tbvle recently won over $50,000 as the prize for being dealt the winning hand in the 50 Billionth hand on Pokerstars. He was playing at a 2c/5c table at the time, a level which was his normal stakes. He had never previously played any higher than 0.1/0.25.

As well as this prize money he also got a free ticket into the WCOOP $5200 Buy-in Main Event. Prior to that tournament he had only played 19 tournaments at Stars with an Average Buy-in of close to just $5. Quite a step up.

But that didnt phase him in the 2-day deep structured event and he went on to place 83rd out of 2443 in the $5200 event, winning $19,544. He largely did it by waiting for aces and kings and then launching. The cards seemed to keep arriving at appropriate moments and his stack would again recover from getting short. Sadly that luck did eventually run out, but not before 19.5K was secured. Here was his final hand:

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PokerStars Game #50274474620: Tournament #2010090062, $5000+$200 USD Hold’em No Limit - Level XXVIII (6000/12000) - 2010/09/27 20:05:17 ET
Table ‘2010090062 34′ 9-max Seat #9 is the button
Seat 1: MVPAT (313975 in chips)
Seat 2: FIREintheSUN (493464 in chips)
Seat 3: JabaTheFlop (531835 in chips)
Seat 4: MarkusG91 (1414841 in chips)
Seat 5: deoxyribo (593012 in chips)
Seat 6: Antoshka (407711 in chips)
Seat 7: pedmend (260705 in chips)
Seat 8: plumber922 (409055 in chips)
Seat 9: tbvle (126400 in chips)
MVPAT: posts the ante 1500
FIREintheSUN: posts the ante 1500
JabaTheFlop: posts the ante 1500
MarkusG91: posts the ante 1500
deoxyribo: posts the ante 1500
Antoshka: posts the ante 1500
pedmend: posts the ante 1500
plumber922: posts the ante 1500
tbvle: posts the ante 1500
MVPAT: posts small blind 6000
FIREintheSUN: posts big blind 12000
*** HOLE CARDS ***
JabaTheFlop: folds
MarkusG91: raises 18444 to 30444
deoxyribo: folds
Antoshka: folds
pedmend: calls 30444
plumber922: calls 30444
tbvle: raises 94456 to 124900 and is all-in
MVPAT: folds
FIREintheSUN: folds
MarkusG91: raises 379100 to 504000
pedmend: folds
plumber922: folds
Uncalled bet (379100) returned to MarkusG91
*** FLOP *** [6h As Qs]
*** TURN *** [6h As Qs] [2s]
*** RIVER *** [6h As Qs 2s] [5h]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
MarkusG91: shows [Ad Qc] (two pair, Aces and Queens)
tbvle: shows [Kc Kd] (a pair of Kings)
MarkusG91 collected 342188 from pot
tbvle finished the tournament in 83rd place and received $19544.00.
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 342188 | Rake 0
Board [6h As Qs 2s 5h]
Seat 1: MVPAT (small blind) folded before Flop
Seat 2: FIREintheSUN (big blind) folded before Flop
Seat 3: JabaTheFlop folded before Flop (didn’t bet)
Seat 4: MarkusG91 showed [Ad Qc] and won (342188) with two pair, Aces and Queens
Seat 5: deoxyribo folded before Flop (didn’t bet)
Seat 6: Antoshka folded before Flop (didn’t bet)
Seat 7: pedmend folded before Flop
Seat 8: plumber922 folded before Flop
Seat 9: tbvle (button) showed [Kc Kd] and lost with a pair of Kings

This interesting hand cropped up a couple of days ago on Full Tilt

durrrr on button $200 (SB)
harrington $400 (BB)
durrrr raises to 1K, harrington calls.
harrington checks flop of 9s Td Qs,  durrrr checks behind.
harrington bet 2140 on the turn card of 3d, durrrr flat calls.
harrington bets 4400 (into 6280) on the river card of 9h, durrrr flats.

In summary: 9 T Q 3 9 Board
durrrr flatted river bet with Q9xx
harrington25 shows TT2K to win

harrington25 seems a little annoyed that durrrr just called with the boat.  The boat however was the 3rd nuts and this was Omaha we should state.  I assume the line of check, bet, bet 70% of pot, looks like he connected and is value betting.  Anyway here is the chat that followed the hand:

harrington25: nice just call on riv
harrington25: i would have raised if i were u
durrrr: to bluff?
durrrr: didnt think ud fold
harrington25: value
durrrr: rly?
durrrr: << sarcasm
durrrr: obv
harrington25: idk man something is werid
harrington25: wierd
harrington25: idk how in the world u just call that river
durrrr: lol
durrrr: i hav a video setup to see ur cards obv
durrrr: most likely explanation
harrington25: obv not but im gonna show that hand to few ppl
harrington25: urin david etc
harrington25: see wht they say
durrrr: lol ok
harrington25: i mean ur very good but not that good to just call that river
durrrr: i guess not
durrrr: damn
durrrr: =(
harrington25: seriously
harrington25: can u explain ur reasoning for the acll
harrington25: the way the hand played out
durrrr: i jus click buttons buddy
durrrr: i thought thts y u play me

