Brian: for crying out loud, whatta h*ll were you thinking of?!

Townsend says he hasn’t logged on his “aba20″ account at all, since he opened the “Makersmark666″ account on PokerStars. For now on, he’ll only use the “aba20″ screenname, says he. On Full Tilt Poker Townsend used both screennames actively, but never on the same table, though. The “Stellarnebula” account has now been closed.

Full Tilt Team has suspended Townsend for 6 months as a punishment for his actions. In practice this means that “Brian Townsend” will not be seen red-colored at the tables for another half a year. Apparently all the Full Tilt benefits have also been cancelled for the time being. PokerStars penalties have not been published, yet, says Townsend.

Brian has told he enjoyed the anonymity while playing lower limits in the Internet - and that’s why he opened up the twin accounts.

Con man or bona fide dumm case?

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Brian “sbrugby” Townsend kicked out of Team Full Tilt!

Overall I must say I’m a pretty solid player, winner in the long run. Still there are those days when you question yourself - “why you even play the game?”.

Yesterday I said that I love poker.

WHAT? DID I SAY THAT?

Poker is all about minimizing your losses and maximize your winnings - well of course. I would probably be able to say that I love the game today… if it was just that easy.

Me and you, we will both have to face all of the unfoldable hands that still are the worst when it’s time for the showdown. Everybody except Phil Hellmuth will probably experience it. He is just the best and will never make a mistake (hmm, you might want to read this line with a bit of irony).

But the thing is that normally when I’m running on a bad beat streak it feels like it’s not going to end ever! Normally it last at least for two days and maybe even up to a week. Since I’m an internet player many (too many) of my friends would say that it’s because of the rigged poker sites. There is nothing that fires me up more when someone says this. Why the heck would they rigg sites?

I think this is just a bad excuse for a loosing player. So all of you reading this, go to the casino for 3 hours a day or whatever time you play online and see for yourself - YOU WILL GET THE BAD BEATS THERE AS WELL!

Open your eyes!

And since we are already talking about badbeats and being punched in the face by the allmighty fist of “Mr. Bad luck” I found out that Adam Weinraub did experience just this in the “Legends of Poker” - the tournament which is running right now at the Bicycle Casino. He was the chipleader of the event when he first invested a lot of money on his set just to find his opponent with a higher set. He then got beat up big time with his KK on a 10 10 X K X board. What did the opponent have if not the 10 10? Good for him, and Adam was just happy to still be alive in the tourney.

You can check out the standings at http://liveupdates.worldpokertour.com/tournament/

My bet goes for Lee Markholt!

Until next time - don’t make any excuses!

-Kristofer

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Poker can be so cruel - but please don’t make any excuses!

Patrik Antonius, a Finn from the city of Vantaa (located in the Helsinki metropolitan area), has become one of the leading poker players in the world. Patrik’s bankroll is counted in millions of dollars. At the poker tables Patrik is known by his aggressive playing style. He rarely ”tilts”, either.

Patrik is often seen in Las Vegas, where he regularly visits ”Bobby’s Room” at the Bellagio casino. Bobby’s Room hosts some of the biggest games in the world. Patrik has also won millions of dollars in the Internet games.

-Patrik Antonius with his old look

The collapsed dream of a professional tennis player

During his earlier years, Patrik had a dream of becoming a professional tennis player. At the end of his mandatory military service, the physical condition of his back didn’t allow him to continue with the pursuit of his dream. At the age of 11 Patrik had already become familiar with playing poker at the family backyard. The winnings were invested in candies at a local convenience store. Since then, the bets have grown…

While Patrik was suffering from continuous back pains, he found the Grand Casino Helsinki. Every Wednesday the casino hosted a 25 dollar buy-in No Limit Hold’em tournament and Patrik won one of those tournaments making 275 dollar earnings. At that time, the Helsinki Casino had only one cashgame, which was pot-limit Omaha with 2-2$ blinds. A lot of times Patrik took a shot at that game and went broke on several occations.

Patrik was experiencing downward spiral, where he won at home games and lost that money at the Helsinki Casino. Finally he got to take advantage of the home game lessons and started to win at the 2-2$ PLO games. Still Patrik was a rookie in the game, he didn’t understand the nuances of it, and was a complete outsider when it came to the odd mystery language of the players, with terms like “outs” and “ gutshots”. Later on those concepts became very familiar.

A 200 dollar deposit turned quickly to 20.000 dollars

Patrik learned poker by playing, not by reading. In the summer of 2002, he was winning consistently at the casino and the home games, allowing his bankroll to grow on a steady pace. All this was very exciting and new to the man. However, his bankroll shrunk substantially due to Patrik’s trip to Italy to learn the language and the Italian cuisine.

