Online Poker Ama Reddit
Over the weekend, 14-time World Series of Poker gold bracelet winner Phil Hellmuth appeared on Reddit's Ask Me Anything (AMA) celebrity channel. Hey reddit, My name is Brent and in July 2018 I purchased the former mining town of Cerro Gordo with my biz partner Jon and some friends. Cerro Gordo was once California’s largest producer of silver and once had nearly 5,000 residents and 500 buildings.
A look around the poker forums for the week's hot topics:
The highlight of last week on Reddit Poker was an 'Ask Me Anything' with Jonathan Little -- one of the game's most respected pros, and a prolific source of strategy books and videos.
As is customary for Little, he branched off from the simple text-based Q&A approach and made an original video in answer to one question, as well as providing countless links to other content in which he breaks down the precise situations described by his inquisitors. (He even gave his very specific advice on a single hand of $2-$5 hold'em uploaded to a hand replayer.)
One of Little's strengths as a poker coach is his keen sense that not all players have the same goals in mind, and that one of the first steps in attempting to improve is to identify what you want to achieve. 'Your study routine should be very different if you actually want to be the best player in the world and are willing to devote your life to it compared to if you want to study 1 hours each week and lose less,' Little says, for example, in reply to 'Soebr's question about establishing a routine for self-study.
MORE FROM JONATHAN LITTLE: PRAGUE INTERVIEW BARCELONA ANALYSIS
He is also very good at dispensing common sense without beating around the bush. 'My general advice is to work hard to find a game you can beat for a large win rate that you can play a lot, and then play it a lot,' Little says during a discussion emanating from a cash vs. tournaments question.
A lot of credit in this particular AMA has to go to some excellent question-setters, who manage to feed Little some terrific bait lines. 'If someone told you they were better at cash than tournaments, what leaks would you expect them to have in their MTT game?' asked a poster names 'Reetgeist', for example. Little sticks around to respond to follow up questions as well.
It's worth reading the whole thing through. Give yourself a couple of hours.
CHOPPING FOR THE TROPHY
The 2019 Aussie Millions came to an end last week in Melbourne, and New York's Bryn Kenney won the Main Event. Though there was nothing surprising about that -- Kenney has 17 outright wins en route to $26.6 million worth of career cashes -- the manner in which he sealed the title has started a debate on Two Plus Two.
Nothing surprising about Bryn Kenney with a trophy, but...
Kenney took the trophy and the title when the last three players -- Kenney, Mike Del Vecchio and Andrew Hinrichsen -- agreed a deal to end the AUD $10,000 buy-in event. They stopped play immediately, rather than leaving a certain amount of money on the side to play for post-agreement. What's more, Kenney was only second in chips at the time the three players started talking about a chop, yet emerged with more from the negotiations. That secured him the title.
| POS | NAME | ORIGINAL PAYOUT | DEAL PAYOUT | CHIPS AT END |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Bryn Kenney | $1,850,000 | $1,272,598 | 8,890,000 |
| 2 | Mike Del Vecchio | $1,130,000 | $1,272,162 | 9,315,000 |
| 3 | Andrew Hinrichsen | $662,500 | $1,097,739 | 6,505,000 |
Cash amounts in Australian Dollars (AUD)
Blinds increasing to 100,000/200,000 at time of deal
Information from Poker News
Poster 'SwoopAE' immediately declared Kenney's victory a 'fake title' based on the fact that they did not play it out, adding 'I have no idea why someone would want a title they didn't actually win.' 'FUrake' added: 'Talk about hollow 'wins' lol, I could never claim I've won a tournament without actually doing so.'
Kenney addressed the situation, both to Poker News reporters immediately after the event, and on Twitter. 'I said that I wasn't interested in a deal unless I was going to win,' Kenney said. 'If we were going to play to win, then I'm happy to play to win. But if I'm going to make a deal then I feel like the tournament is sort of over. They were big pay jumps; I've played for this much before, but this must have been the biggest pay jump that they've both ever been involved in.'
