PokerTableRatings

Reid Bill Not Happening This Session

While it's nearly impossible to ever call a bill that has never been voted on dead, we can now say with certainty that the Harry Reid Internet Poker bill will definitely not be put through in this "lame duck" session of Congress. On Wednesday evening, executive director of the Poker Players Alliance John Pappas confirmed that Reid bill would not be added to the Bush Tax bill, thus ending the opportunity to regulate online poker by the U.S. Federal Government for now. “I think Senator Reid made a very good-faith effort to try to get the bill in a form that would be acceptable to be added to the tax bill that Congress did end up passing” said Pappas. “Those negotiations broke down last Thursday evening into Friday morning. At that time, we knew the bill wasn’t going to be able to go into the tax bill and that the opportunity to get a bill done this year was very limited. We’ve come to the reality that this is not going to happen this Congress.” The state of poker will remain status quo for the time being, but leaves online poker in somewhat murky waters heading ...

WSOP Bracelet On Sale, Tehan wins NAPT

This week, it became ridiculously easy to act like a champion of the Main Event of the World Series of Poker. All you have to do is buy the bracelet that Peter Eastgate has put up for auction. That’s right, Eastgate is placing the bracelet that he won at the main event up for auction, and donating the proceeds to UNICEF. Says Eastgate regarding the matter “Of course I am still extremely proud of my title to this day. But the bracelet itself, I am never wearing, since I really don’t wear any jewelry. So I thought that by giving away the bracelet and watches, a lot more people will hopefully be able to benefit from the items.” The starting bid for the most coveted piece of hardware at the World Series came in at $16,000 and Ebay has the auction open with the bid currently at $56,700 at the time of the writing of this article. And for all those that were wondering, yes the bracelet will come with free shipping. Check out the auction, which will be open until this Thursday here.

At the moment, one of most vocal interested parties has been the ...

Jungleman12 Wins 188k Playing PLO

Since he can't find any real action at the high-stakes NLHE tables, Jungleman12 has had to settle for taking shots at the PLO tables lately. His opponents may begin to take note as it turns out he may be twice as deadly with four cards. He’s a winning player at almost every stake, posting very impressive win-rates at the $10/20, $25/50, and $50/100 HU PLO tables. On Friday, he added to his winnings with sessions of $90,000 and $95,000 at $25/50 and $200/400 PLO, respectively. He didn’t win many large pots, but picked his spots well and picked up a lot of loose pots with some aggressive play. Here are his two largest takedowns of the day:

Jungleman hits a lucky turn and stacks superbaldas in this 26k pot.

Jungleman12 scoops a 54k pot after flopping a straight against superbaldas.

The session was rather unspectacular, but Jungleman12 definitely showcased some solid fundamentals and knowledge of the game.

He also played some $25/50 6-max Holdem, where he lost $33,000 in 590 hands, but it seems like no one is willing to take him on the higher stakes. The high-stakes ...

Arbianight Scores 486k at $100/200 PLO

The days leading up to Halloween have been monstrous for high-stakes regular Arbianight, as he has mashed his competition to the tune of almost half a million dollars in the last 48 hours. All of his profits came from three sessions (2263 hands) of $100/200 PLO and at the expense of some rather frightening competitors. For starters, he extracted about $100,000 from Nutsinho in 494 hands of HU play, and then had winning sessions of 167k and 218k within the next 36 hours.

The most painful session in the past two days belonged to Ben86, who was crushed for $193,000 in just 758 hands of $100/200 PLO. Although a few other players stopped by, a large portion of these losses came at the hands of Arbianight.

Here’s a look at Arbianight’s best hands against Ben86, Nutsinho, and a few others who tried to stand in his way.

AGAINST BEN86
• More good luck for A.N. leads to frustration for Ben86 in this 49k pot.
• Another monster for Arbianight and another headache for Ben86 in this 42k pot.
• Ben86 top set gets blasted by A.N.’s nut ...