In January 2003, Patrik invested 200 dollars in Internet poker, and won 20.000 dollars in just two months. The thought of being able to play at any given time and at several tables simultaneously, was astounding. Patrik took a break from his studies at Helsinki Polytechnic to concentrate in playing poker.

At that time, Patrik played online poker 12 hours a day, 7 days a week. Several months of playing finally paid off, and his bankroll grew from 20.000 dollars all the way to 80.000 dollars. Patrik took shots at the bigger tables, when the games were going well, since he wanted to face the best online players and learn their winning tactics. Patrik learned a lot from the game that year.

Learning English in the USA

While the games at the poker tables were looking good, many of Patrik’s friends were playing tennis at various universities in the US. Patrik’s back started to feel better and he took upon the opportunity of traveling to USA to play tennis and learn the language.

During his time in the USA, Patrik studied English and played tennis during the daytime, and evening times he played poker in the IT classroom of the school. There was only a few hours of time left for poker every day, but Patrik’s run of cards was burning hot, and he managed to win 150.000 dollars at 50/100$ limit Hold’em games.

Patrik also played 5/10$ and 15/25$ PLO games and his bankroll was already up to 250.000 dollars. He also managed to won a ticket to a WSOP tournament, and was on his way to Las Vegas by the time the school ended.

Having spent six months in a small town in Virginia, Las Vegas felt like heaven to Patrik. Other players complimented Patrik’s games in Las Vegas, which boosted his self-confidence. After the WSOP tournament, Patrik flew back to Virginia, packed up and returned to Finland.

After his return, Patrik kept grinding in the online games and doubled his capital in just two weeks playing 200/400$ limit games. For the following two years Patrik played as much as he could.

Good times got better

In summer 2005 Patrik practically dominated live tournaments and the man was in flames! He won the Ladbrokers Scandinavian Poker Championship tournament in Stockholm and gained 66.261 dollars. He came third at EPT Barcelona and made 145.000 dollars. At EPT Baden he won again, which decorated his bank account with 343.000 dollars. The biggest victory came at the WPT tournament in Bellagio, where won just over one Million dollars.

Patrik moved to Las Vegas in January 2006. There he met Maya, and the couple quicky got engaged. Later on, Maya gave birth to a baby girl, and the parents named her Mila. Patrik is often seen in Bobby’s Room at Bellagio and at one point of the year 2007 he walked out of Bobby’s Room eight times in a row as a winner.

Residence in Monaco and joining team Full Tilt Poker

Patrik moved to Monaco recently, since he had missed Europe so much for several years already. This summer Patrik was invited to join the precious Team Full Tilt Poker - now you can find him playing at the biggest tables under his own name. He has even gotten a few of the biggest tables named after him.

-Patrik Antonius with his new look

Barry Greenstein’s analysis on Patrik

Barry Greenstein has seen only two rookies at Big Games, who have won at mixed games without playing other games first. The other is Patrik Antonius and the other is Phil Ivey. He, thus, compares Patrik to Phil Ivey, who is considered to be probably the best poker player in the world.

Barry Greenstein has a habit of making analysis on the high limit players at his web site. His analysis for Patrik Antonius is:

Aggressiveness: 9
Looseness: 9
Short-handed: 9
Limit: 7
No-limit: 8
Tournaments: 7
Side games: 8
Steam control: 5
Against weak players: 7
Against strong players: 7

Barry Greenstein’s funny story about Patrik

Barry was on his way from Las Vegas to Los Angeles and so were Patrik and Roland De Wolfe, too. Roland asked, if Barry would like to travel with them on a limousine to L.A. Barry wanted to show a good gesture and accepted the invitation and rode along. The limousine to Los Angeles costs about 700 dollars, Barry says. The boys had arranged a limousine from Bellagio and the driver was a nice stud player.

Half way through, the driver makes a stop at a Greek restaurant and Patrik tips him for the trip. Patrik hands him a stack of bills – worth of 1.900 dollars to be exact. Barry wanted to take part in the slightly absurd tip, too, and assumed that Patrik didn’t know how much is a proper tip.

Patrik didn’t ask Barry to pay his own share, but Barry offered 700 dollars from his pocket anyway. After all, Barry had often met foreigners who spent dollars like they grew on trees, only because the newcomers didn’t understand they value of the currency. So, Barry thought that’s what had happened with Antonius as well.

Barry told the guys that 1.900 dollars was a bit too much to give the driver. Roland commented that the limousine cost 1.700 dollars and thus they had only given a 200-dollar-tip. Afterwards it cleared to Barry that the driver had been tipped too little, and he then tipped 300 dollars more.

Patrik was surprised when Barry told him that the limousine drive to L.A. would have been available for free – a service that is provided to all high limit players. Patrik wondered why Roland hadn’t mentioned it… not that the limousine driver minded the lack of information, though!

