A♥9♦, and Russia’s “IIewxa” defended his big blind with J♥10♥. On a K♦6♥3♣ flop, Schemion c-bet when it checked to him. “IIewxa” floated and picked up an open-ender on the Q♠ turn, which he checked again. Schemion didn’t slow down, firing again and leaving himself nine big blinds behind. Call.

The A♠ hit the river, giving Schemion top pair but “IIewxa” the nut straight. “IIewxa” now led with a shove, putting Schemion to the test for it all.

Ole Schemion (aka “wizowizo”) goes deep in the tank for his tournament life

Deep into his time bank, Schemion made the call and saw the bad news. He banked $31,874 for his efforts, and they were down to four.

“THIS JUST DOESN’T HAPPEN TO PEOPLE LIKE ME”

With Oliva, “Goatse213” and “IIewxa” all above 30 million at the 400K/800K blind level, the player who found himself in the most trouble was the UK’s Robert “USARtist” Gough. He had 16 big blinds, but at this point, he was just amazed to be in such a great position.

“I’ve played poker for years, as far back as before the Moneymaker Effect. I never had much to shout about prize wise; before last Sunday my biggest win was $1,800,” he said.

Gough usually only plays $11 tournaments, but always tries to satellite in to the Sunday Million when he can.

(Speaking of satellites, this week’s best ROI belonged to the UK’s “x1267bb”, who qualified for just $0.50 and won $937 after finishing in 131st place. Canadian player “PERCOSET” managed to get 13th place, good for $6,415.23 after qualifying for just $11).

Gough’s previous best milly run was somewhere around 250^th, but things started to click this week and he found himself running super deep.

“It started slowly as I struggled for hands early on, but I got into a rhythm after a few double ups,” he said. “From there I just grinded my way through. I hit a royal flush at a good time with the J♠10♠ and doubled up nicely.”

Still, he was in tricky spot versus three similar big stacks. At this stage, though, he had nothing to lose.

Robert “USARtist” Gough

An hour of four-handed play went by, in which time Gough really found nothing to play with. His chips dwindled down to just four big blinds, and when “IIewxa” set him all in from the small blind holding 7♦7♥, he called it off with a hopeful 8♠4♠. He found no help on the board, but with $43,922 now sitting in his account, he had no complaints.

“I never thought I would win an amount like this, it just doesn’t happen to people like me,” he said jubilantly. “It’s an unbelievable feeling. I’ve never had anything like this happen to me, I’m just an ‘average Joe’ poker player, nothing special. But it’s the best feeling after more than 14 hours of playing. I’m going to celebrate by taking a nice holiday, but first I plan to win next week’s Sunday Million!”

Having built his stack up and delivered the fourth-place KO, “IIewxa” now held a dominating chip lead. Three-handed began with stacks at 63 million (“IIewxa”), 34 million (Oliva), and 16 million (“Goatse213”).

A few hands in and play stopped to look at numbers. “There were no negotiations, we all just agreed to ICM numbers immediately. I was so tired that it felt good to strike the deal at that point,” said “Goatse213”.

“IIewxa” locked up $83,566, Oliva secured $77,937, and “Goatse213” banked $77,365. There was still $20,000 to play for though, and after seeing his chip stack fall to the shortest position, “IIewxa” exited in third.

Oliva min-opened to 4 million on the button with A♦J♠, and when “IIewxa” found Q♦J♦ in the small blind he jammed 11 bigs for 22M. Oliva made the call, and as you can see below, it took a pretty sick runout to eliminate him.

“IIewxa” flopped the world, but still couldn’t survive

With that they were heads-up, but the duel didn’t take long. Oliva created a 2:1 chip lead, and when “Goatse213” opened 7♠7♥ only to be shoved on by Oliva holding A♣K♥, all the money went in. An ace hit the turn, and that was all she wrote for “Goatse213”.

“It feels great obviously, but I have not celebrated yet,” he said. “Maybe I’ll take my other half for a great dinner. Pokerwise, I’ll now be participating in a few live tournament series, though I haven’t decided which ones and where. Maybe somewhere warm during the winter so I could combine a tournament series and a holiday.”

As for Oliva, who now plans to play EPT Barcelona followed by a full WCOOP schedule, he had just three words to sum his win up:

“A nice feeling.”

Ready to sign up for PokerStars and make the Sunday Million final table yourself? Click here to get an account.

“A deuce in the hole in this game is as good as an ace.”

