Federico Butteroni to be eliminated first leaving Helmuth heartbroken!!!

 #Guess2Win #wsop1

#RoadtoMalta and #IveyRead.

Ivey talking? Now I know this is some BS. Ivey barely talks at the table. Great player he may be but he will never win personality of the year! This must be a robot!!! A mechanically engineered bot with in built personality upgrade! It must still have Philip's poker skills though so to the hand...

We nknow these pro's are top notch at mind games. I'm never folding here as there is not alot that beats us. I feel if we shove we just confirm his read or even look stronger. I call to keep his bluffs in and see what he does on the turn. If he has flatted AA then gg!!

#RoadtoMalta and #BOMFT

My dream Final table.

1: Erik Seidel - A genius in poker who has moved with the times. Won't say much but it would be a pleasure to watch him play live.

2: Vicky Coren - Good player, beautiful, chatty and a brilliant spokesperson for poker. My #1 poker crush! Haha

3: Vanessa Selbst - One of the best tournament players around. Her aggressive style will make for plenty of action at the table.

4: Nathan "BlackRain79" Williams - Microstakes king. His books and articles have helped many a struggling player at the micro stakes including myself.

5: Phil Ivey - No explanation needed!

6: Jennifer Tilly - Funny, wild and will liven the table talk up. She can wear that too if she wants!!!

7: Daniel Negreanu - Another legend of poker. Great ambassador for poker. Got to invite Kid Poker.

8: Jennifer Shahade - Not only crushes poker but chess too! A great intelligent mind and I do prefer to have a few good looking female faces at my table rather than the sausage fest some others like! Haha

9: Me - Microstakes whale, regularly paying off the nuts with 3rd pair!

#RoadtoMalta #CaptionMalta.

Here is the situation.

You’re playing an invitational televised tournament. The blinds are 5,000/10,000.

You’re in the Big Blind with 900,000 chips. Everyone folds until a player in middle position, with 1,000,000 chips, who limps in.

The rest of the table folds. You check.

The flop reveals

Q♠5♠4♣

You’re first to speak. 
You bet 15,000.

Vilain raises to 30,000.
You call.

The turn is 

4♦

You check.

Your opponent bets 55,000.

You’re confident with your trips. You raise to 155,000.

It takes vilain less than 10 seconds to announce a 3-bet to 255,000!

You call.

The river shows a

6♥.

You check again, letting your opponent keep on the aggression.

And once again, it takes him less than 10 seconds to anounce…

ALL IN!

What do you do and what’s your reasoning?

Fold! Fold! Fold! We have no reads on villain and he is doing his damn best to get his chips in the middle. I think this is the nuts and we are behind. We can still fold here and have plenty of chips to stage a comeback. A flopped set is very possible, most likely 55. It's unlikely villain has a 4 after raising the flop thinkg about it, unless it's the A4 of spades. We beat a badly played AA or KK, busted draws and a bluff. I say this is some crazy action for a bluff.

Take a deep breath, fold and find a better spot.

 #RoadtoMaltaHand and #HandMalta3.

You’re playing an invitational televised tournament. The blinds are 5,000/10,000.

You’re in the Big Blind with 900,000 chips. Everyone folds until a player in middle position, with 1,000,000 chips, who limps in.

The rest of the table folds. You check.

The flop reveals

Q♠5♠4♣

You’re first to speak.
You bet 15,000.

Vilain raises to 30,000.
You call.

The turn is 

4♦

Your opponent donk bets 55,000.

You’re confident with your trips. You raise to 155,000.

It takes vilain less than 10 seconds to announce a 3-bet to 255,000!

What do you do and what’s your reasoning?

Villain's line look's very strong and i'm certain that villain has it here acting so fast. Not many people will 3-bet bluff here without much thinking time. With stack sizes what they are I don't think we can just call and fold river to many of the cards that will not help our hand or change the situation dramatically, it's shove or fold in my opinion. If villain had a strong flush draw it would likely have been raised on the flop and also the board has now paired making that even more unlikely. I can't see villain making this move with a bare Q.  VIllian could have flopped a set with 55, it seems this could be in his range, alot of will limp in with small pocket pairs in the hope of seeing it on the cheap. A4, K4? Unlikely given the board runout and also that we hold a 4 ourselves but when considering the action also it may be possible. Given villain's strong line I really don't see much that we beat that villain would do this with. Surely would have raised with AA-KK so will rule them out. Slowplayed QQ? Typing as I think so this may seem a bit of a ramble. I take a big sigh and fold.

Wait for a better spot. We still have chips. :)

 #RoadtoMaltaHand and #MaltaHand2.

Here is the situation.

You’re playing an invitational televised tournament. The blinds are 5,000/10,000.

You’re in the Big Blind with 900,000 chips. Everyone folds until a player in middle position, with 1,000,000 chips, who limps in.

The rest of the table folds. You check.

The flop reveals

Q♠5♠4♣

You’re first to speak.

What do you do and what’s your reasoning?

