High Stakes Poker Episode 11

Once again here's a helping of High Stakes Poker. You'll notice it isn't the entire episode rather than make you search for the rest of them on Youtube. I'll post some more. Aren't I nice.



In this episode Phil Laak takes a lot of grief from the other players and himself. He overshoves AA and gets no value for his hand at all. Hmmm, you see kids pull that move in a casino and get called by an old dude but didn't work for Laak this time.



Doyle Brunson turned a set of aces into a double up, despite having to withstand a flush draw twice. The board didn't help as it brought a Q on the turn giving his opponent an open ended straight draw with additional outs both times. However, this show seemed to be the one where they run it twice and the best hand usually winning twice. The only guy not to win was Dwan, surprisingly.



This has been a interesting season on High Stakes. I would be interested to see these guys mix it up in game selection a little bit. Maybe some volatile omaha action. Doyle would probably love it if these High Stakes games were mixed games most. Though Durrrr would have no problem with Omaha, as he plays a ton of online omaha poker maybe with Razz but not Omaha.

As the season is wrapping up here's a dream team type lineup.

Dwan... his performances this year mandates it.
Hellmuth... his blow-ups mandate it.
Jaime Gold... if he can rehab his bankroll to afford to play.
Mike the Mouth... pure entertainment especially if he's running bad.
Phil Laak... but not his sidekick the magician. Though Laak's been so subdued of late, he's probably not realizing his lack of antics is squarely outing him for the nit he is.
Andy Beal... Don't know who he is? You should.
Dario Mineri... His scarf and pipsqueak voice is funny.
Annie Duke... We need a lady and Jennifer Harman is too quiet. Annie is not.
Two wild fishes to round out the rest.

High Stakes Poker Episode 11

Another week, another episode of high stakes poker action. Got to write about more, I suspect. Otherwise I should change the name of this blog to High Stakes Poker Recap.

In big news, the WSOP Circuit Event returns to the birthplace of Poker, New Orleans, and because of a generous structure players have flocked to the event. After some dissapointments for turnouts in recent regional turnouts this was a great sign.

Annie Duke came in second in Celebrity Apprentice. A show that has been doing gangbuster ratings because of Duke's rivalry with Joan Rivers. One highlight was Trump slowrolling Annie Duke.

Okay, now to the High Stakes action. Dario Manieri joined Tom Dwan as a young gun driving the action with any two cards. Quite the contrast sitting right next to Doyle Brunson. Each had their trademark flair, Doyle's hat and Dario's scarf.

Phil Laak tightens up and complains about the Mountain Bike he could have bought with what he lost in the pot. Elie Elezra gets some money back for the old guard taking a number of pots from Dwan and Dario through out the episode.

Magically, the magician Antonio Esfandiari does a disappearing act and isn't attached to Laak's hip. There were three players David Pleat, Baxter, and Meltzer (a record executive whose play has taken some flack) that have not been seen on television in a poker session previously. They didn't add too much, except for Pleat's needling of Laak's tight play and Meltzer critique of his success rate.

Enjoy the episode as two of the better online poker pros discover the old guys can play a bit too. This week I won't give away all the action in the recap--why watch in that case right?

High Stakes Poker

High Stakes Poker was back. The action was kind of boring. Not terrible but kind of boring. It was the tenth episode of this season. The players staring at each other after glancing at their cards included: The Professor; Howard Lederer, Kid Poker; Daniel Negreanu, Salty Joe; Joe Hachem, The Unabomber; Phil Laak, The Magician; Antonio Esfandiari, The Director; Nick Cassavetes, DURRRR; Tom Dwan, and the Swedish Bombshell; Patrik Anotnius.

As per usual, the blinds were $400/$800 with $200 antes. The players were still playing the winner had to show one card.

The first two pots were exchanges between Salty Joe and Antonius. Hachem took the first with middle pair and Antonius threw away bottom pair. In the next hand, Antonius got his chips back pushing Hachem off a hand.

Antonio Esfandiari and Patrik Antonius mixed it up next. Esfandiari limped with 9-9. Antonius raised to $4,800. The big Swede was sitting on suited A-J of clubs. The Magician after a little thought called.