So says a character near the beginning of the 1939 film Destry Rides Again starring James Stewart and Marlene Dietrich.

Directed by George Marshall and based on a popular novel by Max Brand, the film continues to entertain as a classic western from the genre’s golden era. It also makes a especially clever use of a five-card stud hand right off the top, using the game both to kick off the story and to introduce a kind of symbolic significance contained in the above-quoted line.

As I write about in Poker & Pop Culture, in western films a poker game is more or less a required element, not unlike horses, guns, and Stetson hats. In some cases the card game happening over in a saloon corner has little significance other than to help fill out a typical Old West scene. However, in some of the better westerns the poker played onscreen often turns out to be central to the film’s story and larger messages the film is trying to convey.

Destry Rides Again is an example of poker being used both to affect the plot and to introduce what turn out to be multiple themes in the movie. Let’s start with the plot.

Bluffing and showing

The film opens with the sound of gunfire and the image of a sign saying “Welcome to Bottleneck.” The camera then pans to a raucous brawl happening outside the Last Chance Saloon, with more gunshots and shouts punctuating the rousing opening theme.

We’re being shown (in an unsubtle way) that Bottleneck is a violent, dangerous place. Fade to a relatively quieter scene — a game of five-card stud happening upstairs in the saloon.

As we’ll soon learn, the players include a local rancher named Lem Claggett and the saloon’s owner, Kent. Claggett’s looks wide-eyed and jovial as he announces his action. “Well, if I don’t bet ’em you may not think I got ’em, so I’m betting,” he says with a grin.

Meanwhile Kent looks much more circumspect, the brim of his hat casting a shadow that obscures his expression. “That’s good,” he says as he folds, revealing neither his hole card nor his face.

Claggett gleefully rakes in the pot, and without any prompting shows he was bluffing, delivering that line about a deuce being as good as an ace as he does.

“I never knew money was so easy to get!” he laughs.

A hole card switcheroo

If you’ve watched any westerns before, you already have some idea who the good guys and bad guys are here. You also know Claggett probably shouldn’t be so cocky about his bluff getting through.

A brief musical interlude follows introducing Frenchy, the saloon singer played by Dietrich. Playing against her glamorous image, the German actress enjoyed a career boost from this film. (Fans of of the satirical western Blazing Saddles might recognize how Madeline Kahn’s Lili von Shtüpp in that film is a spoof of Dietrich/Frenchy.)

Back to the poker game, where we watch another hand that (perhaps unsurprisingly) doesn’t go so well for Claggett.

Frenchy is in attendance for this hand, having arrived to serve coffee to the men in the game. Once more Kent and Claggett build up a pot, and while we can’t see the cards the action suggests that by fifth street Kent has a pair of eights among his four upcards while Claggett has two aces showing.

Claggett gives a short speech in which he says he doesn’t think Kent has three eights (i.e., an eight as his hole card). “So pop goes the weasel!” he says while pushing all his chips in the middle. As Kent decides what to do, Claggett rechecks his hole card. It’s the A♣, meaning he has trip aces — that is, an unbeatable hand no matter what Kent’s hole card is.

Rather than fold, though, Kent asks Claggett “Is that enough?” The taunt prompts Claggett to add further to his bet by committing his 3,000-acre ranch containing 15,000 head of cattle.

The action is interrupted for a moment when Frenchy spills coffee on Claggett. He’s briefly bothered, but soon refocuses on his opponent. “Call my bet or ain’t ya?” he asks.

Kent does call, and with the same hubris he demonstrated before Claggett crows he has “three shiny aces” while showing his hole card. Only, it’s not an ace… it’s the 2♠!

Claggett is flabbergasted. “I had an ace in the hole! How’d that deuce get there?” he cries. “Maybe you only seen one end of it,” says the player to his left. A broken Claggett is soon tossed out of the saloon.

The surreptitious replacement of the ace with a deuce provides a nifty call back to Claggett’s earlier boast from before. As it turns out, in this game a deuce in the hole is not as good as an ace — especially when your opponent put it there!

Young Destry arrives, following in his father’s footsteps

As Claggett says later on, “the game was crooked as a hog’s tail.”

The fact is, everything is crooked in lawless Bottleneck, a place where Kent appears to wield unfettered power with Frenchy, a group of toughs acting as his henchmen, and even the town’s mayor, Judge Slade, all enabling his villainy.

In fact, when Sheriff Keogh arrives to inquire about the crooked poker game on Claggett’s behalf, he’s summarily shot dead!

