Despite the online poker tables being regularly filled with professional players at nearly every level, almost anyone who takes the game seriously recognizes that much of their earnings as a player doesn’t come from world-class opponents. It makes logical sense, that in order to profit from playing a game you need to play against opponents that can potentially increase your competitive advantage. In mathematical terms, this is often referred to as expected value, or EV.
Participating in poker sessions where you’ll consistently be in mathematically favored situations is every poker professional’s dream. Nonetheless, when you’ve been waiting for hours for a profitable EV game to run with little to no success, many professional players turn to each other for the majority of their action. Although you can unquestionably profit from these types of sessions, most are aware that playing these games regularly can be a losing proposition. However on Sunday, Scott “URnotINdanger2″ Palmer decided he was willing to take the risk, and it proved to be a calculated one against the always tough Full Tilt pro Patrik Antonius.
With arguably both players being considered in the top 10 best online players on the planet, we can be certain neither player was holding a considerable edge over one another. But regardless of that certainty, URnotINdanger2 was able to take over $366K from the streaking Finn.
Lately, Antonius has been taking on a similar opponent, Daniel “jungleman12″ Cates, in a poker variation which includes both Pot-Limit Hold’Em and Pot-Limit Omaha. The players have generally been playing at stakes of $300/$600, and while both players have had their fair share of success against one another, neither player has jumped out to a substantial lead.
However yesterday morning, one of Daniel Cates’ best friends, Scott “URnotINdanger2″ Palmer, decided he wanted to test his playing ability against Antonius.
In the wee hours of Sunday morning, the pair played 428 hands against each other at even higher stakes, which were $500/$1000 Mixed HA. For over two hours, the players went at it across 4 tables, with Palmer winning all but one. In fact, Palmer had gained over $200,000 on one table alone, after only an hour and a half of play.
Despite playing at Antonius’ Full Tilt tables “Patrik’s Office” and “Patrik’s House”, the Finnish poker celebrity had anything but a home-field advantage against the difficult online player.
If he was lucky, maybe Palmer received a few pointers on Antonius’ playing tendencies from his buddy Daniel Cates. If that’s the case, hopefully the Cardrunners pro didn’t involve sharing hand histories with his friend Scott Palmer. Otherwise, he may find himself in a very similar situation to the former Cardrunners instructor Brian “sbrugby” Townsend, who was recently removed as a Full Tilt red pro and Cardrunners instructor last year. It’s simply speculation, but that would be devastating to Cardrunners subscribers.
Although URnotINdanger2 was Antonius’ biggest foe over the weekend, Antonius did managed to accumulate some of his losses back with several short heads-up sessions at $3000/$6000 Fixed-Limit Hold’Em, and $300/$600 Mixed HA against jungleman12. Overall, Antonius managed to lose under $300K for the weekend. I guess it could’ve been worse.
O Fortuna PLS also had a successful weekend at the virtual felt, taking home $140K playing both $2K/$4K Limit Hold’Em and $50/$100 No-Limit Hold’Em. Also on Poker Stars, another online player, <xIIIIII><, won $134K in 3345 hands of $25/$50 Pot-Limit Omaha.
Zugwat (-$105K) and jama-dharma (-$162K) were unfortunately two of the biggest losers of the weekend.
More high stakes updates will be coming soon from High Stakes Report. Stay tuned.
