Hi there poker fanatics. We were having our weekly cashgame the other day and we were discussing the episodes of Poker After Dark where some amateur player can compose his own (shorthanded) poker table and play against these pros. Now the question rised which five players we would each invite to this ‘exclusive game’ . Besides that, we have to decide which player we absolutely don’t want to play against, for whatever which reason. I, Ms. Pink, will kick-off this round-up!

1 First of all, I would of course invite my favorite player Daniel Negreanu. Besides of being an extraordinary good player, he also always acts like a nice guy. It will be difficult to beat him, but he simply HAS to be there.

2 Because I don’t want to be all surrounded by guys, I invite the wonderful Annie Duke to my table. Just like Daniel, she looks like a really nice person and I think she’s the best female player at the moment.

3 Third person who will be at my table is the hottest guy around: Antonio Esfandiari. Maybe he can also learn me some chiptricks, or at least comment how sick this game is .

4 Maybe a little less known, but a great poker talent nevertheless: Gavin Griffin. This guy performed great on some EPT events and I would like to give him a chance to play at my table .

5 Last but not least there’s GABE KAPLAN! Well, if he’s there it has to be a funny game anyway. Whatever happens.

Not allowed to enter the room:

Sammy Farha. I’m sorry Mr. Brown, and I believe Sammy is without any doubt a nice guy, but I think I would go crazy seeing him raise me every time!!

Submitted by Ms. Pink

Yes you may remember that Mr. White wrote a post during the challenge about the so-called ‘Phil-theory’. I think I understand what he was saying and I made use of it myself, Mr. Blue, when playing a tournament on Pokerstars yesterday.

The profit I made during the challenge resulted in a nice bankroll for me so I’m playing some good tournaments atm and made a cash out of $224 yesterday. When I got eliminated I remembered a situation very early in the tournament when I had KK in the hole but an Ace came on the flop and I was really convinced my opponent flopped toppair. So that’s what is meant by ‘there are better spots’.

Because later on, when I had acquired a loose-aggressive image (YES, Mr. Brown), I was able to make a comeback with the next premium hand:

So this guy just thinks I’m fooling around and pays me off maximally. From that moment on I was on fire! Thanks for the pokerlesson Phil and Mr. White

So Mr. Brown was watching some High Stakes Poker yesterday and I saw a really great pot during episode 11 of season 4. It’s one of the last episodes in this season where the players have decided to bring $500k to the table. This means there’s $5 million total on the table.

Now there’s of course the always tight playing Sammy Farha (you must love the man), French cash game player David Benyamine and his fellow countryman Guy Laliberté, the founder of Cirque du Soleil. I’ve got the hand right here for you, it starts after 7 minutes:

Now how sick is this?? Sammy of course calls Guy’s preflop raise with 32 suited and flops the flushdraw. But Guy realizes this is a dangerous board and bets his topset. Now it’s probably because there’s an extra player in this pot with Sammy that Guy bets his set directly and that saves him a LOT of money. Of course Sammy makes his flush and Guy is lucky to make a boat but the poor Benyamine would have made running quads…

Hi, it’s Mr. White here . I decided to grind the $.10/.25 cashgames on FTP lately and I enjoy it after playing tournaments for such a long period . I mean, sometimes it’s so easy to take a nice pot:

Hehe the minraise preflop obviously isn’t enough to get my KT out off of the way. The same bet on the flop is an insta call with my middle pair. Then he checks the turn, which is a sign of weakness of course. I can chase my straight for free and hit it. When he raises that big on the river I know he doesn’t have a flush, that would make no sense at all! Ship it fish!

So we know that’s possible after this challenge. For some of us at least. As I finished last, I was assigned the task of writing this (provisional) last post. Let’s reconsider the challenge for a moment and look forward to the next one .

We can distinguish five different periods during this 78 days, of which I made separate graphs.

As you see, starting with a small bankroll makes big swings impossible. So you can’t have big expectations of big profits during this starting periods and got to have a lot of discipline when you are initially losing, as Mr. Blue perfectly did.

When the bankroll grows, the swings become somewhat bigger. Of course, a big cash-out in a MTT makes your play a lot more comfortable. You can see that the ultimate winner was still making small incremental progression in this period.

This period clarifies three things. First, you can make a lot of money in a short time playing heads-up (as for myself). Second, IF you experience a bad run, take a little break and try to build up what you lost again with a lot of patience (Mr. White). Third, if you’re just an amateur, you can play tournaments for days and notice your bankroll just stabilized around a certain amount of money (Pink&Blue).

Remember one thing: don’t play beyond your bankroll .

Last conclusion: great cashgame players (myself and Ms. Pink) are not automatically good tournament players .

So we take a break right now and just play some poker for ourselves now. But as we all enjoyed this challenge, we are thinking about a new one and as soon as we have figured something out, we’ll let you know .

Yes it’s all over . I made a big cash-out of $351 just a few hours ago and that resulted in a bankroll of $1102, being the first one to pass the 1k-border! At that moment, Mr. Blue had $886, ending up as the runner-up, and Ms. Pink finished third with $202. They have the honour to deposit me $100, together with the 200 Mr. Brown-dollars^^.

So what happened? I decided to play a $24+2 Knock-Out sit and go with 90 players. KO means $20 of your buy-in goes into the prize pool and the other $4 is a bounty everybody receives each time he eliminates another player, so 90 in total. I played a very solid tourney and ended up heads-up, which was the point I knew I was gonna win the battle . Anyway I deserved to win the $576 for first place instead of the $351 for runner-up.

