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There is never a shortage of opinions when it comes to improving online poker, and you probably have heard all of the arguments about Anonymous Tables, Tracking Software, and VIP programs. While I have my own opinions on all of these topics and more (there is never a shortage of opinions coming out of me) in this column I’m going to focus on basic changes to online poker; changes that could be made tomorrow by any online poker site.

These changes I am about to propose are for the greater good and not for the benefit of winning players (although these players will benefit down the road) and will likely be laughed at by many of these players who will see these proposed changes as an attack on their livelihood. But I have my reasons and will explain my rationale for each proposed change.

• Change #1: Eliminate All Heads-Up Tables and Short-Handed Tables of Less Than Six Players
• Change #2: Eliminate All Tables with Stakes Lower Than $.05/$.10 NL and $.25/$.50 Limit
• Change #3: Eliminate All Tables with Stakes Above $10/$20 NL and $50/$100 Limit
• Change #4: Eliminate All of the “Trendy” Tournaments and Structures
• Change #5: Allow Deeper Buy-Ins

We’ve now gotten to the point of this series where I will discuss something I’d like to see ADDED to online poker, and it concerns buy-ins.

Change #5: Allow deeper buy-ins

Besides concentrating the player pools I would also like to see poker start to move away from the current trajectory of being a “solvable” game. One simple way to accomplish this is to allow for a wider range of buy-ins. So instead of the 20BB-100BB stretch I’d like to see these raised to 40BB-250BB.

Let me preface the rest of this article with what I mean by a “solvable” game: I’m not implying that poker is or will become “solved” in the near future, what I mean is that most general scenarios of the game are solved in that there is generally a right line to take.

Now let me get back on topic here.

First off, I want to get rid of short-stackers who are playing a boring, unexploitable style of poker, taking advantage of a loophole in the buy-in amount. Short-stacking is bad for poker, and I’d like to see online poker sites work to eliminate the issue –I will add that I’m fine with someone buying in for 100BB’s, getting stacked, and then buying in for 25BB’s, but your initial buy-in should have to be for 40BB’s or more at every new table.

More importantly, I want the maximum buy-in raised so players can no longer focus on playing against 100BB stacks (which is starting to become a “solved” structure, and now must deal with players with 50BB, 75BB, 100BB, 150BB, and even 250BB stacks, which changes the game considerably.

Read Part 1: /blog/5-things-i-would-change-about-online-poker/

Read Part2: /blog/5-things-i-would-change-about-online-poker-part-2/

Read Part 3: /blog/5-things-i-would-change-about-online-poker-part-3/

Read Part 4: /blog/5-things-i-would-change-about-online-poker-part-4/

Read Part 5: /blog/5-things-i-would-change-about-online-poker-part-5/

I think I speak for the vast majority of poker players when I say that if you are a casino and you have a poker room with fewer than eight tables just shut the thing down please –unless you are the only poker provider (or one of the only) in the area then PLEASE STAY OPEN!

The most recent casualty was the Circus Circus Poker Room which closed down this week, adding its name to the following list (just off the top of my head) of poker rooms that have closed down over the past year or so:

• Tropicana closed the “Jamie Gold Poker Room”
• Riviera
• Circus Circus
• M Resort
• The Plaza switched to Electronic tables
• The Revel Casino in Atlantic City

So why don’t all of these closings bother me? Don’t I want healthy competition so I as the consumer can find the best games and the best value? Of course I do, but this is not what these rooms were providing. The reason I say this is that you are obviously not making any money, so it’s highly unlikely that the casino would cater to poker players, offer good promotions, or to be absolutely blunt, give two-shits about what goes on at the poker tables.

More importantly (from a player’s perspective) when you own/operate one of these small rooms that cater to low-limit players you are siphoning off players (most likely not the best players in the world either if they are playing a low limit game at Circus Circus) that should be at other poker rooms.

