Poker Articles

One of my favorite things about Pocketfives is the close proximity between players with a wide variety of skill and experience levels. The Prove Your Skills Promotion, courtesy of Mansion Poker and Pocketfives was a great example of this dynamic in action as 6 Pocketfivers won the opportunity to play heads up against a top ranked player for some pretty nice sums of money ranging from $300 to $800.  The winners were thedylan who took first in the 1k freeroll and the top five from the $1 rebuy who were, rhsc15, Nzane, ppyb007, Preraise, and DblDownTrent.

With his choice of ranked players to choose from thedylan picked Ari and the other five were matched up in order of their finish against the corresponding top five at the time, so Johnnybax, Rizen, Ari, ActionJeff, and BeL0WaB0Ve formed the opposition these guys had to go through to cash in on the freeroll. Not exactly the table selection I’d like to choose from, but these guys all seemed to look forward to the challenge.

The first match was the marquee match-up between the winner of the $1 re-buy and Pocketfives’ long time number one ranked player, Mr. Johnnybax. Rhsc15 proved his rebuy win was not a fluke by defeating Bax in two out of three heads up matches and taking home $800 for his efforts. Like many of us rhsc15 aka Justin VanAusdale was introduced to poker in a home game setting with friends and family.

“It was at one of these games someone told me about internet poker and all the money he's made. I started playing cash games on Pacific Poker about five years ago and was immediately hooked on the game.  After reading a few books and losing a bit of money I
started to see some improvement in my game.

Only recently after reading more advanced books and hanging around P5s.com I started to seriously get into the game and see what would happen.  The P5s.com
Mansion Freeroll is my largest win to date and hopefully I'll see you at some final tables in the near future.”

Justin’s opponent was none other than top ranked player Johnnybax, who had this to say about the promotion,“I took the HU match seriously because that was what my opponent expected and deserved.”

I’m sure I would have been a bit intimidated going into a match against Johnnybax, but rhsc15 seemed fearless and ended up taking two out of the three matches for the win. Interestingly, although he played his best, Bax said, “I rarely play HU SNGs, as I have no clue what to do, and haven’t bothered to try and learn yet. RHSC15 played very well.  He totally owned me.  Since he seemed like a very nice guy, losing didn’t bother me one iota.”

Second place in the rebuy went to NZane who had the dubious pleasure of facing off against Rizen to try to take home an extra $600. It seems he was not too tense however since when I asked him if he did any preparation for the match he responded, “Other than a bowl of Frosted Mini-Wheats, no.” Perhaps you should’ve gone for the Frosted Flakes Nick, because Rizen went home with the cash. He didn’t walk away empty handed however:

Lenny: Do you feel you learned anything going up against such a talented player?

NZane: I learned the value of patience in a heads up situation.  One of my weaknesses has been heads up play when I make the final table of an MTT, I’ve been working on filling in the holes for some time.

Nick “NZane” Pryomski plays poker on the side as a fun and profitable hobby now that he is enjoying moderate success in NLHE tourneys and “truly found a niche in PLO cash games.” When he is not playing poker he is a full time sales consultant and part time Fantasy Football expert in the suburbs of Detroit. Between work, poker, watching South Park, and planning for world domination, I imagine NZane stays pretty busy.

NZane seemed to have enjoyed the experience and is not worried about losing to such a great player, while Rizen as usual was focused and determined as always in his approach to the match.

Lenny: How did you feel when you heard you would receive a freeroll based solely on your Pocketfives ranking?

Rizen: I was thrilled. It's always nice to get a chance at a reasonable freeroll, and I really thought the Mansion promo was a great idea. I enjoy all of the special 'ranked player' events.

Lenny: All of the P5ers managed to put up a pretty good fight, how do you think your opponent played?

Rizen: My opponent played a great game. He actually beat me the first game, and I had to fight back pretty hard to win the last two. He was a somewhat conservative player, but understood the blind structure well and loosened up as the blinds went up. I felt he played very well.

Lenny: Do you enjoy your position as a ranked player on Pocketfives and the recognition and attention it brings? (I know it can be a mixed blessing.)
 
Rizen: I enjoy it. You always have to be willing to take the good with the bad. I would also say that about 99% of the people I run into are great. There is a minority that wants to try and tear you down, and sometimes you have to have thick skin since every play you make is watched and scrutinized, but the good outweighs the bad by miles. I really enjoy all the support, peer recognition, and other things that come with being a ranked player.

