The fields were super-sized during World Record Week and December 28th’s special edition of the Million drew a mind-boggling 16,260 players to the felt creating a prizepool of $3,252,000, easily surpassing the $2.5 million guarantee placed on the event in honor of World Record Week. As the tournament neared the end of its fourth hour, 2.475 of those players made the money, with Katja Thater winning the Team PokerStars Pro last-longer, making a deep run that ended in a 134th place finish.

Podarok ended up the final table bubble boy, busting out in 10th place when salmor turned a flush against his flopped two pair. With that, we had our final nine, their stack sizes looking like this:

Seat 1: lp_SakiSaki (31,505,955 in chips)
Seat 2: manifest23 (13,908,936 in chips)
Seat 3: kharak (14,643,069 in chips)
Seat 4: MauryFishant (2,944,989 in chips)
Seat 5: salmor (26,352,162 in chips)
Seat 6: Beufford (13,892,416 in chips)
Seat 7: La_Alvarado (12,286,663 in chips)
Seat 8: AAmerican (35,907,574 in chips)
Seat 9: k0rt (9,458,236 in chips)

Kharak was the first player to exit the final table. After AAmerican opened for 1.5 million with blinds of 250,000/500,000, khrarak moved all in for 10.8 million and salmor called from the big blind. AAmerican gave it up and kharak revealed Ah-Qc to salmor’s 9d-9h. The first race of the final table went to the underpair, as the board ran out Jc-8c-4d-6d-4h, eliminating kharak in 9th place for a $22,764 payday. Next to go was La_Alvarado, who from the small blind shoved over the top of lp_SakiSaki’s 1.5 million opening raise and MauryFishant’s flat-call. Lp_SakiSaki folded but MauryFishant made the call. La_Alvarado was in trouble, his Ac-Td dominated by MauryFishant’s As-Js. La_Alvarado couldn’t catch up on the eight-high board and he hit the rail in 8th place, collecting $32,520.

Nearly 30 minutes would pass before the next elimination. With blinds up to 400,000/800,000, MauryFishant opened for a min-raise to 1.6 million. AAmerican shoved for just over 3.9 million and MauryFishant made the call, showing Qh-Jh to AAmerican’s Ad-5h. A queen hit the flop, though and AAmerican could not improve, finishing in 7th place for $50,406. Four hands later, salmor would get very unlucky against lp_SakiSaki. With the board reading 7c-6s-5c-7h, salmor moved all in on the turn holding As-7d, only to run into lp_SakiSaki’s flopped straight with 4s-8s. The 3d fell on the river and salmor was out in 6th, earning $73,170.

Manifest23 was the short stack as play turned five-handed, and with only seven big blinds left, he needed to make something happen quickly. He moved in on a steal from the cutoff, but Beufford looked him up, showing pocket sixes to his 3c-6c. No help on the board for manifest23 and he collected $97,560 for his 5th place finish.

With the field down to four k0rt broached the subject of a deal, but lp_SakiSaki quickly put the kibosh on it. Then, only about twenty seconds later k0rt was all in against lp_SakiSaki and in great shape, with Kc-Kd vs. lp_SakiSaki’s Ad-Js. Though the flop was a seemingly safe-looking 9h-8c-6c, lp_SakiSaki turned the Qh and rivered the Tc to make a runner-runner straight and sent k0rt to the rail with a one-two punch and $130,080 in his pocket for 4th place.

Beufford was the next to bring up a chop, asking if his opponents wanted to “look at numbers”. With 70 million in chips to Beufford’s 54.2 million and MauryFishant’s 37.3 million, lp_SakiSaki again declined, preferring to play it out for the full amount. Though MauryFishant won a few small pots early on in three-handed play, his stack began to dwindle steadily while lp_SakiSaki turned up the aggression. He may have been tightening up, he may have been utterly card-dead, but when he found 3c-3h on the button, he raised to 4.8 million, only to have lp_SakiSaki move in for his entire 101 million stack from the big blind. MauryFishant made the call, and was crushed to see lp_SakiSaki turn up Kc-Kd. The flop was Jh-7h-4s, and though MauryFishant got a ray of hope on the turn when the 5c fell and he picked up a gutshot straight draw, the 2d on the river sealed his elimination in 3rd place. He earned $162,600 for his finish–which, on a “normal” weekend, would be close to the Million’s top prize.