And let’s be quite clear about something, if these rooms were managed properly and/or offered player-friendly promotions they wouldn’t be closed; they would be expanding. So what we have are some extremely small poker areas inside “locals” casinos (these can’t even be considered “poker rooms” in the classical sense) that were either poorly managed or utterly neglected. It’s not as if poker players are losing their favorite local Mom & Pop business: We are simply losing the restaurant that nobody goes to more than once.

What I want is the 50-100 players playing at these tiny, out-of-the-way, casinos to head over to the Bellagio, the Venetian, the Wynn, and other poker hubs and play the low limit games there. Let the money stay in these poker eco-systems instead of a table full of random tourists losing to some local low-limit grinder at Circus Circus who grinds out the $1/$2 NLHE tables day in and day out, because once that money is in his pocket it’s never coming out.

Austria’s Thomas Muhlocker managed to outlast a stacked final table that included quite a few notable names, like 2010 WSOP Champion Jonathan Duhamel, 2013 November Niner David Benefield, GPI stalwart Ole Schemion, and Daniel Negreanu who had one of the strangest runs to a final table in poker history, which I’ll explain below.

After a tumultuous start to the tournament that saw Daniel Negreanu protest a ruling by moving all-in blind (a confrontation he lost when Tim Adams called with Pocket 7’s and Negreanu revealed A3s), the Team PokerStars Pro regained his composure and reentered the EPT Barcelona High-Roller tournament, which turned out to be a pretty good decision considering he would go on to finish the tournament in 2^nd place.

Negreanu was irate over a rule he has railed against in the recent past –the “First Card off the Deck” rule—and it would take him tilting off the remainder of his stack, a few choice words, some time away from the tournament, and a lengthy forum post to cool off. But cool off he did, and after reentering later in the day went on to nearly win the tournament.

The “Forst Card off the Deck” rule became the story of the EPT Barcelona for a day or so –until the Main Event and High-Roller tournaments played out and the riveting and disturbing story relayed by Jens Kyllonen hit the 2+2 forums—and will likely be discussed quite a bit in the coming weeks.

Negreanu’s performance puts him in an excellent position to win one, or possibly all three, of the major tournament Player of the Year awards, as he now sits in first place on the Bluff POY leader-board as well as the Cardplayer POY chart.

As for the tournament itself, the €10k buy-in event drew a sizeable field of 180 entries, creating a prize-pool of over €1.7 million. Here is a look at the final table payouts from the event:

1. Thomas Muhlocker – €390,700
2. Daniel Negreanu – €263,800
3. Jean Noel Thorel – €181,500
4. Joni Jouhkimainen – €148,000
5. Jonathan Duhamel – €118,000
6. Ole Schemion – €90,700
7. Richard Yong – €66,000
8. David Benefield – €47,850

Muhlocker is no stranger on the poker scene, but this is Muhlocker’s first big live tournament win, which comes not long after his previous best score, a 6^th place showing in the 2013 WSOP $5k No Limit Holdem event. His career tournament earnings now stand at over $800k according to his Hendon Mob page.

There is never a shortage of opinions when it comes to improving online poker, and you probably have heard all of the arguments about Anonymous Tables, Tracking Software, and VIP programs. While I have my own opinions on all of these topics and more (there is never a shortage of opinions coming out of me) in this column I’m going to focus on basic changes to online poker; changes that could be made tomorrow by any online poker site.

These changes I am about to propose are for the greater good and not for the benefit of winning players (although these players will benefit down the road) and will likely be laughed at by many of these players who will see these proposed changes as an attack on their livelihood. But I have my reasons and will explain my rationale for each proposed change.

• Change #1: Eliminate All Heads-Up Tables and Short-Handed Tables of Less Than Six Players
• Change #2: Eliminate All Tables with Stakes Lower Than $.05/$.10 NL and $.25/$.50 Limit
• Change #3: Eliminate All Tables with Stakes Above $10/$20 NL and $50/$100 Limit
• Change #4: Eliminate All of the “Trendy” Tournaments and Structures
• Change #5: Allow Deeper Buy-Ins

So far in this series I have focused on cleaning-up and contracting the cash game areas of online poker sites, and now in this installment I will turn my eye to the tournament lobby.

