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www.CardPlayer.com Vol. 33/No. 23November 4, 2020

Michael Addamo Wins WPT World Online Championships $100K High Roller

Jonathan Little: Stop Raising With Top Pair

Kevin Haney: Having A Scoop Advantage InStud Eight-Or-Better

HIGH-STAKES POKER PRO KAHLE BURNS TRAVELS THE WORLD LOOKING FOR ACTION

31-Year-Old High Roller Nears The Top Of Australia’s All-Time Money List

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Table of Contents - Card Player Vol. 33/No. 23

CARDPLAYER.COM FOLLOW US ON TWITTER CardPlayerMedia

Features22

High-Stakes Poker Pro Kahle Burns Travels The World Looking For Action

By Julio Rodriguez

The Inside Straight10

Poker News Recap

14Player Of The Year Update

By Erik Fast

16Final Table Takedown: Eight-Time WSOP

Circuit Champion Michael LechBy Steve Schult

20This Week’s Big Winner:

Michael Addamo Wins WPT World Online Championships $100,000 Buy-In Event

By Erik Fast

Strategies, Analysis & Commentary

26Why You Need To Stop Raising

With Top PairBy Jonathan Little

27Re-Entry and Rebuy Tournaments:

Part 3 - Late RegistrationBy Greg Raymer

29Seven Card Stud Eight-Or-Better:

Having A Scoop Advantage By Kevin Haney

31Collecting A Debt:

Phil Ivey Vs. BorgataBy Scott J. Burnham

33Gamble 103: Protect Your Ass(ets)

By Nathan Gamble

Also In this Issue6

About Us

36Tournament Schedules

38Poker Leaderboards

Tournament Hand Matchups

27Mikita Badziakouski vs. Aleksei Barkov

29Jason Koon vs. Mikita Badziakouski

31Mikita Badziakouski vs. Mark Demirjian

34Mikita Badziakouski vs. Jason Koon

22 16

20

Victor Simionato vs. Damian SalasBlaz Zerjav vs. Victor SimionatoPhillip Mighall vs. Damian SalasBlaz Zerjav vs. Victor Simionato

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THE INSIDE STRAIGHT

INSIDE STRAIGHTNews, Reviews, and Interviews From Around the Poker World

the

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POKER PROS DANIEL NEGREANU AND DOUG POLK AGREE TO START HEADS-UP GRUDGE MATCH NOV. 1 By Steve Schult

Doug Polk and Daniel Negreanu will start their highly anticipated heads-up grudge match Nov. 1.

Polk angrily tweeted at Negreanu in October, goading him into picking a start date for the heads-up no-limit hold’em battle.

“Alright, I’m sick of the run around,” tweeted Polk. “Does anyone know how to get in touch with @RealKidPoker so we can actually schedule this match? He tweets at me once in a while and then goes silent. It’s been two months and I’m ready to f***ing battle. Let’s work out some details.”

Negreanu responded, throwing out Nov. 1 as a potential start date, and Polk quickly agreed.

“Well this tweet is awkward. You all riled up, eh!” responded Negreanu. “You have been talking to [PokerGO’s] Mori [Eskandari] and Brent [Hanks], no? I have and they said they spoke with you. All that’s left is waiting on a fi nal legal opinion to see what options are available. Nov. 1 could work. Feel better?”

After hammering out the details, the pair will play two tables of $200-$400 heads-up no-limit hold’em online. � ey will start with 100-big blind stacks that will automatically top up to the max as soon as a player falls below the threshold.

� e two will play a 25,000-hand match with an option for the losing player to quit after 12,500. At the same halfway mark, if both players agree, they can also raise the stakes.

Negreanu said that he would agree to

a two-hour minimum session length, and also agreed to Polk’s “inspection request” to ensure that neither player was using real-time assistance such as solvers or equity calculators.

As negotiations carried on over the next few weeks, however, the defi nition of real-time assistance became a point of contention. Negreanu tweeted that he did not want prefl op charts to be used during play, while Polk wouldn’t com-mit to it.

“You are a 6:1 favorite in the betting markets, yet you feel the need to use a cheat sheet?” said Negreanu. “I won’t be using a cheat sheet, why should you? You challenged ME to a match. I agreed to YOUR game, on YOUR platform, and YOUR format.”

Negreanu agreed to play the match on WSOP.com and during the initial response to these requests, Polk said that he would “agree to follow the rules” set forth by the platform. Whatever WSOPallows, Polk wanted to have at his dispos-

al. � e site banned the use of heads-up displays, but does not have a rule about whether players can use prefl op charts while they play.

Negreanu also said that he is okay with the match being streamed and com-mentated by high-stakes pro Kane Kalas, but that he would not be showing his hole cards. Polk tried to compromise.

“How about we make a deal,” asked Polk. “1) No charts allowed of any kind. 2) We show all of our holecards to the fans for the entire challenge. We both give a little, the fans win. Retweet if you want to see this.”

Polk’s only other real point of conten-tion throughout the public negotiations was that he wants to play more than two hours per day, citing concerns that it would drag out the match for 100 days. Negreanu said he was hoping to play 4-5 days per week, totaling about 20 hours. If the two can hammer out the last-minute details, the duo may be able to settle their longstanding feud before the new year. �

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THE INSIDE STRAIGHT

POKER PRO SHAUN DEEB PLAYS ONLINE FROM MEXICO HOSPITAL BED AFTER CATCHING CORONAVIRUSBy Steve Schult

Being hospitalized with COVID-19 didn’t stop Shaun Deeb from playing online poker.

�e four-time World Series of Poker bracelet winner and high-stakes tournament regular left his Albany-area home at the end of August and traveled to Mexico so that he could battle against online poker’s best in the PokerStars World Championship of Online Poker. It’s a trek that many tournament professionals decide to make so that they can play against the rest of the world on the international-facing poker site.

Unfortunately for Deeb, he caught coronavirus while he was south of the border and the symptoms hit him hard. He tweeted that he had been keeping quiet about his positive diagnosis for about a week and a half, but that he might “need your guys help making a tweet or two go viral so I don’t have to

get hospitalized in Mexico.”In a subsequent post, he said that

playing tournaments while infected with the virus was extremely diffi-cult. He was having trouble breathing, and was falling asleep during every five-minute break. Eventually, he was admitted into a hospital in Playa del Carmen and hooked up to an IV.

Time to rest and recover, right? Wrong.

“You’re not really a WCOOP grind-er if you’re not one-handed, 10-tabling on touch pad in Mexican hospital with COVID,” tweeted Deeb a day later.

As luck may have it, the trip to the hospital may have ended up doing won-ders for Deeb’s results. In a response to Brian Horton, who implored him to stop playing and get some rest, Deeb said that he actually felt “better today than any other session in two weeks” with “the meds and IV helping.” He

also mentioned that he had some side bets that were motivating him to keep playing.

�ere are few things that will cause Deeb to miss a WCOOP series. He infamously missed the birth of one of his children in 2016 to stay in Canada and play the series. On the day his son was born, Deeb won one of his eight WCOOP titles.

He has since returned home to New York and reported that he has recovered. �

Caesars Entertainment Acquires

William Hill Sportsbooks For $3.7 Billion By Steve Schult

Caesars Entertainment complet-ed a massive $17.3 billion merg-er with Eldorado Resorts over the summer, and is now acquiring one of the largest sports betting opera-tors in the world. �e gaming giant announced that the company has agreed to purchase London-based bookmaker William Hill for the equivalent of $3.7 billion.

�e two companies were already involved in a joint venture where Caesars would use William Hill to run most of Caesars’ U.S. online and retail sportsbooks. But after William Hill disclosed that it received an offer to be pur-chased by private equity firm Apollo Global Management, Caesars opted to make a proposal of their own.

�e New York Post reported that Caesars “attached strings” to the current agreement in place with William Hill, stating it would cease some elements of the current arrangement if Apollo acquired the sportsbook. A couple days later, the operations were officially a part of Caesars.

�e acquisition is still pending approval from regulatory bodies and is expected to be finalized in the second half of 2021, according to a press release.

“�e opportunity to combine our land based-casinos, sports betting, and online gaming in the U.S. is a truly exciting prospect,” said Caesars Entertainment CEO Tom Reeg in a statement. “William Hill’s sports betting expertise will complement Caesars’ current offering, enabling the

combined group to serve our customers in the fast-growing U.S. sports betting and online market. We look forward to working with William Hill to support future growth in the U.S. by providing our customers with a superior and comprehensive experience across all areas of gaming, sports betting and entertainment.”

�e move comes as Caesars is trying to position itself to be a force in the blossoming online gambling sector, which executives believe will reach a market cap between $30-$35 billion.

Caesars’ main U.S. competition, MGM Resorts, also believes that online gambling is the future as it received a $1 billion investment from InterActive Corp based primarily on how the company is positioned to enter the online gambling market. �

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THE INSIDE STRAIGHT - News, reviews, and interviews from around the poker world

State regulators are anticipating the launch of online poker in Michigan along the same time frame as sports betting. If everything runs smoothly, Michiganders will be able to grind online tournaments as early as this November.

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signed an online gambling bill into law last December, which legalized all forms of online gambling and retail sports bet-ting. As of January, regulators were tar-geting early 2021 to roll out its market, but the COVID-19 pandemic sparked an urgency by state officials to make up for lost revenue stemming from the brick-and-mortar casino shutdown.

At the end of the summer, Michigan Gaming Control Board Executive Director Richard Kalm said that he hoped for a November launch. �e rules are already in place and with several other states experiencing a ton of success with its online marketplace, regulators were able to mimic existing frameworks.

“We didn’t reinvent the wheel,” said Kalm. “We found rules from

Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Indiana. Most of these operators are licensed there and operate there now. So, there wasn’t a big learning curve.”

�at set of rules will be passed along to the Michigan Office of Administrative Hearings and Rules. Once approved, it will head to the state legislature’s Joint Committee on Administrative Rules where it will be finalized and put into place.

In the current U.S. regulated online poker market, Nevada, Delaware, and New Jersey can share a player pool with sites that are licensed in all three states, while Pennsylvania only allows its players to gamble with others with-in its borders. Based on actions within the Michigan Senate, it seems like the state will likely join a shared player pool with other states, though nothing is finalized.

In June, Sen. Curtis Hertl, a Democrat that was instrumen-tal in bridging the gap between the Republican-sponsored gaming bill and the Democrat Governor, intro-duced SB991, a bill that would allow

Michigan online poker to form a com-pact with other states to share liquid-ity.

�e bill was up for discussion as part of the Senate’s Regulatory Reform Committee, and Hertl told another gambling outlet that he thought it would move to the House before the end of October. �ere were no ques-tions about or objections to Hertl’s bill, which bodes well for its passage. �

NEW DOWNTOWN LAS VEGAS CASINO TO OPEN IN LATE OCTOBER By Steve Schult

Michigan Online Poker Likely To Be Live In November By Steve Schult

Las Vegas’ newest casino will open a few months ahead of schedule and allow patrons to gamble on its gaming floor just before Halloween.

Circa Las Vegas was originally scheduled to open this December, but after the Nevada Gaming Commission granted a gaming license to the Downtown-area casino at the end of September, the property will instead open Oct. 28.

�e Stevens brothers-owned property will be the first Fremont Street casino to be built from the ground up since 1980. �e brothers also own �e D and Golden Gate Casino, both of which are also located downtown.

