Tony became a WPT champion in November 2013 when he finished on top of 191 entrants in the WPT Caribbean Main Event, a result that bagged the Wisconsin native $145,000.

In late January 2016, Tony finished as runner-up to Ari Engel in the $10,600 Aussie Million Main Event in Melbourne for A$1,000,000, which is his largest live tournament score to date, and took his lifetime live winnings to $2,375,198.

Anyone who has had the pleasure to meet Tony in person will know that he is very open to talking about almost anything, and always willing to give fellow poker players and fans a few minutes of his time. At the recent WPT Vienna festival, Remko Rinkema interviewed Tony and quizzed him on 10 things you may not know about our ambassador. You can see the interview in full, which is split into two parts, below.

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The exact, or stone, bubble is the worst position to finish in a tournament. Some may argue that busting early trumps that, but if you bust early into an event you haven’t invested much time or effort, whereas being the unfortunate soul who finishes just outside of the money may have played for several hours online, or even two or three days in a major live event.

When a tournament approaches the bubble stage, it is a great time to assess your opponents, and use any knowledge about them to improve your own chip stack and increase your chances of not only reaching the money places, but to go deep where the big prizes are. Look at the majority of tournaments in the world and it is the top three payout places where the significant money is. You need chips if you want to put yourself in the frame for a big score.

Several years ago, when I first began playing poker tournaments online, I read an interview with a player called Ari Engel, who was known as “BodogAri” in the online poker world. Engel was ranked number one in the world for online tournaments, had won millions online, and now has more than $3.4 million in live tournament winnings.

”Try to bubble yourself because your opponents won’t let you

In this article, Engel was asked about his strategy for playing on the bubble in tournaments and his reply, cut down for the purpose of this article, was “try to bubble yourself because you will often find that your opponents will not let you.”

By this Engel means that you should up your aggression when the money bubble is approaching because a large percentage of players will be tightening up in an attempt to not bubble themselves. If an opponent, particularly one whose stack is on the shorter side, looks to have locked down and is playing very tight, attack them whenever you get the chance to do so by stealing their blinds, three-betting their raises, etc. However, should such an opponent play back at you with, say, a four-bet or an all-in bet, you are probably best ducking out of the way because they are more often than not going to be sat there with the goods, and it is better to conserve your chips so you can take advantage of other situations that may arise.

It should be obvious that the best stack to have on the bubble is one larger than your opponents, which is almost always the case at any stage of a tournament. Being the big stack allows you to bully your opponents and continue adding to your stack. Even if you are in a dominant position you should refrain from going overboard with your aggression because losing just one or two decent pots can put you right in the thick of it and allow you to be taken advantage of.

One of the biggest mistakes players make on the bubble is when they have a medium-sized stack and they start attacking the larger stacks for a myriad of reasons, usually that the bigger stack is inexperienced or has been overly aggressive. What they fail to realise is that, as a medium-sized stack, they have a lot of equity around the bubble and they are giving a large chunk of that equity up (essentially throwing money away) by getting involved in hands they have no need to play.

Once the Bubble Has Burst

You will often see a flurry of eliminations once the money bubble burst because the shorter stacks are happy they have some money to show for their efforts and are now throwing caution to the wind in an attempt to rebuild their stacks or go home trying. This is another time that you can pick up plenty of chips because you will find those shorter stacks pushing all-in with a wide range of hands preflop so you can call with hands that are likely dominating that range, don’t get too carried away though!

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The biggest change is that the GPPT Online leg, which has a massive $500,000 guarantee for only a $109 buy-in, has multiple Day 1s to choose from. Another that we have opened the doors to everyone around the world; if you can access partypoker.com then you can compete for a share of the $500,000 guaranteed prize pool.

Day 1a begins at 10:00 am CET on Saturday 2nd April with subsequent flights kicking off every two hours until 02:00 am on April 3. Extra Day 1s commence at 10:00 am, 12:00 pm, 2:00 pm, and 4:00 pm on Sunday 3rd April, with the final Day 1 being a six-max turbo. Each Day 1 ends after the completion of the 16th 12-minute level (6-minutes for the turbo Day 1) and players can play in as many Day 1s as they wish, but can only take their biggest stack forward, all other stacks are forfeited.

The final day, where everyone is in the money, is at 8:00 pm on April 3.