Let me start off by saying that I’m in no way an online poker noob, so when I find a tournament lobby a bit overwhelming (even with filters) I would say there is a problem.

Change #4: Eliminate all of the trendy tournaments and structures

I have a simple piece of advice for all online poker sites: If you need tournament filters, you have way too many tournaments to choose from.

I get that we have unlimited room in cyberspace and can cater to each player’s whims, but do we really need five different color codes (FPP tournaments, Freerolls, Women’s only, satellites, live satellites, regular tournaments, steps tournaments, and so on) and do we need to offer the following list of tournaments:

• 9-man, 6-man, 4-man, and heads-up Freeze-outs
• Shootouts
• 2-table, 3-table, 5-table, 10-table, 20 table and so on
• Bounty tournaments
• Progressive Bounty tournaments
• Double or Nothing tournaments
• All-in or Fold tournaments
• Coin Flips
• Turbos
• 2x Turbos
• Hyper-Turbos
• Deep-Stacks
• Shallow Stacks
• Rebuys
• Reentries
• Multi-entries
• Fast/Fold

And this says nothing about the different blind structures and games offered. Or how about Sit & Go tournaments where the sites offer stakes of $1.10, $2.20, $5.50, $11 and on and on, AND at the same time, if the tournament structure is slightly different –say a bounty instead of a freezeout—the site lists the stakes as $3.30, $4.40, $7.70 and so on. Or even worse, when just the rake is slightly different! So you end up with five different colors, five different stake levels between $4.40 and $5.50, and hundreds of lines of tournaments.

Visiting a tournament lobby without using a number of filters has become akin to solving quantum mechanics equations. Is it any wonder fewer and fewer casual players find their way to online poker sites?

Really, can you imagine being some regular guy who says, “Gee, I think I’ll play a $10 tournament tonight?” Oh yeah; well what $10 tournament, since there are about 200 to choose from?

Let’s simplify the whole process, and go back to simpler times. I’m good with 6-max and full ring events; with regular and turbo tournaments; and with STT’s and MTT’s. Everything else; all of the bounties, DoN’s, hyper-turbos, and shootouts can get thrown right on the scrap heap for all I care. Remember, it’s all about solidifying player pools and bringing in casual players.

Read Part 1: /blog/5-things-i-would-change-about-online-poker/

Read Part2: /blog/5-things-i-would-change-about-online-poker-part-2/

Read Part 3: /blog/5-things-i-would-change-about-online-poker-part-3/

Read Part 4: /blog/5-things-i-would-change-about-online-poker-part-4/

Read Part 5: /blog/5-things-i-would-change-about-online-poker-part-5/

There is never a shortage of opinions when it comes to improving online poker, and you probably have heard all of the arguments about Anonymous Tables, Tracking Software, and VIP programs. While I have my own opinions on all of these topics and more (there is never a shortage of opinions coming out of me) in this column I’m going to focus on basic changes to online poker; changes that could be made tomorrow by any online poker site.

These changes I am about to propose are for the greater good and not for the benefit of winning players (although these players will benefit down the road) and will likely be laughed at by many of these players who will see these proposed changes as an attack on their livelihood. But I have my reasons and will explain my rationale for each proposed change.

• Change #1: Eliminate All Heads-Up Tables and Short-Handed Tables of Less Than Six Players
• Change #2: Eliminate All Tables with Stakes Lower Than $.05/$.10 NL and $.25/$.50 Limit
• Change #3: Eliminate All Tables with Stakes Above $10/$20 NL and $50/$100 Limit
• Change #4: Eliminate All of the “Trendy” Tournaments and Structures
• Change #5: Allow Deeper Buy-Ins

Continuing on with my goal to condense the player pool in an effort to insure that the most popular games and stakes are thriving let me explain another elimination I would make –don’t worry, at the end of this series I will talk about things I want to ADD as well.