When plans for the casino were first announced in January of 2019, highlights included “the world’s biggest sportsbook” and a 44-story hotel tower. Last June, own-ership said that it would be an adult-only property and

extend the 21+ age restriction to the entire resort, not just the gaming floor.

According to a report from the Las Vegas Sun, Circa will add 1,500 jobs to the struggling Las Vegas economy.

“We’ve seen that more and more people are coming to Las Vegas,” co-owner Derek Stevens told the outlet. “�e fact that we can bring some good news and some excite-ment, that has me the most excited right now. �

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer

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THE INSIDE STRAIGHT

ALLEGED POKER CHEATER MIKE POSTLE SUES POKER COMMUNITY FOR LIBEL AND DEFAMATIONBy Steve Schult

�e case against alleged poker cheat Mike Postle was dismissed in early June with the majority of plaintiffs agree-ing to a settlement with the Stones Gambling Hall and its tournament director Justin Kuraitis, who was in charge of the livestream.

Now, Postle is starting a legal battle of his own, suing many prominent names in poker. �e complaint states that Postle is seeking damages and injunctive relief for defama-tion and slander, trade libel, false light, intentional interfer-ence with prospective economic advantage, and intentional infliction of emotional distress.

�e list of defendants includes former Stones employee Veronica Brill, who brought the allegations to light a year ago, six-time WSOP bracelet winner Daniel Negreanu, high-stakes gambler Haralabos Voulgaris, poker personality Joey Ingram, Poker Fraud Alert’s Todd Witteles, as well as ESPN and Poker News media. He’s also included Upswing Poker, Run It Once, Crush Live Poker, Solve For Why, and Poker Coaching, which are run by poker pros Doug Polk, Phil Galfond, Bart Hanson, Matt Berkey, and Jonathan Little, respectively.

Despite his initial victory in court, Postle has been seen as guilty in the eyes of the majority of the poker public, many of whom have been outspoken in their belief that he cheated, most likely with the help of an accomplice. Postle was alleged to have won between $200,000 and $300,000 in mostly $1-$3 and $2-$5 no-limit hold’em cash games, which prompted others around the game to look into his

seemingly near-perfect play. When the allegations were initially made public by

Brill, several names listed in the lawsuit spent countless hours breaking down video footage of Postle’s play. �ey illustrated why they believed, based on what they saw from Postle’s unorthodox playing style, that he was cheating.

�eories on how it could have happened range from bone-conducting headphones in his hat, to hole card infor-mation sent to his phone, but so far, no one has been able to definitively prove Postle cheated outside of his statistically improbable winnings.

In the wake of the lawsuit’s dismissal, Kuraitis became outspoken on social media and reasserted his belief that Postle played it straight. One of his main talking points was that the amount of money Postle was reported to have won in the games was inflated, leading him to question the validity of the other statements made.

Kuraitis’ Twitter outburst caused Galfond to crowd-source an effort to catalog every hand Postle played on cam-era. With a complete database of Postle’s play, Galfond can take a fine-toothed comb to his actual win-rate and playing statistics, which should give a better indicator of whether or not Postle had access to the hole cards of his opponents.

�e filing also lists John Does 1-1,000, which allows Postle’s legal team to add defendants as they move forward in the legal process. Essentially, anyone that made public statements affirming that Postle was cheating is listed as a defendant. �

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Place Players Points Final Tables Winnings

1 Vincent Wan 2,280 1 $909,420

2 Farid Jattin 2,177 6 $1,205,493

3 Anton Suarez 2,100 1 $1,000,000

4 Cary Katz 2,095 8 $2,420,543

5 Kahle Burns 1,956 6 $2,923,988

6 Ngoc Hoang 1,900 1 $909,420

7 Aaron Van Blarcum 1,896 8 $1,854,522

8 Sam Greenwood 1,881 6 $1,357,807

9 Tim Adams 1,857 6 $5,904,777

10 Brian Altman 1,848 3 $542,866

11 Michael Addamo 1,806 5 $2,143,310

12 Pablo Silva 1,800 1 $1,000,000

13 Christian Rudolph 1,750 1 $620,000

14 James Romero 1,736 2 $745,000

15 Erik Seidel 1,686 5 $669,649

16 Eric Afriat 1,680 1 $394,120

17 Alex Foxen 1,597 6 $1,603,559

18 Nino Ullmann 1,540 2 $370,609

19 Stephen Chidwick 1,537 6 $1,043,973

20 Gareth Pepper 1,520 1 $690,000

THE INSIDE STRAIGHT - Player of the year

�e Venetian® Resort Las Vegas hosted Sin City’s first major live poker tourna-ment series during the month of September. �e marquee event of the festival was a $400 buy-in no-limit hold’em ‘Monster Stack’ event that featured a $100,000 guaranteed prize pool. �e tournament ran from Sept. 23- 27, with four starting flights to choose from. A total of 1,538 entries were made in the event, blowing away the guarantee to create a prize pool of $512,154.

In the end, Caleb Hershey of Rugby, North Dakota emerged victorious with the title and a top payout of $74,123 after striking a deal during three-handed play. �is was the third career live tournament title on Hershey’s résumé and by far his largest score. As the champion, he was also awarded 432 Card Player Player of the Year points.

Hershey was not the only player to make moves in the POY rankings during this series. Robert Whalen finished fourth in a $400 buy-in event for $18,454 and 168 points, for his third POY-qualified score of the year, and now sits in 28th place. WSOP bracelet winner Will Givens finished fifth in a separate $400 buy-in to add $8,822 and 140 points to his totals. With four final-table finishes so far this year, Givens now occupies the 36th-place spot on the leaderboard.

As of 10-7-2020

CALEB HERSHEY WINS VENETIAN DEEPSTACK SHOWDOWN POKER SERIES $100,000 GUARANTEED EVENTBy Erik Fast

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THE INSIDE STRAIGHT

ANDRE MARQUES WINS WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP OF ONLINE POKER MAIN EVENT FOR $1.1 MILLIONBy Erik Fast

�e 2020 World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP) series on PokerStars attracted 1,119,186 entries throughout the 225-event schedule. A total of $99,780,230 in prize money was paid out during the series, with $10 million being awarded in the marquee event of the whole affair, which was the $5,200 buy-in WCOOP no-limit hold’em main event.

�e tournament drew a field of 1,977 entries. When the dust cleared it was Portuguese player Andre ‘PTFisherman23’ Marques that emerged victo-rious with the title and the top payout of $1,147,271.

Marques overcame a tough final table on the road to victory, outlast-ing American poker pro Michael ‘munchenHB’ Telker (7th - $196,792),

EPT London main event winner Robin ‘robinho’ Ylitalo (4th - $543,301), and Teun ‘tinnoemulder’ Mulder (3rd - $1,101,528), who recently finished as the runner up in the World Poker Tour Online Championship main event for just shy of $1.4 million.

�e final table began with Mulder holding the chip lead, with Marques and Ylitalo not far behind. Marques overtook the lead early on by knocking out Cecilia ‘princes chu’ Cafaro in ninth place. He remained near the top of the leaderboard throughout the rest of the day, surviving to the final three alongside Mulder and Tonio ‘prrrak4783’ Roder.

�e three struck a deal at the start of three-handed play that ensured they would all be earning seven-figure pay-days, leaving the title and an additional $100,000 from the prize pool to play for. Marques knocked out Mulder to take the lead into heads-up play, and finished Roder off to secure the title and the additional prize money.

MIKITA BADZIAKOUSKI WINS 2020 WPT WORLD ONLINE CHAMPIONSHIPS $25,000 HIGH ROLLERBy Erik Fast

Mikita Badziakouski dominated the final table of the 2020 WPT World Online Championships $25,000 buy-in no-limit hold’em high roller event, beating out several of his fellow top tournament players in the world down the stretch to capture the title and the top prize of $1,062,730.

�is was the 28-year-old Belarusian poker pro’s eighth recorded score of a million dollars or more. �e victory brought his career earnings to $30,098,691, which meant that he surpassed Phil Ivey to climb into 11th place on poker’s all-time money list.

Badziakouski had been extending his lead early at the final table despite not earning any of the final blows that eliminated the first three players. He finally scored his first knockout, taking out Mark Demirjian in fourth place.

�ree-handed action began with Badziakouski sitting on 172 big blinds, while 2019 WSOP Europe main event winner Alexandros Kolonias had 81 big blinds, and American high roller Jason Koon had 31 big blinds. Badziakouski wielded his chip advantage ruthlessly, continually putting maximum pressure on the two shorter stacks as they tried to outmaneuver each other in order to ladder up.

�e three battled it out for more than two and a half hours before the decisive hand was dealt. Badziakouski picked up pocket aces on the button and min-raised to 240,000. Kolonias looked down at pocket threes in the big blind and three-bet all-in for 1.8 million. Badziakouski snap called and the board ran out clean to send Kolonias home in third place, earning $549,794 for his strong showing.

With that, Badziakouski entered heads-up play with 18.3 million of the roughly 20 million chips in play. �e final two players quickly agreed to a deal which saw Koon awarded $810,869 as the runner-up, while Badziakouski locked up $1,062,730. �e cash saw Koon’s career tournament earnings surpass the $32 million mark. He remains in ninth place on the all-time money list.

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THE INSIDE STRAIGHT - Final Table Takedown

FINAL TABLE TAKEDOWN

Blinds – 12,000-24,000 with a 4,000 ante

8

8

6

6

K

K

J

J

Michael Lech 400,000

Ray Qartomy1,600,000

7

7

5

5

J

J

A

A

7

7

With Michael Lech Recent WSOP Bracelet Winner And Eight-Time WSOP Circuit Champ Breaks Down

Hands From Circuit WinBy Steve Schult

WSOP Circuit Harrah’s New Orleans High RollerBuy-In: $2,200 • No. of Entries: 197 • Prize Pool: $394,000

Places Paid: 20 • First Place: $106,377

Over the last few years, Michael Lech has amassed one of the most impressive résumés at the mid-major level. The traveling tournament pro from Arkansas has earned nearly $1.5 million in tournament earnings and has won eight World Series of Poker Circuit rings in five different countries.

This summer, Lech earned his first major title with a WSOP bracelet win in the $1,500 no-limit hold’em high roller freezeout during the American-facing WSOP Online. He best-ed a field of 649 entries to earn $164,249, along with the gold.

Lech had a monster series throughout July as he cashed 12 times for a total $193,101. He followed the American-facing series up with a trip down to Mexico to play the inter-national-facing WSOP on GGPoker. He made a deep run in the $5,000 no-limit hold’em main event, finishing 31st for an additional $55,880.

The online bracelet came four years after Lech’s biggest score, a runner-up finish in the $888 no-limit hold’em crazy eights event at the 2016 WSOP, worth $401,888. Less than a year later, Lech went down to New Orleans and earned the second of his Circuit titles in the $2,200 no-limit hold’em high roller.

Lech sat down with Card Player to reevaluate a few hands he played at the final table in New Orleans.

Players Remaining: 4Concepts: Finding the

correct push-fold spots late in fi nal tables.

The Action: Ray Qartomy raised to 60,000 from under the gun and Michael Lech moved all in on the button for 400,000. Qartomy called.

Steve Schult: Is this a

standard shove at this stack depth against an under-the-gun range or was this a play-er-dependent shove?

Michael Lech: I would say that at this point in the tournament, I was feeling a little uncomfortable with just calling, even in position, with a good hand like K-J.

