After storming the poker scene in 2006, winning 2 bracelets and the coveted Player of the Year title at the World Series of Poker, Jeff Madsen made everyone stop and stare. Just 21 at the time he accomplished more in that one month span than a lot of players have in their whole poker career. Since then, though, he has found another win to be elusive. Consistently going deep, but Madsen still didn’t have that next win. On February 14th, that all changed for him. He took down the $1500 NLHE event at the Los Angeles Poker Classic, became $100,000 richer and finally got what he likes to call ‘the monkey off my back.’
KL: How many events at the LAPC have you played?
Jeff: This was my 5th event.
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You could blame it on the growing popularity of the Full Tilt Online Poker series and the immense fields but the professional poker players have essentially been shut out at FTOPS XI.
Former World Champion Huck Seed and WSOPC winner Peter Feldman nearly changed that on Friday. Seed just missed out on the final table of FTOPS XI event 20 No-Limit Hold’em 6/Max by coming in 11th while Feldman came in 9th at FTOPS Event 21 Razz.
Both Full Tilt Pros made several thousand for their efforts but you can be sure they were gunning for first place.
Meanwhile on Saturday Chris “Moorman1″ Moorman came in 8th place in Event 23 Pot-Limit Omaha.
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For awhile it looked like the thousands of poker players on www.fleetstreetgames.com would be kicked to the virtual street after the site closed down but PokerStars has decided to forge a deal with FleetStreet letting all their players transfer their balances to PokerStars’ online poker site.
Fleet Street Games started just last February and had a unique format, which offered subscribers from all over the world the chance to enter numerous poker tournaments each for just one fixed monthly fee.
Unfortunately the site was particularly hard hit by the economic downturn and Fleet Street Games was unable to raise its second round of funding.
PokerStars, on the hand, is the world’s largest online poker room (with 19 million players word-wide).
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At Titan Poker, you get rewarded with valuable points for playing at Titan Poker cash tables and that gives you the power to earn even more rewards! Thanks to Titan Pokers generous rewards structure, you can also earn your way into higher levels within the Club! VIP levels are based on the number of player points you earn each month and the higher your VIP level, the better your Titan Poker VIP benefits will be! Best of all, you get all of these great rewards just for playing at your favorite tables!
To get your share of massive players perks, just Download Titan Poker and get $50 FREE plus a deposit bonus of 100% up to $500 just for using the bonus code POKERWORKS. Read full
The Full Tilt Online Poker Series (FTOPS) was nearing its final days as the Thursday and Friday tournaments wound down. With players anxious to take advantage of their last few opportunities to claim a coveted FTOPS title and get in on the millions of dollars in prize money, the tables were full and action-packed.
Event 18: $200 + $16 Pot-Limit Omaha Heads-Up
The popularity of PLO combined with that of heads-up tournaments led to Event 18, hosted by one of the newest Full Tilt pros, Soren Kongsgaard. A total of 803 players entered, bringing the prize pool to $160,600, a great deal more than the $100K guarantee. Read full
WPT Champion and WSOP final table finisher Shawn Buchanan gets a help from lady luck in this hand against high stakes regular theJOKER-JSB
In these days of nosebleed stakes, two poker professionals playing $100/$200 No-Limit heads-up is barely news worthy. In reality, these two relatively unknown professionals have close to $100,000 in play between the two of them.
Shawn Buchanan (buck99) has been playing high stakes poker for a few years now, typically when Buchanan gets $40,000 into a pot he gets it in with the best of it.
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I was playing 2/5 NL Hold’em and had about $800 in front of me. I had been looking down at K3 off for about 2 hours and had built up a pretty tight image at the table. One guy was advertising how tight I was to the table, so I took it upon myself to use this image to my advantage by bluffing a few good size pots. A while later, I looked down at J9 of spades and decided to limp in middle position. There were 4 players to the flop.
Flop: 10s Jc 3s
The small blind bets $35, early position folds, and I take a moment to think. Personally, I get a warm fuzzy feeling inside every time I hit top pair and a flush draw.
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Mike Sexton appeared in a South Carolina court today to defend poker as a game of skill.
Sexton was a witness for the defense, in the case of Bob Chimento and four other poker players who were charged with illegal gambling arising out of a 2006 police raid in connection with their weekly poker game.
Although Chimento and his fellow defendants could have pleaded guilty and paid a fine of between $100 and $250 to make the case go away, they decided to fight.
They filed a motion to dismiss the criminal case against them on the grounds that the statute was unconstitutional, but the lower court judge ruled against them and the case was instead set for trial.
PokerListings spoke with Sexton right after his court appearance to discuss his testimony.
PokerListings: Tell us about your testimony in the case.
Sexton: I was there to testify on whether or not poker was predominantly a game of skill or a game of chance.
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Most modern no-limit hold’em players, particularly those schooled online, are familiar with lines like three-betting light and continuation betting. These strategies are especially prevalent when playing in aggressive six-max online games, and especially short-handed or heads-up games. Three-betting frequently provides an adjustment against players who open with a wide range, and continuation betting is an obvious way of taking down pots when you have momentum and it is likely you have hit or your opponent has missed.
However, as you move up in stakes most players not only use these lines, but also have counter-measures to exploit them.
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UK Player of the Year 2008, NEIL ‘ BAD BEAT’ CHANNING
TOTAL POINTS 1,224
FINAL TABLES 2
HIGHLIGHT IRISH OPEN CHAMPION
Whether at home or abroad, Neil Channing’s tournament game has really hit a new level in 2008. We got up close and personal with the newly-crowned UK Player of the Year to ask him about the secret of his most successful year ever.
Neil Channing is a man in demand. To many within the UK game he occupies a multiplicity of roles: player, friend, confidant, coach, moneylender, bookmaker, role model, cash-game organiser, backer and general piss-taker – sometimes all of these rolled into one. But
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