Change #3: Eliminate all tables above $10/$20 NL and $50/$100 Limit

I’d even be willing to compromise and bump the maximums to $25/$50 NL and $100/$200 limit, although I’d prefer the slightly lower maximums.

While I’m not interested in taking away anyone’s livelihood we need to keep the player pool contracted, especially in these balkanized markets, and let’s be realistic here; if you are playing $200/$400 Limit Holdem just move to an area where these games are spread live and you can play as high as your heart desires.

Online poker was not meant to create millionaires, and for many years we got by perfectly fine without having high-stakes tables. I’d much rather see a couple dozen $5/$10 and $10/$20 tables running than a handful of $25/$50 and $50/$100 tables with four players sitting out waiting for a fish. All this does is subtract from the $5/$10 and $10/$20 player pools.

Another concern I have with these high-stakes games is the cheating, scamming, hacking, and even organized crime they seem to draw. Once you start talking about tens of thousands dollars changing hands it’s virtually a certainty that criminals will target the players and the industry.

We’ve already seen this happen multiple times, with hackings, cheating rings, robberies, and all manner of crimes being committed against and by high-stakes online poker players.

Read Part 1: /blog/5-things-i-would-change-about-online-poker/

Read Part2: /blog/5-things-i-would-change-about-online-poker-part-2/

Read Part 3: /blog/5-things-i-would-change-about-online-poker-part-3/

Read Part 4: /blog/5-things-i-would-change-about-online-poker-part-4/

Read Part 5: /blog/5-things-i-would-change-about-online-poker-part-5/

Season 10 of the PokerStars European Poker Tour (EPT) launched in Barcelona, Spain, and so far so good for the popular tour as it celebrates its 10^th year of existence. Attendance has been rock-solid, the stars have come out for the tournaments, and the action has been intense. In this column we’ll take a look at some of the bigger moments from the EPT Barcelona series up to this point.

Estrellas Poker Tour Main Event

1,798 players made the €1,000 buy-in Main Event in Barcelona on the Estrellas Poker Tour the largest land-based tournament PokerStars has ever hosted. 1^st place was supposed to be for nearly €300,000, but a four-handed deal saw the remainder of the prize-pool divvied up between the remaining participants.

Here is how the tournament shook-out:

1. Jahn Soenke — €181,136
2. Paul vas Nunes — €204,589
3. M. da Fonseca — €158,475
4. Alin Sameeian — €121,000
5. Marc Pujol — €67,400
6. Paul Cusi — €53,800
7. Lukasz Roczniak — €41,100
8. Alfonso Amendola — €29,000

€50,000 EPT Barcelona Super-High-Roller

39 entrants and 12 reentries made the first Super-High-Roller on Season 10 of the PokerStars EPT a very successful affair. Also helping the cause was the star-power at the final table, specifically the final two players who hold 10 WSOP bracelets between them (with Erik Seidel the owner of eight of those beauties).  But when all was said and done it was two-time WSOP bracelet winner Vitaly Lunkin that would claim the top prize.

Here is a look at the final table payouts from the tournament:

1. Vitaly Lunkin – €771,300
2. Erik Seidel – €557,100
3. Steve O’Dwyer – €355,100
4. Mike McDonald – €269,400
5. David Benefield – €208,150
6. Ole Schemion – €159,200
7. Fabian Quoss – €128,515

Day 1a and Day 1b of the EPT Barcelona Main Event

A total of 1,225 players took part in the 2013 EPT Barcelona Main Event, including virtually every big name in poker, from Daniel Negreanu to Liv Boeree.  Right now it looks like just over 700 players will be returning for Day 2 of the tournament on Tuesday. Below you will find the official chip-counts from Day 1a, as the Day 1b chip-counts are not quite tallied as of yet.