I had 17 big blinds and he was raising and opened up his game, I remember. He was kind of just trying to run over the table after he picked up a couple chips.

I decided to just rip it in because I thought he might be able to outplay me if I miss any fl op, suddenly dwindling down to an even shorter stack. It turned out to be a pivotal hand to just get a double up there get-ting called down by eight-high.

I don’t remember exactly how many chips he had, but I don’t think it was a sig-nifi cant portion of his stack to call off . I guess he just likes to play with live cards. I’ve played with plenty of players who when they get shoved on and they have plenty of chips, they just say “run the board.”

But as far as shoving versus calling, I think if it was a more passive player, I would be more apt to call because it’s a nice hand to play in position.

SS: What about Qartomy’s open. Is it too wide or is it standard for someone with a bigger stack?

ML: I think it’s a fi ne open. Any sort of suited one-gapper four-handed is a pretty standard open. I would do it all the way down to like 20 big blinds. If I had his stack, I would probably be opening 8-6 suited because it’s a fun hand to play.

I fi nd myself on the looser side. � at was still at the beginning of one of my more successful runs I’ve had over the past couple years. I was defi nitely a little

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THE INSIDE STRAIGHT


QQ

44

KK

99

Michael Lech2,350,000

Marshall White 2,300,000

5

5

2

2

10

10

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Michael Lech 2,640,000)

Marshall White2,160,000

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nervous playing that fi nal table. I don’t think there was any point, up until I got four-handed or three-handed, that I thought I had a shot to win.

I was in last place all the way up until four-handed and then that K-J hand [gave me more play]. � en I dou-bled through Marshall and I was second in chips. � en I busted Ray, and all of a sud-den, I was chip leader.

SS: When talking about Ray’s call, you mentioned how much the shove was in relation to the rest of his remaining stack. Is that something you think about much when you’re debating a call or is it simply the equity of your hand versus the equity of your oppo-nent’s range?

ML: I think it’s more player-dependent, which changes the ranges up for

sure. I think more math-based players, who are trying to play more GTO, would be diff erent.

SS: Do you consider yourself a feel player then? How would you describe yourself?

ML: I’m a results-ori-ented player and proud of it (laughs). If it works, it works. If somehow, I fi nd a way to win the pot, then that’s the way to play it. I’ve been living with a bunch of diff erent players who have a bunch of diff erent theories. For example, I’ve been fortu-nate to spend a lot of the past summers living with a big group of Lithuanian players that are online solver guys that work really hard. � ey defi nitely have a diff erent approach to the game than I do, but you can learn a little bit from everybody along the way.

ing? Are you just peeling with your multiple backdoor draws, or do you think you have the best hand?

ML: I thought his sizing is pretty standard for a small c-bet (continuation bet) with any two. With the K� in my hand, I have both backdoors with the straight and hearts. I thought it was best just to play further into the hand and reevaluate. I still didn’t want to build the pot at all.

Obviously, check-raising is an idea that I might enter-tain today, but there I was just ready to see more cards and keep the pot small.

SS: On the turn, you check-call 130,000. Walk me through your thought process.

ML: All of his ace-x hands are going to be c-betting again, but I thought there would be a greater percent-age of airball hands that would be willing to throw in a second barrel there. I fi gured he might not put in the third barrel and I had king-high.

At this point, I was also just being a little stubborn. I can’t say I was looking towards blockers of any sort or was really thinking about what he was doing. I just thought that I had king-high and it could easily be the best hand and he might just stop betting if he doesn’t hit a pair.

SS: If the turn paired the board and he bet, would you still have called?

ML: I probably would’ve folded at that point, but I thought the ace was too good of a card for him to [resist] bluffi ng.

SS: On the river, you check and he bets for a third time. I don’t really know how else to ask this. How did you decide to call?

ML: He sized up a little bit, so it seemed like value. But when he bet this size, I put him specifi cally on two pair, an ace, or air. When you think about it like that, air is just about 50 percent of it or more maybe.

I thought about it for a little while, but I just decid-ed that I wanted to see what he had. And it turns out I had the best hand. It wasn’t a super genius hand. I was just being a little sticky.

SS: I assume you would’ve folded to a bigger sizing then if you were just being sticky?

ML: � e sizing through-out the entire hand really played into my call. It just seemed like there could be some random airballs. I think if he sizes up, I fi nd a fold. I think he was think-ing that I was a competent player and that it would look like he was making a value bet. He just didn’t realize I wasn’t in a folding mood.

Players Remaining: 2Concepts: Making hero

calls when being laid a good price by your opponent.

The Action: Marshall White raised to 130,000 on the but-ton and Michael Lech called from the big blind. On the fl op, Lech checked and White bet 80,000. Lech called. On the turn, Lech checked and White bet 130,000. Lech called. On the river, Lech checked and White bet 215,000. Lech called.

SS: Clearly your hand is too good to fold prefl op, but do you ever three-bet this against certain player types?

ML: I think I would, but that was pretty early in the heads-up match. I don’t really like to start the match by going crazy with three-betting, especially against a pretty good opponent. I had respect for him already and knew he was competent, so I defi nitely didn’t want to be building a pot out of position with K-9 off against him. I think maybe just call-ing is underrepresenting it, but it’s the bottom of the under-repping range.

SS: On the fl op, what are your thoughts when you check-call? Are you fl oat-

Players Remaining: 2 Concepts: Finding good

spots to use unconventional

bet sizes. The Action: Michael Lech

raised to 175,000 on the but-


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THE INSIDE STRAIGHT - Final Table Takedown

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ton and Marshall White called. On the fl op, White checked and Lech bet 270,000. White called. White checked the turn and Lech bet 150,000. White called. On the river, White checked and Lech bet 865,000. White called.

SS: If you’re raising J-6, are you raising all of your buttons in the heads-up match?

ML: Once I picked up a little steam, I decided to raise about 100 percent of them. I had done a limp before and I just thought it was the right time to apply some pressure.

SS: You fl op bottom pair and bet three-fourths of the pot when checked to. Can you explain why you decided to bet and how you chose the sizing?

ML: I’m defi nitely lean-ing towards denying equity because with bottom pair, there aren’t too many good turn cards. Obviously, it kind of sucks when he calls

or does anything besides fold, so I’m not a huge fan of my bet there. But that’s what I did at the time. (laughs)

I sized up because I didn’t want to make it where he could check-raise light. It would end up being too much of his stack for him to do that. � at’s why I made it as big as I did. I was just taking away that option from him without playing for stacks.

SS: You decide to size down on the turn. It’s not a play I see very often. Why did you choose such a small size?

ML: I think that size attracts some of his weaker draws to hang around. And if he decides to raise me then I can peel. I don’t necessarily have to get it in with this hand at this point. I don’t want to give a free card to something like a gutshot. And when he does call, I get to build the pot with a strong hand.

SS: He does call. And the

river brings in a fl ush draw. You decide to bet the river very big. Were you com-pletely discounting fl ushes from his range?

ML: When he didn’t check-raise the fl op, I don’t think he would have dia-monds very often. � is goes back to my big sizing on the fl op. I thought he would check-raise a strong draw on the fl op to try and pick up a pretty big pot already. He could just go for it.

And with the fl ush get-ting there, it kind of makes my hand look super bluff y. It’s a card that makes me maybe slightly more likely to barrel away and I could get all the light calls with a pretty good two pair. I had already done some weird stuff against him. � is was within about ten hands of that king-high call, so I was clearly capable of messing around with him.

SS: Did you show him any bluff s earlier in the

match? ML: I believe a few hands

prior, I had also bombed the river. � at was a bluff , but I did not show it. � ere was also one time where he had rivered trips, bombed, and I overbet shoved on him. He showed me trips, but I had rivered a fl ush.

It seemed like I had been getting the best of him in certain spots and that defi nitely wears men-tally on you in a heads-up match. It happens and it really sucks. When I lost that $888 heads-up match a couple summers ago, I think I played like 50 hands and lost 38 of them.

� ere’s not much you can do in those situations. Downsizing the turn and then betting big on the river just makes it a funky hand, and there’s just not a ton he can really put me on. He [didn’t show], but he said he called me down with a pair of tens. �


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THE INSIDE STRAIGHT - This Week's Big Winner

fl opped trip tens, however, and got three streets of value to climb into the lead. Dvoress fell to the second-shortest stack after the hand, and was ultimately knocked out in seventh place as the last player outside of the money.

Vogelsang Coolered By Haxton, Eliminated In Sixth Place

THIS WEEK’S BIG WINNER

Blinds – 8,000-16,000 with an ante of 2,000

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Christoph Vogelsang 279,000

Isaac Haxton400,000

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Christoph Vogelsang777,000

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Michael Addamo Wins WPT World Online Championships $100,000 Buy-In Event

By Erik Fast

Australian poker pro Michael Addamo has won the latest six-figure buy-in super high roller tournament, defeating a field of 40 entries to take down the 2020 World Poker Tour World Online Championships $100,000 buy-in no-limit hold’em event.

The two-time World Series of Poker bracelet winner was awarded $1,284,113 for the win, the largest score of his young career. Addamo is just 26 years old, but he has already accu-mulated more than $11.1 million in recorded tournament scores.

This victory was Addamo’s third title of 2020, having won a pair of high-stakes events in his native Australia at the start of the year. He started things off by winning a $50,000 AUD buy-in high roller at the Aussie Millions for $740,915 USD, and just two weeks later took down the $100,000 AUD buy-in event at the Australian Poker Open for another $888,720 USD.

This tournament featured a $3 million guarantee, which was easily surpassed when the final turnout created a $4 million prize pool to be paid out among the top six finishers.

Addamo came into the final table as the chip leader with seven players remaining, includ-ing several of the top no-limit hold’em tournament players in the world.

Here are five key hands from the final table.

Tournament: 2020 WPT World Online Championships Super High RollerBuy-In: $100,000 • No. of Entries: 40 • Prize Pool: $4,000,000

First Place Prize: $1,284,113

Daniel Dvoress’ Blu� Catch Goes Wrong

The ActionDaniel Dvoress started the fi nal table in the middle of

the pack on the money bubble. In this hand, he opted to limp in from the small blind with A-K off suit and then just call a raise from Christoph Vogelsang in the big blind, who held A-10. Dvoress proceeded to check-call every street with A-K high, looking to bluff catch against Vogelsang after the fl op brought a paired board. Vogelsang had

The Action2017 Super High Roller Bowl champion Vogelsang came

into the fi nal table in third chip position, and briefl y took the lead early on, but had lost several all-ins to fall to the

020_TWBW_MichaelAddamo.indd 20 10/14/20 9:02 PM


THE INSIDE STRAIGHT

fi gure buy-in tournament via a $109 initial investment in a satellite. She managed to make her way through multiple successive qualifi ers to earn a seat in this event, and then battled it out against the best tournament players in the world to make the money and lock up a six-fi gure payday. She had around $90,000 in live tournament cashes to her name before making this fi nal table. In the end, she shoved all-in with A-2 from the button and received a call from Michael Addamo’s A-6 out of the big blind. Both play-ers made a pair of aces on the river, but Addamo’s kicker played to send Godwin to the rail in third place. She earned $620,000 for her deep run, giving her an incredible return on investment (ROI) of 568,807 percent in this event.

