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Lederer was dealt 10-7 of spades and raised the blinds to $1,200 to go after everyone else folded the action to him. Kaplan made the call with Q-J of spades and the two saw a flop of 2d-Ah-8s. After Kaplan checked the action to Lederer, The Professor made a bold bluff of $1,300. Kaplan paused for awhile, and eventually made the call with nothing in his hand. He must have put Lederer on the bluff, or he had intentions to make a bluff of his own on the later streets.

When the turn card was the 2h, Kaplan decided to make good on his hunch and he bet out $3,000 into The Professor. Lederer was stopped in his tracks for a few minutes, but after thinking about the hand he begrudgingly made the call. The river card was another ace, the ace of diamonds, which was an action killer if you ever saw one. Kaplan had figured that Lederer must have had a hand if he called the $3,000 bet, so he checked the action to Lederer instead of firing again at the pot a second time. If he would have followed his instincts about the hand, he would have won it with another bet.

Lederer immediately recognized the opportunity that the second ace gave him and he bet $3,500 on the river. Kaplan was convinced that this bet was a pure value bet, and that Lederer must have an ace for the big boat. He folded the best hand and Lederer won a big pot of $8,200, and eventually went on to earn the $120,000 winner-take-all prize pool.

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With blinds of $1500, three players – Jamie Gold, Antonio Esfandiari and Guy Laliberte – called the action, leaving David Benyamine to act last. Benyamine made it $21,200 to go with a 7-2 off-suit after sensing that the table was weak. The only call he got was from Jamie Gold, who was holding K-10 off-suit. They saw a flop of 6d-8h-3h and Benyamine came out betting an amount of $38,000. Gold reluctantly called, most likely to try and steal the pot on the later streets.

With the pot up to $122,000, they saw the jack of spades come on the turn. Somehow Benyamine had the courage to make another bet of $80,000. Gold immediately folded the hand to Benyamine, who flipped over his 7-2 to show the bluff. Gold was surprised at Benyamine’s cards, and immediately gave Benyamine praise for the incredibly bold move.

This type of play is common enough in a poker tournament setting. But Benyamine made that move in a cash game, with over $100,000 of his own money on the line. They weren’t tournament chips, and that’s a lot of cash to put out there on a bluff like that. But it’s not like Benyamine can’t afford it; he plays in the biggest games online as well as High Stakes poker and games in Bobby’s Room at the Bellagio.

Not only did he make the move with the 7-2 off-suit, he did it at a table that had Barry Greenstein, Doyle Brunson, Erick Seidel, Sammy Farha, Patrick Antonius and Antonio Esphandiari. The move was breathtakingly bold. But it’s that very unlikelihood that a player would make a big raise in a situation like that one, against those players. That, in a sense, made it a good move because everyone gave him credit for a big hand.

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It seems that David Stucke felt he was priced in with his K-10 off-suit, and also called the raise in the big blind. For some reason, Jones also called the raise with his 7-2 of hearts. So four of them saw a flop of 2-4-6, and Jones came out betting 2,600 chips with his pair of deuces. Negreanu then raised it 10,300 more, and after a minute or two, Antill called with his set. That cleared the other two players out of the hand and Antill and Negreanu looked at an eight on the turn.

Negreanu was already sensing something from Antill, and checked his over pair. Antill then checked as well, and the two players saw another eight come on the river. Negreanu wasn’t taking the bait, and once again he checked the action to Antill. As soon as Antill said, “I’ll make it 15,000”, Negreanu said right back to him, “I make it 15,000 with pocket sixes or sevens, which is it?” The pot was over 48,000, and the bet wasn’t that big, but Negreanu eventually said, “I’m gonna fold second-best hand”, and mucked his over pair.

Luckily Daniel Negreanu can’t see through your soul when you’re playing at Pinnacle Sports Poker. Antill gave Negreanu too much information about his hand through his actions, and that’s difficult to do online. Luckily most of the players you’ll play against at Pinnacle Sports Poker won’t come near the poker skill of a Daniel Negreanu.

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Holding A-3 of diamonds, Montgomery pushed his remaining stack of 6.3 million. After a bit of thought, Peter Eastgate made the call with pocket sixes. After the hole cards were turned over, it looked like Montgomery would be going home. But a flop of A-4-Q gave him a commanding lead in the hand. After the turn brought another ace, Eastgate was down to two outs – or so it appeared.

At this point in the hand, Dennis Phillips decided he would tell everyone that he had mucked a six earlier pre-flop. Pocket cams showed that he indeed did muck one of the sixes, so Eastgate was down to one out, and a 2% chance of winning the hand. No one believed he had a chance, but the poker gods had other things in mind on this day.