Day 1a chip-leaders:

1. Dragan Kostic – 215,000
2. Niclas Adolfsson – 147,400
3. Rodrigo Sirichuk – 130,100
4. Nils Jarefjall – 129,900
5. Jacob Reffeldt Rasmussen – 128,300
6. Albert Daher – 127,700
7. Carlos Mora Alvarez – 125,200
8. Martin Diaz – 120,800
9. Miguel Gurrea Monton – 120,000
10. Rens Feenstra – 117,600

*Resources: http://www.europeanpokertour.com/tournaments/barcelona/

There is never a shortage of opinions when it comes to improving online poker, and you probably have heard all of the arguments about Anonymous Tables, Tracking Software, and VIP programs. While I have my own opinions on all of these topics and more (there is never a shortage of opinions coming out of me) in this column I’m going to focus on basic changes to online poker; changes that could be made tomorrow by any online poker site.

These changes I am about to propose are for the greater good and not for the benefit of winning players (although these players will benefit down the road) and will likely be laughed at by many of these players who will see these proposed changes as an attack on their livelihood. But I have my reasons and will explain my rationale for each proposed change.

• Change #1: Eliminate All Heads-Up Tables and Short-Handed Tables of Less Than Six Players
• Change #2: Eliminate All Tables with Stakes Lower Than $.05/$.10 NL and $.25/$.50 Limit
• Change #3: Eliminate All Tables with Stakes Above $10/$20 NL and $50/$100 Limit
• Change #4: Eliminate All of the “Trendy” Tournaments and Structures
• Change #5: Allow Deeper Buy-Ins

As I said in Part 1: My goal throughout this series will be to consolidate player pools and increase the long-term liquidity of the game; it is NOT to appease a certain group of players or make everyone happy.

The next few installments will focus on the fact that we need to realize that there is no longer a global player pool that can sustain any number of games at virtually any stakes. We need to keep the player pools robust, and we need to do this by paring down our offerings.

Think of it like an episode of Restaurant Impossible, where the menu is so large that it’s tough to maintain a high quality across the board and it simply confuses most of your customers. So with that in mind let me move on the second change I would implement.

Change #2: Eliminate all tables below $.05/$.10 NL and $.25/$.50 Limit

If you want to play penny limit games to learn the basics then I suggest getting your start at the play money tables. All the online poker sites are doing by spreading these limits is thinning the player pool and allowing players that would be playing higher to get decimated by the rake and act as if they are exercising proper bankroll management. I’ll take on each of these points now:

First, the rake is unbeatable at these stakes, and if it’s not unbeatable it’s crippling to the player.

Second, there is no need to exercise bankroll management when your bankroll is roughly three hours of work at a minimum wage job. This fallacy that bankroll management needs to be exercised at all limits is laughable. Players with $25 or $30 in their account don’t need to worry about bankroll management and play $.01/$.02, just sit in a $10 buy-in game and take a shot.

In 2003 there was no such thing as penny games, at Party Poker you either played $.50/$1 Limit games or you played $25 No Limit, those were the lowest stakes offered for many years, and it never hurt their traffic.

Read Part 1: /blog/5-things-i-would-change-about-online-poker/

Read Part2: /blog/5-things-i-would-change-about-online-poker-part-2/

Read Part 3: /blog/5-things-i-would-change-about-online-poker-part-3/

Read Part 4: /blog/5-things-i-would-change-about-online-poker-part-4/

Read Part 5: /blog/5-things-i-would-change-about-online-poker-part-5/

There is never a shortage of opinions when it comes to improving online poker, and you probably have heard all of the arguments about Anonymous Tables, Tracking Software, and VIP programs. While I have my own opinions on all of these topics and more (there is never a shortage of opinions coming out of me) in this column I’m going to focus on basic changes to online poker; changes that could be made tomorrow by any online poker site.