RealAndyBeal Wins $435,000 in 24 Hours

Thursday's games at PokerStars began rather innocently, but afterthe relatively unknown RealAndyBeal got off to a hot and gained some confidence, the stakes quickly became much more serious. Winning 112k in four and a half hours of mostly $25/50 PLO obviously wasn’t enough for RealAndyBeal, and he quickly started climbing the ladder, ultimately finding himself engaged in a $200/400 HU battle with PLO specialist Skjervoy. A few other players dropped in during the session, but RealAndyBeal ended up being the biggest beneficiary of Skjervoy’s $527,000 red-swing, pocketing 435k after a 24-hour marathon session. Here are some of his biggest triumphs:

RealAndyBeal delivers a painful blow to Skjervoy’s set of queens. 100k pot.

RABl all but shuts the door on the flop for a 111k scoop.

88k pot. I want to highlight Skjervoy’s raise on the flop in this hand. It seems like a standard play, but I think there is something to be learned from it. If the flop had innocently landed 26J with two diamonds, I believe Skjervoy would probably just call RealAndyBeal's bet instead of raising his king-high flush draw. But since the flop landed 596 with two diamonds ...

October High Stakes UGL - Week 2

It takes skill, luck and good timing to make it to the top of the high-stakes UGL leaderboard. It also helps if your profit comes at the expense of the previous week's leader. And that's exactly how Aaron "aejones" Jones has pulled to the front of the 25/50 NL pack halfway through October.

Jones helped relieve last week’s leader IReadYrSoul of virtually all his monthly profit in a single heads-up session on Oct. 8. After all was said and done over 1,139 hands, Jones ended up $89,726 to the good. In this particularly devastating hand for IReadYrSoul, he flops trips against Jones’ pocket kings. The turn, however, is a king, giving aejones the second nuts. IReadYrSoul waits until the river to make what he expects to be a value raise, and shoves all-in. Of course Jones insta-calls and scoops ...

Nanonoko In The Hunt at $600NL

Running the streets at 200NL this October is aintnobodyrilla of Full Tilt Poker winning $11,035. He has spent a lot of time on the leader board in recent weeks and this month is no exception. With a $1,800 lead over second place and just two weeks remaining in October. This could finally be his chance to secure a UGL victory.

Dominating 2/4NL 6max this month is dimadu. A relatively new player on PokerStars, he has only 89k lifetime hands, half of which were played in October. Nonetheless, dimadu has won $16,274 this month and brings himself into positive lifetime earnings. However, not too far behind is two-time badge winner pobolero. With this type of threat lurking behind dimadu, he is really going to have to focus if he wants to protect his lead.

Semptember Low Stakes UGL - Week 3

The 25NL leader this month is rshofbldtothehd. The epitome of a "low-stakes grinder," rshofbldtothehd has played nearly 400k hands of 25NL in his career.

In September alone rshofbldtothehd has played 48k hands at this stake level and won $1,861. This brings his picture-perfect graph up to $12,007 in lifetime winnings. However, the fight for second place is all but over with less than $40 separating HippieAlbino in second place from ur_suspect in fourth.

Continuing his hot streak this September at 50NL is asseskiller of ...

August Mid Stakes UGL - Week 3

As we charge into the third week in August the competitors for 200NL badge are starting to narrow. PakWaan is currently sitting pretty with a huge lead, putting up a monstrous 1/2NL month.

Accumulating $21,285 in 80k hands, PakWaan is nearly $8,000 ahead of his closest competitor. Despite playing a LAG style, PakWaan has had very consistent results in the mid stakes games on IPoker. If he can hold out for just one more week, he will be able to add a UGL badge to his already impressive PTR stats.

August High Stakes UGL - Week 2

After two weeks of August, two relatively new accounts were out in front on the 25/50 NL leaderboard.

In first place was x6th_street, whose first tracked hand on PartyPoker came on Aug. 4. In that short time, this player has been tearing up the short-handed and full-ring games and has already amassed more than $140,000 in winnings. That came largely from one short-handed session on Aug. 4 and then a full-ring session on Aug. 5 which each netted x6th_street more than $26,000 in profit. A little luck always helps in a run like that, and x6th_street certainly enjoyed some good fortune in this particular hand, where he opened ace-eight suited from the cutoff, got 3-bet from the small blind, then 4-bet from the big blind and decided to push all-in. He was in bad shape against the big blind ...