My name is Eric, and I cover the big (and small) tournament series in Sochi, Altai, and Vladivostok in text format. If you've been to the series in Krasnaya Polyana in the last two and a half years, then we've probably met.
Before starting this job, I had never set foot in a casino, so I was learning the world of live poker from scratch. But live and online games are as different as Counter-Strike and paintball: live players have their own tricks, and the atmosphere in the hall is a far cry from a quiet evening in front of a monitor. “What could there be in a live tournament that isn’t online?” you ask. I’ll answer with a phrase that Alexander “Academic” Lakhov says at almost every Sochi series: “I’ve never seen anything like this.”
If such thoughts occur to a player who started playing poker decades ago, then live poker definitely knows how to surprise. And I will try to prove it to you. "And I have five reasons for this," as the classic song goes. Or even more. Anyway, let's get started.
What is the Price of Silence?
What do you do if you get tired of a spammer in the chat? Minimize the window, open another tab, or turn on mute mode with a couple of clicks. But in a live game, even headphones with music at maximum volume may not save you. There are players who don't mind talking at the table. There are players who really like to talk at the table. And then there is Alexander Lakhov, who, thanks to his eloquence, was able to earn money without saying a word.
It is no secret that tournament prize money isn't all the money that is played out during the game. In Sochi, I saw many different side bets. For example, one player bet, at the stage of several tables remaining, that he would take first place in the tournament, and winning this bet brought him ten times the payout for the top prize. Or various last-longer bets, the most expensive of which are usually in super high roller tournaments and are quite comparable to the prize money for winning.
These are all fairly standard ways to extract additional value, but when you are literally paid to keep quiet, that's a whole different story. In July of this year, at SPF High Roller, on the second day of the main tournament, Alexander Lakhov was chatting with his opponents in his usual style and clearly felt like a fish in water—which couldn't be said about his neighbors.
Hrayr Nazaryan bought Alexander Lakhov's silence for an hour for $100. "Waiting for Lakhov is a dollar a minute," said Alexey Savenkov. "No, one and a half," Hrayr corrected. Alexander approvingly pointed at Nazaryan. Like, that's right. We're waiting for the hour to end. I wonder if they'll extend it?
So "Academic" got quite real money long before ITM (In The Money). They didn't extend it this time, but the story continued the next day at the final table of one of the side tournaments.
Hrayr Nazaryan made another attempt to buy an hour of silence from Alexander Lakhov. The latter said that the "evening rate" would be higher. They agreed on 200 USD. Alexander played in complete silence, but the dollar for a minute of silence doubled.
Toilet Breaks Are Minus EV
One of Anatoliy Zyrin's super-useful tips for a beginner live poker player is: "Wash your hands not only after using the toilet, but before too!" And after the October series in Sochi, it was supplemented: "And when you go to the toilet, don't forget to prop the front door open."
Yes, yes, not lock, but prop up. And here's why. High roller tournament, top 22, three tables, about two o'clock in the morning. Another break has ended, but for some reason, there are not enough players at the tables.
A reporter should not influence the course of a tournament in any way, because it is simply unprofessional. But this time I had to intervene. Anyone who has ever been to the Poker Club "Sochi" knows that the entrance to the balcony/smoking room is through the toilet. And more than ten people were unable to get back because the entrance door was blocked!
In an attempt to save themselves, the players sent me a video of themselves trapped in the restroom. I had to intervene and go and explain the situation to the floor. The tournament clock was stopped, and ten minutes later the players were rescued. They ended up missing only two hands, although they could have missed many more. So a break in live poker is a dangerous thing!
This Is Only Possible in Live Poker
What would a text report be without hands? In a live game, there are scenarios that are simply impossible online. Most often, this is due to errors. For example, a player makes a bet out of turn or incorrectly announces the bet size. It happens that the dealer opens the turn or river before the end of the betting, or a card turns over, and the player gets a completely different hand than he originally should have.
I have a special love for hands with exposed cards. Recently, a format has become popular on TV broadcasts where viewers don't see the cards of one of the participants. But in real life, it is possible to witness the opposite situation, when a player mistakenly turns over his cards ahead of time and is forced to play the hand as face-up as possible.
A fresh example from the November series of the Phoenix Poker Tour. There were five tables left in the Warm-Up tournament, registration was closed. Anton Danilov, with a stack of 54 big blinds, opened for 2BB from first position. Anatoly Telegin shoved for 7.5BB from the neighboring seat with . Alexey Petrov thought about it in the big blind with 30BB. Danilov decided that the betting was over and turned over his . The decision for Alexey became noticeably simpler, and he went to see the flop with .