As lp_SakiSaki and Beufford went heads-up, their chip counts looked like this:

Seat 1: lp_SakiSaki (127,356,568 in chips)
Seat 6: Beufford (35,243,432 in chips)

Lp_SakiSaki began heads-up play with a nearly 4-1 chip lead over Beufford. The two mostly traded small pots, lp_SakiSaki grinding Beufford down to a low of 21.3 million to his 141.2 million, but Beufford was able to double up to 42 million when he made two pair and lp_SakiSaki’s straight draw failed to materialize. Beufford appeared to be gaining momentum and at one point narrowed the gap to a 5-3 chip deficit, but ultimately, it would not be enough to overcome lp_SakiSaki. On the final hand, lp_SakiSaki opened for 2.8 million from the button and Beufford called. Beufford led out for 4.2 million on the 8h-2d-2c flop and lp_SakiSaki came along with a call. The turn was the 4c and Beufford made a massive all-in overbet for his remaining 50.7 million in chips and lp_SakiSaki practically beat him into the pot, showing 2h-8d for a flopped full house! Beufford and his Kd-8c were drawing nearly dead–only the case 8 could end the hand in a tie. The Ts fell on the river, though and lp_SakiSaki took down the largest non-WCOOP tournament ever held on PokerStars, banking $331,378.80 for his win. Beufford earned $227,640 for his runner-up finish.

After playing for huge stakes with no chop of the prize money, here’s what our nine finalists took home:

Sunday Million Results for 12/28/2008
1st place lp_SakiSaki ($331,378.80)
2nd place Beufford ($227,640)
3rd place MauryFishant ($162,600)
4th place k0rt ($130,080)
5th place manifest23 ($97,560)
6th place salmor ($73,170)
7th place AAmerican ($50,406)
8th place La_Alvarado ($32,520)
9th place kharak ($22,764)

For more information on how to register or satellite in to the Sunday Million, hit up the Sunday Million page.

Team PokerStars Pro Greg Raymer is preparing to help Team USA defend its title in the PokerStars World Cup of Poker. In just a couple of weeks, Raymer and the team will be in the Bahamas for the World Cup live finals. Greg was part of Team USA when it won the championship in 2007. We asked him to give us his thoughts on what it takes to get ready for such a big event.

by Greg Raymer

The PokerStars.com World Cup of Poker is a great event. I was only able to read about the earliest editions of this event, but was very fortunate to be asked to be a member of Team USA at Barcelona in 2007. I was already coming to Barcelona for the popular EPT tournament that takes place there, and was asked to stick around after the EPT to play in the World Cup as the celebrity member of Team USA.

The World Cup is a unique tournament, with four of the members winning their way onto their countries team via freeroll satellites on PokerStars.com or by being one of the top two point leaders in the annual TLB competition on PokerStars.com. In 2007 Tyler Netter was the TLB leader and captain of our team, with Shaun Deeb also getting onto the team via the TLB. Satellite winners were Randy Principe and John Kenlan. Now these four guys did some of the hardest work, by beating out a slew of countries in the online tournament.

You see, once you get onto your countries team, you still have to beat out other teams to advance to the live finals, and they did that in 2007. Only afterwards was I asked to play alongside them in Barcelona.

Once in Barcelona, we all got together to discuss strategy. This is the key to winning a team competition. In a regular tournament, you can follow one of two viable strategies, play for first, or play for money. In team competition, it is important that you balance your strategy with the team’s overall strategy, to best maximize the team’s chances of advancement.

Playing for a team is so different than playing for yourself. If I make a correct but marginal decision in a tournament and get eliminated, I am disappointed, but happy that I made a correct decision. In team play, you feel like you let everybody else down, and the disappointment takes a lot longer to fade. The key is to determine the strategy together, so then you know that the decision you made is the same decision the rest of the team would have made.

Also, a lot of poker players can get emotional. It is essential that as a team you support one another, call time-outs to settle down a player who is getting emotional, and lend them your support. Once the emotional player remembers they are representing all of you, they usually have no problem regaining control and playing their A-game.

The most important thing that we did as a team to win in 2007 was exactly this, we supported one another. I was clearly the member of the team with the most live tournament experience, and I did not hesitate to share all of my advice with the other members of my team. In addition, captain Tyler and Shaun both have played thousands of online tournaments, and know the basic strategies of tournament poker by heart. They also pitched in to help our other team members, both of whom were good players, but much less experienced. As a team we developed our overall strategy, given the structure of the World Cup. That, plus a few key cards, guided us to victory.

It was a great feeling to represent my country, something I had never done before. The prize money for this event, while not chump-change by any means, was a lot smaller than the $5 million I won for the WSOP. Yet, winning this event carried with it just as much emotion. This was so mostly because I was representing not just myself, but my country and my team.

We will have full coverage of the World Cup of Poker January 6, 2009 live on the PokerStars Blog.

One of the key leaks in weak players games is that they bluff for very obvious reasons.

The most obvious of these is desperation, usually in situations where their hand has missed and the only real option that they have to win the hand is to bluff - regardless of what signals of strength have been given off by their opponents.

This kind bluff nearly always occurs on the river, when they have missed their hand, and are basically thinking along the lines of ‘Well I’m at the river, my hand can’t win at showdown, I was hoping to hit my gutshot/flushdraw/straightdraw/over cards/whatever, and now my only option left is to bluff’. This is not their only option of course, as they could fold or check fold, saving themselves a great deal of money over the long run.

