PokerStars Poker Blog

• All Star Week Day 5: Team PokerStars Pro hopes hanging by a thread
  

  by Chris Edge
  The brainchild of PokerStars' very own 'Promotions Bob', All Star Week was given its premier airing in March, 2009 - a series of heads-up matches designed to test the mettle of various members of Team PokerStars Pro, pitted against their slightly lesser-known counterparts, making up The Challengers.

  Spearheaded by Team Captain Victor Ramdin, the Pros were made to sweat as the Challengers pushed them all the way before falling at the last, 18-17.

  Entering the half-way stage of All Star Week in 2010, and the contrast in fortunes for the Pros couldn't be starker. Four unimpressive day's showings leave them perched on the wrong side of a 15-5 drubbing, reflecting the Challengers' dominance and vast improvement on 2009's performance.

  First out of the blocks to put things right on Day 5 was Team PokerStars Pro Joep van den Bijgaart, with top performing Challenger caprioli turning out to provide the opposition. The Dutch pro set his stall out in defensive fashion, letting the aggressive caprioli do all the betting and ultimately dictate the flow of the match. It proved an astute strategy as some check-calling in hand 36 earned him the first major pot of the match with the pretty-looking [6s][7s]. Poker logic argues if ever you are to take a hand up against the Goliath that is [As][Ac], then your suited-connectors are just about the best you can expect as the underdog.

  Having witnessed countless American Airlines fall by the wayside to much lesser holdings, the legendary Doyle Brunson once shrewdly observed: "You only ever win small pots or lose big pots with Aces." That old adage rung true once again as van den Bijgaart made mincemeat of caprioli's bullets on an eventual [Td][Ts][Js][7h][2s] board, to earn his rivered flush the 1,850 pot.

  From there on in it was plain sailing for the Dutchman, who later called a caprioli all-in raise pre-flop with [Qs][Ad], up against the Challenger's dominated [9d][As]. By the turn the board read [Td][Ah][Qh][Kh], leaving the Challenger with 4 outs to a chop which never arrived on the [3s] river, securing the Pros' the first win of the day.

  Match 22 served as something of a throwback to yesteryear, when no limit hold'em was all but an apple in PokerStars' eye. The series' only Limit 5 Card Draw event brought the Challengers' Timmy K and the Pros' Maria Mayrinck to the felt to slug it out for honours.
  Both sides exchanged the customary "hi, gl, ty" pleasantries before Timmy K pushed his stack upwards of 3,000 following a 100 bet from Mayrinck with nothing but Ace high holding [Jc][As][9d][Qh][Td], which was snapped off by the Challenger's [8s][8c][Ks][7c][2h] for two 8s.

  Any eagle-eyed observers watching on will have made note of a recurring theme that had arisen throughout the previous few days of play, with the Pros on more than one occasion far from accustomed to the poker variant they were put forward for. When questioned by Timmy K what she tends to play on...
  
  

• PokerStars IPT Venice in the pink, breaks record
  

  OK, so here on Team PokerStars Blog we are known to get a little excited by all things poker. So when we described earlier this week how the PokerStars Italian Poker Tour had become one of the most important events in the European poker calendar, some may have chortled and put it down to our boyish enthusiasm. Aha! We were right! Read on...

  Yesterday, day 1B of IPT Venice saw 278 players clocking in. Added to day 1A's field, that makes a total entry of 505 players.

  And that, my friends, is a record turnout for the Italian Poker Tour. Enthusiam FTW!

  The bumper field at the Ca' Noghera casino means the event is looking at a bulging €979,000 prize pool, of which €235,000 will go to the winner. Nice. In total, 72 players will be paid.

  But that's a way off yet. First we need to get today's day 2 out of the way. Yesterday saw Sam El Sayed from Switzerland finish as Day 1B chip leader with 139,100 chips, followed by Italian PokerStars qualifier Muhamet Perati with 136,000. The average stack is 47,931.

  Among those through to today's play is Team PokerStars Pro Salvatore Bonavena and Friend of PokerStars Alberto Russo. We first met Bonavena at EPT Prague in Season 5. He won it, but it was the way he played and went about his business that made him a firm favorite of ours.

  So much so that we now call him affectionately 'Sal Bon'. He seems to like it, but not as much as he likes fancy hats and colorful attire. Only the Italians can get away with pink tops, in my opinion.

  

  Sal Bon

  Day 2 action will be along shortly, and you can follow it over on our sister Italian blog. Please keep our blogger Matteo Viola company. He'll start waving his arms about and talking at a million miles an hour if you don't.

  
  
  
• WizardOfAhhs: A deadly disease, $500, and the road to PokerStars history
  

  Kevin Thurman is 31 years old, lives a nice life outside of Dallas, and intends to earn more PokerStars VIP Player Points in 2010 than anybody has in the history of the VIP Club.

  Thurman is also suffering from a potentially deadly disease and in the middle of an agonizing chemotherapy treatment.

  Known as "WizardOfAhhs" on PokerStars, Thurman has set out on a task no one has accomplished and is doing so under a set of circumstances that would prohibit many people from even getting out of bed in the morning.

  To understand why and how Thurman is walking down this road, we have to look back nearly a quarter-century.

  *****

  Kevin Thurman was eight years old when his father first let him come along for a dealer's choice poker game down the street. The nickel-dime-quarter games rarely had pots bigger than $5. The players in the game looked across the table and initially balked on the idea of a kid playing in their game. Before long, Thurman had his regular seat. And he was a winner.

