The PokerListings Daily 3-Bet is a homemade bunt cake, a leak in your white magic and a fond welcome when you show for your afternoon poker news home game.
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Today in the 3-Bet we find Phil Hellmuth taking the worst of it in his local game, a $50k WCOOP player reveal and Daniel Negreanu warns us off poker books written by losing players.
1) Hellmuth Drops $200k to Neighbors
We already knew the billionaire seatfillers in Phil Hellmuth's local game out in Palo Alto aren't exactly poker schlubs as they include tech titans Chamath Palahapitiya, Bill Lee and Jason Calacanis among others.
We didn't know they could legitimately beat him up on a regular basis for none-too-small amounts of cash, though.
Phil's neighbors have apparently been getting more than the best of him lately, moving six-figures from Hellmuth into their already well-lined pockets. While they don't need the money obv. the satisfaction of doing so must be, well, pretty priceless.
After losing over $200,000 in my neighborhood game, and taking 2 weeks off from poker, I won $43,400 tonight. #BackOnTrack #POSITIVITY— phil_hellmuth (@phil_hellmuth) September 21, 2015
2) Who's That Playing the WCOOP $51k?
It's pretty hard to stay entirely anonymous in poker these days and it's even harder when you've reached the level where you're playing events with $51,000 buy-ins.
Unknown punters who just pop in to drop five-figures are pretty rare, indeed. In online poker, though, thanks to the ability to opt out of tracking and a modicum of respect for those who'd like to stay quiet you can still find a few screennames without a "human" name attached.
This weekend's groundbreaking $51k WCOOP event brought out a lot of the usual suspects/recognizable nicknames you'd expect to see in the event but of the 46 entrants some still couldn't be placed.
Thanks to unmatched poker detective @Kevmath and a few dedicated fans, though, a guide was quickly put together to outline who was in action. Some interesting names you may or may not recognize:
- Cejakas14 - Jose Angel Latorre
- fish2013 - Nikita Bodyakovskiy
- Educa-p0ker - Andres Artinano
- Ekziter - Anton Astapau
- Fred_Brink - Frederik Brink
- Mikleler - Mikhail Semin
- Roma-Tilt - Roman Korenev
- Trueteller - Timofey Kuznetsov
- zivziv - Ziv Bachar
- cuffme - Andrew Moseley
The final table is underway with Mike "Timex" McDonald and Fedor "CrownUpGuy" Holz among the last few standing. Check for results on the PokerStars blog.
3) Negreanu: "The best poker books will never be written"
We've delved into this territory before ourselves but Daniel Negreanu hits the nail on the head with his new post called "Which Poker Books You Should Buy?"
In the early/pre-Internet age of poker, books were, of course, the primary way you could study the game save having a Rolodex filled with elite, live Vegas pros at your disposal.
While Super/System etc still have plenty of value as general poker learning tools the truth is that the game has evolved so much that much of the advice is no longer accurate.
It's virtually impossible to be a winning player these days based on a lot of outdated poker thought recommended in many poker books.
Or worse, as Negreanu says, it wasn't even correct to begin with:
"There are books on the market today that would actually make you a WORSE poker player if you followed their advice. There are plenty of frauds out there because there really isn't a basis to verify an authors credentials unless they release their personal poker records over an extended period of time.
"I'm not looking to call out anyone in particular here, but I have seen poker coaches hired to teach the game who I thought were absolutely terrible players!"
The best advice out there today is via video tutorials and online forums, Negreanu says, but the most important factor should be the credibility/success of the author.
Even if many of the best will - wisely - never give up their secrets:
"The truth is, many of the best poker books will never be written. Its rare for a top player in the highest stakes games to divulge his strategies. He is typically going to make a hell of a lot more money by keeping his strategies to himself versus sharing them with the world.
"It does happen occasionally, but it's still quite rare. So knowing that, it's even more important to question the authors you are buying and making sure the information you are accepting as correct is coming from a source who can provide some proof of their authority on the subject."