$500,000 guaranteed GPPT Online Schedule

Group Head of partypoker, Tom Waters, said: “With Powerfest coming to a close we wanted to offer players another huge guaranteed online tournament. Our normal MTT schedule offers our biggest guarantees at peak European time, so we decided that we would like to offer all our online players around the world the chance to play in a huge online tournament. This online GPPT is structured with multi-time zone day 1’s so that everyone can get involved at a time that suits them. This is a unique concept for us to try and if it is supported we will look to build this into our monthly offering. The new multi-day tournament on partypoker is something we have been working on for a while so I am delighted to bring this new feature to the site.”

You can buy into the $500,000 guaranteed GPPT Online for $109 cash or a $109 tournament ticket, the latter being available to win from as little as $0.01, meaning everyone has a shot at a huge payday regardless of their bankroll’s size.

Upcoming live GPPT events include Leeds (April 9-10), Glasgow (May 14-15), Brighton (July 23-24), Cardiff (September 3-4) and soon to be announced further GPPT Online legs.

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WPT Vienna final table results

Play resumed in the main event at 2:30 pm CET and after 28 hands, Georgios Zismopoulos three-bet all-in with after Darie had opened the betting with his and Darie called. A few seconds later and that king-jack failed to melt Darie’s snowmen, meaning Zismopoulos was the first casualty of the day.

Zismopoulos was joined on the sidelines by Dominik Bisnjak one hand later when his lost to Dietrich Fast’s with the appearing in the window.

Next to go was Fast, who fell agonisingly short of winning his second WPT title, having emerged victorious in the $10,000 WPT L.A. Poker Classic in February 2016. Fast three-bet all-in with after Zoltan Gal had raised with the dominating . Gal called, the board ran , and Fast’s superb run in the tournament was over.

Third place went to the British pro Matthew Davenport. Having lost all but four big blinds of his stack after a gutsy bluff was called, Davenport moved all-in with and was called by both Darie and Gal holding and . Daveport’s hand remained best until the river of the board, the six on the river gifting Darie a straight.

It took 78 hands of one-on-one poker between Darie and Gal to settle the tournament with the final hand seeing Darie pick up and move all-in to put Gal to the test for his short stack. Gal called with and fell behind on the flop. Neither the turn nor the river were any help to Gal so he had to make do with the €109,340 consolation prize while Darie became the WPT Vienna champion.

The WPT now heads to the Playground Poker Club on May 1, 2016 for the partypoker WPT Canadian Spring Championship and you can qualify for the CAD$3,500 buy-in Main Event via satellites at partypoker.

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The post Vlad Darie Triumphs in the partypoker WPT Vienna Main Event appeared first on partypoker.com blog.

Over the past few weeks and months we’ve overhauled the tournament schedule with the introduction of the Power Series, put $5 million of guaranteed prize pools up for grabs in the Powerfest, doubled guarantees during Fight Night, and now we’re launching Pure Poker Wednesdays.

Pure Poker Wednesdays kick off on Wednesday (imagine that) 23 March and see all no-limit hold’em Power Series tournaments go back to being freezeout tournaments, which some people would say is the purest form of poker. Despite having their re-entry format dropped, the Pure Poker Wednesdays’ guarantees will remain the same, giving you the chance to win big during the week for a smaller investment.

What’s more, each tournament part of Pure Poker Wednesdays has a specially designed blind structure, based on the World Poker Tour’s structure, that has been created to maximise your enjoyment and give you an experience of playing in a major event.

Each tournament sees players start with 30,000 chips, and has blinds starting at 50/100 with antes kicking in after the third level. Pure Poker Wednesdays is going to be awesome and we expect it to be a roaring success right from the off.

What are the Pure Poker Wednesdays Tournaments?

As mentioned, the Pure Poker Wednesdays tournaments are all Power Series events that are scheduled on a Wednesday so be sure to check the Power Series filter in the tournament lobby to see when you can be enjoying tournament poker at its purest.

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Zoltan Gal leads the way at the start of play, but Dietrich Fast is hot on his heels and looking for his second WPT title. Both of those players would be worthy champions and are going to be pushed all the way by the talented British plyer Matthew Davenport, who starts the day third in chips.

Also present at the final table, but definitely not there to only make up the numbers are Darie Vlad, Dominik Bosnjak, and Georgiois Sizimopolous.