Making up a story about Keogh having “been suddenly called out of town on urgent business” and that “he’ll be gone permanently,” Slade appoints the town drunk Washington “Wash” Dimsdale as the new sheriff, a seeming guarantee that corruption in the town will continue unabated.

Into this maelstrom arrives one Thomas Jefferson “Tom” Destry, Jr., portrayed by James Stewart in an early role (and his first western). After swearing off drinking, the new sheriff Wash has called on Tom to be his deputy, a nod to Wash having before served as a deputy when Tom’s late father had been sheriff.

You can see where this is going. Young Tom will have to set things right in Bottleneck and thus fulfill Wash’s proclamation that “Destry will ride again!”

While Destry Sr. was apparently a legendary lawman, Destry Jr. seems perhaps less well-fitted for a similar role. The fact that he refuses to wear a gun makes him an object of ridicule, causing Kent and others not to take him seriously.

“Careful… that’s No-Gun Destry!” cracks one of the many who disrespect his authority.

While Destry Sr. was apparently held in high esteem, Destry Jr. ranks much lower. It’s a bit like comparing a deuce to an ace.

Battling through Bottleneck by bluffing

Destry eventually figures out something nefarious has happened to Keogh. He also quickly pegs Kent as likely having been responsible. Meanwhile he begins to prove himself in other, creative ways, including his handling of a memorable brawl between Frenchy and the jealous wife of a saloon patron.

Tom Destry Jr. (James Stewart) attempts to handle Frenchy (Marlene Dietrich)

I’ll pass over other machinations of the plot in order to highlight one in particular. Destry recognizes that the “game” in Bottleneck is crooked. But he also realizes there’s a way he can beat it — by bluffing.

Destry knows he can’t pin Keogh’s murder on anyone without a body. So he suggests to both Kent and Mayor Slade he has found a body when in actuality he has not.

As Destry anticipates, Kent immediately sends one of his thugs to check on the location where Keogh’s body has been buried. Sheriff Wash follows and arrests the man, charging him with murder. That sets up still more bluffing by Destry continues to try to implicate Kent.

It all goes back to the card game

All doesn’t go exactly according to plan — after all, Kent, Mayor Slade, and the others are incapable of playing it straight.

And while I’ll leave the rest of the story for you to enjoy on your own, you get the idea — the card game at the beginning isn’t just a bit of color helping to fill out an Old West setting. It’s vital to the entire film. Not only does it get the plot going, it introduces not just one but several themes that emerge over the course of the story…

The game is crooked, much like the corruption pervading Bottleneck.

Bad guys might win by cheating, but good guys can win, too, particularly if they can pull off a well-managed bluff.

And much as young Tom goes about things a little differently than did his famous father apparently did, the second Destry ultimately proves himself the equal of the first.

In other words, a deuce can sometimes be as good as an ace, if you play your cards right.

Images: Rialto Theater ad (adapted) and promotional still, public domain.

More “5-Card Fiction”

• “Kenny Rogers as The Gambler”
• Paul Newman surprisingly turns over four jacks in “The Sting”
• Three hands in “Rounders” screenplay draft that didn’t make it to the screen

“5-Card Fiction” is an ongoing series examining fictional poker hands from film, television, and elsewhere. Have a favorite fictional poker hand you’d like to see discussed? Tweet your suggestions @PokerStarsBlog.

Weird Variants of Poker You Should Be Playing

If you learned how to play poker after seeing it on television, you’re not alone. Millions of poker players around the world first found their favorite card game on the tube, almost all of them watching people play Texas Hold’em in major tournaments.

Poker is so much more than Hold’em, though — just ask anyone who grew up playing draw poker home games back in the day. They can tell you all about the wide, crazy world of poker games.

Here’s a look at some weird poker games and variants you should be playing. See if you can work them into the rotation next time you play in a dealer’s choice home game!

Pineapple

This is a good game to start with if you’re branching out from Hold’em because it plays very similarly to the world’s most popular poker variant. Everything in Pineapple is exactly the same as Hold’em except for one small difference: every player is dealt three hole cards instead of two.

Players choose one of these hole cards to discard, the first round of betting begins, and everything else proceeds as in a Hold’em game. If you were to discard after the flop instead of before the first round of betting, you’d be playing a vairant known as Crazy Pineapple.

Once you have a grasp of Pineapple, it’s time to move away from flop games…

Razz

Razz is easy to learn how to play because, at least in terms of mechanics, the game plays identically to seven-card stud.