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Featured player: Patrik Antonius

Chat with the Devilfish in his new weekly bounty tournament with €250 bounty and €250 added at DevilfishPoker.com

Each week starting from Thursday Aug. 28 at 8 p.m. BST poker legend Dave “Devilfish” Ulliott gives poker players a chance to chat and play with him at his site DevilfishPoker.com

Ulliott will regularly take part in the €10 freezeout bounty tournament and players will be able to chat to and ask questions of arguably the most recognised name in European poker.

“These tournaments are a lot of fun and a great opportunity for me to discuss strategy, life on the poker circuit, and generally catch up on what’s happening in the world of DevilfishPoker.com,” said Ulliott. “Everyone now has a chance to say they knocked out the Devilfish but I can guarantee you I won’t make it easy for them. I hate losing!”

There is €250 added to the prize pool by DevilfishPoker.com each week and the player who knocks Ulliott out will win the weekly €250 bounty prize and bragging rights forever.

Why the HELL play on Devilfish Poker?

* All multi-table tournaments guaranteed
* 150% up to €666 first time deposit bonus
* Daily freerolls at 7 a.m., 12 p.m. and 8 p.m.
* Up to 60% cash back in the Hellfire Club
* Play for real money — play in € Euro, $ US and £ Sterling
* A second cardroom — mix it up in ‘Cardroom2′
* Choice of two state of the art online casinos - Fire and Ice
* Qualify for our end of month €100,000 guaranteed tournament
* Best of all, play with me, Devilfish, at my fiery new home

Read more and sign-up here!

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Have fun, chat and knock out Devilfish - win €250!

Why don’t they add an award night to the EPT tour? I have actually had that question running around in my head some while back. Too bad I didn’t put it on paper as this year’s season 5 will kick off with just that.

EPT Awards, which will be something like the Oscars of poker.

As all of you know there is a lot of prestige to poker, and every single player out
there loves, and I mean LOVES to brag about titles. (Don’t hate me now, I’m a poker player myself:))

Ladies and gentlemen, here is a new chance to shine! I can imagine this is yet another thing the best players will struggle hard for to add to their list of WPT winnings, EPT winnings and WSOP bracelets.

There will be 9 rewarded categories as listed below, and 2 of those will be decided as “people’s choice” and the others will go American Idol style with jurys.

For me the “people’s choice” prizes are the most interesting to follow up. Can you just imagine what a great feeling it must be to win something that the people really think you deserve. Talk about a true feeling of appreciation!

The Award night will take place at the fantastic Opium Mar in Barcelona.
If you want to participate and cast a vote please visit
http://www.europeanpokertour.com/awards/how_to_vote.html

The categories and nominees are as follows:

People’s Choice Award - Open public vote
This is your chance to pick any player who competed in EPT Season 4, and vote for them to win this special award. If there’s one player who you think stood out from the rest, played the best game or entertained the crowds most, now you can help them get the award they deserve. Click How to Vote to make your choice.

Poker Writers Award - Open to accredited media
This category is open to accredited members of the media, and gives you the chance to vote for the player that you enjoyed writing about most during EPT Season 4. Who’s the player that always gave good interviews, made all the big moves and
impressed you the most? You decide. Click How to Vote to make your choice.

Best Newcomer:
Trond Erik Eidsvig
Denes Kalo
Jason Mercier
Annette Obrestad
Mike McDonald

Best Performance:
Jason Mercier
Julian Thew
Bertrand ‘ElkY’ Grospellier
Glen Chorny
Mike McDonald

Best Overseas Player:
Tim Vance
Isaac Baron
Raymond Rahme
Danny Ryan
Mike McDonald

Best PokerStars Qualifier:
Mike McDonald
Glen Chorny
Christian Harder
Isaac Baron
Danny Ryan

Player of the Year:
Luca Pagano
Trond Erik Eidsvig
Johannes Straussman
Jan Heitman
Thierry Van der Berg

Source: europeanpokertour.com

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Who’s the best EPT player - cast your vote!

Now they are fighting to grab their share of the $3,5 million prizepool - the winner will receive a nice paycheck worth $1.1 million. After the first days there will be 248 players returning, here are the top chipstacks:

1. Ali Eslami - 158,525
2. Adam Weinraub - 154,750
3. John Smith - 134,125
4. Freddy Deeb - 125,450
5. Armen Momjian - 116,700
6. Justin Scott - 107,325
7. Evan McNiff - 105,675
8. Neal Wang - 103,600
9. Steven Graham - 101,925
10. Sami Rustom - 101,100
11. Mark Seif - 100,050

Phil Ivey was the topic of today - he looked to be in a hurry to get out of the tournament. It took only under half an hour before he “snapped” and moved all-in under the gun without even looking his cards!

This was an easy call for Brian “tsarrast” Rast as he was holding the pocket Kings. Ivey looked at his cards only to find a measily 2-3 offsuit! And a moment later he exited the tournament.

