high stakes report

the last 7 days on full tilts nose bleed tables has been intense to say the least! if you have been following any of the action you will have seen the same familiar faces as well as quite a few new ones.

it seems that since the highest action has moved from the $500/$1000 tables down to the $200/$400 and $300/$600 with ante tables a couple of the almost there players decided to step up to the mark.

now don't get me wrong, the players stepping up are at the top of their game, players like aejones or cole south, however in the past these players have had a pretty tough time at the very highest stakes. so the fact the action droped down maybe made it all the more compelling for them to take a shot. and what a shot they have taken. in the last 7 days some of these players have been on sick heaters, just ripping through the likes of ivey, antonius and durrrr.

taking a quick look at highstakes db you can see that the big winners in the last 7 days are

> martonas, up a staggering $1.6m
> richard ashby, up over $1m as well
> aejones, clocking in at just shy of $900k

but when there are big winners there has to be big losers, and there are

> durrrr, down $1.5m in 7 days. after pulling himself out of the $4m hole he found himself in he is now stuck again!
> patrik antonius, down $1.4 million although he is still very much in the green for the year
> din_fru, running bad and down $1.2m

the action has been mad and the play has been unreal. not mentioned above is cole south, but he has been tearing the plo tables in recent weeks, so do not be surprised to see the red pro book some big wins in the coming days.

also worth a quick mention is the return of matusow to the high stakes online tables. maybe matusow felt the new blood sitting would be easy pickings. sorry mike, i'm sure they were happy with the $140k you donated yesterday!

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top 5 poker players of all time

a question that is often asked but almost impossible to answer. regardless of that i thought i would give it a go, here are my thoughts on the who the best poker players of all time are.

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>phil ivey
after the 2009 wsop finished, all bar the returning final table of the main event, it has become clear just how good ivey really is. with 7 wsop bracelets and a chance to take down an 8th come november, plus an astounding record playing in the highest cash games around, ivey is the pinnacle of the poker illuminati. if ivey can keep his hunger alive then who knows where this man can go.

>phil hellmuth
love him or hate him, hellmuth, the most polarizing player in poker is also the most awarded player in wsop history with 11 bracelets to his name. each of his 11 bracelet wins may have been in hold'em but you cannot deny that that he is an incredibly astute player. his self awarness proabably exceed that of any other player and hellmuth, who has cultivated his poker brat image over the years knows exactly how to exploit it to his advantage.

>doyle brunson
one of the patriarchs of poker, brunson has defined the modern game. with skills honed on the dangerous and cut throat texas poker circuit brunson has seen it all. with back to back wsop main event wins in '76 and '77, 10 bracelets in total and the defining poker text to his name (super system) brunson has done more for the game than any other poker player alive today. he may be 76 years old but doyle is ever present at the big games in bobby's room and still teaching the young guns a thing or too about the game he loves.

>stu ungar
equally talented and troubled. stu ungar had a unnatural ability for all card games. winner of the wsop 3 times in 1980, 1981 and most impressively in 1997 after a 16 year absence filled with alcohol and substance abuse. ungar was a widely feared and highly aggressive player constantly putting his opponents to tough decisions. we will always be left wondering what he could have achieved if it wasn't for his self destruction. stu ungar, poker legend.

>tom 'durrrr' dwan
potentially a controversial inclusion but its hard to ignore the young internet juggernaut that are steamrolling the highest games online. durrrr has emerged at the forefront of the internet generation and his rise to the top has been both rapid and a roller-coaster. with daily 7 figure wins and loses a regular occurrence for the young poker star, its his ability to deal with his high variance style and maintain his a game when many others would have imploded. whether or not dwan will still be playing poker in 20, 10 or even 5 years time remains to be seen but right now its hard to ignore this raw talent.

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i realize many of you will have your own opinion on who the top 5 poker players of all time are and i invite you to share your thoughts in the comments. as i said, its a nigh on impossible question to answer but given enough feedback we can get a better idea of what the overall feeling is.

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high stakes report

for those of you that read my high society post yesterday, you would have seen the not to difficult to predict prediction that when tom ‘durrrr’ dwan returned to the online tables the action would pick up. it seems it has already come true! as the $200/400 games raged yesterday turning a little crazy as they went on, it was nothing compared to what was to come. as the games turned down right insane once durrrr and david benyamine sat down. durrrr proceeded to go on a crushing marathon taking down any and everyone that got in his way. what made the action even sicker was the number of deep multiway pots taking place, which naturally durrrr seemed to take down. if the gamble continues then we could see a new biggest pot even at these stakes.

once the carnage had subsided and the dust had settled there were a number of victors with brian townsend, richard ashby, rafi ‘howsitfeellike’ amit all posting a profit but it was durrrr that sat proudly at the top of the pile banking in excess of $800k for the session. hopefully this is the beginning of some sustained high stakes action, as the railbirds have been feeling a little neglected over the past 6 weeks.

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high stakes report

In the last month di dang aka urindanger has been seen playing at far lower stakes than his usual $500/1000 game. the action right at the top was pretty insane prior to the wsop with tom ‘durrrr’ dwan and gus hansen driving much of the gambling. however since pokers biggest event began back in june the action has all but dried up.

recently though, even with the return of gus to the tables, it’s the $200/400 stakes that have seen the most action. a combination of the old guard and new challengers looking to make the leap to the nose bleed stakes has resulted in some high octane games running. it also seems that di’s break from the sick and swingy upper echelons of high stakes online poker has done him a world of good. in fact urindanger is up over $800k in the last 5 days alone. this smoking hot run has helped di erase his previous loses (as recorded by highstaksdb) which topped $1.9m and he is now up by over $650k for the year.

hopefully we’ll see the action continue over the coming weeks and with durrrr still to return, maybe the biggest games will start running once again.

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