Cash Review: Au revoir, Monsieur Benyamine?
Wednesday, 26 November 2008
Some of the biggest news in the online poker world this week has been the retirement of David ‘Degenyamine’ Benyamine as a Full Tilt Poker professional. Having been playing the highest stakes Pot-Limit Omaha and No-Limit Hold ‘em games there for quite some time, his absence will be very noticeable to the regulars there – you don’t get a lot of people bankrolled for $200,000 games.
Both PokerStars and Betfair have been suggested as new homes to the former tennis pro, and with the French poker market beginning to open up, France-born Benyamine will be able to pick and choose from his fair share of offers, no doubt.
By amazing coincidence, a new player known as MR B 2 U SON has started playing the nosebleeds on Full Tilt. Not that you should read too much into that…
Mr B to you, son?This mystery player (who, in fairness, might not be the aforementioned Mr B) rounded off a nice week by hitting a sick one-outer against Patrik Antonius in a $200/$400 Pot-Limit Omaha game. The two got all their chips in with the board reading Kc-9s-Tc-2c. Antonius held As-Ks-Ac-6c for a flopped overpair and turned nut flush. MR B 2 U SON was completely crushed holding 2s-Ad-Qc-Jc for the second nuts plus an open-ended straight flush draw. For the mathematical types among you, he had about 2.5% equity in the hand. Disgustingly for the Finnish poker God called Antonius, the mystery player hit his one out with the 9c on the river and won a $162k pot. This puts MR B 2 U SON’s winnings in the past week as just over $600,000 after crushing Gus Hansen earlier in the week. If it is Benyamine, that goes some way to recouping the $1.8m he dropped in October.
Ziigmund, the high-stakes chatbox-abusing tilt-machine, had an excellent day in PLO with a $241k win. This put his total winnings for the month as $1.2m – not bad in a few weeks.
However, you may have noticed that was written in the past tense. This is because in a sick session with CardRunners instructor Brian ‘Stinger88’ Hastings on the $500/$1,000 Pot-Limit Hold ‘em/Omaha mixed table, the 20-year-old pro clocked three-quarters of a million dollars in profit – all from Ziigmund. Ouch.
In the last hand, the two got most of the money all-in pre-flop. Hastings held Ac-As-9c-5c and Ziigmund a nice rundown hand of QJT9, all spades. With only one eighth of a pot-sized bet left on the Qd-3c-4s turn, Ziigmund of course called Hastings’s bet with top pair. Hastings was a 2-1 favourite on the flop with his overpair and gutshot plus a backdoor flush draw. Ziigmund had a fleeting moment of hope, turning a flush draw with the 6s and increasing his equity to 40%, however the blank river shipped the $200,000 pot to Hastings. Nice way to round off a session, methinks.