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The first webisode from Epic Poker’s first Main Event begins on Day 3 of the tournament. Out of 137 starters, 18 players remained, all guaranteed at least $43,000. Against a $20,000 buy-in and first prize of $1 million, however, nobody busting during this webisode would walk away thinking it was a successful day.
Table Draw and Chip Counts for Day 3
When play resumed at the start of Day 3, there were 11 minutes left at the 2,500-5,000/500 ante level. Justin Bonomo, the shortest stack, doubled up on each of the first two hands, bringing his total chips to over 180,000. Because no players were eliminated during the first 11 minutes of play, the players’ stacks, as multiples of the big blind for the 3,000-6,000/1,000 ante level appear in parenthesis.
Table 1
Seat 1 – Adam Levy 587,000 (98 BB)
Seat 2 – Dan Fleyshman 82,500 (14 BB)
Seat 3 – Hafiz Khan 144,000 (24 BB)
Seat 4 – Hoyt Corkins 252,500 (42 BB)
Seat 5 – Brandon Meyers 109,500 (18 BB)
Seat 6 – Isaac Baron 637,500 (106 BB)
Table 2
Seat 1 – Noah Schwartz 259,500 (43 BB)
Seat 2 – Matt Glantz 453,000 (76 BB)
Seat 3 – Ted Lawson 200,000 (33 BB)
Seat 4 – Huck Seed 93,500 (16 BB)
Seat 5 – Chino Rheem 408,000 (68 BB)
Seat 6 – Gavin Smith 257,500 (43 BB)
Table 3 – TV TABLE
Seat 1 – Hasan Habib 646,500 (108 BB)
Seat 2 – Eugene Katchalov 418,000 (70 BB)
Seat 3 – Sam Trickett 1,032,000 (172 BB)
Seat 4 – Jason Mercier 535,500 (89 BB)
Seat 5 – Justin Bonomo 42,000 (7 BB)
Seat 6 – Erik Seidel 609,000 (102 BB)
Exhibit 1 for the Argument that Poker is a Game of Skill
With the starting chip average of 342,000 (57 BB), the players generally had sufficient chips to use their full range of skills. During Episode 1’s 46 minutes, highlight hands involve multiway pots, betting on multiple streets, and sufficiently deep stacks that viewers can see players bluff, call potential bluffs, exercise pot-size control, consider difficult laydowns, and generally exercise the range of skills. Although televised poker provides occasional examples of this, the Epic Poker broadcast unquestionably demonstrates the gulf between “poker” and “professional poker.”
If poker were not a game of skill, nothing would matter to the outcome but the strength of a player’s hand. This first episode provides an unprecedented look at what professional players all know: it’s about everything but the strength of your hand. By pitting the best against the best, these players are exposing themselves to your judgment to a remarkable degree. When you see two great NFL players match up, there is a chance one succeeds by forcing the other to make a mistake. It’s the same in poker and if you ask yourself, “How could a great player make that bad call (or bad bet or bad fold)?” recognize the role the other great player in influencing that play.
Without giving away any of the outcomes, here is a brief guide to the first episode of Epic’s first Main Event. Note in the webisode how viewers are generally kept informed of stack sizes, blind levels, the size of the pot, and position – items that can significantly affect the context of the players’ moves.
10:30 Katchalov v. Mercier – 3-barrel bluff or clear value bet?
With the blinds at 3,000-6,000/1,000 ante, Mercier raised the minimum, to 12,000 UTG+1. Eugene Katchalov, in the big blind, called with pocket deuces. Jason Mercier is known as a super-aggressive player, and this hand demonstrates the difficulties that even a player of Eugene Katchalov’s caliber has playing defense. After Katchalov check-called the flop and turn, he checked and Jason bet with the board reading 4d-4h-9c-4c-7s. Eugene had a full house, but he also had just about the weakest possible hand that could be in the lead.
Watch the hand to see how Jason Mercier’s bet-sizing gives Katchalov clues – only are they actual clues or fakes?