Addamo Retakes The Lead On His Way To Victory

The ActionHaxton continued his rise up the chip counts by win-

ning a massive pot against Spanish high-stakes regular Sergi Reixach, who opted to turn his A-4 suited into a bluff prefl op only to run into Haxton’s A-K. Reixach started the hand by min-raising from under the gun. It folded back around to Haxton in the big blind, who three-bet to 131,000. Reixach shoved for 828,000 and Haxton made the quick call, having Rexach just covered. Haxton’s A-K high played by the river to take down the pot of over 100 big blinds, moving him within striking distance of Addamo’s lead.

Satellite Qualifi er Charlo� e Godwin Finishes Third

bottom of the leaderboard during six-handed action. He picked up pocket queens in the cutoff and raised to 34,000. 2018 SHRB champion Isaac Haxton three-bet to 75,000 from the button with pocket kings, and Vogelsang shoved for 279,000. Haxton made the call and the superior pair held up to see him climb into third place in the chip counts. Vogelsang earned $229,600 as the sixth-place fi nisher.

Sergi Reixach’s Four-Bet Blu Sends Him Home In Fourth Place


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Sergi Reixach 828,000

Isaac Haxton854,000

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Charlotte Godwin229,000

Michael Addamo2,000,000

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Isaac Haxton 2,400,000

Michael Addamo1,600,000

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The ActionAddamo and Haxton struck a deal heads-up that dis-

tributed the remaining money based on ICM (Independent Chip Model), leaving an additional $30,000 and the title to play for. Haxton jumped out to an early lead, which he stretched to more than 4:1 at one point, but Addamo battled his way back into the match before winning this key hand to retake the lead. Haxton limped in from the button with A-2 suited and Addamo checked with 10-8. He fl opped the jack-high straight and checked to Haxton, who checked behind. Addamo bet 70,000 on the turn and Haxton called with his turned top pair. Addamo fi red a massive overbet of 450,000 into the pot of 197,000 on the river and Haxton called with his aces. Addamo’s straight earned him the pot and the lead, which he went on to convert into the title. Haxton earned $1,216,286 as the runner up.

Final Table Results

Place Name Earnings

1 Michael Addamo $1,284,113

2 Isaac Haxton $1,216,286

3 Charlotte Godwin $620,000

4 Sergi Reixach $374,000

5 Linus Loeliger $276,000

6 Christoph Vogelsang $229,600

The ActionCharlotte Godwin came into the day as the shortest

stack. � e UK player reportedly won her way into this six-

020_TWBW_MichaelAddamo.indd 21 10/14/20 9:02 PM


Kahle Burns just wants to play some cards.� e Australian poker pro exploded onto the live high roller

scene in 2016, and has since recorded nearly $11 million in earnings, becoming one of the more dominant players on the tournament circuit.

� e Geelong native started his run with a win at the nearby Sydney Championships for $226,295, and has gone on to rack up an additional 26 scores of six-fi gures or more since. His largest cash came in October of 2017 in the Triton Super High Rollerin Macau where his third-place fi nish was worth $1,319,630. He pocketed another seven-fi gure score in January of this year when he took down the Aussie Millions AUD $100,000 high roller for $1,204,988, and followed that up with a runner-up fi nish at the AUD $250,000 Super High Roller Bowl Australiafor another $828,000.

In addition to making his mark in the high rollers, Burns has also earned two World Series of Poker bracelets. In October of 2019 at the WSOP Europe festival, Burns won the €25,000 buy-in high roller event for his fi rst bracelet and the $662,540 fi rst-place prize. Just days later, he picked up his second bracelet and another $113,036 in the €2,500 short deck event.

But although it may appear that Burns came out of nowhere to join the elite high roller players, the truth is that he opted in more out of necessity than by an ego-driven need to see himself holding trophies in the winner’s circle.

More than anything, Burns just needed a game. “Live tournaments are always going to be good, just because

you can’t bum hunt people, and [they draw amateurs] because people enjoy the thrill of going deep. In cash games, everyone has 100-big blind stacks and the variance is so much less, that amateurs just get fl eeced so fast. In tournaments, there’s a lot

more variance, and stacks are shorter to push smaller edges. But what I like about tournaments the most is that you just get your tournament ticket printed, there’s a random table assigned, and you just [sit down]. Anyone can play,” he explained.

While it makes a more dramatic story to leap from play money games to high roller events, in reality, Burns had already spent many years prior working his way up the cash game ranks, playing the biggest games he could fi nd. In fact, Burns would travel to Las Vegas during the WSOP and only play in the main event, choosing to spend most of his trip play-ing nosebleed cash games at Bellagio.

However, the games started to dry up. He was simply too good to fi nd consistent action.

“I’ve defi nitely played a lot more cash games than tourna-ments in my lifetime, and I think I probably prefer playing a big live cash game over anything else, to be honest,” Burns admitted. “But it just started becoming too hard to fi nd games to play.”

To keep going, Burns started making trips to Macau, forc-ing himself to play long sessions and even living in the world’s largest gambling market for months at a time to fi nd a good game.

“� ere’s not much else to do, and you have to play really long, sometimes 40- or 50-hour sessions,” Burns recalled. “I defi nitely used to do that for a period of time, but I don’t think it’s a super healthy lifestyle. I don’t recommend it. If I could play good, big cash games in Melbourne, Australia, I’d prob-ably stay there most of the year, but that’s just not the case. Even if you can fi nd one, you have to travel, and there’s politics to get in and all this other stuff to deal with.”

It’s a far cry from how the games used to be. On Card

HIGH-STAKES POKER PRO

KAHLE BURNS TRAVELS THE

WORLD LOOKING FOR ACTION

31-Year-Old High Roller Nears The Top Of Australia’s All-Time Money List

By Julio Rodriguez

022_CoverStory.indd 22 10/14/20 9:03 PM


Player’s Poker Stories podcast, Burns told the story of the AUD $1.6 million pot he played with a wealthy businessman.

“I was in Melbourne, and I had heard that there was a $200-$400 game playing four-handed in Sydney,” Burns recalled. “It was just a one-hour flight, but when I got there, the game wasn’t running. But there was this guy who was supposed to play another guy heads-up for a lot of money, something like $500,000 or even a million. I was getting some mixed information from some people, [who didn’t want me in the game]. I told them I was going to ask the guy if I could play, and if he said no, I was going to leave. Instead, they offered to sell me a bit of action, but I refused. I didn’t want to buy any action, I wanted to play.”

Once again, Burns just wanted to play some cards. He eventually got his way and was able to sit down heads-up. Even better, the other players decided to invest in him!

“We started out playing $200-$400, simply because they didn’t have a bigger [placard] where we were playing. But this guy just kept wanting to jack up the stakes. We thought we were going to play $1,000-$2,000, which we did, but then he would lose [a big pot] and just point his finger up in the air. His translator would tell us, ‘He wants to go higher,’ which we already knew. He did that a couple times until I essentially had to tell him, ‘Bro, I can’t afford to go any higher. You’re going to tap us out in one hand if we keep going.’”

It was at stakes of $2,000-$4,000 that the key pot went down. Burns looked at pocket queens and decided to call on the button. His opponent raised it to $24,000, and Burns limp-raised to $80,000. �e player then four-bet to $280,000. Burns made the call, noting that his opponent had about a pot-sized bet left behind. �at’s when the dealer put out a rainbow flop of K-7-7.

“He thought for ten seconds and said he was all in. It was a very large portion of the money we had to play against him, but I knew I was going to call. I didn’t think he’d play aces, or A-K this way. He’d bet smaller [with those hands]. He wouldn’t need to go all in, as he would already have the hand on lockdown. I do remember thinking, ‘If I’m wrong, with all of these people who invested in me watching, they’re going to think I’m a f***ing [idiot], calling off their money with two outs.’”

Burns made the call, and hoped for the best. �e dealer put out an ace on the turn, which wasn’t the most ideal card in the deck to see, especially when his opponent perked up and squeezed out his hole cards. He got some immediate relief from his buddy on the rail, however.

“My friend, who was watching and saw the cards, just said, ‘He’s got J-10, he’s dead.’ So, we held, and this guy didn’t give a f**k. He just rebought straight away.”

�e games were this juicy for a while, but then they became less consistent, and the whales started to improve.

“�ere was this guy in Macau who was the most fun opponent,” Burns said. “When he first started playing, he was playing $1,000-$2,000, $5,000-$10,000 HKD. He didn’t know how to play at all. He was basically learning as he went. He would look at you, stare you down trying to get a read, and even go so far as to come across the table to feel your pulse on your wrist [before making a decision]. Or you’d be in the tank against him, and he’d just look at you and hold out his own wrist so you could feel his pulse. But I remember coming back after a couple months, and that guy went from playing any suited hand against a three-bet out of position, to suddenly folding overpairs. It was unbelievable how fast he had learned to play, but it shouldn’t be surprising. If he’s playing stakes that high, he is clearly successful elsewhere, and he’s probably a pretty smart individual to begin with.”

Although his opponents may have jumped head-first into the shark-infested waters of high-stakes hold’em, content to pay big for a poker education, Burns himself had a much more cautious introduction to the game.

“I sort of discovered poker just after high school. One of my friends was playing and he was doing pretty well online at $50 [buy-in] no-limit, $100 [buy-in] no-limit. He was a smart guy making decent money, and I thought maybe there was something to it.”

�is occurred way after the poker boom, of course. Now 31 years old, Burns was a disinterested teenager when fellow countryman Joe Hachem won the 2005 WSOP main event for $7.5 million.

“I had seen [poker] on television, and I remember hearing when Hachem won the main event, but I was quite young at the time. I was only 16. I hadn’t really played hold’em before,

Are Live Reads A Thing In High Rollers?“Live reads are still a thing, it’s just that 98 percent of the time, they’re not in the forefront

of my decision making in a hand. In these high rollers, most of these players have very good poker faces, so to speak. You’re not going to see Adrian Mateos or Stephen Chidwick [give something away], so you just have to play a good, sound, fundamental strategy against them.”

“I think most of the best players in the world are not tell-oriented to begin with. They are just so strong in theory and exploiting people based on betting patterns, that that’s how they made their money and got to where they are.”

“There’s only so much edge the best players in the world can push against each other, in my opinion. For example, I can’t defend the big blind as wide against ‘LLinusLLove’ (Linus Loeliger), as I could versus some random fish. I’m going to make those adjustments. If I have what I think are [the right] Nash defense strategies, I’m going to defend wider versus a bad player than a

super elite player.”“But that’s not to say that you don’t pick up stuff. You do pick up stuff, but most of the time it’s not a live read, it’s the betting

patterns, or discrepancies in the frequencies of how they play their hand. That’s sort of how you exploit your opponents.”“I have some stuff on some people, but against the best players in the world, there’s just not much there. But let’s pretend

you’re playing in a random $10,000 event. You might pick up a lot more stuff and use it in your decision making. Or you might have a read that you’re not sure of, but you give it some weighting. So, then you use the fundamentals, a good baseline strategy, and slightly weight that read some percentage. At least that’s the way I do it, until I pick up more information and something becomes more concrete.”



so I didn’t think much about it. My parents always liked card games, like cribbage, but not poker.”

Burns started slow. Very slow. “I was a huge nit back in the day,” he

admitted. “I was scared to play for real money because I didn’t know what I was doing. I wanted to dip my toes in some-where it couldn’t hurt me financially. So, I just started playing for play chips.”