Nothing fancy here. Villain has shown weakness by limping pre flop, I would have likied to reraise here and cbet most flops as I will take the pot down a large majority of the time. However, as played I prefer to fire out this flop, while we do only have bottom pair we have many outs that will improve our holding such as a 5 and a 4, we also have the back door flush draw although while the weaker end of draws could still help us make the best hand. a 6 also wouldn't be a bad card improving our equity and giving us more reeason to barrel with improved equity if we think villain will fold. If he calls, we have plenty of bail out cards.

 #RoadtoMaltaHand and #MaltaHand1.

Well the nice thing to do would be to take a friend to Malta but sod that, I hate those fools! This is my chance to live like a balla and escape the mundine work grind. It's my time baby! One time!

 I get there and go see the car collection (10pts), it's ok but dissapointed to not see my Vauxhall Zafira inluded. Next I go wine tasting (10pts), it's full of gargling noises and I think spitting it out in a bucket is a waste of good liquor. Down the hatch in one! I drink my bodyweight in wine and head to dinner. (15pts)

You can't beat a good steak. I'll have mine with masses of chips and garden peas. Nice one!

I head to the Music Club (15pts) and do the Cha Cha Slide for 4 hours straight only stopping to down copius amounts of shots! Right now for the good part, head to the strip joint (20pts) for a couple of hours where a lose my WSOP main event buy in money which I have been saving for ten years! Oh well, Sleazy Sally was well worth it!

Next day i'm so hungover I go to the main event in just my dressing gown and slippers, security don't bat an eyelid at me. I get one of those Thai massages to give my aching body a boost (10pts). It's so good I fall asleep in my Main Event seat and sleep the entire tournament. My chips are blinded off for a few hours and I wake up and the cleaners are poking me to go home.

Ah well, at least I never got the chance to donk my chips off with 72 offsuit in the first hand like last year!

Now for once last visit at the Strip Club to see Sleazy Sally!!! (20pts)

#RoadtoMalta #LifeStylePackage.

6th decision:

This is a new hand.

You are on the bubble now. Just one short of the money!

As usual at this time, most of the players will fold anything, the short stacks try to hold on as long as possible… and it lasts for ages…

Until this one hand where the player on the Button limps in on your big blind. He has 25BB in his stack.

As far as you know, he has qualified via a satellite tournament, and he is a

6th decision:

This is a new hand.

You are on the bubble now. Just one short of the money!

As usual at this time, most of the players will fold anything, the short stacks try to hold on as long as possible… and it lasts for ages…

Until this one hand where the player on the Button limps in on your big blind. He has 25BB in his stack.

As far as you know, he has qualified via a satellite tournament, and he is a very tight player who hasn’t played a hand for 2 hours.

The woman in the Small Blind folds.

So you are in the Big Blind. You hold 5♣Q♦ and your stack is 25BB. The exact same amount as the villain.

A bit tired, you casually tap the table and dully say, “Check”.

FLOP:

5♠5♥K♥

This is the kind of board that wakes you up immediatly!

His eyes hidden behind his sun glasses, villain pushes all his chips in the middle and says “All In”.

What do you do?

I'm on the bubble where players are notoriously tight. Nobody wants to be the bubble boy and everybody just wants to make the money. This means making some super tight folds and giving up really strong hands. People may say i'm crazy but I think this is one of those situations.

First of all villain limps. He is unlikely to have a premium hand here. Bubble or not I think he is raising with AA and KK every time here with a 25bb stack. 

Our focus in this hand should be on this: very tight player who hasn’t played a hand for 2 hours.

Do we really think he is going to just get crazy and ship his stack in here right on the bubble without the nuts here? I don't. He won't be doing it with a draw or even a weak Kx taking in the bubble factor. I doubt he had AK or KQ as villain would have raised pre flop. I can't seem to put villain on anything but A5. Now that is a limpers hand! Middle pocket pairs wouldn't ship it with a K on board and weaker 5x hands would just be open folded.

Making the money is paramount to me. I'm sickened to fold this but locking up a cash is what this game is all about. It's a hard fold and it sickens me but the player type and information we have is a huge factor in this hand. Hasn't played a hand in 2 hours and just ships? Come on!

I FOLD!!!

 #UnibetBubble and #Decision6  .

5th decision:

The blinds are still 500/1000.

In UTG+1, a player who likes to see a lot of flops opens with 2.2BB. He has 30,000 chips in his stack.

UTG+2, with a 90BB stack, calls.

You have now 34BB. In the BB position, you call with J♦8♦.

FLOP:

10♠3♦Q♦

You check.

Villain UTG+1 bets 5,000 chips.

UTG+2 folds.

You call.

TURN:

6♥

You both check.

RIVER:

9♣

You are first to speak.

What do you do?

I think this is a pure bet for value spot. I'm hoping villain does not have KJ but I'm not so worried about it since we hold a blocker to that hand. I think there are plenty of other hands in his range that we can get value from. Since villain liked to see alot of flops he could have some weird 2 pair type hands or a pot controlled Qx and KJ is a smaller part of his range when stacked up to them in my opinion.

I bet 8000 expecting to get called by alot worse. If we get shoved on it will be a very nuts line that we are facing and we can even consider folding as we still have just less than 20bb left. It will be sick to fold to a shove I admit but this is the bubble and we must be willing to fold when we know we are beat because cashing and not cashing is a massive difference.

#UnibetBubble and #Decision5 .