At 28:00, there is a profile of Eugene Katchalov, his family’s difficult last days in the Ukraine, and the struggles he faced as a child in a new country and a new language.
14:00 Seidel v. Habib – missed draw or value bet?
After hand that started with three players looking at a flop of Js-Tc-Qs, Hassan Habib found himself considering calling Erik Seidel on the river with just ace-high.
There is also an interesting feature on Seidel (16:00) in which he discloses that he almost quit poker last year.
18:00 Rheem v. Glantz – from monster to playing the board
Chino Rheem started the hand with 90 big blinds, Matt Glantz with nearly 70. Matt started by flopping a set but by the end of the hand, the board read 8-Q-J-9-T. Did Chino play smart and get lucky, or did he just get lucky? Could Glantz have played the hand in a way to avoid having to call all his chips and play the board? What about Chino’s play on the river? What about Matt’s play?
Redraw at 12
When the tournament was down to 12 players, right after the beginning of the 4,000-8,000/1,000 ante level, the players redrew for seats at two tables. This was the chip and seating position, with number of big blinds in parenthesis. The chip average was now over 570,000, or 71 big blinds.
Table 1 - TV TABLE
Seat 1 – Jason Mercier 651k (81 BB)
Seat 2 – Isaac Baron 577k (72 BB)
Seat 3 – Eugene Katchalov 205k (26 BB)
Seat 4 – Gavin Smith 384k (48 BB)
Seat 5 – Adam Levy 766k (96 BB)
Seat 6 – Erik Seidel 758k (95 BB)
Table 2
Seat 1 – Chino Rheem 1.123M (140 BB)
Seat 2 – Ted Lawson 103k (13 BB)
Seat 3 – Hasan Habib 818k (102 BB)
Seat 4 – Sam Trickett 832k (104 BB)
Seat 5 – Huck Seed 197k (25 BB)
Seat 6 – Brandon Meyers 429k (54 BB)
22:00 Seidel v. Mercier v. Baron – cards mean nothing
Very simply, Erik raised on the button and Jason (small blind) and Isaac (big blind) called. There was a flop. There was no showdown, or river, or even turn.
Mercier checks.
Baron bets into the preflop raiser.
Seidel, the preflop raiser, folds.
Mercier check-raises.
What is Baron doing betting out of turn? Why is Seidel folding? What’s Mercier doing check-raising? How does Baron respond?
All three players started the hand with 70-90 big blinds. This inconsequential hand – it was not a huge pot, either in total or in relation to any of the chip stacks – demonstrates how the players maneuver based on position and stack sizes.
29:00 Baron v. Mercier – Does Jason always have it?
Under the gun, Jason raised the minimum (his usual amount at this table) and got calls from Isaac Baron (UTG+1), Gavin Smith (the button), and Erik Seidel (the big blind).
After a flop of 2s-Kd-7d, Mercier does what he always does: he bets out. Do you think he cares he has two players behind him? (New statistics gathered on EpicPoker.com compare the preflop and postflop aggressive, as well as the percentage of hands played and showdowns won for all the players. There is frequently an inverse relationship between hands played and preflop aggression vs. postflop aggression. That is, especially active players before the flop are less active later in the hand, and the players more selective preflop are more likely to be aggressive later. Not so with Mercier.)
He gets Gavin and Erik out but both Mercier and Isaac Baron have real hands. Watch Jason’s bet-sizing and Isaac’s response.
38:00-44:00 Mercier v. Seidel
In a pair of hands, after viewers have gotten to see them play deep into hands – and they’ve obviously become very familiar with each other – they go at it in a pair of hands like stags fighting to the death. Betting with nothing, bets on every street with the lead in the hand changing, judicious value bets, carefully considered folds: it’s a poker clinic in two hands.
There are many other good hands, a lot of drama, and several good features in addition to these highlights. See some interesting player profiles.