Action gets underway at 2:30pm Central European Time so tune in and see who becomes the partypoker WPT Vienna Main Event champion.

2016 partypoker WPT Final Table Seat Draw

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Before we continue, you must be aware that not every poker tell is 100% accurate. Some poker players are very savvy and will often act the opposite way to a known tell in an attempt to throw you off the scent – known as a reverse tell.

Other factors influence the speed at which an online poker player acts. They could be playing on several tables at once, perhaps on a number of different sites (they should only be playing at partypoker, obviously!), or they may not be giving their full attention to what they are doing as they could be watching TV or browsing the internet. It is your job to figure out whether a timing tell is exactly that.

The following online poker timing tells are common knowledge, and while not 100% accurate, knowing about them and being able to use them yourself to keep your opponents guessing is a handy bit of ammunition in your arsenal.

Timing tells: The instant check

This postflop timing tell is more reliable if it occurs on the turn or river if your opponent is out of position and has called before the flop and on the flop. An instant check is usually indicative of a player going into check-call mode and are not considering any other option available to them.

Using the other information available to you, such as your opponent’s typical starting hands, you can use the instant check to work out if they have a piece of the board and want to get to a cheap showdown, or if they are trying to hit one of their draws. If you have a strong hand then you may want to bet slightly more chips than usual as your opponent has shown they are likely to call you down.

Timing tells: The instant call

If an opponent instantly calls your bet then it is likely they have one of two hands: (1) A draw, or (2) a relatively weak hand they are trying to get to showdown with. Poker players often call quickly because they know that calling is the only viable route to take with their hand, often because there is nothing really to think about.

Timing tells: The instant check-raise

We mentioned a couple of paragraphs ago that the instant check is often a sign of weakness as it indicates that your opponent has gone into check-call mode and is looking to hit a draw or get to showdown. However, a check followed by an almost instantaneous check-raise is a show of strength, particularly if the check-raise amount is for the minimum.

The reasoning behind this is the player is so excited about the strength of their hand that they cannot wait to click the raise button. It is worth being aware that if you see this timing tell from an opponent who has position on you on a draw heavy board that they may be attempting to buy a free card on a future street cheaply.

Timing tells: A pause followed by a check or small bet

Both checking and betting small, often the minimum, after a pause is often a sign of weakness. The pause is usually because your opponent is trying to convey the message that they are mulling over whether to check or bet so when they do check, they hope you will check behind.

Similarly, a min-bet or a small bet in relation to the size of the pot after a pause can be a ploy to get you to call with good but not the strongest of hands, narrowing down the range of hands you may have.

Timing tells: A pause following by a raise, especially an all-in bet

Again, the pause is an attempt to make you believe your opponent is pondering what to do next and that they have a tough decision to make, maybe even a borderline decision. But, and here’s the but, when they follow that pause with a raise, especially an all-in bet, you will often find they have a very strong hand.

How to avoid giving off timing tells

If you are looking to avoid giving off timing tells to your opponents then the easiest way is to take the same length of time to act regardless of your decision, but don’t dwell or waste too much time (like some live poker players do) otherwise you slow the game down and start to frustrate players.

Another way is to mix up your play. Perhaps use the pause followed by a raise move when you are strong, but also do so occasionally when you are weak. You can also mix up your play by taking different lengths of time to act regardless of what your action is going to be. Humans tend to adhere to patterns even when they are trying to be random so use something such as the actual time to base your actions on. By this I mean take a look at a clock and if you are 20 seconds into a minute take two seconds to act, but if it is 45 seconds into a minute take four seconds, and similar. Your opponents won’t pick up on this, but you have a natural way to add variety to your game.

What other timing tells are you aware of?

Are there any other timing tells that you’ve seen players show at the online poker tables? Are you guilty of doing any of the above, or perhaps you use the above timing tells as a reverse tell to keep your opponents guessing about where they are in a hand against you? Let us know in the comments box below or on social media, we’d love to hear from you.

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The post Are You Guilty of These Online Poker Timing Tells? appeared first on partypoker.com blog.

We have three sets of tickets for you to win, each of them placing you ringside for what should be an explosive bout and one that could see Joshua add the IBF world heavyweight title to the Commonwealth Heavyweight and British heavyweight belts he already has.

