The poker scene in 2019 saw quite a few memorable moments. From the biggest poker tournament ever to utter madness at the World Series of Poker. Poker history is littered with stories that hardly seem able to be true, but what we saw in Las Vegas was truly unbelievable.
Here is our look at some of the best poker memories from 2019.
Ragnarok Online along with many old school MMORPGs emphasized grinding from the get-go. While the game did have some quests they were relatively few and never rewarded much experience. Players simply moved from map to map finding efficient grind spots for their level range. Hard drive: You don’t need a big Hard Drive for online poker (even 128gb will get you by) but you might want to consider a much-faster Solid-State Drive (SSD), which actually speeds up a ton of real-life tasks. Top 3 Online Poker Laptops. Without further ado here are three great choices for a poker-playing laptop as of 2014.
Biggest Poker Tournament in History
The Triton High Roller Series is going from strength to strength. Some even opine that it might be considered the true World Series in this day and age.
After touring in places such as Jeju, South Korea, and Montenegro, the Triton Series arrived in London to run their usual schedule of high roller tournaments featuring the best players on the panet. Only this time they had something special in mind - a £1 million charity event.
This was to be the biggest poker tournament in history.
Although it was Aaron Shu Nu Zang who took the plaudits, Bryn Kenney had the better side of the heads up deal and took home $20,563,324.
It’s going to be a while before any poker tournament winner collects more than that.
Chris Moneymaker Inducted in the Hall of Fame
After how poker was transformed following Chris Moneymaker’s famous victory in the WSOP Main Event 2003, it was only just a matter of time before he was given this recognition.
The American, who qualified for the tournament through an $82 satellite online, defied the odds and walked away with his life changed forever.
Many have continuously pointed out that Moneymaker has never been considered one of the game’s elite players, but neither has he ever claimed to be so. This is why we love the game of poker, and why people always keep coming back to play.
After his role in growing the game to incredible heights he surely deserves his place in the hall of fame.
Insanity at the World Series of Poker
While poker has no doubt thrown up more than its fair share of characters over the years, this year’s World Series of Poker gave us two incidents we never thought we’d see.
Russian born Georgii Belianin stunned onlookers during the main event when he swiped a pile of chips that did not belong to him into his own stack. Belianin was reportedly drunk, which he later admitted in an apology statement.
Those who know the man said this was totally out of character but this did not change the feelings of tournament director Jack Effel who immediately disqualified Belianin.
The young Russian was clearly having a bad day, but it got worse when he tried to return to his hotel room only to be reminded he was now banned from all Caesars properties world wide. This resulted in a night in the cells after a confrontation.
The second bout of insanity is as bad as it gets. Ken Strauss shoved all-in without checking his cards then proceeded to drop his pants and bare himself at the whole playing hall. After shouting some random abuse he then took off one of his shoes and threw it at the dealer.
As you might expect he was soon escorted from the property. Later he was banned from another casino and soon began making terror threats to businesses in Las Vegas. After being locked up on terrorism related charges he was found unfit to stand trial and sent to a secure hospital.
You really couldn’t make it up. This isn’t something you will find in any American Casino Guide.
Bryn Kenney Breaks the $50 Million Barrier
Best Online Poker Reddit
Daniel Negeranu stood atop the live tournament winnings list for a long time. When Justin Bonomo overtook him we thought he may start to race away, but then the Triton Series intervened and Bryn Kenney was the man to benefit.
The $20 million plus that he won in the £1 million charity event raced him past the $40 million mark and also past $50 million. With so many high roller tournaments being offered all over the globe these days it really makes you think that $100 million will be seen in the coming years.
Small stakes online poker tournaments are fantastic fun. They can be frustrating at times — I’ll give you that — but for the most part, it is difficult not to enjoy yourself while competing in one.
They are also potentially lucrative beasts, not least because they tend to attract players in droves. On some sites — in particular PokerStars — tournaments with buy-ins as small as $1-$10 may see several thousand hopefuls take to the virtual felt in the hope of turning their tiny investments into much more meaningful sums.