These changes I am about to propose are for the greater good and not for the benefit of winning players (although these players will benefit down the road) and will likely be laughed at by many of these players who will see these proposed changes as an attack on their livelihood. But I have my reasons and will explain my rationale for each proposed change.

• Change #1: Eliminate All Heads-Up Tables and Short-Handed Tables of Less Than Six Players
• Change #2: Eliminate All Tables with Stakes Lower Than $.05/$.10 NL and $.25/$.50 Limit
• Change #3: Eliminate All Tables with Stakes Above $10/$20 NL and $50/$100 Limit
• Change #4: Eliminate All of the “Trendy” Tournaments and Structures
• Change #5: Allow Deeper Buy-Ins

I always here players talking about a second Poker Boom, how the game needs new blood; yet these same players lobbying for new players are doing everything in their power to disenfranchise these new players. Unlike the original poker boom (when things were far simpler) the winning players of today do not want to hunt for their prey; they don’t want to have to put in the hard work and perhaps play a game on someone else’s terms. Instead they are more akin to an animal living in captivity, who never goes hungry and never has to exert any energy to remain fed.

So what I am proposing is a return to the old days (the old days meaning about 10 years ago) where winning players did not create the rules under which the game is played, and when new players were at least given a chance to sit down and partake in the game on equal footing –they still had no chance but their demise came from the sword they could see and not a knife in the back.

My goal throughout this series will be to consolidate player pools and increase the long-term liquidity of the game; it is NOT to appease a certain group of players or make everyone happy.

Change #1: Eliminate All Heads-Up Tables and Short-Handed Tables of Less Than Six Players

Whoa, say what now! Aren’t heads-up and short-handed games among the most popular?

While these games may be extremely popular they are simply not needed, and in fact only work to spread the player pool too thin. The vast majority of the players sitting in these games are winning players, looking for fish that they can have all to themselves and not share them with a table full of players. The problem is these games bleed the fish too quickly; they turn players off from playing poker far faster than a fish sitting in a full ring game; where they have a chance to fold and take a breather every now and then.

A secondary reason I have no issue eliminating these games is that the players that will miss them (the winning players) and will do the most complaining, will eventually get over it. In the end they will simply migrate to the six-max or full-ring games.

Read Part 1: /blog/5-things-i-would-change-about-online-poker/

Read Part2: /blog/5-things-i-would-change-about-online-poker-part-2/

Read Part 3: /blog/5-things-i-would-change-about-online-poker-part-3/

Read Part 4: /blog/5-things-i-would-change-about-online-poker-part-4/

Read Part 5: /blog/5-things-i-would-change-about-online-poker-part-5/

Last year it was The Big One for One Drop $1,000,000 buy-in tournament at the World Series of Poker that tested the limits of what was possible in poker. This year it is the $5,000 buy-in, $10 million guarantee, Seminole Hard Rock Poker Open that is doing the same; pushing the bounds of what is possible with a little creativity and a lot of cajones.

So how do you make just another tournament in a sea of poker tournaments stand out? The Seminole Hard Rock Poker Open may just have rewritten the playbook on precisely how to accomplish this feat: First you slap a $10 million guarantee on the Main Event (a $5,000 buy-in event) and then you advertise the tournament months in advance. Obviously not a recipe for the faint of heart; especially the $10 million guarantee bit.

But the tournament organizers were rewarded for their “if you slap a massive guarantee on the tournament they will come” mentality with 634 players on Day 1a, 690 players on Day 1b, and 1,060 entrants on Day 1c. The final tally of 2,384 is something that few people felt was possible in today’s poker world, and even fewer that it could be pulled off in a random casino in Hollywood, Florida.

The ambitious attempt by the Seminole Hard Rock Poker Open taking place in Hollywood, Florida seems to have paid off in a big way considering the Main Event not only met its immense $10 million guarantee, but the publicity the tournament has received, and the number of top poker pros who made their way to Florida for the tournament is practically unprecedented. I mean, we are talking about a $5,000 tournament with 2,200 entries and a total prize-pool of $12 million!