Our Prove Your Skills promotion was especially sweet for Adam Brownbridge aka ppyb007:

Lenny: How did you feel when you finished in the top 5 of the Mansion rebuy and knew you'd won a freeroll against a ranked player for extra cash?

Ppyb007: I've been only playing for poker for a little over a year now and this is my biggest win so I am very proud of it. When I heard there was a second stage of my win and it involved ranked players from P5s I was really excited. I was a bit excited, but I knew it was going to be an experience of a lifetime and it was.

Lenny: Do you feel you learned anything?

Ppyb007: I have learned a lot. It helped me to see the value of putting pressure on an opponent at the right time. There were several times during the match I had Ari down in chips and he just went all in and forced me to fold and he picked up valuable chips for himself.

Although ppyb007 seemed a little in awe of Ari, he may have underestimated his own ability as Ari had this to say about his opponents (he also played thedylan):

“I thought they both played very well, and if we did one of those blind tests, I believe very few would have been able to say I was the ranked player and the other was not. All the games seemed very even, and could have switched given a couple of different cards.”

The fourth place finisher in the rebuy was slated to play ActionJeff for $400, but due to scheduling difficulties the match could not take place, so PreRaise won by default. I’m sure he would have enjoyed the opportunity to play, but was also glad to rake in a free $400. John “PreRaise” Collier comes from a poker family as he is married to SlickChick and has been playing since he was twelve.

John is the proud parent of three kids, as he puts it, “one 2 legged son who is 25 and almost out of the army, and my two beautiful girls- 4 legged cats.”

“I started playing online about 6 years ago on Party Poker then moved on to other sites where I have had some success. My wife and I love to go to Foxwoods. I also enjoy craps when we go, biggest night winning live was in Foxwoods I won 5k at the craps table while my wife won a 2500 slot jackpot. We sure had fun that night!”

Interestingly enough, the fifth place finisher in the rebuy was DblDownTrent who is probably the most experienced HU Sitngo player of all the players in the promo, ranked and unranked. He is not a full time player, but he plays 3-4 nights a week and divides his time pretty evenly between Heads Up games and MTTs.

Lenny: Did you do any preparation for the match?

DblDownTrent: I didn't know much about BeL0WaB0Ve's game - other than he's LAG, but did rail him on stars for a few nights before the match - I was very impressed with his ability to play that loose style successfully while playing so many games. I can’t wait for his video on PokerXfactor.

Lenny: Was this your first chance taking advantage of a P5s promo? What sorts of promos would you like to see in the future?
 
DblDownTrent: This is the second promo I've played with P5s - I played in the Bodog WSOP promo and just missed the top 27. I'd love to see more promo's like the mansion one with the opportunity to play against the top players. Thanks again for running these.  It says a lot about your site and the top ranked players, that they are willing to take time out of their poker schedules (or at least screen space for one more table) to play these matches.

Trent played a great set of matches and other than rhsc15 may have come closest to taking down one of the pros. He was very close to making a tough call on a four flush board when BeL0W made a very tricky play putting half of his short stack in on the river. Time ran out just as he was just going for the call however, and when BeL0W showed the bluff he lost his cool a little bit and that game.

BeL0WaB0Ve was very impressed with his opponent and paid him the ultimate compliment a poker player can receive, “Trent- if you are looking for a good bankroll builder, I think heads-up matches would be very profitable for you.”

TheDylan won the freeroll and could challenge whichever ranked player he chose to the heads up match. He picked Ari because, “I thought Ari would be fun to play.  He's always got a huge rail but didn't get to see them root him on.  Only a few people watched but nonetheless I wanted a challenge and he surely gave it to me.

Picking spots heads-up is so crucial.  There's a lot more bluffing and mind games going on which I wasn't used to.  Playing your opponent is the game here and I just couldn't get a feel for what Ari was doing.  Like I said, he just had me guessing every time.”

All in all, this was a great promotion and really brought out some of the best aspects in the Pocketfives community. I am always glad when we can hand out some bonus cash in tournaments, and the Mansion promo was certainly a success in that regard. Pocketfives gave out $7,000 in added prizes between the freeroll, the rebuy tournament, the sitngo blast, and the capstone which was the Prove Your Skills heads up matches. It turns out that these guys are ranked for a reason, taking down three out of four of the contested matches, and the Johnnybax claims to have no idea what he was doing. Sure, I’ll believe that when I see it!