It’s frustrating. It’s fun. It’s Razz.

Every player is dealt two cards face-down and a third card face-up to start. As the action continues, three more face-up cards are dealt to each player, and a final card is dealt face-down on seventh street.

The only difference is that instead of trying to make standard poker hands, you’re aiming for the lowest five-card poker hand possible: A-2-3-4-5. Flushes don’t count, straights don’t matter, and pairs actually work against you.

It’s frustrating. It’s fun. It’s Razz.

Badugi

Badugi is relatively new among unique poker games. It’s a four-card draw poker game with four rounds of action, usually played in a fixed-limit format.

Like in Razz, in Badugi you’re trying to make the lowest possible unpaired hand. Unlike in Razz, suits matter. If two players both have A-2-3-4 but one of them has two spades in hand, the one with a spade, a club, a diamond, and a heart in hand — a “badugi” — will win the pot.

With only four cards per player, so many draws in play, and the four-suit requirement to make the nuts, every card dealt in a game of badugi seems to goose the action. That makes it perfect for a home game and online cash sessions alike.

Here’s a quick catch up from the week on PokerStarsBlog… 

• All the latest from APPT Manila
• 5-Card Fiction: Bluffing the toughs in ‘Destry Rides Again’
• How the Sunday Million was won (July 28)
• Weird variants of poker you should be playing
• Live tournament tips from Liv Boeree

But before we get to that, PokerStars Blog would like to pay our respects to high-stakes online poker legend Richard ‘nutsinho’ Lyndaker, who passed away earlier this week in his San Diego apartment at the young age of 33.

Lyndaker was a force on the virtual felt, making more than $2M in online earnings in 2011 alone playing the biggest nosebleed games around. He will be missed.

ALL THE LATEST FROM APPT MANILA

There has been plenty of action at the beautiful Okada venue this week as APPT Manila has been in full swing.

Super High Roller champ Chaofei Wang

Chaofei Wang is the biggest winner so far with his victory in the ₱500,000 ($9,800) Super High Roller for ₱7,000,000 ($137,210). Meanwhile the ₱65,000 ($1,270) APPT Manila Main Event is currently on Day 1B.

Click here to catch up on everything from the Philippines.

5-CARD FICTION: BLUFFING THE TOUGHS IN ‘DESTRY RIDES AGAIN’

“A deuce in the hole in this game is as good as an ace.”

So says a character near the beginning of the 1939 film Destry Rides Again starring James Stewart and Marlene Dietrich.

Tom Destry Jr. (James Stewart) attempts to handle Frenchy (Marlene Dietrich)

In this week’s edition of ‘5-Card Fiction’, PokerStars Blog’s resident poker historian (and author of Poker and Pop Culture) Martin Harris takes a close look at a great poker scene from a classic western from the genre’s golden era.

Read ‘5-Card Fiction’ here.

HOW THE SUNDAY MILLION WAS WON (JULY 28)

Last Sunday’s edition of the Sunday Million was a doozy, with long-time high-rolling crusher Ole Schemion making the final table. As we found out when interviewing the final table players, he was joined by a Czech pro, a self-proclaimed ‘average Joe’, and a shrimp fisherman from Denmark.

Ultimately is was Jakub “Olli444” Oliva who outlasted the 11,300 field to win $97K.

Find out how he did it here.

WEIRD VARIANTS OF POKER YOU SHOULD BE PLAYING

If you learned how to play poker after seeing it on television, you’re not alone. Millions of poker players around the world first found their favorite card game on the tube, almost all of them watching people play Texas Hold’em in major tournaments.

Poker is so much more than Hold’em, though — just ask anyone who grew up playing draw poker home games back in the day. They can tell you all about the wide, crazy world of poker games.

Here’s a look at some weird poker games and variants you should be playing. 

LIVE TOURNAMENT TIPS FROM LIV BOEREE

Liv Boeree isn’t just a Team PokerStars Pro. She’s also a past EPT and WSOP champion with more than $3.8 million in lifetime live tournament earnings. In other words, she’s exactly the type of person whose brain a new tournament player would want to pick before playing live for the first time.

Liv Boeree of Team PokerStars

This week we got some thorough advice from Boeree that will help you make the most of your first live event, courtesy of PokerStars School — plus some useful advice from Pete “Carroters” Clarke on some of the few situations where making a decision to call ahead of time can actually be profitable.

Check out Liv Boeree’s live tournament tips here.

