Bubbling ...

... sucks

Played a few quick games tonight after dinner and as you can tell by the title, spent the night bubbling 45's. Was sitting in front of the TV so just played the $3.25 games ... played 6 (I think), came 5th in one and money-bubbled 3 ... groan.

I had good stacks in a few too which was the frustrating part. A couple of times I'd go to the final table with a top 4 stack, go card dead and no one was getting knocked out. Suck-outs all over the shop, the bubble would go on forever and all too often it ended up being me.

Exhale ...

PokerStars' 50 billionth hand

With my absence from the tables of late, I haven't really been taking interest in PokerStars' 50 billionth hand celebrations. Being the biggest online poker site, these milestones are coming around a lot quicker these days. The next really big one will be the 100 billion, so that's one to keep an eye on.

Here are the details of the milestone hand, click on the title below to read the full story and see how the action played out. Great to see it on a micro-table where the money will certainly be a huge payday for the winner.

tbvle wins $56,140 with PokerStars' 50 billionth hand - PokerStars Poker Blog

Oh my. We knew it would be big, but even we were surprised at the intensity of the 50 Billion Hand climax. As the moment drew near, there were 220,000 people on PokerStars playing on 33,000 tables, all hoping to win the milestone hand. Of that lot, it was player tbvle who bagged the jackpot.

At 10.37am( ET) on September 22, 2010, tbvle collected $56,140 for winning the 50 billionth hand ever dealt on PokerStars.

That's an incredible return for one hand at Ornamenta (fast), the $0.02/$0.05 NL Hold'em cash table where the hand took place. As Team PokerStars Pro Jason Mercier pointed out in the chat box, the $26 pot for the winning hand was 'not too shabby' for these stakes, either! Also happy were the other five players at the table, who each scooped between $2,990 and $3,070 just for being there, a sum based on the number of VIP Player Points they had amassed at the table over the previous 50 hands.

And for good measure, PokerStars threw in a $5,200 WCOOP Main Event ticket for everyone at the table as well.

Return to the tables

I returned to the tables on Tuesday night for a quick session on PokerStars. I checked OPR and it had actually been 10 days since I've played last, and before that it was another 7 days ... so I've played twice in the last 17 days ... ouch!

Its not that I haven't wanted to play, I've just been busy with plenty of other stuff going on. I had a quick trip to Darwin for work, my full-time employee has been in hospital, I had a date Friday night and most importantly I've been working on a business proposal for Two Plus Two (tell you more about it if it goes ahead).

While I haven't been playing of late, I have been following the WCOOP quite closely. None of my guys have had any scores of note but the most well-known pro to take one down was Jason Mercier who won a 2 day $1050 buy-in event, taking home just under half a million dollars. Like Shaun Deeb who I mentioned last week, Mercier got the win despite being short-stack with 8 or 9 players on the final table.

So, back to me ... September started very much like August did ... not well. I put in a decent session back on the 2nd, mostly playing the $6.50 45 mans and blanked all but one. I played 22 games that night so the bankroll took a substantial hit. My last 4 sessions have all been profitable, but not enough to dig myself out of the early hole I've found myself in. This is what happened last month so hopefully I get some time on the tables over the next week to try and bring back some respectability.

Shaun F'ing Deeb

Although he retired from grinding tournaments like he did for from 2006 to the end of 2009, Shaun Deeb stills plays poker. He's played a number of live events over the last few months and warmed-up online prior to the WCOOP.

I logged on to PokerStars yesterday afternoon to see him deep in the 2 day event 28. At the time he was struggling as a short-stack, sitting 14th out of the final 15 players. He waited, and waited and his break came when he got it in against 2 others holding queens. One had 6's and another had jacks, the flop brought a 6 but with the flop all hearts, Deeb had the only heart, although he wouldn't need it when a queen came on the turn tripling him up and putting him right back in the tournament.

From there Deeb did as Deeb does ...

WCOOP Day 11: Shaun Deeb Wins His Second WCOOP Bracelet | PokerNews

Another day of the 2010 World Championship of Online Poker at PokerStars, another big name winning a bracelet. The biggest event of the day, the conclusion of the $1,000 No-Limit Hold'em two-day, did not disappoint as several big names navigated through the field to meet at the final table. WCOOP all-star Greg 'DuckU' Hobson was there, along with Shawn 'buck21' Buchanan, but in the end, it was Shaun Deeb who emerged victorious. He earned $243,610 and his second WCOOP bracelet, having previously won his first in 2008. ROMES_HOME and Brryann also took down events on Day 11, both earning their first bracelets.

PokerStars WCOOP 28 - $1,000 No-Limit Hold'em Two Day

Buy-in	Entrants	Prize Pool
$1,000+$50	1,433	$1,433,000

Place	Player	Prize
1	Shaun "shaundeeb" Deeb	$243,610
2	Tjollerboy	$179,125
3	Iulian-Georgian "Ruxandescu" Ruxandescu	$135,991.70
4	Shawn "buck21" Buchanan	$97,444
5	Maximilian “HotKarlMC” Heinzelmann	$70,933.50
6	Vladimir "VLs85s" Vorobiev	$56,603.50
7	Greg "DuckU" Hobson	$42,273.50
8	insanocut	$27,943.50
9	Jin "jhwang21" Hwang	$15,476.40

August stats & numbers

Period Full Tracking Last 120 days Year 2010 Year 2009 Year 2008 Year 2007 ? <> 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2009 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2008 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2007 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2006 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006 August 2006 July 2006 June 2006 May 2006 April 2006 March 2006 February 2006 January with estimated RA expenses (and bounties in FTP Knockouts) without estimated RA expenses (and bounties in FTP Knockouts) View by Game Game Size All Holdem NL Holdem L/PL Omaha Omaha HiLo Other Games

ITM Finishes 1st 4 1st ties 1 2nd 7 3rd 6 4-10th 26

MTT Avg. Finish% Early 2% (10%) EM 9% (20%) Mid. 49% (40%) ML 29% (20%) Late 11% (10%)

HU/STT/MTT * Prizes Profit ROI ABI AFS R/A ITM ITM Heads-Up 2 player $0 $0 0% $0 0 0% 0/0 0% Single Table 3-10 $0 $0 0% $0 0 0% 0/0 0% Multi Table 11-45 $1,164 $46 4% $4.54 45 0% 43/246 17% Multi Table 46-180 $11 $2 25% $2.93 122 0% 1/3 33% Multi Table 181- $59 <$0 -34% $4.50 4109 55% 7/20 35% $1,234 $17 1% $4.52 348 4% 51/269 19%

The numbers above are relatively unexciting ... August was a grind. As I mentioned, the month started badly so the last week or two was a fight to get back to profitability. Thanks to a particularly good day on the 29th I got there.

I know shouldn't be too focussed on my OPR record but I enjoy having profitable months. Its been somewhat frustrating tho to have been floating between $1200 and $1500 for the last few months.

Bond18 grinding online

PokerNews caught up with Tony "Bond18" Dunst to see how he grinds online. Bond is his usual calm, laid-back self in the interview. Nothing too revealing but he does give a few tips on getting yourself set-up to grind.