Unbelievably, the river brought the final six, knocking out Scott Montgomery in fifth place. The crowd let out a huge gasp when the card hit the board; nobody could believe Montgomery’s bad run of luck. He still earned over $3 million, so it’s hard to feel bad for the guy. He also has one of the best all-time WSOP final table bad beat stories to tell for the rest of his life.

So now you know that bad beats like this don’t just happen at Pinnacle Sports Poker. Every game has crazy beats, even live games with hundreds of cameras on hand. Don’t feel so bad the next time you get your chips in with a big lead, only to suffer a crushing defeat. Nothing is for sure until the hand is over, or your opponent is drawing dead.

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These new 3-D poker sites look to incorporate physical tells into play by providing a number of actions to choose from that your avatar character can perform. This adds – at least to a degree – the physical aspect back into the game. A player can add more of these expressions as they earn frequent player points, giving experienced players the ability to intimidate others with movements and chip tricks they’ve never seen an opponent display before. You can customize your avatar character, and change it up if you like. There are even chip tricks you can show off to the players at your table.

This technology has only recently been functional up to a level that can compete with the speed of two-dimensional software. Most poker sites like Pinnacle Sports Poker and other major online providers in the poker space have graphics that are two-dimensional, and play is fast. Having to wait for images to load up is no advancement in play. But today’s 3-D sites have real-time action, and play just as many hands as traditional sites. 3-D sites also represent the fastest growing poker sites, especially with younger players.

There are still lots of limitations until the 3-D sites experience further growth and development. Choice of action is limited, and poker tournaments are not as big as in the leading poker rooms like Pinnacle Sports Poker. It seems conceivable that all poker sites will eventually convert to a 3-D setup.

The bigger rooms will soon offer the option of 3-D play, and players will decide if they want 3-D poker more than the old online game. Many poker aficionados will still prefer the anonymity (and advantages therein) of the faceless online game, and may never want to play a game that takes that away.

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The 23-year-old’s first cash online was in 2006, so Houghton has achieved this lofty level of success in just two years. His multi-table tournament scores are so numerous and consistent over the last 10 months that to list them all would be onerous to read.

Some of Houghton’s big scores include $100 Re-Buys (April, $20,790); the $200 Re-Buys, $200 Heads-Up tournament & FT $1k Monday (all June, over $155,000); the Stars $5,000 Winner Takes All (August, $50,000); and the Sunday Second Chance (October, $54,480). In November, Houghton took down Event #8 FTOPS ($250 NLH) for a career-best score of $137,154.

Houghton was a regular in the old Gutshot Club (now the International Club) along with Poker Verdict’s Tony Phillips, who named Houghton as one of his favorite players. His live tourney results are not as impressive, with only seven cashes since September of 2006. Although, with his last four cashes coming in the last five months he seems to be improving his live game as well. Houghton has been carrying the label of ‘the most underrated player in the world’ for a few months now, but if he continues on his current run he won’t have that label for much longer.

Since March he’s showing over $1M in profit on PokerStars and another $600,000 on Full Tilt. Sharkscope.com has his sit-and-go profits at over $130,000, an amazing feat when you consider all the games he plays at once. So if you see “rivermanl” or “whatariver1” in a big tournament at Pinnacle Sports Poker, you should beware that it’s probably Laurence Houghton, and that you’re most likely sitting across from one of the best young players in the world.

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Plens’ largest online cash to date came on August 11 2008, when he won the Party Poker Birthday Million for first-prize money of $233,775. Three months later he won the PokerStars Sunday Million for another $189k. He also has a victory in the PokerRoom $100k Guaranteed for $30,500 along with a victory in the PokerStars $100 re-buy for another $24,600.

Plens has also been playing live events for a couple of years and has four live tournament cashes since March 2006. That doesn’t seem like much, but they total up to more than $250,000. At this past World Series of Poker he went deep into the main event and finished 42nd, earning a $154,400 paycheck for his efforts. His other big live tournament cash came in 2006 when he finished second, earning another $95,000 at the 12th Vienna Spring Poker Festival.

Many online players have difficulty adjusting to the slow pace of the live game, but Plens puts his time to good use. “Sometimes I’ll stand up to stretch and walk away from the table. However, when I have a deep run, I try to absorb everything I can.

“I don’t get a chance to make a deep run in a live event very often. When I finish, I want to be able to say that I did everything I could to give myself the best chance to win.”

Plens goes by the same username at every poker room he plays in online. The only variation is he that he drops the 9 from “therookieeqq9” on occasion. So if you’re sitting across from a player named “therookieeqq9” at Pinnacle Sports Poker, you had better pay close attention to what he’s doing.