The flop was very favorable to the former tennis player Antonius. A-6-10 with two clubs. Top pair with the nut flush draw elicited a bet from Patrik after Esfandiari checked. BTW, sidenote, how confusing would this action be if we refered to them as Antonio as Antonius.

After a nonthreatening turn card, the lowly the 5 of hearts, it again went check bet (19,000), call. The river was the Ace of spades which was a bit of trouble card for Esfandiari. It made it less likely that Antonius had an ace. He did though. Esfandiari checked yet again, Antonius bet $41,000, and Esfandiari folded.

In the next hand, holding absolutely nothing Nick Cassavetes had a moment of bad timing as he bluffed at Dwan. Perhaps it would have worked if the community cards weren't A-3-Q-Q-A and Dwan didn't hold an A. The full house of Dwan fired back and the Director folded.

Negreanu's bad luck in the television series continued. He had to fold his pair of aces on the river to Dwan's rivered straight. Phil Laak was the next to fall to Dwan's run of luck as Dwan made a full house, and Laak called him with a flush.

In the next hand, Negreanu fell to Laak when the Unabomber's two pair bested Negreanu's KJ (with a king on board). Hachem rode sidecar in the hand to see the flop with 4-4.

Negreanu's next hand again was a loser to Dwan. In a multi-way pot Negreanu held A8 of hearts. Flop was AQ2. Dwan of course held AQ. Dwan bet the flop and Kid Poker called. The turn was a brick. Dwan led out. Negreanu raised $50,000 on top and Dwan called. The river went check-check. And Dwan dragged Negreanu's chips again in the over 220k pot.

The episode ended with somebody finally beating Dwan in a pot. Dwan held J-J. Antonius a lowly 10-6. Dwan raised preflop, Esfandiari called, and Antonius re-raised. Dwan called, Esfandiari folded.

Flop came A high and Antonius c-bet. Dwan called. Turn brought a king and Antonius fired out a large bet, Dwan stewed and folded. When Antonius turned over the 6 as his one card he had to show, Dwan fumed, knowing he had been bluffed.

Next week looks like a lot of fun as Dario Minieri, online Texas Hold'em prodigy in a scarf of course, joins the action. Looks like Eli Elezra taks a couple of pots of the seemingly unbeatable Dwan too.

Another advantage of Online vs. Live

In live play, there are a lot of gray areas that require floor people to make decisions and as a result a lot of times those decisions are not consistent. That can be frustrated. I've played where a floorperson ruled against me and later after a shift change the exact same situation occured except in reverse and a new floor person ruled the otherway. Completely contradicting the initial ruling.

I forget the action specifically but I remember the first floor person's ruling affected my decision and I acted in deference to it. You could say, I got double whammied. In online play, there are no shift changes or multiple rulings or reversals the law.

The are also no options for exploitation by running angles. The players shadiness is reigned in because of it. I read an interesting story from Minnesota about softball of all things, but it makes a great parallel to one of the weakneses of live poker and rulings by the floor compared to online poker tournaments.

Essentially, one team beat the other team by a walk-off homerun, however on the way to the plate the winning run, the girl who hit the homerun high fived her teammates. This is illegal because she touched another teamate before scoring. The angle-shooting manager brought his rule-book to the plate and bitched his way into having the run denied by showing a section where it said the play was illegal.

The umpire saw it was written that way, confered with his team and disallowed the play. On the face of it, good prevailed because the manager showed it was an illegal play (though bitching about that is as bush league as it gets... actually, no, because this gets worse).

What the umpire didn't read, and the manager didn't show him, was the caveat in a subequent section, where in the case of A HOMERUN a warning is given and the run is not taken away. So, the other team, with the angle shooting manager wins the game in extra innings, wrongfully.

The parallel to us who play poker tournaments is simple. Some players have a little more clout than others. Some know the game well and dealers might defer to their decisions. I've been in a situation where the floor defers to their decision (wrongfully) and the players take advantage of this.

In one live poker tournament a player declared a misdeal, despite action being completed by 7 people (all folds) and induced the button and small blind to discard when I sat in the big blind with what turned out to be rockets. The dealer disagreed and then agreed because of who the player was.

The floor did the same. I did not think to go over the floor's head to the tournament director who would have called it correctly. Truth is the guy was partially right, and when I started to debate it with him, got the two players in between us to fold because he was certain he was right. This was a pivitol hand.