Erik Seidel (16:00)
Eugene Katchalov (28:00)
Brandon Meyers (36:00)
Biography – Results – Video - Photos
Hoyt Corkins (5-Year member - 17th place $43,190) – Hoyt, 51, raises cattle in Alabama and lives in Las Vegas. He began playing tournament poker in 1989 and won several tournaments, including a World Series of Poker bracelet in 1992. A divorce, and the expansion of cash-game poker in the South, kept him away from the tournament circuit for more than a decade. In 2003, following Chris Moneymaker’s WSOP victory, he returned and promptly won the WPT Foxwoods championship for nearly $1.1 million. He has since become one of the leading players on the World Poker Tour, winning against in 2010, making a total of 6 WPT final tables and cashing 18 times. He also won his second WSOP bracelet in 2007. He has over $5.5 million in career earnings.Biography – Results – Video - Photos
Hafiz Khan (2-Year member - 16th place $43,190) – Hafiz is a 36-year old former software engineer from Stockton, California. From 2007 to April 2011, he made approximately $2.5 million in online poker tournaments. His first live tournament cash was mammoth: he finished 2nd out of 1136 in the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure WPT Main Event in January 2008, worth almost $1.1 million. In the just 3 ½ years in live tournaments, he has earned over $2.2 million, including a victory at $5,000 No-Limit Hold’em at the L.A. Poker Classic in 2009 and 2nd place in the July 2011 Bellagio Cup $10,000 Main Event.Biography – Results – Video - Photos
Dan Fleyshman (Pro/Am qualifier - 15th place $43,190) – Dan, 29, won his way into the Main Event by finishing 7th in the Epic Poker Pro/Am, in which 9 players (1 League member, 8 others) received entries into the Main Event. Fleyshman, attending a football game with a friend, heard the expression “Who’s your Daddy?” for the first time. The pair printed and sold tee shirts with the slogan, giving birth to a marketing and licensing company that eventually made Dan, at 23, the youngest CEO of a NASDAQ-listed company in history. Playing part time in smaller buy-in events (though he made the final table of the 2010 World Series of Poker Europe £10,000 Main Event, finishing 7th), Dan developed a reputation as a fearsome “closer.” Of 13 tournaments in which he cashed between 2005 and 2009, he won 7 of them.Biography – Results – Video - Photos
Matthew Glantz (2-Year member - 14th place $43,190) – Matt, a 39-year old from the Philadelphia area, has been playing poker professionally for about 8 years. After earning a pair of degrees at Temple University, he took a job as a clerk on the Philadelphia Stock Exchange, eventually working for several options trading companies and starting his own company. As he became more interested (and more successful) in poker, he and his wife agreed he would play full-time for a year and either return to the Exchange or continue playing. Glantz has been continuously successful since that time and is now a respected high-stakes mixed-game player at the Borgata in Atlantic City and in Las Vegas during the World Series of Poker. He has demonstrated high-stakes versatility by becoming the WSOP’s most consistent performer in big-money mixed-game tournaments. Since 2008, he has made 4 World Series final tables in mixed-game events with buy-ins of $10,000 to $50,000. He also won the European Poker Tour’s London Open High-Roller Event in 2009. He has earned over $3.8 million in tournament poker.Biography – Results – Video - Photos
Noah Schwartz (2-Year member - 13th place $43,190) – Noah, a 28-year old native and resident of Florida, discovered online poker while in high school as a means of occupying himself after his father’s death. His rollercoaster story of success and failure – he won $70,000 his first month online, ran that up to $300,000 the next month, and lost it all in 10 days – taught him early (though expensive) lessons in bankroll management and patience. After showing promise in baseball as a pitcher in high school, he attended Florida International University but suffered an arm injury that ended his career. Schwartz became a successful cash-game player online, though on PokerStars in March 2007, he won the Sunday Million tournament for over $353,000. In live tournaments, he has earned over $1.5 million.Biography – Results – Video - Photos