Twenty-six-year-old Joshua has knocked out all 15 of his opponents to date, the latest being Dillian Whyte on December 12, 2015, and you could be there to see if the Watford man can make it 16 from 16 fights.

Win Ringside Seats to the Anthony Joshua vs Charles Martin Fight

There are three ways for you to win ringside seats to the Joshua versus Martin fight on April 9, all of them at partypoker. Please note, that this promotion is only open to residents of the United Kingdom, that the prize for each of the three routes is a pair of ringside tickets only, and the tickets are non-refundable, non-transferable, have no cash value, and cannot be sold. All winners must be a member of the partypoker UK Community Forum on Facebook to be eligible to win a prize.

Play both the Jab and Contender on March 16

Set your alarms for 7:00 pm on March 16 and buy yourself into the Jab and the Contender to be in with a chance of winning a pair of ringside tickets. Play in both the $5.50 buy-in Jab ($10,000 guaranteed) and the $22 buy-in Contender ($20,000 guarantee) and we will select one player at random to win a pair of tickets.

Freeroll Your Way to Glory

The second way to get your hands on these much sought-after tickets is to play in the freeroll scheduled for 8:00 pm on Wednesday 23 March. The password for this exclusive freeroll will be made public in the partypoker UK Community Forum on Facebook, and its champion walks away with Joshua vs Martin tickets!

Win the $5.50 Tournament on March 28

If you’ve been unsuccessful in winning the ringside tickets during the random draw and the freeroll, you get one more shot at winning in a low-stakes tournament at 8:00 pm on Monday 28 March. This tournament costs a mere $5.50 to enter and the winner secures themselves a pair of tickets for this title bout – any prize pool generated is paid as per our standard payout structure.

Anthony Joshua versus Charles Martin Tickets T&C

• This promotion is only open to residents of the United Kingdom. Any non-UK resident who manages to win tickets will forfeit them to the next player in the tournaments’ standings
• The tickets are non-refundable, non-transferable, do not have a cash value, and cannot be sold
• The prize is for two ringside tickets only. Winners are responsible for their own travel and accommodation
• Only one prize per customer. Should a player win two prizes, the second is awarded to the next player in that tournament’s standings
• Winners must be members of the partypoker UK Community Forum on Facebook.
• partypoker reserves the right to amend or cancel the promotion at any time and without prior notice
• The decision of the partypoker management is final
• Standard promotional terms and conditions apply

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If you have won a seat or package to a live event via partypoker, Rachael will have been the woman who helped to sort your buy-in out and much more besides. Find out more about Rachael, her role at partypoker, and what the strangest request she’s had during her time with the company.

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Now we have some more exciting news for you poker tournament lovers out there, news that a brand new GPPT Mini tour is hitting the road and travelling to at least 19 different locations around the United Kingdom, and we plan to add more stops too as we bring poker back to the people.

Each of the GPPT Minis costs $109 to buy into and feature a guaranteed prize pool of $50,000. Like the GPPT Main Event, everyone who reaches Day 2 are in the money, with a min-cash being worth $330, which includes a $109 ticket for a future GPPT Mini or GPPT Main Event.

The Dusk Till Dawn (DTD) team has created a superb blind structure that sees blinds increase every 30-minutes on live Day 1s and then 45-minutes on Day 2, giving you more breathing room when you need it the most.

Again, like the GPPT Main Events, the GPPT Minis will have online Day 1s available, meaning you can play from the comfort of your home – or on the move via a mobile device – before heading to the venue to play out the remainder of the tournament.

2016 GPPT Mini Schedule

Dusk Till Dawn Club Director Simon Trumper, who is hosting the tour, said: “This is a great tour that will bring the festival feel to some excellent casinos up and down the country. The GPPT Mini presented by partypoker is offering an exceptional $50,000 guarantee for an affordable $109 buy-in. I look forward to visiting all of the venues and some new cities in the process. I hope the player’s enjoy the tour as much as I will.”

Dusk Till Dawn have created a dedicated website for the GPPT Mini Tour, which if you click this link here, you’ll be whisked away to and find all of the information and support that will ever need!

Head to the Tournaments tab in the partypoker software and select Live Events>Dusk Till Dawn to see all of the satellites – starting at $0.01 – for the GPPT Main and these new, exciting GPPT Mini events.

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The post Introducing the Brand New GPPT Mini Tour appeared first on partypoker.com blog.