None of this would have transpired when you play poker tournament online. First off, the dealer wouldn't have exposed a card (which he didn't the angle shooter did) and there'd be no debate. There are no misdeals nor debates about hands. How vociferously I debated also would indicate the strength of my holding. Which I didn't want to do.

High Stakes Poker...

An interesting episode. Most of the poker was lost in the chatter of Antonio Esfandiari and Phil Laak trying to drum up prop bets. Though Esfandiari who is known for his pushups bets probably hurt "business" by doing more than the minimum. He made it pretty obvious he could do at least 50 pushups. He did 47 and stopped. So next time he's offering odds anybody that's seen the show will have a hard time biting at anything less then 50.

Director Nick Cassavetes was on the hook for $1,000. He bet that Antonio couldn't do a mere 35 pushups. Seemed like Antonio might have had a couple of other fishes on the line but they just couldn't seem to bite quick enough for the other players to take their timeout from the poker.

Partik Antonius was the primary internet poker player on the show and he didn't get too involved in too many hands.

The ones he did, in this episode at least he lost. Against, Daniel Negreanu he called DN's preflop raise with A10 off suit. Daniel had led out with his favorite type of hand 5s6s. Flop came 438 with one spade. DN led again with his open ended draw and Patrik called with his overcards.

An Ace of Spades hit, and now Daniel was open-ended with a flush draw, but it was Patrik with the best hand. Daniel bet out again. Patrick called. River was a 4 of spades. Daniel made his flush, but checked maybe wary of a boat (or with his luck on High Stakes four of kind). Patrik bet his top pair and Daniel flatted for the win.

Later they clashed again with Daniel holding KJ and Patrik 77. The flop came J2J. DN checked raised Patrik and Patrik called. Turn brough an A and DN checked called Patrik's second bullet. The river went check-check.

What's maybe more interesting in the play is how Daniel, I've noticed, doesn't go to his bag of tricks against the other pros as much. Sure, his reading skills are less useful against those guys, but he's at his best chatting during a hand. In High Stakes, he checks his big hand like he's got a big hand. It's almost like these guys get so wrapped up in the meta head games they've don't monitor the information they are giving out and their opponents are too.

Patrik is mister stoic, so perhaps experience has taught Daniel he can't get much a read on him... but I think his game suffers when he doesn't try. Sure he won both pots but maybe he could have won more.

Latest High Stakes

Team Poker

I heard that Chip Reese was an investor away from creating a poker league. Many of his ideas were very similar to the format rolled out by Dream Team Poker. The dream team, is your team, so I hope you got big time friends. The concept of team poker is good one. Big time pros got behind the idea as they didn't turn their nose up at the small buy-in for the event and a ton of them graced Caeser's in Las Vegas with their presence.

The results from the event where teams featuring Justin Bononomo and Jaime Gold have won the last two show skill is still important even in a team format. The fact that those two players have shady clouds hanging over their pasts maybe shouldn't be ignored either.

Dream Team poker works likes this, there are a ton of three man teams competing against one another in a poker tournament. Also, at stake are individual prizes as well as the team prizes. So, if somebody snaps you off and you are left cuddling felt, and as a team player you still got a chance to win some money.

The concept is a good one. Not only because it's a nice tweak on poker but it also shows a side of poker that's not in full view. In fact, it takes something from the shadows and puts the spotlight on it. Everyday non-team poker events have a lot of team poker characteristics. A ton of players trade percentages of one another in every tournament they play. Yet, nobody knows who has a chunk of who. Wouldn't it be nice if they just wore jerseys? Well, here they do. Course that wouldn't stop teams from teaming up with another. Though you can only divvy a pie so many ways.

Dream Team Poker gives the poker player that grew up in a team sport childhood a chance to not be the solitary card player and actual participate in a team atomosphere. That's great because even though many people have a shoulder to cry on over a bad beat they don't have any team-mates. It'd be nice to see the online sites experiment with this thought a little bit as they'd be able to manage a team tournament with ease and could even expand on it.

Why stop at three teammates. Why not five or seven or ten. Course, some online players might later regret informing the site, the network of ip addresses that form their team if those addresses every collude. But exposing cheating is always good for the game. Hopefully some internet poker site will make this available for all to play.