Opening a PokerStars account is easy. Click here to get an account in minutes.

Is Spraggy’s the no.1 Twitch stream? He’s certainly making a great case for it, winning two tournaments this week live on his channel.

Sometimes Benjamin “Spraggy” Spragg is heated:

Fuck the internet for today. pic.twitter.com/Fu0Ycqhf1c

— Benj Spragg (@spraggy) July 11, 2019

Other times, he’s happy.

Saved the day, got out the $1,500 hole. 11 hour stream. Finally picked up the win in the $44 PKO. Back tomorrow. Same Again. pic.twitter.com/nJZkJilUkD

— Benj Spragg (@spraggy) July 30, 2019

And while we love that wrestling GIF, we prefer the happy Spraggy.

The first reason for his current contentment came on Tuesday night, when he took down a $44 Progressive Knockout tournament on PokerStars for $709 plus $935 in bounties, outlasting a 194-player field.

Spraggy held the chip lead when they were down to six, and added to his stack after this hand:

Things got really fun when they were down to three-handed. Spraggy held an enormous chip lead, and was excited to have both remaining players covered holding A♠Q♠ in a three-way all in.

Problem was, they both had real hands.

That didn’t effect his dominant position though, and he’d end up taking it down by outkicking his opponent.

Two evenings later and Spraggy was spending his Thursday evening back on the grind.A $109 Progressive Knockout was on the menu, which got 92 entries.

He set himself up well for the FT, KOing the final player on the final table bubble.

Things went for good to great, particularly when he could just “sit back and relax” with quad aces.

And a massive cooler set him up for his second victory in three days.

For that win, Spraggy banked $1,106 plus $1,156 in bounties.

Keep it going Spraggy. Now let’s take a look at that GIF one more time.

Fuck the internet for today. pic.twitter.com/Fu0Ycqhf1c

— Benj Spragg (@spraggy) July 11, 2019

Opening a PokerStars account is easy. Click here to get an account in minutes.

“The one thing that’s for sure is that I’ll be the all-time winner in the game of cards. No one really has a chance to hold me back. I’m going to be everywhere, I’m going to be winning everything. Good luck to everybody, but I’m here, I’m there, and I’m ready to fight.”

Those are the words of Bryn Kenney (aka Sensei).

Now, you might assume that Kenney said that after he finished runner-up in the £1.05M Triton Million (Helping Hand for Charity) tournament on Saturday night (August 3), banking the biggest prize in poker history (£16,890,509 / $20,563,324) in the largest buy-in tournament of all time.

But no. He said that back in May 2018, during a podcast interview with Joey Ingram.

His prediction has now come true. GG Justin Bonomo.

It was fun being the all-time money leader for a year, but it looks like I’ll be passing the torch soon. $23 million is a big payout lol @tritonpoker

It’s been an absolute dream, honor, and privilege to hold this position. Thank you universe 🙏

— Bonologic (@JustinBonomo) August 3, 2019

Kenney has been a high stakes crusher for as long as we can remember, and his confidence in his own future success should have been evident to all of us when he first registered an account on PokerStars. Whilst most players choose an alias as their screenname, Kenney kept his simple–“BrynKenney”–as if he knew that name would become synonymous with the poker world one day.

Kenney quickly climbed the live poker ladder

His work ethic and results became legendary, and he quickly transferred his talents into the live poker world. No one, however, could have predicted Kenney’s ascent to the very top of the game. No one except for Kenney himself.

The ascension of @BrynKenney on the All-Time Money List per @TheHendonMob:
May 2007: 7,523rd
June 2008: 4,783rd
July 2010: 1,033rd
Jan 2011: 450th
Jan 2012: 333rd
June 2014: 189th
May 2015: 90th
Feb 2016: 49th
Jan 2017: 20th
Jan 2018: 10th
May 2019: 4th
Aug 3rd 2019: 1st

— Remko Rinkema (@RemkoRinkema) August 3, 2019

He recorded his best year ever in 2017, kicking things off with two wins at the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure (PCA) for a combined $1.36M. Later that year he would win the EPT Monte Carlo $100K Super High Roller for $1.94M, and also recorded victories at EPT Barcelona and the Poker Masters.

Kenney wins the PCA 2017 Super High Roller

Kenney’s $8.5M 2017 was the best 12 months of any player that year. But that amount now pales in comparison to his 2019.