Buying would mean I paid for it, I got over icm and said only way I deal is if tournament is over cuz I don't wanna deal then play for no money and have to play serious for maybe 4 hours for a trophy
— Bryn Kenney (@BrynKenney) February 4, 2019Del Vecchio hopped into the Two Plus Two thread himself, corroborating the details tweeted by Kenney and adding: 'In the moment, staring nearly a million USD in the face, only having to give up a trophy sounded a lot better than grinding short handed until 4am, with huge ICM considerations because of an awkward pay out structure. I feel a bit bad only because of how anti-climactic it became, but at that moment ensuring a good payout that I was happy with was more important to me than putting on a show.'
CHAMPION BRYN: 2016 PCA $100K 2017 MONTE CARLO $100K
The situation again raised broader issues regarding live tournament chops, including questions of whether organisers should permit and facilitate them and whether a certain amount of money needs to be left on the side, along with the trophy. Chops are allowed at PokerStars events, but not permitted on the WPT or at the WSOP. However, most major tournaments at PokerStars live events, particularly those being streamed, demand a certain amount of the prize pool, plus the trophy, be excluded from deal making.
VELDHUIS vs. IVEY IN A TV CLASSIC
Redditer 'EasyYard' posted an old clip from the sixth season of High Stakes Poker, which aired in 2010. Under the headline 'Phil Ivey 6bets 52o vs Lex Veldhuis in High Stakes Poker' the hand in question shows Veldhuis finding what he describes as a decent spot to pick up some loose chips, only for Ivey to read the situation precisely as well, and muscle a chastened Veldhuis out of it.
Specifically, they're playing six-handed no-limit hold'em, with blinds at $400/$800. The line-up is:
UTG - Lex Veldhuis (STRADDLE $1,600)
UTG+1 - Dennis Phillips
CO - Barry Greenstein
Button - Phil Ivey
SB $400 - Andrew Robl
BB $800 - Daniel Negreanu
The action goes:
- Barry Greenstein raises to 5,500 in cutoff with Q♣T♦
- Ivey three-bets his button to 18,800 with 5♠2♦
- Both Robl and Negreanu fold the blinds
- Veldhuis has K♥J♥ and four-bets to 51,600
- Greenstein folds, and Ivey asks Veldhuis how much more he's playing. 'One forty something,' Veldhuis says. Ivey says, 'I'm all-in.' (He has Veldhuis covered by a lot.)
- Velduis folds, saying: 'I thought you were just angry at Barry.' 'I am,' Ivey says as he throws his cards away unseen.
- In the commentary booth, Gabe Kaplan says: 'That is one of the great bluffs in the history of High Stakes Poker. What a move.'
(As some early commenters point out, the headline is not quite accurate as Ivey's shove is a five-bet rather than a six-bet.)
Reddit analysis:
Typically old clips of Phil Ivey playing poker prompt an avalanche of awe from his many fans, and plays like this that make it easy to see why. But the board's subscribers break this one down with remarkable sobriety, led by a poster named 'surviva316'.
'Not nearly as crazy as the title makes it sound,' surviva316 says. '6-handed game, UTG straddles, CO opens a standard hand, BU 3bs with air, super aggressive Euro straddler cold 4bs a decent hand, BU 5b shoves a little less than 4x. Doing it with 52o is obviously hilarious, but the circumstances make sense. The additional Ivey factor on live tells could easily push it into unsurprising territory if we had access to his thoughts.'
Other posters pursue the theme of whether Veldhuis is 'rolled' for the game, and whether Ivey was exploiting what might be considered scared money. Plenty of PokerStars Pros made their High Stakes Poker debut in this season of the show, and there's no secret that many of them will have been collecting some company money to wear the red spade on TV. This was likely far higher than both Veldhuis and Dennis Phillips had played before.
But after 'surviva316' first brings it up, 'polkapro' says 'This would make it less likely he's putting in a cold 4b as a bluff though.' In turn, Turbulent_Option says: 'But more likely that he'd 4b/fold a hand like Lex has. An overrolled super aggro player might 4b bluff with KJxx, but then say fuck it and call getting >1.5/1.'
There's plenty to sink your teeth into in the full discussion, which already has more than 100 comments. We'll talk to Velduis himself and get his opinion soon.
AND SOMETHING ELSE...