-Phil joggling and Cunningham watching closely

Phil Laak was entertaining the crowd again with his crazy stunts - now he initiated a prop bet with Allen Cunningham.

Laak aka. “the Unabomber” bet two hundred follars that he could juggle three apples for one minute - of course without dropping them. Phil started with a warmup and completed the task on his first try of the 20 minute time period. Cunningham paid him with the words: “He looks so clumsy, I didn’t think he could do it!”

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WPT: Phil Ivey decides to play without looking his cards!

No-limit Texas Hold’em:

David Benyamine, a big winner this month at the high stakes tables decided to try out his luck at two No-limit Hold’em heads-up tables.

One was at RailHeaven against Phil Galfond (aka. OMGClayAiken) and the second was the $300/600 against Hac “trex313″ Dang.

David lost over $100k against Phil and a similar amount against Hac!

Here is how the action unfolded:

At table Mars, David was having some trouble folding his gutshot straight draw after 3-betting preflop. He is ‘rewarded’ when his opponent flips over a set of 9s to win a $125k pot:

David got down to about $30k when he 3-bet preflop and then bet the Q93 flop with 2 diamonds. What he hadn’t though about was that his opponent might be slow playing a hand, aces:

Over at table RailHeaven $500/1000, David Benyamine tried to pull off a $100k bluff by check-raising his opponent all-in on the river with a middle pair. Phil thought for a bit, but his time bank had nearly ran out so he decided to call with the top-pair:

Limit Texas Hold’em

The Limit Holdem tables have been pretty quiet for a long time - now there was some action when Benyamine entered the $1.000/2.000 tables for some good action!

Now players like Tom “durrrr” Dwan, Matt “Hoss_TBF” Hawrilenko, Chau “La Key U” Giang, “slaktarn” and “OneTimePls” all were involved in heavy action. They played four $1.000/2.000 tables simultaneously - giving lots of action to the railbirds.

In the end it was Benymine who won the most - $116.000 and “OneTimePls” lost the most - $188.000.

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David Benyamine kicks and gets his ass kicked!

The winner of the tournament will gain $5.000 for travel expenses, since the winner will get to go to London for the WSOPE. In addition, Patrik Antonius will give his poker tips personally to the winner and also have a very nice dinner with the winner and the whole FullTilt Team.

And as a “cherry on the cake”: the winner gets to play a heads-up against Antonius. Beating the Finn will give the winner a ticket to the WSOPE 2008 main tournament! The value of the ticket is an astounding £10.000.

More information available here.

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Win a trip to London and quality time with Patrik Antonius

Lately we have seen ICallSoWhat playing more the Full Tilt Pokers $25/50 Pot limit Omaha games but this week he has made few visits back to the high stakes tables. It has been a well awaited return - now he ran also good following his win earlier this week.

This time around he played a longish session and left the virtual felt having pocketed $110k in the process.

The biggest pot he won was when he 3-bet Phil “OMGClayAiken” Galfond preflop. On the flop his opponent tried to make a move on him with a midlle pair, but ICallSoWhat wasn’t budging anywhere with his top two pair that improved to a full house by the river:

Slaktarn was a player that won a decent amount at the 6 max tables, yet ended up losing it all back to Urindanger in heads up Pot limit Omaha.

Urindanger beats Slaktarn for $120k at $200/400 PLO

During yesterday’s 6 max PLO action, Di “Urindanger” Dang decided it was his turn to show everybody what he was made of at Pot-limit Omaha.

He and “slaktarn” decided to play some deep $200/400 Pot limit Omaha.

It turned out to be a great decision as he ended up leaving with $120k in profit and sitting on a $202k stack!

Urindanger won the first decent sized pot of the session, when he called off slaktarn’s bluff with a jack high flush:

Surprisingly the biggest pot of the match was only $65k!

Urindanger flopped the bottom end of the straight on the flop and bet it heavily all the way and was paid off by a curious slaktarn:

Slaktarn has been involved in a lot of HU PLO matches recently and seems to losing quite a lot at them. OMGClayAiken is the man who’s won all the money off him.

Let’s hope they all come back for revenge!

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ICallSoWhat and Urindanger victorious!

-Galfond with a nice stack

The table was filled with big guns such as Steve “SteveSung” Sung, David Benyamine, Di “Urindanger” Dang and Steve “MrSmokey1″ Billirakis.

Billirakis couldn’t get his game going and he ended up losing the biggest pot of the session to Galfond. The pot was worth $327k and his total losses were around $200k.

Here are some huge hands from the session:

SteveSung makes a tough call on the flop, but the river favors Galfond:

Billirakis tries to make a huge bluff on the river - the $327.460 pot:

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Phil “OMGClayAiken” dominates RailHeaven-table - wins a $327.460 pot!