PS: the title is referring to the “That 70s Show”.. amazing if you hadn’t seen yet..

While the “durrrr” Challenge grabbed headlines during the first half of the year, and Ashton “theASHMAN103” Griffin’s $3.6 million run was a summer highlight, the fourth-quarter emergence of “Isildur1” at the nosebleed stakes was by far online poker’s dominant 2009 story.

While debate raged on forums regarding his true identity, the mystery Swede’s presence was a huge factor in how many top online pros finished up the year.

Who were the biggest online winners and losers this year? Here is a look at the top five on both ends of the spectrum.

In the black

The honors for the biggest online winner of 2009 go to everyone’s favorite Finnish ex-model Patrik Antonius, who banked $8,973,946 for the year. Antonius was the top earner at the H.A. tables, banking more than $6.7 million, and in H.O.R.S.E., where he pulled in nearly $2.6 million. He was, however, one of the top five losing players at no-limit hold’em, dropping $941,000.

Right behind him at #2 is none other than Phil Ivey, whose 2009 winnings came in at $6,337,702. The vast majority of his money was earned playing pot-limit Omaha where he was the game’s biggest winner, fleecing his opponents for $5.32 million. Ivey also flourished in the high-stakes H.O.R.S.E. games; he was the second-highest earner at those tables, raking in $1.91 million. Ivey posted a minus sign only at the H.A. tables, where he dropped $1.58 million.

Most of the $4,731,848 Brian Hastings took in this year came from his now-legendary $4.2 million session against Isildur1 in early December. Hastings also had a successful year when it came to no-limit hold’em, earning $690,000 but struggled in H.O.R.S.E. (-$491,000) and H.A. (-$215,000).

Unlike his contemporaries Isildur1 and “martonas,” Griffin knew when to hit it and quit it. All but busto in April, Griffin accepted a stake and ground up $500,000 playing no higher than $25/$50 NLHE, then won Full Tilt’s $25,000 buy-in Heads-Up Championship for another half million dollars. He took that roll to the nosebleed stakes and, in only two months, won another $2.6 million primarily at pot-limit Omaha before vanishing from the virtual tables.

Rounding out the top five winners is Finnish master of trash-talk Ilari “Ziigmund” Sahamies, whose 2009 profits came in at $3,060,680. Sahamies was looking at close to $7 million in profits after booking some seven-figure wins against Isildur1, but lost nearly all of it back. Sahamies fared best at H.A. (+$2.1 million) and pot-limit Omaha (+$1.6 million), but was the third-biggest loser at no-limit hold’em (-$969,000).

Other notable 2009 winners: Hac “trex313″ Dang (+$2,641,250), Brian Townsend (+$2,400,819), Rafi “howisitfeellike” Amit (+$2,235,756), Cole South (+$2,128,686), Mark Vos (+$2,101,161), Richard Ashby (+$1,298,904), Luke “_FullFlush1_” Schwartz (+$742,792)

In the red

Eleven months ago, it looked like Gus Hansen was on his way to a banner year, raking in more than $3,000,000 during January and February, but between May and August the Great Dane took an $8.5 million slide, finishing 2009 with $5,575,624 in losses. Hansen lost $1.41 million at pot-limit Omaha, $2.64 million at H.A., $557,000 at Omaha hi/lo and $938,000 in the limit H.O.R.S.E. games.

If not for an extremely profitable December, when he earned nearly $2.5 million, Tom “durrrr” Dwan would have taken the crown as the biggest online loser of 2009. Following his multimillion-dollar PLO bloodbath with Isildur1, Dwan’s online losses totaled $6.84 million, but he smartly moved down in stakes and began repairing his bankroll in earnest, ending 2009 $4,345,852 in the red. Although Dwan’s few forays into limit ring games resulted in a $440,000 profit for him at the H.O.R.S.E. and 7-Game tables, and he was a $955,000 winner at H.A., PLO proved to be his kryptonite. Dwan was the year’s biggest donor at the pot-limit Omaha tables, dropping $5.6 million.

Sami “LarsLuzak” Kelopuro made over $1.8 million during 2007 and 2008 on U.S.-facing sites alone, but lost all of that hard-earned cash back (and more) in 2009. The 22-year-old posted $4,094,276 in losses this year, $3 million of it coming from the H.A. tables alone. Kelopuro lost another $1.6 million playing straight PLO, but was actually one of the bigger winners at no-limit hold’em, banking $553,000. Perhaps he should stick to two hole cards instead of four.

David Benyamine spent the first half of the year playing under the screen name “MR B 2 U SON” before having his red pro status reinstated on Full Tilt during the World Series of Poker. It didn’t matter what name he played under, though, as his combined losses across both accounts totaled $2,973,630. Benyamine posted most of those losses in H.O.R.S.E. and 7-Game (-$1.79 million), the rest coming in pot-limit Omaha.