Here's something you don't see every day: a #DoyleBrunson tattoo! @TexDolly ♣️♥️♠️♦️ pic.twitter.com/0qgkETHKHN
— Jennifer Tilly (@JenniferTilly) February 15, 2019Over the weekend, 14-time World Series of Poker gold bracelet winner Phil Hellmuth appeared on Reddit's Ask Me Anything (AMA) celebrity channel. AMA interviews allow anyone to ask the subject a question, and Hellmuth's appearance followed in the footsteps of other poker pros such as Phil Galfond, Jason Mercier, and Antonio Esfandiari, just to name a few.
Hellmuth joined AMA to celebrate the debut of the world's only 24/7 Poker TV channel, Poker Central, which will launch on October 1.
'One interesting thing about me that most people don’t know is that I was friends with Chris Farley, when we were growing up in Wisconsin.,' Hellmuth said in his AMA introduction. 'And, when I started out in poker, I did so badly that I had to go back to Wisconsin to do farm work to earn a new bankroll.'
Here are some highlights from the 'Poker Brat's' AMA:
Unfortunately, I DO lose control sometimes! But a lot less than the world thinks or understands.
Hellmuth on the Future of Online Poker in the United States
'Legalized online poker is coming; 100%! It is simply a question of when...Amazingly, one person has stopped legalized online poker: one person! Mr. Sheldon Adelson: and he spends $100 million every year funding politicians...However, David Baazov (poker big hope) is fighting hard, and effectively, for legalization. I'm hoping for full legalization in California, and then many of us, and the experts, believe it will spread across the USA.'
Playing Against His Professors in College
'Yes, I did play against two professors at the Univ of Wisconsin way back in 1984! In that game, we also had Psychiatrists, lawyers, and doctors. None of them were under the age of 40, and I was 20. Each was a professional w multiple degrees, I was an undergrad. But I'm pretty good at this thing we call 'Poker.'
'I started in the smaller games at UW, at the Memorial Union, and as I crushed that game, then I found the bigger games, until I made it into the 'Docs game.' I once won $2,700 in one night in that game, in about 1985! Seemed like a fortune to me then!'
Online Poker Ama Reddit Streams
On His Legendary Fight Against Sam Grizzle
'Sam Grizzle!?! Sam has always been one of the funniest guys in the poker world: huge personality! One day he asked me to save him a seat in a game while he went to eat. After 90 minutes, I made the casino stop taking his $9 every 30 minutes, cause so much time had passed, AND then he shows up and the game is full, DOH! So he wants to fight me...I say, well you better do it this week while my back is out, and suddenly I'm in my first and only fist fight I've ever had in the poker world! We both land punches, but next day not a mark on either of us (BEST FIGHT EVER cause no one was hurt).'
Dealing with Bad Beats
'Obviously I whine too much because I'm the Poker Brat! But I try really hard to NOT let any bad luck I have at the tables affect me away from the tables. I have gotten better and better at this over the years, but I'm sure my wife will tell you i was bad at this in my twenties and thirties. I don't want that stuff to impact my relations w my friends and family in a negative way.'
Relationship with UltimateBet
'I was proud to have had a big role in forcing an investigation at UB, which led to $25 million being returned to the players. People said I should have left the site, and that would have been easy to do as I was wanted by Full Tilt. But I saw another pro get haunted for years because the site he repped DID NOT pay the players back. Staying was the right move, and I was happy when the players were paid back. I was also happy when evidence emerged a few years later that made it clear that I wasn't aware of what was happening. The poker world stuck by, but the evidence was nice and completely shut up the haters.'
On His 'Poker Brat' Persona
'Unfortunately, I DO lose control sometimes! But a lot less than the world thinks or understands...If I lose it, then ESPN is there to play it over and over, but when I'm good they aren't using that footage as much.'
Poker Runs in the Family
'I'm training my son Nick a little bit. i want him to learn Super Tight play, and then add a few wrinkles. I don't like it when he loses 20 big blinds w A-Q!'
click here
Playing Golf
'Let me say that Golf Digest just ordered a Q+A w me for an issue soon, and I played Pinehurst #2, Hazletine (3 times), and Stanford in the last 5 weeks!'
To view Hellmuth's full AMA, click here.
Want to stay atop all the latest in the poker world? If so, make sure to get PokerNews updates on your social media outlets. Follow us on Twitter and find us on both Facebook and Google+!
Online Poker Ama Reddit Game
Tags
Phil HellmuthPoker Player InterviewsRelated Players
Phil Hellmuth