First he won the Aussie Millions Main Event in January for just shy of a million. He followed that up in March with two huge scores at the Triton Poker Super High Roller Series in Jeju for $3.5M. Incredibly, he then went on to capture two titles at the Triton Poker Super High Roller Series Montenegro in May for a combined $4.1M (including a Main Event win).

And now, by finishing second in the biggest poker tournament in history, Kenney is poker’s all-time money winner.

What’s truly amazing is how confident Kenney was heading into the event. You wouldn’t normally see a high-stakes poker player put so many eggs into one particular basket.

Cmon guys the whole poker world only wants to bet 1m combined? I expected more

— Bryn Kenney (@BrynKenney) July 31, 2019

Kenney called his shot in this tournament, perhaps more so than any player in any tournament, ever. He made his intentions clear right before the Triton final table, in an interview with PokerStars Ambassador Liv Boeree.

“I’ve always told everybody that it was going to happen, that I’d be no.1. The thing is, I feel that once I hit no.1 nobody is going to touch it again.”

You’ve done it, Sensei. Now it’s down to everyone else to put up a fight.

Kenney’s yearly results

Here’s everything you need to know from the weekend on PokerStars…

• Andras “probirs” Nemeth defeats “Bencb789” for Sunday Cooldown title
• UK’s “losero88” wins Sunday Million for $95K
• Two Supersonic final tables for Sami “lrslzk” Kelopuro
• Top 5 results from the High Roller Club
• Top 5 results from the weekend majors

NEMETH BEATS “BENCB789” FOR COOLDOWN TITLE

Andras “probirs” Nemeth

There aren’t many Sundays which go by without Andras “probirs” Nemeth scooping himself a High Roller Club victory, regardless of how tough his final opponents are.

Yesterday (August 4) was more of the same for the Hungarian, as he came out on top in the HRC $2,100 Sunday Cooldown for $22,701 plus a healthy $39,593 in bounties. He now sits as the #1 ranked online player in the world, according to PocketFives.

$2,100 Sunday Cooldown results

The tournament had 95 total entries, creating a $190K prize pool split between the last 11 players. They included Preben “prebz” Stokkan, former #1 and current #2 ranked online player Niklas “Lena900” Astedt, and runner-up Benjamin “bencb789” Rolle.

Nemeth now has just under $12.9M in career online earnings.

“LOSERO88” WINS THE MILLY AFTER THREE-WAY CHOP

The $109 Sunday Million field continues to grow each week, with 11,545 entries creating a $1,154,500 prize pool yesterday.

As any tournament player knows, all the big money is in the top three places, and that’s exactly where the tournament paused for a chop. In the end it was the UK’s “losero88” who can now call himself a winner, banking $95,598. Runner-up “nlfreddie”–also from the UK–won $77,385, whilst third-place finisher “DanielLUCKY” from Sweden added $91,486 to his bankroll.

Benjamin “Spraggy” Spragg was the only PokerStars Ambassador to play this one yesterday, and he cashed for $182, finishing in 1,664th place.

TWO SUPERSONIC FINAL TABLES FOR SAMI KELOPURO

Sami “Lrslzk” Kelopuro

One player who was kept busy until the early hours, albeit in hyper turbo events, was Finland’s Sami “lrslzk” Kelopuro.

He made not one but two Sunday Supersonic final tables, winning the $215 edition for $21,700, whilst simultaneously finishing fifth in the High Roller Club’s $1,050 edition for an additional $11,576.

Kelopuro now has more than $5.3M in online earnings.

TOP 5 RESULTS FROM THE HIGH ROLLER CLUB

TOP 5 RESULTS FROM THE WEEKEND MAJORS

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There are lots of ways to make a million dollars.

If you’re old-fashioned you can inherit hundreds of millions and collect a day’s worth of interest.

You could go new-school and become a superstar athlete, earning it as part of your first pro contract.

Or you could be like Hungary’s “sejdeamiota.” On Sunday sejdeamiota put up $100, played 33 hands of poker in a Spin & Go, and came out ahead of two other players to earn $1 million.

How the Spin was won

It was 11:09 p.m. Eastern Time on Sunday evening when sejdeamiota sat down to play a $100 Spin & Go with two other players, zx_trainee_z from Norway and MiracleQ from Russia.