Personally I love everything about this event.

I love the way they utilized the newer trends in poker like reentries and guaranteed prize-pools –a concept live events were late to the party on.

I love the way they ran the three starting flights on a Thursday, Friday and Saturday, allowing amateur players the opportunity to play without taking a week off from work to see if they made Day 3.

I love that they have been hyping this tournament for months, giving pros the chance to plan their trip and locals the chance to satellite their way into the field.

But most of all I love the ambitious guarantee the tournament chose. $10 million appeals to everyone. It appeals to poker pros, but it also appeals to amateurs. It’s a number that screams potential overlay, but at the same time a massive field that will push the prize-pool well beyond the guarantee.

These are the types of tournaments poker needs, not the cookie-cutter WPT and EPT tournaments, or the fundamentally similar tournaments of the WSOPC, HPT, or any other mid-stakes poker tour’s acronym you’d like to put here.

If more tournament organizers had the vision and the balls to attempt what the Seminole Hard Rock Poker Open just pulled-off the tournament poker world would be in a much better place than it is. This event attracted everybody: Poker pros; semi-pro and amateur players; locals; and virtually the entire ensemble of poker media… For all intents and purposes, the SHRPO is being covered like it’s the WSOP Main Event.

The first event on Season XII of the World Poker Tour (WPT) is now in the books, with the bwin WPT Merit Cyprus Classic Main Event crowning the latest WPT Champion in the form of Russian Alexey Rybin.

The Merit Cyprus Classic tournament has kicked-off the last two WPT seasons, and both times a very rare feat was accomplished. Marvin Rettenmaier, the winner of this event on Season XI, became the first back-to-back WPT winner, as he won the final event of Season X (the $25k Championship) followed by a win in Cyprus; becoming the first player to win two consecutive WPT tournaments.

So what was Rybin’s feat? On his way to victory Rybin led at the end of every day, giving him the incredibly rare wire-to-wire win; an achievement that has become almost unheard of in the modern tournament poker world, where tournaments can stretch five or more days. According to the WPT website, this feat hasn’t been accomplished on the World Poker Tour since Kevin Saul at the Bellagio Cup back in 2008.

The WPT Merit Cyprus Classic victory is only the seventh on Rybin’s resume according to his Hendon Mob page, but the young Russian seems to make the most of those cashes, considering he is averaging over $100,000 per cash! His WPT win is actually the second largest of his career, with a 5^th place showing at the 2010 EPT San Remo Main Event trumping it by over $100,000. From the looks of his tournament results it’s a pretty safe bet to assume that Rybin takes the Gus Hansen approach to poker tournaments, rarely playing in non-main events.

Here is a look at how the final table began in Cyprus from the WPT website:

• Seat 1: Pierre Sayegh –349,000
• Seat 2: Alexey Rybin – 2,698,000
• Seat 3: Andrei Nikonov – 1,280,000
• Seat 4: Sergey Rybachenko – 921,000
• Seat 5: Albert Daher – 1,595,000
• Seat 6: Kayhan Tugrul – 1,025,000

Here is a look at how the final table participants finished from the WPT website:

1. Alexey Rybin – $258,000
2. Albert Daher – $160,200
3. Andrei Nikonov – $103,700
4. Kayhan Tugrul – $75,600
5. Sergey Rybachenko – $56,600
6. Pierre Sayegh – $46,000

Before the bright lights of the WPT’s main stage move on to Los Angeles for the remainder of the Legends of Poker tournament series, the tour will make a quick layover in Florida, where the inaugural WPT Alpha8 Super-High-Roller tournament is set to get underway at the Hollywood Hard Rock Hotel & Casino. The Alpha8 tournament will feature a $100,000 buy-in and will take place on August 26^th and 27^th.