The flop came down , checked around. The turn gave Danilov a flush draw and an open-ended straight draw. Alexey Petrov decided that the best move here was all-in (controversial!), and shoved almost all his stack into the pot. But no such luck! Anton Danilov called, made a straight on the river, and knocked out two opponents.
"You set this all up," Petrov said to Danilov, getting up from his seat. It's unlikely that Anton would have ever won his opponent's entire stack in this hand if he hadn't opened his cards early. A rare example of a mistake leading to a positive result. Generally speaking, attentiveness live is a very important skill!
Giveaway of the Year
There are also hands without an asterisk or additional conditions, after which you still want to grab your head. On TV broadcasts, the "wow" effect is achieved because we know the cards of all participants, so a fold or a call seems incredible. That's how movies work. In a text broadcast, everything is the opposite: a hand that doesn't reach showdown is usually the "hottest."
The same Phoenix Poker Tour, pre-final of the main tournament, 14 players in the game. Damir "MiracleQ" Gabdullin (28 BB) opened for 2 BB from the hijack, Vsevolod Skorokhod (36 BB) 3-bet to 6 BB from the button, Damir called.
Flop: . Gabdullin checks, Skorokhod bets 2BB, MiracleQ check-raises to 5.8BB, Skorokhod 3-bets to 13BB. Damir immediately shoves all-in for 22BB. Vsevolod Skorokhod thought for three minutes and decided not to call the nine additional blinds for a giant pot, saying that he had folded . Damir Gabdullin almost doubled up even without going all-in.
After this hand, the whole day in the smoking rooms they talked about this fold, inventing hands for both players. For me, this is what live poker is: the lack of information gives some hands a special status. The most striking example is the confrontation between Garrett Adelstein and Robbie Lew. Finding and describing such a hand in a text report without errors is a great success.
Regional Color
The hand can also be memorable thanks to the special atmosphere at the table. For such stories, you need to go to Altai or Vladivostok. That's where they play with soul!
Every year we bring the Russian Poker Cup series to the regions, the main feature of which is two inexpensive main tournaments in Hold'em and Omaha in the freezeout format. As a rule, this promotes careful play and the absence of eliminations at early levels.
In a pot-limit Omaha tournament with a starting stack of 166 big blinds, you have to try really hard to finish your performance in the first hand. I didn't see this in Sochi, but in the capital of the Far East, there were three eliminations in the opening five minutes, and two of them were released in the first hand! The flop turned out to be too attractive for Sergei Ovcharenko with and Evgeniya Komogortseva with . Both invested 150 big blinds on this board, but Andrey Chepusov came out on top.
The eliminated players immediately moved to the next cash game table. Soon the winner of the hand joined them. Do you think he was eliminated? No way! Half an hour after the double knockout, Andrey Chepusov made a triple sit-open, adding another six hundred big blinds to his stack.
Having knocked out five opponents (there were 28 participants in the tournament) in the first hour of the game, Andrey lost interest in the tournament and began to mix it... with a cash game. I have never seen anything like that! By the way, Andrey started the final day as the chip leader, but took sixth place and didn't make it into the prizes. But how many highlights he gave to the text broadcast!
Signs of Destiny
Live poker is not only about hands, calculations, and rationality. More than once I have seen players who were eliminated after a bad beat shortly before the end of late registration ask themselves: is it worth sitting down again for ten big blinds and trying their luck? As a rule, such an internal dialogue ends with an affirmative answer, after which winning the tournament involuntarily leads to thoughts about some greater destiny or pre-ordained scenario.
In August, Sochi hosted the largest tournament in the club's history: a multi-day freeroll dedicated to Pokerdom's tenth anniversary attracted 4,797 entries. Yaroslav Shkuratov from Perm arrived with friends only on the third day of the series. He didn't take his place in line from six in the morning, as many did, slept through the start of the tournament, came to the casino, and signed up for the waiting list. This doesn't seem like the approach of a person seriously aiming to win the tournament.
When it was his turn, Shkuratov's stack was only fifteen big blinds, but he managed to get going and bag forty-five starting stacks. Yaroslav was the only one from his group to make it to the final day, and before the start, he told his friends how he saw his victory in a dream and how difficult it would be for him to pack the huge cup for SDEK (a delivery company) to send to Perm. As the final table approached, this went from a joke to more and more like a prophecy.
Live poker is also about mysticism. On the final day, which can safely be called an all-in festival, Yaroslav Shkuratov beat 238 opponents and was able to turn his only free entry into 2,005,710 rubles. In the end, the impressive and heavy cup really had to be sent home. Pleasant troubles!
A week later, the freeroll champion's compatriot Ksenia Polezhaeva became the first woman to win the Main Event of the Sochi series. But that's a completely different story. That's what live poker is – every tournament can become a beautiful legend. That's why I love it. And you?