The Spin & Go lobby

The three watched as the prize pool multiplier wheel spun and landed on a 1 in 1,000,000 shot: 12,000X. Now two players were guaranteed to walk away with $100,000 — a thousand times their initial buy-in — just for playing. The third, of course, would take home a million dollars.

zx_trainee_x enjoyed the best fortune early on, picking up pots both through aggression and at showdown and climbing as high as 720 chips from the 500-chip starting stack. Then, on the ninth hand of the tournament, zx_trainee_x made top pair with K♦10♣ on the river of a Q♦6♥9♣3♠K♥ board and moved all-in. MiracleQ snap-called with Q♠Q♥ for a slow-played set of queens, though, and took over the lead with 705 chips.

The same two players clashed twice more in the next four hands. First zx_trainee_x ended up all-in before the flop with A♠9♦, only to find that MiracleQ also had A♦9♠. Two hands later zx_trainee_x min-raised from the small blind with Q♠10♠, then led out with top pair and called all-in when MiracleQ raised on the 9♣10♦6♦ flop.

MiracleQ’s J♦10♥ was outkicked at that point but the J♥ turn gave the Russian player the lead. The 4♦ river didn’t alter the situation any further, eliminating zx_trainee_x in third place for $100,000.

From three to two

MiracleQ had 1,150 chips to sejdeamiota’s 350 as heads-up play began, and blinds were 20/40 so sejdeamiota didn’t have much time to work with. MiracleQ kept up the pressure but soon ran Q♦6♠ into sejdeamiota’s Q♣9♠, giving the Hungarian a double-up to 540.

Neither competitor’s strategy changed from there, and by Hand #22 sejdeamiota was back down to 379 chips. Then MiracleQ limped on the button, giving sejdeamiota a free J♣4♦2♦ flop — with J♠4♥ in the hole. MiracleQ had J♥5♠ so the two got their chips in there, and sejdemiota’s two pair held up to even out the stacks: 758 for sejdeamiota, 742 for MiracleQ.

The next two minutes were a blur. They played 11 hands in that short amount of time, and most of the pots went to sejdeamiota without a fight. He raised all-in with K♦9♠ after MiracleQ limped in on the button, but there was no call awaiting. He open-shoved with A♥A♣ and got no action. Same with A♥Q♠. And the same with 4♣4♦.

Finally sejdeamiota was dealt 4♠4♥ and opened all-in. MiracleQ called for 322 chips with J♦9♣ and missed a gutshot draw as the board came 7♥10♦2♥7♦6♣.

After just 11 minutes of poker, MiracleQ walked with $100,000 for second place and sejdeamiota became the latest PokerStars player to win a Spin & Go for a million dollars.

That’s how a player from Hungary turned $100 into $1 million in just 11 minutes. For your own shot at huge money, get in the Spin & Go action today!

All the results from the APPT Manila 2019 festival

Main Event
Date: August 1-4, 2019
Buy-in: ₱65,000 (58,500+6,500)
Players: 1,135
Prize Pool: ₱64,405,575

*heads up deal

Event 1: APPT Kickoff – NL Hold’em – PHP 3,000,000 Guarantee
Date: July 26-28, 2019
Buy-in: ₱16,000 (14,400+1,600)
Players: 924
Prize Pool: ₱12,906,432

Event #1 champ Jinlong Hu

Event 2: PHP 8,000 NL Hold’em – Turbo – Freezeout
Date: July 26, 2019
Buy-in: ₱8,000 (7,040+960)
Players: 82
Prize Pool: ₱559,962

Event #2 champ Charalampos Lappas

Event 3: PHP 55,000 NL Hold’em – Deepstack
Date: July 27, 2019
Buy-in: ₱55,000 (49,500+5,500)
Players: 48
Prize Pool: ₱2,304,720

Event #3 champ Nobuhito Ogo

Event 4: PHP 8,000 NL Hold’em – Knockout – Freezeout
Date: July 28, 2019
Buy-in: ₱8,000 (7,040+960)
Players: 163
Prize Pool: ₱950,094 (Additional ₱163,000 awarded in bounties)

Event #4 champ Gang Tao

Event 5: PHP 100,000 NL Hold’em – Shot Clock – Single Re-Entry
Date: July 28-29, 2019
Buy-in: ₱100,000 (92,000+8,000)
Players: 77
Prize Pool: ₱6,871,480

Event #5 champ Bobby Zhang

Event 6: APPT National NL Hold’em – PHP 5,000,000 Guarantee
Date: July 28-31, 2019
Buy-in: ₱33,000 (29,700+3,300)
Players: 674
Prize Pool: ₱19,417,266

