Poker Blog

Daniel Negreanu Makes Epic Comeback to Win Vs Isildur1 in Superstar Showdown

Last weekend, Daniel Negreanu dropped $150,000 to Viktor Blom in the PokerStars Superstar Showdown. The match did not even go 1,500 hands and Negreanu vowed to come back with a fresh $150,000 to take another crack at Isildur1. The rematch between the two kicked off on Sunday afternoon on Pokerstars.

Daniel had made it very public that he planned to practice all week on Pokerstars in anticipation of the matchup with Blom. Early on in the match, it looked like that Negreanu’s hard work was going to be for naught as Isildur1 took the early lead. Blom was running hot against Negreanu and steadily built that lead until he was up over $110,000 at around the 1,500 hand mark.

Many fans were beginning to question whether Negreanu should even be in this matchup as the match moved down to just three tables. This looked to be a repeat of last week until Daniel started going on a bit of a run. In the series of around 158 hand, that all changed as Negreanu put on a massive run. He cut the deficit from $110,000 to just a mere $7,800. Most of this was done on the combination of big poker hands and a bit of good fortune. For example, a huge pot between the two players saw Daniel flop two pair with 7-8, and Isildur1 flop the nut straight. Unfortunately for Blom, Daniel caught a full house on the turn and when Blom shoved, Daniel stacked him.

Isildur1 hung onto his lead until about 348 hands left when Negreanu was sitting with over a $9,100 lead. Negreanu was indeed running well, but it was clear at this point that Isildur1 was pressing. For example, Isildur1 shoved pre-flop in a pot against Negreanu with A-Q after Negreanu four-bet. Negreanu called with queens and the hand held.

Isildur1 was able to retake the lead with about 258 hands left, but that lead went back to Negreanu in a huge set over set hand. The flop had both a ten and a four on it when Isildur1 decided to move all-in with his flopped set of fours. Daniel made the easy call after flopping a set of tens. The case four did not hit the board and Daniel looked in control.

With about 14 hands left to play, Negreanu had an $8,800 lead. The railbird were clamoring for Negreanu to fold to a win. Negreanu even said that he could do, but he would not. Daniel stayed true to his word as he got involved in a couple of all-in pots at the end and managed to win them both with pocket aces and pocket queens.

The final hand total for the match was 2,502 and Daniel Negreanu made a fantastic comeback to win the rematch by $26,500. This loss drops Isildur1 to 5-2 in the Superstar Showdown Challenge. His only other loss was in the very first match against Isaac Haxton. Between the two challenges, Isildur1 is up $123,500 over Negreanu.

The next matchup for this challenge was announced at the conclusion of the match. Next Sunday, Scott Palmer screen name urnotindanger will take on Isildur1 over a two week period and a total of 5,000 hands. The matchup between these two should be a hard fought one as Palmer is looking to avenge some recent losses online.

Play Online Poker

Subscribe to PokerBloggs.com

PokerStars Sunday Millions winner 17 years old?

PokerStars Sunday Millions is a weekly game that draws in the most competitive online poker players. This week an unusual result has pulled in the scrutiny of millions, a major newspaper in Amsterdam, and an investigative team at PokerStars.
A Dutch poker player by the handle of Zeurrr invested 2 dollars in the competition and came out with half a million. He battled his way through the field to land in 6th place, putting him among the best in the money. Naturally, his local paper wanted to congratulate him on this impressive success.
After doing extensive research on the forums, twitter and other venues, a journalist from Algemeen Dagblad attempted to contact ‘Jimmy Jonker’. From the research done, it was his name that was associated with several posts in the forums and on a twitter account. The reporter was surprised by what happened when they made the phone call.
Expecting, Jimmy and getting Jos Jonker was the first surprise. The next one came when Jos claimed he was the player who competed in the event on Sunday and cashed. As the conversation continued, Jos was either unable or unwilling to yield information about the poker game, hands or match ups.
This unexpected turn of events encouraged the journalist to dig deeper. Jos Jonker’s son Jimmy is 17. The PokerStars terms and conditions clearly state that anyone under 18 cannot compete or be awarded for winnings. The terms continue to show that anyone who provides false information to be able to play on the site also forfeits their winnings. Jos Jonker is 47, well over the required age limit.
This situation has yet to be resolved. As long as there is room for debate, there will be a lot of attention to this issue, all of it asking the same question ‘Who won the money?’

Play Online Poker

Subscribe to PokerBloggs.com

The PokerStars Caribbean Adventure kicked off on Thursday at the Atlantis Resort in the Bahamas with the $100,000 buy-in Super High Rollers Event. This event will pay five players with a prizepool of $3.743 Million. First place will receive $1.5 Million.

While there were many big names in the field, most of those names were among the younger superstars in poker. Among those in the field included WSOP Main Event Champion Jonathan Duhamel, Cardplayer and WPT Player of the Year Tom Marchese, David Benyamine, Daniel Negreanu, Antonio Esfandiari, Vicktor Blom, and Daniel Cates “Jungleman12″.

Daniel Negreanu was 2nd in chips to finish Day 1 and was looking for his first final table of 2011. As Day 2 drug on, Negreanu continued to chip up and would ultimately make the final table of the event. The final table of this event was supposed to be eight-handed, but both Daniel Cates and James Obst were eliminated at the final table bubble to take us to a seven-handed final. The following are the final table participants and their chip counts:

Nick Schulman 2,990,000

Daniel Negreanu 2,166,000

Eugene Katchalov 1,476,000

Bryn Kenney 1,390,000

Humberto Brenes 757,000

Sandor Demjan 379,000

Andrew Lictenberger 373,000

In other news, there are rumors circulating that Daniel Negreanu will be the next player to step up and take on Isildur1 in the PokerStars Superstar Showdown. Both Isaac Haxton and Tony G have faced off with the mysterious swede with Isildru1 splitting the matches. Negreanu had been quoted before the beginning of the Tony G match that he did not feel that he was ready to play four handed NL or Omaha against Isildru1, but did offer to play four handed in mixed games at $400 – $800.

Speaking of Isildur1, the announcement has been made that his identity will be officially confirmed on Saturday. While many have speculated that Viktor Blom is indeed Isildur1, an official announcement has been delayed. Chances are that Blom will indeed be revealed to be the superstar online baller, but should he turn out to not be the man that took Millions from Tom “durrrr” Dwan, it will certainly rank as one of the bigger surprises of the year.

Stay tuned as we bring you more on this story and all of the stories revolving around the poker world.

Play Online Poker

Subscribe to PokerBloggs.com

MiniFTOPS XVIII is getting ready to start in just a couple of days on December 8th. The MiniFtops Series is a great opportunity to win big money from a small buy in. I love to play poker tournaments with a low risk – high reward and the Mini Ftops is just right for me. Many poker players are unaware of the variance that comes with playing both live and online NL Holdem or PL Omaha games. Actually, I only play tournaments now because I was tired of playing perfect poker for a week then having a bad day and losing everything. MTTs (multiple table tournaments) offer me a way to play the game I love but with a lot less stress. I think the only things I don’t like about MTT’s are the long hours involved and the reality of bubbling in a deep field after the blinds go up.

MiniFTOPS is a good opportunity to hone your skills and prepare yourself four the regular buy in FTOPS where you can win hundreds of thousands of dollars from a larger buy-in but still small compared to the live tournament buy-ins.