The main reason for these situations occurring with bad players is they usually have not planned the hand in advance. They have fired on flop and turn, built a large pot out of position, and are now left in a horrible spot on the river. If you can plan your actions for multiple streets you can avoid ever getting in these situations.

Once you have taken these sorts of plays out of yoru game, you can start taking advantage of other players making them. These bluffs are nearly always the same, in that the line taken by the player makes no sense considering their normal style of play. Much of this is up to the read on the player, but typically they happen on boards that just don’t fit the story that you are being told.

A typical example of this is when an opponent raises pre flop, you defend on the button with a suited connector, flop middle pair and call a flop bet. Both players check a low turn, and then the pre flop raiser fires out a big bet on another low river. This nearly always indicates a desperate attempt to win with their two high cards (God forbid a bad player should ever lose a pot where they started with ace king), as they would have usually bet the turn with any hand that was made.

Bad players actually bluff a great deal, they just tend to do it out of frustration and desperation more than for reasons to do with a certain player or a certain board. Always remember that bluffs have to form a coherent story that you are telling about your hand, and vice versa, and if you ever see that story start to breakdown, it is probably worth your while making a few thin calls.

Related Readings

Bluffing - How to pull the trigger - Marcus Bateman
Beating weak poker games - Marcus Bateman
Bluffing in PLO - Marcus Bateman

It’s a holiday week here at the PokerStars Blog. While that might normally mean wild parties, writers hopped up on eggnog, and somebody taking pictures of their hind end with a Xerox machine, we’re going to be a bit more reserved (at least for the next couple days). After all, there is a lot to talk about in regard to this weekend’s poker.

We will begin with the Sunday Warm-Up where the appropriately named Snowking_85 beat out more than 3,800 other players to win nearly $100,000. You can see a full recap of the final table at: Snowking_85 wins a slugfest in the Sunday Warm-Up.

In other news, KopplarJocke cut a four-way deal with his opponents and still won a ton of money in the PokerStars Sunday Million. Check out the full final table report for a wrap-up of the action.

Before we hit the mistletoe, we have to congratulate Imric_est for winning the 2008 PokerStars World Blogger Championship of Online Poker. Imric_est beat out the top 369 WBCOOP qualifiers and won a $14,300 prize package to the 2009 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure.

Here’s a complete breakdown of all this week’s winners.

Stay tuned for some big stories coming out on Wednesday. In the meantime, congratulations to this week’s winners and happy holidays to all.

I was recently sitting say anything in the event that the players didn’t catch it. After another minute of consideration the opponent called the $500, and after a weak bet from Tim on the river, went all in to take the pot down. Tim was fuming and proceeded to at a 5/10 live game in Las Vegas. For the sake of this story, I have given some of the players fake names to make it easier to understand. Player Tim had gotten into a bit of an argument with Jill and her boyfriend about the mandatory straddle that was in place when the couple sat down. Jill didn’t want to do it, but the couple wouldn’t take the open seats on the other tables. A few hands later Tim was involved in a hand with someone across the table. Tim was a pretty aggressive player who was known to raise with any two cards. Preflop Tim raised $50. He had one caller to the flop. The flop came out 6s 7d 6h. Tim bets $100 and his opponent says, “You don’t want to lose all of your money on this hand. I call.” The turn comes a 7c. Tim bets $500, and his opponent goes into the think tank. It seemed pretty obvious to me that Tim was bluffing, but his opponent was really struggling with the decision. He began to run through the hand out loud and then stated, “I shouldn’t call this because I really think you have a 7.” From this Jill, who was not in the hand said, “Well there is only one way to find out.” EEeeeks! I immediately knew her comment was out of line, but didn’t chew Jill out for opening her mouth and influencing his opponent in the hand.

Of course, Tim was right to be upset because in the end Tim’s opponent confessed that he was thinking of folding on the turn. Jill’s comment influenced Tim’s opponent to make a decision that he probably wouldn’t have made on his own. Jill’s comment also influenced Tim’s play. Had Jill not said anything, Tim could have made a better betting decision on the river. However, the comment put Tim on tilt and caused him to be distracted from the hand. The moral of the story is: If you are not in a hand and there is one in progress don’t say anything regarding the hand or its players until the hand is over. I regularly run into the situation where a flop comes out 6 6 2 and someone says, “Oh man! I threw away a 6.” As disappointing as that might be, it is not ok to announce this to the table because it inhibits an involved player’s ability to bluff at the pot. It could also induce someone to call a bet, knowing the chances of a 6 in hand is slimmer, though in actuality they are calling into a set. For this reason, it is bad etiquette to comment on a hand when you are not involved and/or if it is a multi-way pot. When the chips are being pushed to the winner, it might be ok to open up about your hand or add commentary. Just remember that comments that you make about a hand might influence someone’s decision in the end, and you wouldn’t like it if you lost money because another player influenced your opponent.