By Rolf Slotboom
Poker World Thrilled by New Kid on the Block
People who know me or have read my works know I'm a money player; I hardly ever play tournaments. In my home country (The Netherlands) middle-limit hold'em and big pot-limit Omaha cash games are being offered on a daily basis in the state casino where I usually play, so there's no real need for me to travel to the big European or American tournament events to play over there.
In fact, limit hold'em and pot-limit Omaha are the only games I think I'm very good at: my stud game needs a lot more work, I'm a decent hi-lo player at best and against reasonable opponents I stand no chance playing draw, lowball, razz, crazy pineapple, nullo, courchevel, aviation or any other game for that matter. During my stay in Vienna (my girlfriend worked there as a dealer and I have been playing my favorite game, pot-limit Omaha, in Poker World casino on a daily basis for the past six months) I decided to sharpen my tournament skills and to improve on my "other games" a little.
Poker World's tournament director Martin Pollak, who is a nice person in addition to being a very capable player (he can often be found in Vienna's biggest money games, together with the very talented and extremely aggressive Jin Caillin, one of the casino's persons in charge) runs a highly successful tournament competition, the ISA Poker World Cup. Four tournaments a week are being offered and the nine best overall players of the month get to play in the final for a guaranteed $3,200 (50,000 Austrian schillings). Because of this, there is furious action in each tournament- everybody wants to be crowned the "ISA Poker Champion of the Month". While most tournaments are hold'em, stud or Omaha, Mr. Pollak also introduced hi-lo (Stud/8, Omaha/8) and pineapple-poker recently, games that were relatively new to the poker playing public in Vienna.
Tournament director Martin Pollak
congratulates Rolf on winning the
event
When the first Crazy Pineapple tournaments took place May and June this year (May: limit, June: pot-limit), I decided to jump in for the reasons I just mentioned. While the events had been good to me personally (because I happened to win both events), the players in general seemed to enjoy the concept of pineapple-poker a lot, and I decided to expand on this a little bit more. I created a new hold'em game, played pineapple-style, combining limit, pot-limit and no-limit poker into one. Once again, Mr. Pollak (and Mr. Manfred Engstler, Poker World's chief executive) had the courage to start it up and to introduce it to the public, and on July 9, 2001 the first ever Potnopine Hold'em event took place.
To make sure the usual 40-70 participants would also show up for this new game, it was decided to make this a free buy-in tournament, with still a $1,920 or ATS 30,000 prize guarantee. As it turned out, 78 players who had never played the game before entered the tournament, creating a $2,500 prize pool and making the event as spectacular as I hoped it would be. The special thing about Potnopine is that, in contrast to most tournament games, this is a game of implied odds: it is a game where most of the money goes in on the turn or river, rather than before or on the flop. Because everybody gets four cards rather than two, quite a few starting hands seem playable for one or two bets; still, when all the money goes in (on the turn and/or river) and the decisions therefore matter the most, you'll still have only two cards to rely on, just like in hold'em.
Aces are nice, of course, but aren't nearly as strong as in no-limit hold'em because your opponents start with four cards to beat you rather than two and because you cannot move in before or on the flop, like you can in no-limit. That is: we get to play some poker here, making this a fast and furious action game, where it sometimes seems like it's all just luck - when in reality the skill factor is extremely high. Besides helping in organizing the event, I also had the chance to participate in it. Did I win? Yes, I did - but I was very lucky to do so. What's more important: it seemed like the majority of players really enjoyed the game. In fact, one of the biggest compliments I got was from someone who always plays in the same pot-limit Omaha game as I do, and who said he liked this even more than our usual favorite game.
Tournament: Potnopine Hold'em
Location: Poker World, Vienna
Date: July 9, 2001
Buy-in: Free, unlimited rebuys + add-on for $16 (ATS 250)
Organized by: Poker World (Chief Executive Manfred Engstler, Tournament Director Martin Pollak) in co-operation with me, sponsored by ISA (for more information on ISA please visit their website www.isa-casinos.de, where a worldwide poker tournament schedule can be found).
Seventy-eight players showed up at 19:00 for the first ever Potnopine Hold'em event, some of them enthusiastic about its structure, others a bit more reserved or even skeptical. Six hours later, the winners of the event were crowned, and the prize money was split according to chip count between me and Ng, a young and friendly Chinese man and a very capable fellow pot-limit Omaha player. Although we would have loved to say we had been the best players in the tournament, most of all we had just been lucky, both of us getting our opponents all-in on the flop or turn with kings against aces, only to suck out on the river at crucial stages in the tournament.
Elvira & Rolf in winner's circle
My opponent said to have enjoyed this game more than any other game he has played so far, and most of the other final table players seemed to have had a good time as well. I took about $750 against his $700, not bad for an (in my case) investment of only sixteen dollars. My thanks go out to everybody involved in starting up the game, to the sponsor ISA for its generosity, to Mr. Engstler and Mr. Caillin for the excellent job they do in running the casino, and to Mr. Pollak for his professionalism and dedication in running the tournaments in general, and this tournament in particular. Final results were as follows:
Total prize money: $2608 (ATS 40,750)
Entrants: 78
Rebuys: 129
Add-ons: 34
Slotboom $743 (ATS 11, 610)
Ng $ 669 (ATS 10,450)
Kazhuba $297 (ATS 4,640)
Baumann $225 (ATS 3,480)
Griesser $160 (ATS 2,510)
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