Ted Lawson (2-Year member - 12th place $49,360) – Ted Lawson, 51, was born in Buffalo, New York and, by way of Florida, now lives in Las Vegas. After becoming captain of the University of Buffalo’s nationally-ranked wrestling team, Lawson graduated and got started in the insurance business. By 2004, the company he and wife Michelle founded, 21st Century Holding Co., was publically traded on NASDAQ. A recreational poker player since college, Ted, an iron-willed competitor with a happy-go-lucky attitude, saw the growth of World Series of Poker and decided to “give it a shot.” In his third tournament, his first career cash, the won the $5,000-Rebuys Pot-Limit Omaha event, along with $500,000. In 2007, his family relocated to the Las Vegas area and he devoted himself full-time to poker. He was earned over $2.6 million in his tournament career.Biography – Results – Video - Photos
Sam Trickett (2-Year member - 11th place $49,360) – Sam, a London resident, turned to poker after his semi-professional career in football ended with a knee injury. Just 25, he is one of the world’s most highly-regarded high-stakes players. He was part of a now-legendary cash game in Macau where he won £1 million in two sessions and found the game so favorable that he is now learning Mandarin. Trickett has been playing tournament poker for just three years and has earned nearly $5 million – including $1.3 million and $1.5 million in the same week in January 2011 in a pair of super-high stakes tournaments in Australia.Biography – Results – Video - Photos
Isaac Baron (2-Year member - 10th place $49,360) – Isaac, 24, is the youngest money finisher in the Main Event. The native of Menlo Park, California, possesses a staggering amount of talent, poise, and potential. When he was just 19, he won over $1.1 million in online poker tournaments and was named Card Player Magazine’s 2007 Online Player of the Year. By the time he was old enough to enter a Las Vegas poker room legally, he had already won over $1 million on the European Poker Tour. In the last 2 years, he has proven himself a fierce closer, making 3 final tables in events with buy-ins of $5,000 or more and winning twice. He has earned over $2.2 million in live tournament poker and a similar amount online.Biography – Results – Video - Photos
Brandon Meyers (Pro/Am qualifier - 9th place $70,960) – Brandon, 28, is a professional poker player originally from Minnesota. Until June 2011, he was known primarily among poker insiders as a cash-game player. Meyers has had an incredible summer: he finished 4th at the World Series of Poker in the $2,500 Mixed Hold’em and, just 12 days later, finished 4th in the $10,000 Main Event of the Bellagio Cup. Along with his runner-up finish in the Pro/Am and money finish in the Main Event, $350,000 of his $540,000 in career earnings have come since June 2011.Biography – Results – Video - Photos
Eugene Katchalov (3-Year member - 8th place $70,960) – Eugene, 30, born in Kiev, raised in Brooklyn, and educated in finance and international business at NYU. He began trading stocks but eventually found poker a more lucrative profession. He has earned nearly $7 million in live tournament poker, including a World Poker Tour event in 2007 worth nearly $2.5 million, a super high-roller event in January 2011 worth $1.5 million, and his first World Series of Poker bracelet in June 2011. Since the introduction of the Global Poker Index in June, he has been one of the Big Four (along with Erik Seidel, Jason Mercier, and Bertrand Grospellier) holding a near-monopoly on the top positions. He has never ranked lower than GPI#4 in the short history of the Index.Biography – Results – Video - Photos
Adam Levy (2-Year member - 7th place $70,960) – Adam, 29, is a legend of online poker. Under the screen name “Roothlus,” he won over $3.7 million in online poker tournaments. Levy took to poker easily, along with a group of talented gamers who traveled nationally as teenagers competing at Magic: the Gathering. (The Magic circuit has functioned for 10-15 years as a developing league, having spawned League members Levy, Bonomo, David Williams, Eric Froehlich, Isaac Haxton, Brock Parker, Scott Seiver, and Sam Stein.) Adam has twice earned six-figures at the World Series of Poker Main Event, including 2010, when he finished 12th. He has earned $1.6 million in live tournament poker.Biography – Results – Video - Photos