As you can imagine, the majority of these huge fields are populated with recreational players and therefore the standard of play is, as a rule, very poor. That’s not to say navigating your way through the crowds and winning one of these things is an easy task, because it isn’t. In other words, don’t think you’re going to deposit $200 online, play a bunch of these tournaments, and suddenly be rolling in cash like Scrooge McDuck in Ducktails. It’s not going to happen.
What is going to happen, or what should happen, is that you continue reading this article — and others you find in the Strategy section — and once you’ve armed yourself with the weapons of knowledge, you go out there and apply that learning to do more than just enjoy these tournaments, but to profit from them as well.
2019 Reddit Memes
Here are five tips designed to help you both prepare for and find success in small stakes online tourneys.
1. Be Prepared For a Long Session
Most of these low buy-in, big field tournaments take several hours to complete, so you need to be prepared to play for a long time. Be patient as always, but also be ready for a lengthy grind should you go deep in the event.
I’ve been fortunate enough to chop the $3.30 rebuy on PokerStars twice. On both occasions the tournament started at around 7:00 p.m and we finished at 6:30 a.m. This is all well and good if you are a poker pro who can sleep the next day, but you have to take into consideration work commitments if you have a job. Know what you’re potentially getting yourself into when registering for these events.
That said, the tournaments available at WSOP Social Poker do not take hours to complete, making them great to play when you have a little spare time from the daily grind.
2. Be Prepared For Some Crazy Swings
The variance in small stakes poker tournaments is huge because of the sheer number of opponents you have to get through and the fact many of these opponents can be nearly impossible to put on a hand. Also of significance when playing against a large field full of recreational players is the possibility of players calling your raises — even your all-in ones — with some ridiculous holdings, adding further to the unpredictability of outcomes.
While this situation is very favorable in the long run, over the short term you can often find yourself running worse than you ever thought possible. Make sure therefore you have an ample bankroll to fall back on when times are hard — something in the range of 200-300 times of your average buy-in (I’d recommend).
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Play Now3. Keep it Simple and Value Bet Your Hands to the Max
DO NOT try to run an elaborate bluff at any stage of the tournament because it will only lead to tears of sorrow. A lot of your opponents only care what cards they have in their hand and won’t realize from your actions that you’re representing a specific hand — they just want to get to showdown and hopefully win.
More often than not in these events you will want to keep matters simple, playing “ABC poker” and letting the cards fall how they will.
Along the same lines, make sure you get the maximum value from your made hands. Higher-stakes tournament grinders may routinely fire 1/3 pot-sized bets at their opponents, but that’s because it is more difficult to get paid off at those stakes. At the lower end of the spectrum, you can get away with betting more. Because so many of your opponents will love to call your bets, you may as well take advantage with your strong holdings.
4. Listen to the Betting / Prepare to Lay Down Some Big Hands
How often have you heard poker players bemoan their luck and come out with some rubbish such as “I can’t beat these donkeys, they always hit the nuts on the river.” What they don’t tell you is that “these donkeys” often play their hands in a manner that allows you to get away from pots should you need to.
For example, if a weak player has limp-called preflop, called the flop, called on the turn, and then leads into you on the river when the flush comes in, guess what? That player almost certainly has the flush. The same is often true for raises on the river. Even if the only hand that beats you is , if an obviously weak player raises you on the river, you have to consider that he or she probably has !
5. Don’t Worry About Playing a “Balanced Style”
If someone tells you that you have to play a “balanced style” of poker inlarge-field small stakes poker tournaments, laugh and walk away. While you have to do this higher up the poker food chain, you are highly unlikely to come up against the same players ever again in a field of 3,000-10,000 foes, so you can be as unbalanced as you wish.
That means not worrying so much about not revealing certain patterns with your play, such as always betting big with strong hands. While against stronger opponents you should balance your play by varying your bets and actions so as not to be read so easily, against large fields of less skilled opponents this isn’t as great of a concern.
Obviously, the five tips above are not all you need to be successful in small stakes online tourneys, but they should at least help you in your quest to turn a little into a lot!
This article was originally published on Feb. 14, 2017. Last update: Jun. 18, 2019.
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