My final opponent played very loose-aggressive and I was just waiting for the right moment to trap him. This moment finally arrived on the next hand:

So I flop quads, which is nice , and I immediately knew I would be able to extract some chips from my aggressive opponent here. This happened right away on the turn when he moved with his flushdraw. Unfortunately, the moron got lucky a few minutes later:

I just move all-in for all my stack because I knew he would prolly call any lower raise and then I would have to make a decision on the flop if I wouldn’t hit. Of course he calls right away with AQ and catches one of the three Queens… Anyway, I’ll go treat the other players on some beers, I think I have some pocket change left .

Submitted by Mr. White

Unlike some people predicted last time, there still isn’t a winner of our battle . Moreover, Mr. White had a little downswing and was obliged to hand over the lead in the challenge to Mr. Blue: $831 vs $807.

I finally had a good run myself again, making some $80 profit (bankroll at $234). However, it’s not that important anymore concerning the challenge, but at least I can pay my $100 with it . So it’s still very close between the other two guys and it seems like they have both chosen the least risky way towards that magical $1000: by playing heads-up sng’s.

Mr. White played some so-called ’shoot-out’ tournaments with 4 players. You play heads-up, but you have to beat two opponents in a row to win the entire prize pool. As I told you, he didn’t have a very good run at these games, but some guy really chose the wrong moment to bluff against him:

Mr. White flops the nuts in an unraised pot and gets the perfect value from his opponent who just moves all-in on the turn, drawing dead to win the hand (a split pot with a 6 on the river is his best scenario). He experienced another exciting situation heads-up as he flopped quad aces yesterday^^. He made this picture:

The difficult thing about flopping quad aces with only one ace in the hole (the odds of this to happen are 1 to 19 599, or 0.01%) is extracting some value from your opponent. Of course, your opponent turning a full boat helps^^. Maybe we’ll have a winner next time!

Submitted by Ms. Pink

So this graph makes at least one thing very clear: Mr. Brown is eliminated in the battle and will have to pay $200 to the winner, which is most likely going to be me . He and Ms. Pink played their ‘now or never-tournament’ and Mr. Brown was eliminated in 5th place. So from that moment on Ms. Pink knew she’s wasn’t going to end up last if she would reach the money, which she accomplished with a second place, worth $105. She’s now at $153. Brown only had $25 left and lost his last money on the heads-up tables.

Meanwhile I’m preparing myself for receiving an extra $400 besides my soon to be $950 of poker profits, after taking back the lead with an $868 bankroll. I played some big multi-table tournament for a change and was able to make a nice cash-out of $145. This hand was very important in the ‘final’ phase of the tourney:

So I make a standard raise with pocket Queens and the chipleader shoves all-in with his enormous stack. Now with QQ you only fear two hands: KK and AA. Now it makes no sense to just shove with those 2 hands so I had to call. It sucks to play a coinflip situation for your entire stack but luckily it held up. This means it’s $868 vs $802 (Mr. Blue) now, so the battle can be over any moment now…

Submitted by Mr. White

Btw: Mr. Brown is playing on Party Poker now, he said it’s interesting when you use the Party Poker Bonus Code.

Yes maybe we have a winner in a few days, but it’s more likely we have a loser in a few days . Me and Ms. Pink are down to $134 and $63 and will play simultaneously this week for our entire bankroll. Meanwhile it’s becoming a very exciting duel between Mr. Blue and Mr. White.

So I lost some $240 this week by steaming and my excellent strategy of playing completely behind my bankroll. So I won’t annoy you with showing some of my hands . Ms. Pink also lost again and one of these days we’ll play now or never at the same time: Ms. Pink will play a shorthanded $50+5 tourney and I will do the same with a $100+9 tournament.

So what about the other two guys? Mr. White had a few good sessions, playing some longhanded $20 tourneys, resulting in about $170 profit. He sent me one particular hand which he ‘played like a genius’:

So he calls an extra 180 chips in early position with J8 suited. Btw, If I would make the same call I would be called an idiot. His remaining stack is about the size of the pot and he leads out by moving all-in. He stated he had to make that move, because the power of this move is the fact that you can also win this hand (besides by making a flush of course) by a fold of your opponents. If he would have opted for a check-raise, at least one opponent would have been committed anyway and you absolutely need to catch your diamond.

Mr. Blue had a little downswing some days ago but recovered with a little steam moment, by playing a $50 shorthanded sng. He ended up as the winner, resulting in a $195 cash-out. The deciding heads-up hand:

So he obviously plays the hand like a retard and gets very lucky on the river…

Submitted by Mr. Brown

Trays, treys, crabs, call them whatever you like but they helped me a lot yesterday, leading to a nice cash-out of $162, which brought me in the lead in the challenge, with the $1000 within reach!

So let’s watch what happened. I decided to play a $30 sit and go with 18 players (I was running a little bad and the plan of Brown and Pink made me little nervous ) and things weren’t going that good: I was able to survive but without many ambitions due my short stack. Then I made a move with A3 suited:

So snowmen was not wat I wished he had, hoping for KQ or something. But the flop was very good for me and luckily he did have two red eights . Only two hands later:

So I limp in early position with 33 and flop a set on a low board. There’s a minimum bet and I decide to slowplay it. On the turn the guy who just called on the flop suddenly leads out with a pot sized bet, so I know he must be strong and immediately shove. He was indeed strong: toppair with an OESD. But luckily he didn’t catch a straight on the river. After those two hands I was totally back in the tournament and was able to finish as runner-up.

This second place gave me an advantage of $137 on Mr. White, who is playing a little status-quo lately, mainly in $20 9 handed sng’s. Behind us are Brown ($402), who experienced his expected downswing (still playing beyond his bankroll) and Pink ($138), who is all but dead. Maybe her best strategy would be to play on very low stakes and just wait for Mr. Brown to go broke first. Will save her $100 .

Submitted by Mr. Blue