It didn’t take long for him to master the free tables, running up a couple million in play chips. He then started to play at pub events, perhaps risking $10 at a time. After finding some strategy resources online, he finally walked into a casino and sat down at a $50 buy-in no-limit hold’em game.

“I started to win pretty much right away,” he said. “Everyone was pretty bad back then. �is was 13 years ago when I was 18. C-bet (contin-uation bet) and be a nit was the get-it-done strategy back then.”

Almost a decade later in his career, Burns was still making adjustments.

“I did some homework on tournament theory. Prior to 2016, I hadn’t really played many tournaments at all, so I didn’t think I had any business sitting down and playing high rollers with the really good players. I would always register at the start, or very early. I was aware that my short-stack game was not as good as the best players at 20 or 30 big blinds. �ey were just way better than me and there was nothing I could do about it. Whereas I had played a lot more deep-stacked poker than these players, because I had been playing cash games day in and day out.”

�e short-stack issues were quickly ironed out as he went deeper in these tournaments and gained experience. Before long, he was firing nearly every high roller on the circuit. To date, Burns has cashed in 17 tournaments that featured a buy-in of $25,000 or more, including five wins, three runner-up finishes, and four third-place showings. Burns doesn’t like to focus on the close calls, however.

“I’ve definitely had a few second and thirds, but I don’t really look back and say, ‘Man, that f***ing sucked that I [didn’t win].’ I don’t think about that at all to be honest. I spend zero minutes on that.”

�e scores have piled up, and suddenly Burns finds himself approaching Hachem at the top of Australia’s all-time money list alongside fellow high roller wunderkind Michael Addamo. But despite the recogni-tion he’s getting from his peers and pub-lications such as Card Player, he still has to explain what he does to the majority of people he comes across.

“I use the Scrabble analogy,” he explained. “I ask them if they have ever played Scrabble or Words With Friends, and 90 percent of them will say yes. �en I’ll ask them if they have any friends that they are clearly bet-

ter than, or who are clearly better than they are. Okay, so if you play this person, and the [better] player gets nothing but vowels or trash tiles the entire game so they can’t make good words, then the worse player is going to win. But if you play them 1,000 times, and you all get even tiles, the person with the worse vocabulary has zero chance of winning. So, the tiles are the luck element in poker, and I’m the better player.”

Burns is the better player, but once again, it’s just a matter of finding a game. He was red hot in 2019, finishing fifth in the Card Player Player of the Year race, and he was off to an incredible start in 2020 with two massive scores on his home soil. But the global pandemic caused by COVID-19 shut down the live tournament circuit, moving high rollers online and putting yet another obstacle in Burns’ path. Online poker has been illegal in Australia since 2017, forcing him to live like a nomad between poker stops.

“I haven’t been home much at all, to be honest,” Burns said. “I’ve sort of been living out of a suitcase. I’d like to spend more time in Australia, in Melbourne, but that’s just not where the tournaments are and there’s no online poker. So, what are you going to do? You got to follow the job.” �

Kahle Burns Top Tournament ScoresDate Event Buy-In Place Payout (USD)

Oct. 2017 Triton Super High Roller Macau $1,000,000 HKD 3rd Place $1,319,630

Jan. 2020 Aussie Millions High Roller $100,000 AUD 1st Place $1,204,988

Feb. 2020 Super High Roller Bowl Australia $250,000 AUD 2nd Place $828,000

Aug. 2019 EPT Barcelona High Roller €100,000 4th Place $709,912

Oct. 2019 World Series of Poker Europe €25,000 1st Place $662,540

Aug. 2019 Triton Super High Roller London £50,000 4th Place $587,430

April 2017 PokerStars Championship Macau $400,000 HKD 4th Place $419,640

Nov. 2019 Poker Masters NLH $25,000 1st Place $416,500

Nov. 2019 Caribbean Poker Party High Roller $50,000 3rd Place $400,000

July 2019 World Series of Poker Six-Max NLH $10,000 2nd Place $389,832

Jan. 2020 partypoker Millions UK High Roller $25,000 1st Place $350,000

Nov. 2016 Asia Championship of Poker $100,000 HKD 3rd Place $346,060

March 2018 APPT Macau High Roller $400,000 HKD 5th Place $268,840

March 2020 partypoker Millions Sochi High Roller $100,000 6th Place $252,000

Aug. 2016 Sydney Championships $3,000 AUD 1st Place $226,295


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TEN YEARS AFTER THE BOOM2003 World Series of Poker Champion Reflects On A Decade Under The Spotlight

Avoid Common Betting Mistakes at the WSOP

Five Reasons You Should Not Game Select

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Final Table Set atWorld Series of Poker Main EventNine Players Return in November Gunning for

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PCA Returns to Bahamas For $10

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RYAN ‘THE BEAST’ RIESS Wins 2013 World Series of PokerMAIN EVENT 23-Year-Old Poker Pro Pockets $8.3 Million Prize

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Cash Game Overbetting Dynamics

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Strategies, ANALYSIS & Commentary

passive players do not raise 7-6 suited from middle posi-tion. If the opponent does happen to have a hand like pocket queens through pocket nines, he is almost drawing dead. So, there is no need at all to raise for protection.

If Hero raises, many of the hands that he beats will fold, but if he calls, he forces his opponent to stay in the pot with many inferior hands, allowing him to make cost-ly errors on the turn and river. Most importantly, when Hero happens to have the worst hand, calling will usually result in him losing less because the pot will be smaller.

� e opponent re-raised all-in for $485 total. At this point, it should be clear that Hero is in bad

shape. I would be shocked if his opponent did not show one of K-K, 8-8, 5-5, A-A, or A-K essentially every time. When a generally straightforward player is clearly trying to get their stack in on the fl op, you can be confi dent they have a premium made hand.

Hero decided to call (which is a terrible mistake) and lost to his opponent’s 8-8 for middle set.

After this hand, Hero was annoyed that he got “unlucky” that his opponent fl opped three of a kind. In reality, Hero should have simply called the fl op and turn, and likely folded to a third bet on the river from the tight, passive opponent.

While Hero is certainly going to lose some money in this situation, he lost way more than was necessary. If Hero called a $30 fl op bet and a $75 turn bet, he would have lost $105 more. As played, he ended up losing his entire $485 stack.

When you have a marginal made hand (usually top pair with a marginal kicker, middle pair, bottom pair, or ace high), you should look to control the size of the pot. If the pot remains manageable, your marginal made hand is usually best, but if a signifi cant amount of money goes into the pot, marginal made hands are usually in bad shape. �

Jonathan Little is a two-time WPT champion with more than $6 million in tournament win-nings. Each week, he posts an educational blog and podcast at JonathanLittlePoker.com, where you can get a FREE poker training video that de-tails five things you must master if you want to

win at tournament poker. You can also sign up for his FREE Excelling at No Limit Hold’em webinars at HoldemBook.com/signup

I was recently told about a pokerhand from a $2-$5 no-limit hold’em cash game that illustrates a critical error that many players make on a regular basis. A somewhat tight, passive player raised to $15 out of his $500 eff ective stack from middle position, and our Hero called on the button with K� J�.

I am fi ne with Hero’s prefl op call. Suited Broadway cards can call a reasonably sized prefl op raise in most situations. If Hero instead had K�J�, however, he should either three-bet to about $45 or fold, opting to fold most of the time due to the opponent’s tight, passive tendencies. You usually only want to call in position with hands that have the potential to make strong post-fl op hands. Suited hands fi t in this category because they will occasionally make a fl ush.

Everyone else folded, and the fl op came K� 8� 5�, giv-ing Hero top pair. � e opponent bet $30 into the $37 pot and Hero decided to raise to $100.

On the fl op, Hero should defi nitely call. Notice that the only terrible turn card is an ace. Hero does not have to worry about 7-6 making a straight because most tight,

WHY YOU NEED TO STOP RAISING WITH TOP PAIRBy Jonathan Little

“When you have a marginal made hand, you should look to control the size of the pot. If the pot remains manageable, your marginal made hand is usually best, but if a significant amount of money goes into the pot, you are usually in bad shape.”

026_S&A.indd 26 10/14/20 9:05 PM

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RE-ENTRY AND REBUY TOURNAMENTS: PART 3 - LATE REGISTRATIONBy Greg Raymer

In my last article, I spoke about how some players do not like re-entry and rebuy tournaments. �e main concern seems to be the idea that these events permit players with deeper pockets to gain an advantage over those without. �ere is also a concern that some players pursue an extremely loose, aggressive strategy during the re-entry or rebuy period, and this makes the game harder to play for those who don’t plan on firing more than one bullet.

I took the time to explain why I disagree with these concerns. You can read about it, as well as all my previ-ous articles, at my author page on CardPlayer.com. I will say, however, that there is a problem with many re-entry tournaments. �e problem isn’t with the re-entry aspect, but with the late registration period.

Today, most tournaments have a

late registration period, but that wasn’t always the case. It is actually amaz-ing how long we played tournaments without the ability to register late.

I can remember living in San Diego County in the 1990s, leaving work on a Friday to crawl through the traffic up the I-805 and the I-5, spending hours to get to Oceanside for a tournament. If the tournament started at 7:00, and you got there at

7:01, too bad, so sad, you were shut out. For some reason, the concept of registering late just didn’t exist.

It was great when this changed and most tournaments started offering the ability to register late. At first, this was done primarily to address issues such as those I faced. �e poker room was extending registration to accommo-date a player whose arrival was delayed by traffic or the like. Usually, the late

Permitting a player to register late enough is the same as giving that player money out of the prize pool. Obviously, they are not really being given money, but they are being given equity. Hallaert’s work shows how the late-registering player has gained equity as soon as they enter, even before playing a hand.

NOTE: WINNING PERCENTAGES DO NOT INCLUDE TIES. ODDS PROVIDED BY CARDPLAYER.COM/POKER-TOOLS/ODDS-CALCULATOR/TEXAS-HOLDEM

AnalysisTOURNAMENT HAND MATCHUPMikita Badziakouski had less than $250,000 in career live tournament earnings heading into the start of 2016. Since then he has gone on to cash for more than $29.8 million in recorded tourna-ments, such as this $25,000 buy-in WPT World Online Championship event. � e Belarusian star is one of the most successful high-stakes players in the game in recent years, and in this hand, he demonstrates the well-timed aggression that has helped him secure eight separate seven-fi gure cashes since November of 2017. Badziakouski raised from the small blind with Q-10 off suit, wielding his chip lead to apply pressure on the short-stacked Aleksei Barkov, who held 10-4 suited in the big blind. Barkov made the call and fl opped middle pair. Badziakouski fi red a continuation bet and Barkov hung around to see the A� hit the turn. Badziakouski kept his foot on the gas, fi ring 200,000 into the pot of 508,000. Barkov called and the 5� on the river put four cards to a straight on the board. With 908,000 in the pot and just more than that in Barkov’s stack, Badziakouski elected to move all-in with air to put his opponent to the test for his tournament life, and Barkov couldn’t fi nd the call with what had become fourth pair. Badziakouski took down the pot without show-down to extend his lead, while Barkov slipped to around 20 big blinds. He hit the rail in sixth place not long after this hand, earning $197,667 for his deep run in this event.

Q

Q

10

10

10

10

4

4

6

6

4

4

3

3

5

5

A

A

Badziakouski bet 100,000, and Barkov called.

Badziakouski bet 200,000, and Barkov called.

Badziakouski moved all-in, and Barkov folded.