What more can be written about Isildur1’s wild ride? Once up a stunning $7 million on Full Tilt, he lost all of it back, along with his initial bankroll, finishing 2009 with $2,216,177 in losses. Even more shocking? Isildur1 was actually the year’s biggest winner at no-limit hold’em by far, earning over $2.3 million. It’s the $4.6 million he dropped at pot-limit Omaha that sent his account balance plunging.

Other notables in the red: David Oppenheim (-$1,370,883), Jani “KObyTAPOUT” Vilmunen (-$1,243,985), martonas (-$922,986), DIN_FRU (-$429,017)

(Courtesy PokerNews.com)

I’ve had few complications with a long standing disability related to my leg.. and specifically venous malfunction. To avoid deep medical discussion, in simple terms this disease could be classified as a benign venous cancer. As a result, the only safe way out of this is to have a complete hip/leg amputation. The good news is I’m heading into this with pocket aces versus ducks on a disconnected board. Huge chance to win all the way to the river! Ya baby!

Thanks to my friends at TELUS, I was outfitted with a free TELUS air card. This gives me a solid internet connection straight from my hospital room. Needless to say, this is my lifeline to the outside world in these ‘exciting’ days

Today is also the day I went back online to play some poker! I’ve finished three single table full ring $10 buyin SNGs. I lost the first one but came in 2nd and 1st in the last two. So overall, I feel like I haven’t lost my poker edge

Let me share a few hands with you that I felt I’d played particularly well..

Disguising AA as a strong flush draw

Here.. I basically play my AA as if I flopped a strong flush draw.. I think this forced my opponent to shove all in on the turn as a defensive move.

Playing KK strong to trap “monster” hand

Basically.. I play top pair strong like this to force strong hands that are actually big dogs to my hand to play against me. E.g. I know my opponent would easily overreact preflop with hands like AJs+. Or 88+.

HU playing opponent

This is really just playing the opponent now. I limp behind the button. I flop flush draw and HU there’s greater equity in just pressing the gas pedal to open more ways to win. As well, the bet will go towards building a bigger pot should I hit my flush. And when I do hit my flush, it’ll be very well concealed as he wouldn’t think I would push flush draw like that on the flop. On the turn, K is a great card to bluff at. If he called me with any Q he basically has to give up and fold. I doubt he just flat called with an A on that flop.. so I don’t really think that’s a possible card for him to have.

Perfect board texture for a bluff

In position I do a standard raise 90% of the time. The T4 hand is usually one hand I would just muck even in position. But versus this weak opponent, I felt I could pick up a lot of pots on missed flops. When the flop came down, It was a slam dunk I had to bet to take it down. I can’t see him calling my raise preflop with a hand that would have connected with that flop. Think about it.. J8? 99+? I doubt it. Any hand that beats that flop would reraise me preflop.

And yet, for as much good as aggression can do, I still see far too many players either being too aggressive or misusing aggression altogether. Aggression is one of the biggest tools a poker player has, but it needs to be used wisely at all times.

For instance, I see a lot of young players getting out of line and being overly aggressive with hands like A-Q and A-J. They put in huge raises with these hands thinking they’re making a smart move, but really they’re just scaring the dead money away. There are so many bad players in tournaments these days that there’s just no excuse for not being patient – eventually these players will make a mistake and ship you a lot of chips. There’s no need to risk such a large portion of your stack with a hand like that.

Many newer players are guilty of misusing aggression. They see their favorite player on TV pulling off a huge bluff or dominating their table with aggression, and they want to follow suit. The problem is that these newer players really have no idea how to be aggressive. You can’t just be randomly aggressive and hope to take control of the action; your aggression needs to be calculated.

Knowing when to be aggressive is something that comes with time and experience. If you lack that knowledge and have no feel for the game you’re playing, that aggression is going to come back to haunt you.

I would advise all newer players not to focus their game on aggression at first. You want to start out by playing solid, ABC poker. Focus on the basics and, when you have those down, you can start thinking about bringing aggression into your game.

Being aggressive in poker is a very fine art. Watching a player like Phil Ivey at the poker table can be every bit as awe inspiring as looking at a Picasso. But players like Ivey have honed their aggression over time, using their experience at the tables to shape the way they play. Put in your time at the tables, and you too may one day paint a masterpiece.