  "I'm pretty sure all profits went to toys and candy," Thurman said.

  Thurman never stopped. He played through his younger years, played through college, and played after he graduated with an economics degree in 2001. Though he loved poker, he did all he could to make use of his college education. He spent four years working in the corporate world and hated every minute of it.

  Making it worse, Thurman had spent several years dealing with an illness he had a hard time understanding. At first, he thought he simply had a throat infection that would go away in due time.

  That first week of sickness turned into months. The symptoms got worse. Thurman had no idea what was happening to his body, but he knew it wasn't good. It took him years to get a proper diagnosis. When a doctor finally figured it out, it was bittersweet.

  "I was no longer blindly battling a mystery and could finally give the enemy a name," Thurman said, "but I also learned that treatment is a long and arduous journey and not always effective."

  Thurman learned he had Lyme disease. Not only that, but he had so-called co-infections that included an intracellular parasite and a cousin to Malaria. His body was infected in a way that few people could understand. Thurman constantly felt like he had the flu. Doctors told him the disease could replicate so fast and aggressively in his brain and heart, it would kill him in a matter of a few years.

  

  Thurman suddenly found himself facing the toughest decisions of his short life. He was finding it hard to make it through the corporate workday slog. He needed time to concentrate on getting healthy. His doctor was recommending a potentially life-saving chemotherapy.

  "I turned to my biggest hobby at the time for a chance at the lifestyle I needed," Thurman said.

  In December 2005, Thurman took...
  
  

• All Star Week Day 4: Challengers lay down a marker
  

  by Chris Edge

  After enduring a rather torrid start to all Star Week, the Pros managed to dust themselves off and regain some ground on the Challengers on Wednesday. The triumvirate of Ivan Demidov, Joe Cada and Johnny Lodden all registered victories to briefly relent the Challengers' surge and cut their advantage to 5.

  Leading the charge for the Pros as we entered Day 4 of the series was Magic: The Gathering graduate and Team Argentina Pro, Jose Barbero. Standing in his way was the Brazilian caprioli, off the back of 2 straight victories from Days 1 and 3.

  Akin to yesterday's opening match in which Hevad Khan regrettably no-showed, Barbero too was nowhere to be seen as caprioli took his seat and secured the easiest of passages to the winners' enclosure. Raising every hand, it took just 13 minutes of caprioli's time to reduce Barbero's stack to ruins and push the Challengers further in front.

  UK hotshot JP Kelly was next up attempting to cut the Challengers down to size. His foe was 'Timmy K', yesterday seen off by WSOP Main Event Runner-Up, Ivan Demidov.
  The game choice proved something of a novelty for both players and observers alike: the mysterious Badugi posing a somewhat tricky threat to both parties.

  The match ebbed and flowed early on, with neither side willing to give too much away in the somewhat uncharted, Badugi waters. It wasn't until hand 44 that Timmy K was able to steal a march on his adversary and take the 1st real significant chip lead in the match.
  JP Kelly brought it in for 100, which Timmy K called. The former opted to discard 2 cards on the 1st draw, while Timmy K drew 1. Again the action went bet, call. On the 2nd draw Kelly called a Timmy K re-raise after discarding 1, with Timmy K likewise drawing a solitary card.

  Timmy K's [Js] spiked on the 2nd draw made a final [Td][5c][4h][Js] badugi - enough to earn a 200 river look-up from Kelly, who could only muster the meagre 3-card 6,3,2, holding [7d][2d][3h][6s].

  The Challenger was having it all his own way, ramming home his advantage and exploiting Kelly's apparent inexperience within the discipline. Indeed Timmy K sensed something amiss 48 minutes in, questioning Kelly "do you play this game?", to which the UK pro could only ruefully confess "never played before".

  On Tuesday we saw Vicky Coren succumb to a lack of practice within her chosen poker variant; PLO. The very same fate yesterday befell Kelly, who was vanquished shortly after; his 3-card: 8,7,A proving no match for Timmy K's 9-low Badugi, holding [4d][5c][Qh][9s].

  

  A combination of factors throughout the first 4 days of play were acting to conspire against the Pros, hampering their cause and pushing the Challengers into a 12-5 lead. Perhaps instigators of their own fall, indeed the Pros' cause was not helped by 2 non-appearances, coupled with a lack of practice within the respective game-choices.
  Keen to put...
  
  

• Giacomo leads IPT Venice Day 1A field
  

  There are few better places in Europe to play poker than Venice. Character, history, beauty, water (plenty of that) and the weather make it very pleasant.

  One man who enjoyed poker in the city more than anyone yesterday was PokerStars qualifier Loccarini Giacomo, chipleader of Day 1A of IPT Venice, the second stop of season 2 of the popular Italian Poker Tour.

  An impressive 227 players from around Europe made the trek to the beautiful city of Venice for Day 1A and 35 of of those qualified online with PokerStars for a fraction of the €2,000 (+€200) tournament buy-in. Sixteen qualifiers ade it through to come back for Day 2 tomorrow (Saturday).

  Giacome ended up with 175,000 chips after nine levels of play and is followed by Claudio Pagano with 145,000. The average is 44,950 and a total of 101 players made it throughl.

  

  Claudio Pagano

  Day 1B will kick off later today with another bumper field, including Italian Team PokerStars Pros Dario Minieri and Salvatore Bonavena, and IPT Leaderboard winner Giovanni Salvatore.

  You can follow all the action as it happens over on our sister Italian blog, where Matteo Viola would be delighted to have your company.