With six players remaining and blinds of 25,000-50,000 and an ante of 6,250, Mikita Badziakouski raised to 135,000 from the small blind.

Aleksei Barkov called from the big blind.

ANALYSIS

Mikita Badziakouski7,000,000 Chips

Aleksei Barkov1,400,000 Chips

Winning PercentageBefore Flop: 70.0%

After Flop: 13.0%After Turn: 7.0%

Winning PercentageBefore Flop: 26.0%After Flop: 84.0%After Turn: 93.0%

FLOP

PREFLOP

TURN

RIVE

R

2020 WPT World Online Championship$25,000 No-Limit Hold’em High Roller

026_S&A.indd 27 10/14/20 9:05 PM




$1,100. And there is only one place that extra $100 in equity can come from. It is taken from the equity of every other player still in the event. If a player enters even later, when three-fourths of the fi eld is gone, their equity is about 15 percent higher than the buy-in they paid.

� e prevailing idea was that poker pros have a bigger skill advantage when the blinds are low and there are more amateurs or satellite winners still in the tournament, but Hallaert’s math clearly shows the equity gained. Perhaps Phil Hellmuth and some of the other top players were ahead of the curve when they insisted on taking their seats at the last possible moment.

None of this has anything directly to do with re-entry, of course, but it is a problem that has become more apparent with later registration. If a player re-enters when the fi eld is greatly reduced, this eff ect comes into play. But this eff ect is the same for a new player or a re-entering player. � e answer to this problem is not to elimi-nate re-entry, but to limit the time during which re-entry or late registra-tion is available.

Any experienced tournament director can estimate, based on a given structure, approximately what percentage of the fi eld will be elimi-nated at any point in time. All they need to do is schedule the close of registration so that no more than about one-third of the fi eld has been eliminated. Although Hallaert did not recommend this number specifi -cally, extrapolating from his results, if a player registers with two-thirds or more of the fi eld still in play, their ICM advantage from registering late should be no more than about two percent, which is much more accept-able than the 5-15 percent seen in the scenarios he did write about.

Yes, the player who enters late is

coming in short-stacked. And I do not just mean compared to the other players, but to the blinds as well. � is means they are in a high-variance situ-ation. However, it is important to be aware that it is a profi table situation for them regardless.

If your tournament off ers super-late registration, one option is to not play. � at is, vote with your feet. If you choose this line, be sure to tell the room management why you didn’t play. If enough players agree with you, they will probably change this feature. Another option is to take advantage of the situation by choosing to enter late yourself, gaining this ICM advantage.

Whatever you choose, have fun, and play smart! �

Greg Raymer is the 2004 WSOP world champion, winner of numerous major titles, and has more than $7 million in earnings.

He recently authored “FossilMan’s Winning Tournament Strategies,” available from D&B Publishing, Amazon, and other retailers. He is sponsored by Blue Shark Optics, YouStake, and ShareMyPair. To contact Greg please tweet at him using @FossilMan or go to www.FossilManPoker.com.

Kenny Hallaert

registration period was 30 minutes, maybe an hour. � e main point was to let people get in despite running late.

Of course, the cardrooms didn’t take long to notice that late registra-tion meant an increase in prize pools, and the rake, so the length of the late registration period was extended. First it was an hour, then two hours, and three hours, etc. Most multi-day tournaments now off er late registra-tion through much of day 1, anywhere from halfway through day 1, and even up until the start of day 2. In a few cases, even later!

� e primary reason for late reg-istration today is no longer to help a player who is running late. It is to allow a player to enter, play a while, bust out, and re-enter again on the same day. Many of these tournaments off er large guarantees, and by permit-ting very late registration, it is much more likely they will meet the guar-antee and not have to pay an overlay.

In itself, this is not a bad thing. As I discussed in my last article, I do not believe re-entry (or late registration) favors the deep pockets. And even if this does lead to some players pursuing a hyper-loose-aggressive strategy dur-ing the re-entry period, I’m fi ne with taking advantage of that as well.

� e real problem is equity. Kenny Hallaert, the excellent Belgian poker player and tournament direc-tor, pointed this out very eff ectively in his paper, “� e Impact of Late Registration on Stack Value According to the Independent Chip Model in Multi-Table Tournaments.”

In it he shows mathematical proof that permitting a player to register late enough is the same as giving that player money out of the prize pool. Obviously, they are not really being given money, but they are being given equity. His work shows how the late-registering player has gained equity as soon as they enter, even before playing a hand.

If a tournament starts each player with 30,000 in chips for a $1,000 buy-in (ignoring rake), and the last person to enter comes in when two-thirds of the fi eld is gone, their stack is already worth more than $1,000.

� is is true even though their aver-age opponent has three times as many chips. Since so many have already been eliminated, they are that much closer to making the money. Close enough, in fact, that ICM math says their 30,000-stack is worth about

026_S&A.indd 28 10/14/20 9:05 PM



CARDPLAYER.COM 2929

SEVEN CARD STUD EIGHT-OR-BETTER: HAVING A SCOOP ADVANTAGE By Kevin Haney

�us far in this long running series aimed at getting new players exposed to and interested in mixed-games we have focused exclusively on the draw variants, as they are an unknown quantity to many players. However, we need to work seven card stud eight-or-better (otherwise known as stud 8) into the rotation as it is a fixture in many mixed games.

Stud 8 is a split-pot game where the best high hand splits with the best low hand, as long as the best low is at least an eight-or-better. If no qualifying low is made, the best high hand will scoop the pot. Experience in stud high is certainly very helpful, but not a prerequisite to learning stud 8.

A low qualifier creates a necessary balance between high and low hands, because without it, low hands have too much of an advantage. Stud hi-lo used to be regularly spread without a qualifier, and in that game high pairs are sucker hands because a low hand would often have half of the pot locked up by fifth street.

For example, if you start out with (K� Q�) K�, the best possible low you can make is a queen. So in a heads-up pot, you would simply be happy to get your money back.

In stud 8, however, a pair of kings is often quite a good

hand because it has a much better chance to win the entire pot. While the qualifier provides for a greater equilibrium among different hand types, most of the better holdings in stud 8 are still low oriented.

Aces through eights account for 32 out of the 52 cards in the deck (62 percent) thus low starting hands have a high probability to improve and develop strong boards. In addition, when someone completes a low against an obvious high hand, it will be a in a highly-desired freeroll position.

For example, on fifth street (3� 4�) 6� 7� 2� is freerolling a hand like (8� K�) K� 9� J� and has the potential to scoop with either a five or a runner-runner two pair or trips on the final two streets.

�at said, high holdings can be very profitable in stud 8 as well, assuming we play them well. Playing well mostly entails making sure you start with the best high holding more often than not, as continually getting involved with the second-best high hand is a substantial leak that is very difficult to overcome in the long run. In any split-pot game, the goal is to reduce the frequency of getting stuck in the middle between two better hands as that is where you get squeezed and punished.


AnalysisTOURNAMENT HAND MATCHUP It wasn’t all that long ago that frequent prefl op raising wars were the hallmark of the young and aggressive generation of tournament players who had risen through the ranks online. All-out prefl op battles without premium holdings are far less com-mon in the highest-stakes tournaments in recent years, as the top players in the world have seemed to target the turn and river as the better streets for applying maximum pressure to their opponents. In this hand, two of the top high roller regulars in the game demonstrated that they still had the old trick up their sleeves. � e two began the hand as the two largest stacks of the fi ve remaining players, with one opponent sitting under 30 big blinds and two others around 50 big blinds. While the money bubble had already burst, there was a $120,673 diff erence between fi nishing fi fth and making the top four. Jason Koon picked up K-Q off suit on the button and raised to 132,000. Badziakouski found A-3 suited in the small blind and opted to three-bet to 528,000. With an ace in his hand, Badziakouski knows there is a decreased likelihood that Koon can have monsters like pocket aces or A-K. His hand can also fl op fl ush and straight draws when called. Koon’s K-Q is a solid candidate for four-bet-ting as a bluff , given he blocks both pocket kings and queens. Badziakouski could have been three-betting with a wider range than normal in this situ-ation, given the chip stack dynamics which would strongly discourage Koon from getting out of line. Koon made the four-bet, only to have Badziakouski fi nd the fi ve-bet all-in as a bluff with A-3 suited. Koon had to give it up, but not before having put in nearly a quarter of his stack. Badziakouski extended his chip lead even further, while Koon fell to around 63 big blinds after the hand.

K

K

Q

Q

A

A

3

3

With fi ve players remaining and blinds of 30,000-60,000 with an ante of 7,500, Jason Koon raised to 132,000 from the button. Mikita

Badziakouski three-bet to 528,000 from the small blind. Koon four-bet to 1,200,000. Badiakouski fi ve-bet all-in for 7,100,000. Koon folded.

ANALYSIS

Jason Koon5,000,000 Chips



After Flop: N/AAfter Turn: N/A

Winning PercentageBefore Flop: 60.0%After Flop: N/AAfter Turn: N/A

PREFLOP


026_S&A.indd 29 10/14/20 9:05 PM




“Playing well mostly entails making sure you start with the best holding more often than not, as continually getting involved with the second-best hand is a substantial leak that is very difficult to overcome in the long run. In any split-pot game, the goal is to reduce the frequency of getting stuck in the middle between two better hands as that is where you get squeezed and punished.”

The Importance Of ScoopingScooping is the name of the game. Whenever we don’t

think we have a good chance to scoop the pot we should always strongly consider folding, especially if it is early on in the hand and there is very little in the way of dead money in the pot.

For example, if we call a probable pair of kings on third street with a hand such as (2� 6�) 7� we have very little chance to scoop as this holding is quite a longshot to beat out the kings for high. Rough low holdings such as these with limited high potential should typically be folded on third street unless we are the first to enter the pot and have a chance to steal the antes.

It’s readily apparent to most players that we don’t make that much money chopping a heads-up pot as we are basically just splitting the antes. However, some may not realize just how much better it is to scoop a three-way pot than it is to split it.

Let’s examine the math. Suppose we are playing an eight-handed $40-$80 with a $10 ante, a $10 bring-in bet, and in a three-way pot there is a bet on every street. At the conclusion of the hand there will be $1,040 in the middle:

Antes $80

3rd 4th 5th 6th 7th Total

Hero $40 $40 $80 $80 $80 $320

Villain A $40 $40 $80 $80 $80 $320

Villain B $40 $40 $80 $80 $80 $320

Total $1,040

If Hero splits the pot with Villain A, he will net a $30 profit from the antes (Hero and Villain A both take back their ante) and chop up Villain B for a total profit of $190. However, if instead we were fortunate to win the entire pot, we would reap a huge profit of $710.

Some players are under the impression that scooping is only twice as good as chopping, yet as we can see in the chart above it is nearly four times better. Also, as the hand is played out there is much less inherent risk when playing with scoop possibilities, as opposed to the times we are mostly just hoping to split.

Equity Versus Expected Value And Scoop Advantage�e concepts of equity and expected value (EV) are

familiar to most players. In one-winner games, equity represents the odds of winning the pot assuming all players involved in the hand go to showdown. In a game such as stud 8 it is more accurately represented as the expected percentage of the pot one is expected to receive when incorporating possible split pots. Equity can easily be calculated using one of the numerous free simulators available without the need of assumptions other than the range of hands that your opponent(s) can have.