Annette Obrestad and Doyle Brunson had an interesting little spat recently.  It all started with Annette talking in a magazine article that she would much rather play against Doyle rather than an internet pro, implying (if not exactly directly saying) that the 10 time bracelet winner was a has-been and a softer player.   When Mr Brunson caught ear of this he was less than impressed shall we say and suggested it must have been Annette’s time of the month and that she was welcome to come along to Bobby’s Room any time, he was there every day.   Naturally Annette didnt take up the challenge as she would have been severely outmatched, not only in terms of cash game ability, but in terms of bankroll too.  

Actually it is suprising for Annette to see Doyle as anything other than an extremely tough opponent considering the 3 times they have met heads-up Doyle has won every time.

Of course the comments got a bit played up in the media, and I am sure Annette does have respect for Doyle’s accomplishments and game, but you cant help but secretly hope she’s pops into Bobby’s Room some day soon.   Doyle, ever the gentlemen, was quick to apologise about the time of the month comments even when they were merely responsive to the implied slur on his game.

 PokerStars recently uncovered a bug in their SNG Rematch functionality.   When accepting a rematch it would always allow the rematch regardless if you had enough funds for it or not.

This bug was discovered and exploited by several players, one of which is documented below.   As you can see the player nugloker was a SNG player at the $11 and $22 type level, suddenly he spiraled up the levels and played the $5500 HU SNGs with 100% success rate.  He played the games against a friend or an alter-ego called takeittogo to as quickly as possible spiral up the bankroll with win after win.  Basically takeittogo ditched each HU game but then selected rematch each time (despite not having funds), this netted nugloker $5000 profit each game out of literally thin air.  Or more perhaps more accurately, out of the PokerStars coffers.

Needless to say PokerStars has now closed out the bug (booo, I hear you say). Here is the official response from their security department:

“Pokerstars became aware of a system glitch which allowed users to accept a rematch in heads-up SNGs despite having insufficient funds in their account. Once we became aware of this we suspended the rematch feature.

We have carefully reviewed each account which played in a SNG where the glitch occurred, and have taken action as appropriate in each case. We did not simply take action against everyone who received a financial gain as a result of this glitch. We carefully investigated each instance, and suspended player accounts only in cases where there was a clear violation of PokerStars’ terms and conditions, such as collusion or chip dumping to exploit this glitch.

During the course of our investigation we initially suspended a small number of accounts, however further investigations proved that some of the accounts in question did not breach our terms and conditions. Those accounts have been re-instated, and we regret any inconvenience caused by the temporary suspension.

It should be noted that only a very small number of accounts have been suspended for abusing this glitch for their financial gain. The majority of affected players have aided us in resolving this problem in a timely manner, and we would like to thank them for their continued support and custom.

We will reactivate the rematch feature as soon as possible, but we’re not sure at this point when that will be. We apologise for any inconvenience that this issue may have caused to our valued customers, and thank those who helped to bring the issue to our attention.”

No-one really wants to hear bad beat stories, and I think most people switch off pretty early on in the story.  However there has been some interesting additions to many live tournaments recently to combat this.

Firstly, Bad Beat booths, where players can record their moan on video.  “Just let it all out son”!

Secondly, Bad Bear Ears, seen in as prestigious of tournaments  as the WSOP.  Basically a couple of guys sat there, you pay them some fee (eg $5) and they will genuienly listen to your bad beat story in its entirity.   And I mean properly listen, and they will ask you questions and point out what the sick parts of the hand were, in sympathy.     You might think to yourself, ‘I’m not paying $5 for that’, but believe me many do, and there is often something resembling a queue of lingerers.    Poker therapy is available cheaper than the standard shrink folks - Available at a casino lobby near you!

I think there is a reasonble amount of justification for the use of NH (nice hand) at the poker tables being made illegal.  Online poker players seem to have a great tendancy to either over-use it, or to use it in inappropriate circumstances, leading to the annoyance of others (namely me) at the tables.

In a recent survey, 92.1% of NH useage was deemed to be relating to when a player had a pretty looking hand, as opposed to actually playing the hand well.  This sort of misuse could well be very confusing to new and aspiring players leading them down the much travelled path towards donktown.

If NH were made illegal in online poker, the world would undoubtly be a much better place.  I look forward to seeing it happen soon.