Learn from poker pros at FullTiltPoker.com

In the red: Tom “durrrr” Dwan (-$2.61 million), Gus Hansen (-$990,000), Cole South (-$690,000)

Top five earners, 2009 to date: Patrik Antonius (+$6.9 million), Phil Ivey (+$3.82 million), Ashton “theASHMAN103″ Griffin (+$3.61 million), Ilari “Ziigmund” Sahamies (+$3.35 million), Isildur1 (+$3.13 million).

Bottom five earners, 2009 to date: Tom “durrrr” Dwan (-$4.4 million), Sami “LarsLuzak” Kelopuro (-$3.87 million), Gus Hansen (-$3.71 million), David Benyamine (-$2.78 million)

Really strange to see Tom Dwan down soooo much. But he did have his share of extraordinary beats and missed monster draws..

Let’s talk about that record-setting hand, the $695,000 monstrosity that now stands as the third-largest online pot ever played. It turned out to be a bit of a cooler, all the money going in before the flop with Dwan’s up against Isildur1’s . Isildur1’s aces held up on the board, earning him $694,953.

After settling in at the Golden Nugget, Dwan played Isildur1 for another three hours but could not quell the bleeding, another $705,000 flowing out of his bankroll and into Isildur1’s coffers. The 2,100-hand match was all about Isildur1, who took all five of the night’s largest pots.

Dwan opened for his standard $3,000 holding and Isildur1 three-bet him light with the . Dwan called, the flop coming down a delicious for Isildur1. Typically hyperaggressive, Isildur1 checked this flop instead and Dwan checked it right back, perhaps sensing something was amiss. The on the turn was a great card for Dwan, who picked up the nut flush draw and top pair. Isildur1 checked again, Dwan bet $17,400 and Isildur1 came in with a raise to $64,800. Dwan shipped the rest of his stack in, $159,498 in all, and Isildur1 called, his trip sevens holding up on the river to earn him the $342,996 pot.

And so just for this week alone, Dwan has lost over $3 Million to Isildur. Peace out!

Do you know what is the one most important thing a lot of poker players fail to fully grasp? That is that very few players win enough to break even and even fewer (<5%) realize a considerate and steady profit. Why’s that?

I spent some time researching player stats online in an attempt to glean concrete differentiating factors between the real dominating predator sharks and the lesser aquatic vertebrate species. The privileged few that collect and the multitudes clueless happy-go-lucky individuals that donate. What I’d discovered didn’t as much surprise me as hit me sort of square over the head: “like, yeah, shouldn’t that have already been obvious??” The guys that make a killing at the poker tables are top notch heads-up specialists.  The one piece that the proven masters of poker have in common is the overwhelming experience in the kind of game most try to avoid.  Behind them they have tons of pots waged, some lost, but mostly won, in heads-up one-on-one confrontations.

The facts are indisputable: what makes or breaks a poker player is his/her ability to dominate his opponent singularly and utterly to the bitter end, until the very last dime is drained from the villain’s bankroll. To really master every facet of poker one has to start by isolating and destroying each and every opponent one at a time.

Cowering behind a group of up to nine players at a full ring game, set mining your pockets and waiting to out luck your unwitting opponent is simply not nearly as an effective way to mature and grow in poker. To learn how to win any poker game one has to learn to beat his opponents over thousands of hands straight up, sitting face-to-face across a single table.

Think of all the tournaments you had the fortune to run deep in and still lost? Or that time when you really got super lucky and had won a few fortunate coin flips to get heads-up? Yet really laid a stinker at the very end to loose out on a huge chunk of the total prize pool? I guarantee you, it is the money you loose out on by not properly butchering the last holdout player in a tourney that really matters. That could be your profit for a whole year. Instead, as most other mediocre players you have to enjoy the lower payouts and spread them thin to last until the next marginally successful hit (which is also a statistical inevitability by the way.. unless you are both a donkey and cursed).

So mine advice to myself then is to really refocus my game on the heads up play. Figure that one out and fast. As I think more through this exciting facet of the game, I’ll make follow up posts in the strategy section to share with the loyal readers. Until than, peace out!

Many players try to project a table image that is exactly the opposite of how they actually play. Tight players might try to project a loose table image by showing a bluff early on, while loose players trying to project a tight image aim to showdown a hand with the nuts so other players think they only play premium hands.

While doing this might result in winning a big pot somewhere down the line, it can also cost you chips to “sell” this specific table image. You really have to ask yourself if losing this equity early in a tournament is worth the potential equity that may or may not be gained later. It is usually not worth making a suspect early bluff to convince your opponents that you’re a maniac. Even if they believe you, you might move tables. Are you really willing to invest more chips to sell that image again?

My advice, especially for novice players, is to let your cards determine your table image. If you’re running hot to start a tournament and winning a lot of pots without going to a showdown, you’ll develop an aggressive table image. This can lead to winning a few big pots down the line, especially if you run into a situation where you pick up a monster hand but your opponent puts you on a bluff. But be cautious about trying to steal pots, since your opponents are more likely to suspect your bets and raises.