APPT Manila National champ Benigno Jr Ledina

Event 7: PHP 10,000 NL Hold’em – Freezeout
Date: July 29, 2019
Buy-in: ₱10,000 (8,800+1,200)
Players: 120
Prize Pool: ₱1,024,320

Event #7 champ Chunsan Fan

Event 8: PHP 100,000 NL Hold’em – Shot Clock – Freezeout
Date: July 29, 2019
Buy-in: ₱100,000 (92,000+8,000)
Players: 40
Prize Pool: ₱3,569,000

Event #8 champ Wayne Zhang

Event 9: PHP 10,000 NL Hold’em Deepstack – Single Re-Entry
Date: July 30, 2019
Buy-in: ₱10,000 (8,800+1,200)
Players: 155
Prize Pool: ₱1,323,080

Event #9 champ Michael de Leon

Event 10: Megastack NL Hold’em – Shot Clock – Freezeout
Date: July 30-31, 2019
Buy-in: ₱25,000 (22,500+2,500)
Players: 282
Prize Pool: ₱6,154,650

Event #10 champ Lixun Zhou

Event 11: PHP 150,000 – 6+ NL Hold’em – Re-Entry
Date: July 30, 2019
Buyin: ₱150,000 (141,000+9,000)
Players: 19
Prize Pool: ₱2,598,630

Event #11 champ Hao Zhu

Event 12: PHP 15,000 NL Hold’em – SuperDeep – Freezeout
Date: July 31, 2019
Buyin: ₱15,000 (13,500+1,500)
Players: 287
Prize Pool: ₱3,758,265

Event #12 champ Tae Hoon Han

Event 13: APPT Super High Roller – Re-Entry
Date: July 31-Aug 1, 2019
Buyin: ₱500,000 (485,000+15,000)
Players: 51
Prize Pool: ₱23,992,950

APPT Manila Super High Roller champ Chaofei Wang

Event 14: PHP 15,000 NL Hold’em – Megastack Turbo – Freezeout
Date: Aug 1, 2019
Buy-in: ₱15,000 (13,500+1,500)
Players: 161
Prize Pool: ₱2,108,295

Event #14 champ Kang Feng Lien

Event 15: High Roller One Day Event – Single Re-Entry
Date: Aug 1, 2019
Buy-in: ₱150,000 (141,000+9,000)
Players: 115
Prize Pool: ₱15,728,550

Event #15 champ Ivan Lee

Event 17: PHP 10,000 NL Hold’em – Hyper Turbo – Re-Entry
Date: Aug 2, 2019
Buy-in: ₱10,000 (8,800+1,200)
Players: 62
Prize Pool: ₱529,232

Event #17 champ Ronald Morfe

Event 18: PHP 15,000 NL Hold’em – Hyper Turbo – Freezeout
Date: Aug 2, 2019
Buy-in: ₱15,000 (13,500+1,500)
Players: 121
Prize pool: ₱1,584,495

Event 19: Re-Buy Charity Event PHP 300,000 Guarantee
Date: Aug 3, 2019
Buy-in: ₱5,000 (4,400+600 to Charity)
Players: 240
Prize pool: ₱1,024,320 (₱228,000 donated to charity)

Event 20: Saturday SuperStack NL Hold’em – Freezeout
Date: Aug 3-4, 2019
Buy-in: ₱33,000 (29,700+3,300)
Players: 347
Prize pool: ₱9,996,723

*denotes deal

Event 21: APPT High Roller NL Hold’em – Re-Entry
Date: Aug 3-4, 2019
Buy-in: ₱200,000 (185,000+15,000)
Players: 175
Prize pool: ₱31,403,750

Event 22: Flipout
Date: Aug 3, 2019
Buy-in: ₱5,000 (4,500+500)
Players: 90
Prize pool: ₱392,850

Event 23: PHP 25,000 NL Hold’em – Shot Clock – Single Re-Entry
Date: Aug 4, 2019
Buy-in: ₱25,000 (22,500+2,500)
Players: 200
Prize pool: ₱4,365,000

Event 24: PHP 10,000 6+ NL Hold’em – Turbo – Re-Entry
Date: Aug 4, 2019
Buy-in: ₱8,800 (22,500+1,200)
Players: 163
Prize pool: ₱1,391,368

* denotes deal

Event 25: High Roller 6+ NL Hold’em – Shot Clock – Turbo
Date: Aug 4, 2019
Buy-in: ₱200,000 (190,000+10,000)
Players: 9
Prize pool: ₱1,658,700