Huck Seed (5-Year member - 6th place $107,980) – Huck Seed, 42, is one of Las Vegas’s most storied high-stakes gamblers. Originally from Montana, he was an academic and athletic standout, and attended CalTech and played on the basketball team. He took a leave of absence from school for poker and never returned. He is a legendary World Series of Poker performer, which 4 bracelets, including the Main Event in 1996. He also won the 2010 WSOP Tournament of Champions. He has won over $7 million in tournament poker. Among gamblers, he was won some legendary proposition bets. He defeated an NBA pro 1-on-1; ran a marathon in Las Vegas on the 4th of July; and shot 4 rounds of golf under 98 in one day in the Nevada heat using just 3 clubs and no golf cart. (He actually had to play 5 rounds that day, because he shot 98 in the first round.)Biography – Results – Video - Photos
Gavin Smith (3-Year member - 5th place $154,260) - Gavin, who celebrated his 43rd birthday during this event, is one of poker’s most beloved personalities. His uncensored honesty and humor, along with his devotion to family, friends, and underdogs, are legendary. Smith grew up in Guelph, Ontario, studied for a degree in economics, drove a taxi, worked as a greenskeeper, and ran a poker club. He was the WPT and Card Player Magazine Player of the Year for 2005, and won his first WSOP bracelet in 2010. In his live tournament poker career, he has earned over $5.7 million.Biography – Results – Video - Photos
Hasan Habib (3-Year member - 4th place $237,560) - Hasan, 49, was born in Karachi, Pakistan and lives in Downey, California. He was a talented tennis player who won a National Tennis Championship for his age bracket in 1976. He came to the United States to attend the University of Redlands, where he also played tennis. A descendant of a prominent Pakistani banking and merchant family, Habib established a successful chain of video stores in the United States and learned to play poker, eventually becoming a well-known high-stakes player. In 2000, he made the final table of the WSOP Main Event, finishing 4th. He won over $2 million in tournament poker in 2004 and another $1 million in 2005, making back-to-back final tables at the World Poker Tour Championship, finishing 2nd and 3rd, and winning a World Series of Poker bracelet in 2005. He has earned $5.4 million in his tournament poker career.Biography – Results – Video - Photos
Jason Mercier (5-Year member - 3rd place $360,970) - Jason, 24, may be the best poker player of the online poker boom. The Florida native and resident was a high school basketball star, once scoring 47 points in a game. His poker skills proved so prodigious that he turned down a scholarship to attend another school while playing online. Although Mercier eventually dropped out of college, he became a tremendously successful online poker poker. (Prior to Black Friday, he has been spotted playing high-stakes cash games in poker rooms while resting his computer on his lap, playing online.) His first career cash was one of the great debuts in poker history, a victory in the European Poker Tour San Remo Main Event, worth nearly $1.4 million. In less than 3 1Ž2 years, Jason was made 29 final tables. Remarkably, he has won 11 times, including 2 World Series of Poker bracelets. He has earned $6.7 million in live tournament poker.Biography – Results – Video - Photos
Erik Seidel (5-Year member - 2nd place $604,330) - Erik, 51, may be the best tournament poker of all time, and 2011 has been his best year. He is a New York native and Las Vegas resident, a former securities trader put out of business by the 1987 stock market crash that discovered poker at a local backgammon club. That poker game became the world’s most difficult home game, the Mayfair Club. Players in the game over the next few years include Howard Lederer, Dan Harrington, Jay Heimowitz, Jason Lester, Mickey Appleman, and Steve Zolotow. In Seidel’s first poker tournament, the 1988 World Series Main Event, he finished runner-up to defending champion Johnny Chan. He went on to win 8 WSOP bracelets, a World Poker Tour championship, and an NBC National Heads-Up Championship. He was inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame in November 2010 and has, since then, had one of thegreat seasons in poker history. He started 2011 with $10 million in career tournament earnings. He is now closing in on $17 million. Erik has made 11 final tables in 2011 in events with buy-ins of $5,000 or more. His worst finish is 4th: 4 wins, 3 runner-ups,2 3rd places, 2 4th places.Biography – Results – Video - Photos
Biography – Results – Video - Photos
