Wednesday, 26 September 2012
Antonio Esfandiari's amazing 2012 has continued in Cannes with the Magician claiming the WSOPE €1,100 hold'em event and with it a third World Series of Poker bracelet.
The Big One for One Drop champion started the day second in the chip counts and worked his way through a final table that included McLean Karr, Antonin Teisseire and Salvatore Bonavena to set up a heads up encounter with home favourite Remi Bollengier who was attempting to become the first Frenchman to win a WSOPE bracelet.. The home rail would be left disappointed though as the $18m man sealed victory after a cagey two-handed contest. The final hand saw Esfandiari open to 33,000 and Bollengier make the call. Bollengier checked the10c-8s-As flop, Esfandiari c-bet 37,000 with the Frenchman check raising to 91,000 which the Magician called. Bollengier check called the Qd on the turn and checked again on the 5d river. There would be no check down though with Esfandiari quickly announcing all in. After a lengthy tank, Bollengier eventually pushed his final 525,000 into the middle revealing Qs7s which was crushed by Esfandiari's Qc8d. Esfandiari's first prize of €126,207 (around US$163,000) may be a (One) drop in the ocean for poker's $18m man but it was good enough to put him to the top of the 2012 WSOP Player of the Year standings.1 Antonio Esfandiari €126,207 2 Remi Bollengier €78,059 3 Salvatore Bonavena €57,079 4 Antonin Teisseire €42,356 5 Valentin Detoc €31,869 6 McLean Karr €24,309 7 Ashly Butler €18,798 8 Jamel Haddad €14,736 9 Florian Ciuro €11,707Keep up to date with all the news from the poker world by following us on Twitter and Facebook.
Bluff meets Isildur1.
Starting out last week with 520 hopefuls, this year’s EPT Grand Final Main Event certainly lived up to expectations after a final table that contained some of the toughest players in the world. At the start of yesterday’s finale Steve O’Dwyer led arguably the toughest final table the festival has ever seen.
Is bitcoin the future of online gaming?
Full Tilt Poker will be heading to Ireland for its first live festival since relaunch. The Full Tilt Galway Poker Festival will take place in a custom built Full Tilt poker village in the centre the city from 29 July until 12 August.
It's Macau before Vegas for many.
Jason's confident of WSOP bracelet success.
Doc pockets $1m first prize.
There's £30,000 guaranteed
Foxwell victorious at the Ricoh.
by Jay Rosenkrantz
Shaun Deeb picks his underrated favourites.
Bluff explores the dubious morals of the angle-shooter
Stephen Bartley rounds up the action from the Vic.
Off to Newcastle upon Tyne for leg 2 of this year’s Genting Poker Series.
Sometimes bizarre things happen at the poker table and only the smartest will prevail, says Jeff Kimber.
I had quite a tough opening table at the recent GPS in Birmingham, which is unusual so early in the tournament. There were a couple of decent players to my right and also Paul McTaggart (who beat me heads up in last year’s Edinburgh GPS) and another decent player to my left.
I’ve noticed an increased tendency recently among players on forums and in tournaments towards the bubble. They seem to be taking ICM too literally. They seem to be forgetting that the “M” in ICM stands for “model”. Your true equity in bubble situations is not exactly as ICM predicts. I’d like to recap the known shortcomings of the model, and consider some rules of thumb to help with decision making in the heat of battle.
By Johnny Hughes.
I watched Rounders this week. I mean, I’ve watched it before but only about 23 times so it was due a revisit. I heartily recommend it.
Adam 'Snoopy' Goulding snoops around the world of online poker.
With Neil "Bad Beat" Channing