Main Menu
Columns
Online Chat
Down
No. 1
Poker Books
Carborundum
WSOP
WPT
In Association with Amazon.co.uk
Gambling Stuff
 
SportingOdds.com
 
.
  GGG Home   | Index   | Info   | This Week   | Diary   | News   | Email GGG
No.2
Online Poker News
 
15/04/03
Jesse May surfs up a slice of international online poker action   
 
 
Jesse May
 
 
Jesse May, multiple author in the gambling field and sometimes dubded the "voice of poker", writes Meal Wars.
 
Email : Jesse May
 
Seen something going on in the online world of poker besides bad beats?

Then email Jesse May
 
GGG Poker Room

 
   
Conspiracy theorists take note. Eighteen of the best online tournament players on the planet played for a $10,000 WSOP seat on PokerStars last Saturday, a game which saw some of the baddest beats ever witnessed from an evil mind and a deck of cards, and get ready for this --- Not one person complained. Not at all. In fact, just the opposite. 55lucky55, after having his pocket aces thoroughly demolished by a two outer on the river (yet again) and thereby most of his hopes and dreams for going to the World Series for free, was heard to comment, “I guess I’ll take that pee break now.” This is a man, by the way, who upon seeing two opponents all in, regardless of the situation, has the class and good natured psyche to type without fail, “good luck to both.” All you conspiracy theorists about online poker take note. That’s just the game, and if it takes watching the best players on the planet for a player to learn how to behave, get on that rail more often.

Yes, the two-table tournament that took place last Saturday night provided some brilliantly fierce competition and proved to be a strategy masterclass for anyone with a notepad, but the real lessons to be learned from it were philosophical. Never have I seen a more mannerly and good spirited group of online poker players, people who were falling all over themselves to roll with the punches and put every eventuality into perspective. And maybe, just maybe, that’s the whole point. You might be good, but you’ll never, ever be great, until every hand comes with a shaker of salt.
 
     
I have to believe the cream rose to the top. I don’t know the real name of TheBeat, from Liverpool, but if his live game is anywhere like his online one, he’s one to watch at the World Series of Poker. And not to limp in to the final table with half a stack, either. A guy to be coming down the pike with both barrels blazing, eyes on the prize and very little else. Everyone of those eighteen players may have wanted a seat, but TheBeat was dialed in like a telescopic freight train. In a tournament where the money said to relax early on, TheBeat was a machine. Two players went early, both railroaded by TheBeat, speculatively. “Anytime you guys are ready to start playing,” he chirped. And once the fear of God clause was invoked, everybody stayed out of his way. And TheBeat rolled through to the final and a well earned seat at the World Series of Poker.

Most players impressed. The audience, extra large to be sure, got every bit their money’s worth as the banter was fast and funny. Of course the perception that these eighteen might spend a dangerous amount of hours facing two dimensions and a card table is plausible, but G316k from Akron said early on, after he’s been all in with the eight nine suited on the flush draw he says, “You want to know just how nuts I am? I’m sitting in a casino, in a hotel room, playing poker on the Internet.” Don’t worry G, you’re not the first. Slimmouse, bidding to become the only man in history to win a WSOP seat online three years running, played an inspiring shortstack to climb back to the fore after being initially down for the count. You-cant-win looked to be the class of the field for a while - she took Slimmouse to the wall with her pocket aces - and was on perfect play cruise control until dastardly misfortune took all of her chips but not an ounce of her smile. Miros made what must have been the monster laydown of the tourney. The reraises were polite but insistent from You-cant-win, and Miros thought for ages before laying down a hand which must have been a two queens minimum on a raggedy flop. Not a cross word was heard all day, and that’s the real story of the tourney. It’s nice to know that the best at this game do it a credit by playing.

If you’re an online poker player right now and you’re not fixed on a chance to win a World Series of Poker seat, then your head is either in the sand, or like me, you’d as soon watch the World Series as play in it. Either way, there have been and are right now a plethora of $10,000 seats being given away by all the various sites, but the best deal right now must be the giveaway going on at Ladbrokes. Two seats will be given away next week via a twenty player tournament, but to qualify for those seats you have to jump through far less hoops than compared to their online counterparts. Two places in the final tournament are being given away each day on Ladbrokes, and most could be obtained through a scant 24 hours of play. Scant, I say, because other sites stretch these poker promotions out for months on end, but at Ladbrokes for instance on April 15th, the two players who win the most $50 tournaments between midnight and midnight come in, and on April 17th the stalwart who wins the most $10 tourneys in a 24 hour period gets in. It’s good value, believe me it is, check the details at www.ladbrokescasino.com/home_frameset.asp if you don’t believe me, or just get playing. Good luck to all.