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Stammen has had a good run in the fall and winter of 2008. His notable recent cashes include a fourth-place finish in the FTOPS Event #9 on November 9 2008 for a payday of $84,577, a fifth-place finish in the $215 Sunday Million on November 2 2008 for $55,635, and a sixth-place finish in the same event on November 23 2008 for another $39.550.

Just last month “Stammdog” cashed for another $43,920 when he finished third in the 1K Monday event on December 22 2008. He’s also had a dozen cashes of more than $10,000 since the summer months, including a $33,541 cash in the $109 re-buy event and a $58,7000 cash in the $530 NL hold’em event on PokerStars last July.

Stammen has tried to duplicate his online success in the bigger live tournaments but thus far has not been able to break into the ranks of the elite live tournament players. He has a dozen live tournament cashes, but only one of them is over $20,000. He cashed four times at the 2008 WSOP, but those cashes totalled just over $50,000. Stammen stated in an interview that he would be playing $100,000 worth of buy-ins at the 2008 WSOP, so it looks like he’s still losing money on the live game circuit.

This rising star plays in most poker rooms under the name “Stamdogg”, and also goes by the name “Stamdizzle” on occasion. So if you run into either of those usernames in a tournament at Pinnacle Sports Poker, forewarned is forearmed.

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Sagstrom’s internet success eventually led to live games. He’s played mainly Euro events with winnings totalling over $168,700. On the live circuit he’s known as the “King of Ding”, and hasn’t had a notable cash in two years. He was involved in creating a poker room called PokerChamps.com with Gus Hansen and Tony Guoga. He was also the player who played Liz Lieu in a three-game, $200,000 head-to-head match in 2006.

It`s unknown how much he’s won playing online cash games, but Sagstrom has been reported to be killing the games for years. Figures that get thrown out there have him averaging a cool million in winnings a year, a testament to his game and his ability to adjust to the ever-changingonline poker scene.

Sagstrom operates under “Erik123”, “the Salmon”, and the “King of Ding”. He could be playing under other names that haven`t been revealed yet, so if you run into him at Pinnacle Sports Poker you likely won’t know it at the outset.

When asked what advice he would give to aspiring young players, Sagstrom said, “Poker will always be there, there’s no rush to get up in stakes. Start low and stay low until you feel secure enough to move up in stakes. Then you have to try to be objective enough to see if you have a talent, and if not, maybe don’t take it too seriously.

“Play a lot of small buy-in tournaments and develop your own style. Stay aggressive, and if you’re a good player see the flop often – most people won’t know how to play the flop. To make money online you have to concentrate and develop in one game – be a specialist.”

Keep an eye on this star, and if you see his username pop up at Pinnacle Sports Poker make sure you’re ready to cope with the thrill of playing against one of the online world’s dominant young players.

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Since July of this year, Turmezey has had cashes of $43,000.10, $23,460.00, $17,556.00, $32,016.00, $31,378.50, $19,147.81, $37,500.00, $28,890.00, $15,295.00, $91,250.00, $72,100.00, $18,112.50, $16,155.00, $15,050.00, and $196,024.50; not to mention many other smaller cashes.

It’s only recently that Turmezey’s name has become available to the public, and he’s mainly kept to himself and avoided the limelight. He goes by “breeth” at some online poker rooms, but his username at another site is “twirlpool”. Up until recently Turmezey played mainly online action, but his recent success has led to him playing more live events. He has three cashes in Euro events totaling over $39,000, and added a 31st-place finish in the 2008 WSOP Main Event for $46,086.

At the tender age of 22, Turmezey will be on the scene for many years to come. Not only is he crushing the online multi-table tournaments, but he’s also an accomplished pot-limit Omaha and $10/$20 hold’em cash-game player. He’s easily Hungary’s top-ranked online player, and if he keeps up this pace he’ll take over “AJKHoosier1” home atop the online rankings.

Turmezey has recent victories in the $109 re-buy event on PokerStars, the $40,000 Guaranteed re-buy event on Full Tilt Poker, the Sunday Million on PokerStars – again in the $109 re-buy event – plus $65,000 guaranteed on PokerStars, the $40K guaranteed on Full Tilt Poker, the Sunday 500 on PokerStars and the Sunday Brawl on Full Tilt Poker.

Expect to see Turmezey in live events over the next couple of years. He hasn’t made the move to Vegas yet, but the challenge of playing the best card players in the world will eventually beckon to him. He’s only recently turned of age to play poker in Vegas, so we should see more of him as time moves forward. He certainly has the bankroll now to travel to any game at which he desires to sit.

Keep an eye on this rising star, and if you see his username pop up at Pinnacle Sports Poker make sure you’re ready to cope with the thrill of playing against one of the online world’s dominant young players.

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