Poker Blog

Wednesday evening saw another healthy influx of high stakes cash games on Full Tilt Poker. To the surprise of none, the game was again full of the biggest named pros to ever play online. Tom Dwan ‘durrrr’ was joined by Di Dang screen name ‘Urindanger’, David Benefield, Gus Hansen, and Phil Ivey. In the first big pot of the day, Dwan wins a pot worth over $23,000 by rivering a straight against the top set of ‘FinnnishNightmre.’

The next hand went the opposite way. ‘FinnnishNightmre’ won this next pot for more than $20,000 with deuces full of aces, taking nearly all of his money back from Dwan.

Dwan dropped another pot in this hand. Gus Hansen made an eight high straight to win this pot after getting called on the river.

Hansen took another pot off one of his highest profile enemies witha bet of $3000 on the river of a Limit Omaha H/L hand.

Dwan got it back, however. In this pot, he made a full house on both runs of the hand for a win of over $32,000.

Dwan, however, went back in the red here. Phil Ivey took a Stud Hi pot to double up to over $23,000 with three eights.

Dwan once again took a hit, this time losing a hand of more than $35,000 to the quad aces of ‘FinnnishNightmre.’

Ivey won another big pot off Dwan in this hand. Kings were good enough to outlast straight and flush draws to take this pot.

The terrible day for Dwan didn’t stop there. In this Omaha H/L hand, Dwan called the river bet of Gus Hansen, only to be on the losing end of a scoop to a straight and a six low.

Di ‘Urindanger’ Dang came into the action here, winning a three way capped pot with queens full for $48,000.

The amazingly awful day of Tom Dwan continued in this hand, losing a pot of over $28,000 to Hansen, who won a Razz pot a queen low.

The biggest story of the big game on this day was the losses of Tom Dwan, which amounted to around $150,000. The winners on the session were Di Dang, Phil Ivey, and Gus Hansen. Hansen won nearly $100,000, while Ivey and Dang each won around $50,000.

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Isildur1 VS Brian Hastings Rematch

High stakes Pot Limit Omaha star Viktor Blom screen name: ‘Isildur1′ has made huge waves in the online poker scene. Blom sat at six different heads up tables with fellow high stakes poker regular Brian Hastings, at a level that put the $200/$400 game to shame. Six different $500/$1000 Pot Limit Omaha games gave fans everything they wanted to see, and then some. Our first hand was worth an incredible $200,000. Setting the pace for what was yet to come, Blom took this massive pot.

Blom took another huge pot with a flush in this hand. This pot was worth more than $100,000.

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The next hand was bound to be a big one after Blom flopped three fours and Hastings flopped a full house. The two built a monster pot, with Hastings taking Blom’s entire stack on the table, and a pot worth over $225,000.

Blom took another monster pot for Hastings here, rivering a third ace.

This monster hand didn’t go to showdown. An all in move of $65,000 was good enough to force Blom out and take this $200,000 hand.

Another pot worth over $200,000 was decided here. After turning a set, Blom rivered a flush to win this hand.

Blom continued the beating in this hand. Aces held and took down this pot worth more than $200,000.

Blom got it all in here on the flop. With a set of queens, Blom was ahead of the aces and flush draw of Hastings. However, a club on the turn gave Hastings this $200,000 pot.

Hastings again used his all in shove to force his opponent out, taking this big hand.

Blom got it all in with three different pair, leaving six outs for a full house, but did not get there against the straight of Hastings.

The final hand was one of the biggest. The nut flush was good enough for Blom to take this final pot worth $215,000.

On the night, even after losing a few big pots due to luck, Viktor Blom seemed to get back on the right track with a win of over 300k.

See here for one of the last times Isildur1 played Brian Hastings

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High stakes poker player and Greek tycoon, Achilleas Kallakis, was charged with defrauding two European banks on Monday, March 1, 2010 in London. He had to post £140,000 bail and must report to the Chelsea police station once a week until his court appearance on May 4, 2010. The charges brought against Kallakis carry a possible 10 year prison sentence.

Kallakis was one of the most prominent real estate deal-makers on London’s property scene. He invested more than £850m buying some of London’s most valuable properties including the Department of Health building in Vauxhall and the Home Office’s Immigration and nationality Directorate in Croydon. In 2007, he was said to be developing a 20,000 square foot flat in a St. James Square property that would sell for £105 million, making it the most expensive penthouse apartment in the world. At that point in time, he was ranked the 11th richest Greek in the world worth about £250 million.

As with most businessmen, Kallakis used bank loans to fund his property investments. Problem is, he and his colleague, Alexander Williams, are accused of obtaining such loans fraudulently. The alleged fraud is based on Kallakis’ claims that tenant leases were more expensive and longer than they really were. Allied Irish Bank (AIB) was one of the banks affected by the alleged scam. AIB fronted Kallakis a series of loans over a five-year period for the purchase of UK real estate. In 2008, they became aware of some “issues with the loans”. Upon an AIB investigation, the bank found the tenants of “their” properties to be linked directly to Kallakis. As a result, they immediately seized the properties and sold them at a £56 million loss. Kallakis is also accused of defrauding the Bank of Scotland causing that bank to lose £5 million on a 2008 loan given to Kallakis to refurbish a former ferry into a luxury yacht.

The Serious Fraud Office along with the City of London police began their own investigation of the AIB allegations which lead to a raid of three Kallakis’ properties. Kallakis and Williams are currently charged with two counts of conspiracy to defraud, 13 counts of forgery, five counts of fraud by false representation, two counts of money laundering and one count of obtaining a money transfer by deception. Based on the investigation, the SFO said it “believes that further financial institutions have also been deceived by the suspects”.

High stakes and high risks seem to be among Kallakis’ favorite things. An avid poker player, though far from popular, known as “the Don”, Kallakis made regular trips to Vegas, enrolled with several big-time poker websites and has even been featured on some televised poker games. He has won $359,090 in live poker tournaments which places him third on Greece’s all time money list.

If the allegations hold true and Kallakis is convicted, the once well-respected Greek tycoon will have played his last high-stakes, high-risk game.

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Multiple high stakes poker tables went off on Full Tilt Poker Thursday night. Some of the games biggest players sat at big stakes games. Di Dang screen name ‘Urindanger’ , Phil Galfond screen name ‘OMGClayAiken’ , and ‘PixKim’ were joined by others at the big time tables. These were the first games seen on Full Tilt that heavily featured the new feature of running pots twice. When all the money gets in the pot, it can be run twice. Players have this option, and it was clearly seen in these games. Our very first hand showed a pot run twice, where Phil Galfond took a total bot worth over $30k taking this pot from Dang.

Galfond scooped another big pot here, after flopping a set of fours.

Di ‘Urindanger’ Dang got some money back in this hand, hitting a flush on both times the hand was run.

It didn’t take long for Galfond to get it back, scooping this pot.

The battle for Cap Limit Omaha continued between Dang and Galfond when the two capped another pot here. Dang got the better of this hand.

Dang took on another opponent in this hand, scooping a pot worht over $32,000 from ‘SxMxF.’

Galfond and ‘SxMxF’ played a heads up table, and scooped this big pot.

Dang got more ahead when he took this big pot from ‘NEKOTYAN.’

Galfond used his ability to put the pressure on in this hand, making a raise to over $11,000 to take this pot.

Aces weren’t good enough for anything for Galfond in this hand, losing both runs.

On the night, Di Dang was the obvious winner, leaving the tables with over $100,000 in profit. After the last hand of heads up play, Phil Galfond’s winnings on the night were less, to around $40,000 from various opponents, mainly ‘SxMxF.’

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