Expected value is the amount we expect to win (or lose) with our holding against our opponent’s hand or range if we modeled out the play of the hand. EV is much more complicated to calculate and requires a great deal of assumptions in addition to more advanced software. Without software, we can make educated guesses that some hands or situations are positive or negative EV, how-ever, it will be impossible to prove.

Some holdings that we may choose to play are more valuable with a higher EV than their equity would sug-gest, while others are worth much less. Hands with a higher EV than their equity would suggest would be those with implied odds and a good chance of profitably reach-ing showdown (i.e. realizing their equity). With these holdings we would mostly expect to scoop our opponents more often than they scoop us.

Since equity doesn’t tell the entire story and EV is extremely difficult to calculate, is there any other measure available to help gauge how strong (or weak) our holdings are in various situations that we may face? �e answer is yes. We can also look at how often we will scoop our opponents versus how often they scoop us, and notice the size of the advantage or disadvantage. �e amount of times one hand scoops against another assuming both players reach showdown is also readily available using free equity simulators.

As an example, suppose (9� K�) K� completes from early position and we choose to call with (2� 6�) 7� because we are playing in a high-ante game and feel that the price we are getting is too good to fold even though it’s highly likely we are up against kings. In this matchup, while we do have very reasonable 41 percent “hot/cold” equity, there is more to consider than that.

If we plug these hands into an equity simulator the (9� K�) K� will scoop 216,375 of the 600,000 trials compared with 113,196 for the (2� 6�) 7�. �us, in terms

026_S&A.indd 30 10/14/20 9:05 PM



CARDPLAYER.COM 3131

Collecting A Debt: Phil Ivey Vs. BorgataBy Scott J. Burnham

As just about everyone in the poker world knows, Phil Ivey won some $10 million playing baccarat at the Borgata in 2016. However, a federal court in New Jersey deter-mined that Ivey’s use of “edge-sorting” was a breach of his contract with the casino and therefore the Borgata was entitled to get its money back.

But how does it get its money back? When a court fi nds that one party owes money to another party, it issues a ruling to that eff ect but does not normally order the party to pay up. Why? Because if you disobey a court order you can be jailed for contempt. So if you refused to comply with a court order to pay money, you could be imprisoned, which would revive the debtors’ prisons that have been long discredited.

Instead of ordering the loser to pay the winner the money, the court instead gives the winner a piece of paper called a judgment that says that the judgment debtor owes the money to the judgment creditor. By itself, that paper

of scoop advantage, the pair of kings holds almost a 2:1 advantage over the low hand, which is much better than the approximate 3:2 advantage indicated by the equities.

In practice, the low hand won’t get scooped as often as this indicates as it will usually hit the muck when it hasn’t picked up at least four to a low or a pair by fourth or fi fth street. However, this isn’t necessarily a really good thing as it just means the low hand will struggle to realize its equity, which is another inherent disadvantage to the holding.

Sometimes the low hand will pick up a really scary board which will cause an unimproved pair of kings to fold, however, the high pair will realize its equity more often than a rough low draw in addition to holding the scoop advantage.

� e size of the scoop advantage tells a more complete story than the “hot/cold” equities especially when it is early in the hand and there is not a lot of dead money in the pot. � e abil-ity to eff ectively realize your equity is also very important, a topic we will examine further in the next issue. �

Kevin Haney is a former actuary of MetLife but left the corporate job to focus on his passions for poker and fitness. He is co-owner of Elite Fitness Club in Oceanport, NJ and is a certified personal trainer. With regards to poker he got his start way back in 2003 and particularly

enjoys taking new players interested in mixed games under his wing and quickly making them proficient in all variants. If interested in learning more, playing mixed games online, or just saying hello he can be reached at [email protected].


AnalysisTOURNAMENT HAND MATCHUPMark Demirjian defended his big blind with J-10 off suit and fl opped top pair with an open-ended straight draw on a board with two to a fl ush. Demirjian had faced a min-raise prefl op from runaway chip leader Mikita Badziakouski, who had been leveraging his stack against the shorter stacks to extend his advantage throughout the fi nal table. Demirjian began the hand with around 26 big blinds. He checked to Badziakouski, who bet 140,000 into the 350,000 pot with his pocket nines for middle set. Demirjian had approxi-mately 3.5 times the size of the pot remaining in his stack, and he elected to check-raise all in. Demirjian’s all in denies equity to Badziakouski. He will often have the best hand at the moment, but his hand is vulnerable to overcards, draws, and other one-pair hands. Badziakouski would likely continuation bet with plenty of hands that are behind Demirjian’s that will fold to the check-raise shove. In this particular instance, he had run into the top part of Badziakouski’s range. � e Belarusian made the quick call with his set, which improved to a full house by the river. Demirjian was eliminated in fourth place, earning $380,652 for his deep run in this event for the largest recorded score of his career.

9

9

9

9

J

J

10

10

10

10

9

9

8

8

K

K

K

K

Demirjian checked, and Badziakouski bet 140,000. Demirjian check-raised all-in for 1.7 million. Badziakouski called.

With four players remaining and blinds of 35,000-70,000 with an ante of 8,750, Mikita Badziakouski raised to 140,000 from the button. Mark

Demirjian called from the big blind.

ANALYSIS


Mark Demirjian1,840,000 Chips




FLOP

PREFLOP

TURN

RIVE

R


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doesn’t really do much. If you loan me money and I don’t pay it back, it is pretty clear that I owe you money. So, what diff erence does it make if a court agrees and issues a judgment?

� e diff erence is that, once you have a judgment, you can use the machinery of the state to try to recover the money. On behalf of the judgment creditor, the sheriff can seize the debtor’s assets, garnish their wages, etc.

But even with those powers, it is not that easy to recover on a judgment. � e Borgata tried for years to fi nd and seize Ivey’s assets to satisfy its judgment before eventually agree-ing to an undisclosed settlement in July.

One such asset was his winnings at the 2019 World Series of Poker of $124,410 that he got for fi nishing eighth in the $50,000 buy-in Poker Players Championship. � at money was turned over by the Rio in order to help satisfy the Borgata’s judgment. But then an interesting twist came up.

Two poker players came forward and said, “Hold on. � at money does not all belong to Ivey. We staked him the $50,000 entry fee in return for a 50 percent share of any profi ts, so according to our contract, $87,205 of that money is not Ivey’s but ours and we want it back.”

Are they entitled to get it back from the Borgata? I have seen a lot of news stories about their claim, but nothing about the resolution, so I am going to take a stab at predict-ing the result.

� e long and short of it is, if the seizure was legal, the players who backed him probably don’t have a good claim. Once Ivey won the money in the tournament, the backers had a contractual right to recover $87,205 from him, but they did not have the right to recover the particular funds that the Rio designated as his winnings. If multiple credi-tors are seeking money from a debtor, the basic rule is that the fi rst in time to get the money gets to keep it. If, for example, Ivey had put the money in a bank account and

paid the players before the Borgata seized the bank account, they would get to keep it.

Are there exceptions to this rule? Of course. � is is law, so there are always exceptions. One exception is that if a debtor grants a security interest in the debtor’s property, and the secured party takes the proper steps to let the world know of its interest (a process called, for some reason, perfection), then the secured party comes out ahead of other creditors, including judgment creditors.

For example, assume a dealer sold a car to Ivey on credit, took a security interest in the car, and properly perfect-ed. � en if the Borgata had the sheriff seize the car to satisfy its judgment, the sheriff would say, “Sorry. � e car dealer comes in ahead of you because you merely have a judgment while it has

a perfected security interest.” � e other nice thing about having a security interest, as you know from watching repo reality shows on TV, is that you can seize the assets in which you have an interest in without fi rst going to court.

� e other main exception to the fi rst-in-time rule is bankruptcy. We often think of bankruptcy as being for the benefi t of the debtor who declares bankruptcy, but it is also for the benefi t of the debtor’s creditors. Instead of the fi rst creditor to seize an asset coming out ahead, in bankruptcy they are all treated equally. And if a creditor got paid in the 90 days before the bankruptcy, it is likely that the payment will be clawed back so that all the debtor’s creditors can get a share of those funds.

Well, not all. � ere are exceptions to equal treatment in bankruptcy as well. Although judgment creditors get no advantage in the bankruptcy process, one group that does have an advantage is the creditors with a security interest. A properly perfected security interest generally remains eff ective in bankruptcy. � at is, bankruptcy will discharge debts, often for pennies on the dollar, but security interests are protected. A secured party is entitled to the value of the property in which it has a security interest, up to the amount of the debt.

� e moral of the story is that it can be hard to recover a debt. If you are a creditor and want to get to the head of the line when it comes to recovering from your debtor, get a security interest in the debtor’s property. If Ivey’s backers had gotten and perfected a security interest in Ivey’s share of the Rio winnings, they would have come ahead of the

Borgata. �

Scott J. Burnham is Professor Emeritus at Gonzaga University School of Law in Spokane, Washington. He can be reached at [email protected].

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026_S&A.indd 32 10/14/20 9:05 PM




GAMBLE 103: PROTECT YOUR ASS(ETS)By Nathan Gamble

“Any time you walk into a casino, you feel safe, secure, and comfortable. The floor is present, the eye in the sky is watching, and security has your back. Why would anyone cheat you in a casino? It would be the stupidest place someone could cheat. And yet, we know it happens.”

�is is the story about how I was kidnapped. On Jan. 11, 2008, I was a senior in high school well on

my way to graduating. I had college, and the women and alcohol-fueled parties that came with it, in my bright-eyed future. I was also still a bit clumsy, awkward, and had braces and a floppy mop of hair.

On that fateful day it was all set to change. I had a long-awaited appointment at the orthodontist to remove my braces, and a haircut appointment at the local mall. �e plan was to walk back into school a brand-new man, brimming with confidence that can only be bestowed by a new look. I was ready to take on the world! �e world had different plans that day.

I signed out of school at 9 a.m., successfully had my braces removed, and headed to the mall for a fresh cut. I pulled up in my dad’s old Toyota Camry, probably 13 years old at that point (it had been mine for two years and I had put more wear and tear on it than he had in the preceding years.) A few months prior I had slid into a ditch in a park-ing lot and there were still a couple cosmetic scratches left. Hell, even the passenger side sun visor had its mirror busted out and never replaced. It was older, it was clunky, but it was also reliable and got me safely to the mall.

As I sat in the barber’s chair, I slowly glided my tongue along my freshly revealed teeth thinking how weird they felt. I cracked a smile in the mirror and realized that change looked good. Before long the haircut was over, and I stood up and admired the work. It was shorter and more ‘surfer-esque’ than before, and I thought it paired well with my blue polo and dark jeans. I was feeling confident, like nothing could stand in my way and I was the master of my own fate.

I walked blissfully through the food court and made eye contact with a cute girl and shared a smile. Opening the doors revealed a bright and sunny world that I had to shade my eyes from in order to gain my bearings. It took a minute to figure out where I left the car, and just as I started heading into the parking lot a voice behind me yelled out, “Hey man!”

I turned around, expecting it to be someone I knew, but instead was met by a man in his upper twenties dressed in cargo shorts, a plain black t-shirt, and a ball cap resting over his short hair. He wasn’t anyone I knew.

He approached and told a story about how his car had broken down. He was waiting on a friend but for some rea-son wanted to wait it out at a gas station a few blocks away, maybe grab a bite to eat?

Looking back now the story obviously doesn’t add up. It didn’t make sense in the moment either. Something didn’t quite feel right and I told him no, sorry, I had to get back to school. He persisted though as we kept walking deeper and deeper into the parking lot, closer to the car. Finally, I relented. I was having one of the best days of my life, I was brimming with self-confidence, why not help someone out? It would only take me a couple minutes out of my way and it seemed proper to help share some of my good fortunate

with someone so down on their luck. We had arrived at my old trusty steed and I told him to jump in and I’d take him where he needed to go.

He jumped in, I started the car, and he pulled a gun out of his pocket.

“Now we’re heading to the bank!”We’ll continue this story in a future issue. But what does

it have to do with poker?I was confident, I was cocky, I was positive that no one

and nothing could stand in my way, and I let my guard down. Not slowly or at a mid-point defense, but all the way down.

By now you’ve heard or read about Stones Gambling Hall Tournament Director Justin Kuraitis. �e Stones Live stream operator has been accused of having helped Mike

026_S&A.indd 33 10/14/20 9:05 PM



CARDPLAYER.COM 34

Postle allegedly cheat a low-stakes casino cash game out of hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Kuraitis released a lengthy statement in September dis-cussing his claimed innocence and how the court system has exonerated him. I won’t delve too deeply into this other than to point out that Kuraitis stated he “wondered if it was possible that Mike Postle had cheated” and ultimately said he didn’t.

In reality, the overwhelming majority of reputable and trustworthy poker players that have seen the video evidence have concluded that he did indeed cheat. But what is prov-able by the laws of mathematics is sadly not always provable in the courtroom. We still have to say “allegedly” to avoid slander. We do not have suffi cient proof that he cheated, and Mike is still free to play at any casino or poker room that he walks into, assuming he can stand the dirty looks and insults thrown in his direction. We still have to say “allegedly” to avoid accusations of slander and libel.

Any time you walk into a casino, you feel safe, secure, and comfortable. � e fl oor is present, the eye in the sky is watching, and security has your back. Why would anyone cheat you in a casino? It would be the stupidest place some-one could cheat. And yet, we know it happens.

� e casinos spend countless millions setting up security systems and employing top-notch fi rms to ensure that they stay one step ahead of the crooks. Whether you are in a casino, on a regulated online site, playing on an un-regulated grey area site, playing in home games, or in an underground casino, you have to be aware. You can’t let your guard down.

� ere are a few things you can do to help protect your-self in any poker game you play:

Watch the big winner in the game, is it skill, is it luck, or is it something else?

Don’t keep your entire bankroll in one game, one site, or one location.

If it’s a new environment, pay attention to everything and listen to your instincts.

Count the rake being taken in home games. See if it goes up, or if a dealer happens to glide another chip in by accident a little too often.

� ink about the motivation of someone hosting a game, are they hosting for a couple hundred dollars of rake a night or is there more that’s happening behind the scenes?

Walk into every situation, every game, alert and obser-vant. Usually nothing is amiss, everything is on the level. But if you have the feeling that something just isn’t quite right? Walk away. Learn to say no. Learn to trust yourself, trust your instincts, and learn to listen to that gut feeling and it will help you avoid sticky situations at the poker table as well as in life. �

Nathan Gamble is a native of Texas where he learned to play Texas hold’em from his father. He is a two-time World Series of Poker bracelet winner, the first coming in the 2017 WSOP $1,500 pot limit Omaha eight or better Event, the second in the 2020 Online WSOP $600 PLO8/b

event. A fixture of the mid-stakes mix game community, he can often be found playing $80-$160 mix games at the Wynn since moving to Las Vegas in 2019. He is active on twitter under the username Surfbum4life and streams mixed game content regularly on twitch under his username Surfbum4lyfe.


AnalysisTOURNAMENT HAND MATCHUP In this hand, Mikita Badziakouski goes for home run value on the river after hitting top pair, and Jason Koon ends up making a hero call with fourth pair. � e clash began with Badziakouski min-raising the button with A-K with just over 130 big blinds. Koon made the call from the big blind with 6-5 suited as the short stack with 28 big blinds. Koon picked up middle pair with some backdoor straight and fl ush possibilities and checked to Badziakouski, who made a continuation bet of 150,000 into the pot of 488,000. Koon called and the turn brought the J�, an overcard and the end of any backdoor draws for Koon. He checked a second time and Badziakouski decided to slow down by check-ing back with his A-K high. � e K� completed the board, giving Badziakouski top pair, top kicker. Koon checked a third time after yet another overcard had hit. Badziakouski made a chunky bet of 650,000 into the pot of 787,500. Koon went into the tank for a bit with what was now fourth pair. WSOP bracelet winner and WPT main event champion James Dempsey was doing commentary on the fi nal-table action for this online event, and he noted that it was an interesting spot for Koon given that Badziakouski had checked the turn. “� e K-Q, K-10, they’re going to barrel [the turn], Q-10 is going to barrel. Of course, there are hands like K-7, K-8, but it’s harder to give Makita a king on this board than it may seem.” Badziakouski might be inclined to just show down a 9-X or J-X holding now that the king had appeared on the end, which might have led Koon to believe that Badziakouski either had a very strong hand or a bluff . Koon made the call and fell to below 20 big blinds. � e two players ultimately made it down to heads-up play together, where they struck a deal that saw Koon earn $810,869 as the runner-up while Badziakouski locked up $1,062,730 and the title.

A

A

K

K

6

6

5

5

9

9

5

5

4

4

K

K

J

J

Koon checked, and Badziakouski bet 150,000. Koon called.

Koon and Badziakouski both checked.

Koon checked. Badziakouski bet 650,000, and Koon called.

With three players remaining and blinds of 50,000-100,000 and an ante of 12,500, Mikita Badziakouski raised to 200,000 from the button. Jason

Koon called from the big blind.


ANALYSIS


Jason Koon2,800,000 Chips




FLOP

PREFLOP

TURN

RIVE

R

026_S&A.indd 34 10/14/20 9:05 PM

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ARIZONA

TALKING STICK RESORT - SCOTTSDALEMONDAY-THURSDAY 10:15 a.m. NLH, $125FRIDAY-SATURDAY10:15 a.m. NLH, $200

CALIFORNIA

OCEAN’S ELEVEN - OCEANSIDEDAILY9:00 a.m. NLH, $55 AO $5

FLORIDA

BESTBET - JACKSONVILLEFRIDAY 12:00 p.m. NLH, $160SUNDAY 12:00 p.m. NLH, $160

PALM BEACH KENNEL CLUB - W. PALM BEACHFRIDAY - SATURDAY 12:15 p.m. NLH, $120

ILLINOIS RCG POKER (for locations see RCGPoker.com)EVENTS, NEWS, AND UPDATES CAN BE VIEWED AT RCGPOKER.COM

MARYLAND

LIVE! CASINO & HOTEL - HANOVERMONDAY 12:15 p.m. NLH, $120 KO $25 7:15 p.m. NLH, $140TUESDAY12:15 p.m. NLH, $140 7:15 p.m. NLH, $120 KO $25WEDNESDAY12:15 p.m. NLH, $1307:15 p.m. NLH, $130 THURSDAY12:15 p.m. NLH, $150 7:15p.m. NLH, $160 KO $50 FRIDAY 12:15 p.m. NLH, $2207:15 p.m. NLH, $320 KO $75 SATURDAY11:15 a.m. NLH, $3007:15 p.m. NLH, $150

SUNDAY11:15 a.m. NLH, $1006:15 p.m. NLH, $130

MGM NATIONAL HARBOR - OXON HILLMONDAY11:15 a.m. NLH, $140 ($3.5K Guarantee)7:15 p.m. NLH, $240 ($6K Guarantee)TUESDAY11:15 a.m. NLH, $140 ($3.5K Guarantee)7:15 p.m. NLH, $140 ($3.5K Guarantee)WEDNESDAY11:15 a.m. NLH, $140 ($3.5K Guarantee)7:15 p.m. NLH, $140 ($3.5K Guarantee)THURSDAY11:15 a.m. NLH, $240 ($6K Guarantee)7:15 p.m. NLH/PLO, $240 ($5K Guarantee)

NEVADA

SAHARA - LAS VEGASSATURDAY & SUNDAY1:00 p.m. NLH, $120 RB $100

VENETIAN HOTEL & CASINO - LAS VEGASMONDAY12:10 p.m. NLH, $150 ($4K Guarantee)6:10 p.m. NLH, $125 KO $25 ($2K Guarantee)TUESDAY12:10 p.m. NLH, $150 ($4K Guarantee)6:10 p.m. NLH, $200 KO $50 ($4K Guarantee)WEDNESDAY12:10 p.m. NLH, $150 ($4K Guarantee)6:10 p.m. NLH, $125 ($2K Guarantee)THURSDAY12:10 p.m. NLH, $150 ($4K Guarantee)6:10 p.m. NLH, $125 KO $25 ($3K Guarantee)FRIDAY12:10 p.m. NLH, $200 AO $100 ($10K Guarantee)SATURDAY12:10 p.m. NLH, $340 ($12K Guarantee)6:10 p.m. NLH, $125 ($2K Guarantee)SUNDAY12:10 p.m. NLH, $250 ($7K Guarantee)6:10 p.m. NLH, $125 ($2K Guarantee)

NEW YORK EASTERN POKER TOUR PUB POKER EVENTS, NEWS, RANKINGS AND UPDATES CAN BE VIEWED AT EASTERNPOKERTOUR.COM

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Poker Leaderboards

AUSTRALIAN ALL-TIME TOURNAMENT EARNINGS LEADERBOARD

Rank Player Earnings

1 Joe Hachem $12,368,734

2 Michael Addamo $11,150,509

3 Kahle Burns $10,954,790

4 Jeffrey Rossiter $6,391,691

5 Jeffrey Lisandro $5,496,298

6 Jonathan Karamalikis $4,228,310

7 David Steicke $3,654,270

8 Alex Lynskey $3,502,616

9 Martin Kozlov $3,376,875

10 Mel Judah $3,366,069

Two Australian young guns have made their way to the top of the high-stakes, no-limit hold’em tournament scene in recent years. As a result, they both have skyrocketed up the standings on Australia’s all-time money list to put pressure on World Series of Poker main event champion Joe Hachem, who banked $7.5 million when he won it all in 2005 and another $2.2 million when he won the WPT Five Diamond World Poker Classic a year later.

Michael Addamo has cashed for more than $4.8 million so far in 2020, bringing his career total to more than $11.1 million. Addamo currently sits in second place on Australia’s tournament earnings list. He is also in 11th place in this year’s Card Player Player of the Year race standings, with five POY-qualified final-table finishes to date. He most recently won the $100,000 buy-in high roller event during the World Poker Tour World Online Championships for just shy of $1.3 million, which you can read more about in this issue.

Featured story subject Kahle Burns has accumulated more than $3.1 million in earnings so far this year, bringing his lifetime total to just shy of $11 million. Burns has made six POY-qualified final tables in 2020, and currently sits in fifth place in the POY rankings. Burns earned his second-largest career payday ever this January by taking down the $100,000 AUD buy-in super high roller at the Aussie Millions. He was awarded $1,204,988 as the champion of that event. All told he has made eight scores of six-figures or higher in 2020. The upshot is that Burns now occupies the third-place spot on this leaderboard, and is within striking distance of the top two.

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HIGH-STAKES POKER PRO KAHLE BURNS TRAVELS THE WORLD ... · Ten Comprehensive Poker Courses On...

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