Likewise, if you start a tournament by getting bad hands and folding a lot, you’ll develop a tight table image. If you pick your spots right, this tight image will enable you to pull off a few nice bluffs and pad your chip stack with some extra ammunition. You might also pick up a good hand that doesn’t get called. If you show it, it will reinforce their perception of you as a tight player, and create more bluffing opportunities.

I am by no means advocating playing poker strictly based on what hands you’re dealt. You always need to be aware of the other factors in play at your table. But letting the cards do the work for you is a risk-free and effective way to establish a table image. Otherwise, you’re essentially paying for a billboard above your head that either says, “Loose Player: I will bluff you,” or, “Tight Player: I’m waiting for Aces.” Image creating plays work best against moderate opponents who don’t know your game very well. Superior players will quickly work out your style – loose, tight, or a combination (gear-shifter). Playing well is a lot more important than creating an erroneous image.

Or, to put it another way, don’t waste your money on advertising. You are not a salesman, you’re a poker player.

Source: FullTiltPoker.com

The CNN story
http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/11/10/virginia.sniper.execution/index.html

At the end of the day, Isildur1 continued his epic upswing tearing through the bankrolls of his high-stakes rivals, earning over $1,220,000 throughout the course of the night. Three of the biggest hands from this session topped $500,000 with the largest – a $574,000 monster – seeing durrrr get it in with a pair and flush draw on the turn against top set, failing to hit his seven outs and losing his $286,000 stack. This is somewhat reminiscent of a recent hand I caught in live action.. Although at that time I was up only against a top pair with a kicker… of course, only about $200 involved at that time

The session ended with both players – each apparently believing themselves to have a large edge against the other – making arrangements to play again:

Isildur1: ok im done i can hardly see my cards
durrrr: huh
durrrr: rly?
Isildur1: yes
durrrr: sweet
Isildur1: i play u every day
Isildur1: pls
durrrr: ok
Isildur1: im not running u
durrrr: lets play tomorrow
Isildur1: yupp
durrrr: will u quit
durrrr: if ur playing someone else
durrrr: to play me pls?
durrrr: u won 1.3m today
Isildur1: i will play till u quit
Isildur1: tomorrow
durrrr: ok

Sign up to Full Tilt Poker and watch as durrrr and the rest of the online nutters exchange millions of dollars every day!

The moment I sat down I was dealt . I make it $15 from middle position. I get a single caller and we go headsup to the flop. The flop comes . I bet and get a caller. Turn for a nut straight..  I bet about half the pot and again a call. River brings a third club. I make a smallish value bet figuring to get paid by a wide range of hands like two pair or even a set. The opponent makes a min raise and I was obliged to call and see his runner flush. Down nearly entire buyin. Alright.

Subsequent hand I get … I make a $10 raise from mid position and again get headsup versus a pretty aggro player. I flop botom pair with an high flop and check out of position, he checks. I figure he’s either trapping with a hand like + or on some kind of a draw. The turn brings ! and I make a 1/3 pot bet with my two pair. He floats it. The river comes a cooler and I’m pretty much figuring to have a loosing hand right now if he slow played what I thought he could have had. Still there’s a bunch of hands that I could get value from by betting my two pair and make another smallish value bet. He reraises me ALL IN!.. I obviously hollywood it and muck my hand. He proudly turns over ! Bummer.

The third and last major hand was :KhTh in BB. A fairly solid russian player makes it $15 from mid position. There are 2 callers and I decide to complete it for a 4 way to the flop. I flop a flush draw with . I check to the raiser who makes it $20 into a $60 pot. I act a small pause and obviously smooth it. The turn brings a and giving me a few more outs and even possibly a winning hand right there. Now with a $100 pot and having about $140 behind, I make a horrible mistake by betting only $60. This pretty much commits me to the pot no matter what he does.. so why not bet out more? I guess I was too eager to get more action as I was sure to hit on the river or already have a winning hand. After a little pause he reshoves for the rest of my chips. I call figuring to have added five more outs to my already 9 out flush draw. Of course I miss every card in the deck. Had I won that pot I would be back to about even on the session and some $400 to play with still.

I think I’ve made some solid plays but also made too many smallish mistakes in spots, the last hand being prime example. Whereas I could have easily won the $100 in the pot with a $140 turn bet, I lost it all on a somewhat marginal play in that spot. Although the villain did admit he thought I either had a set, two pair, or air. So.. I guess he made a somewhat questionable call considering his read (that he would be a dog 2 out of 3 times, right?). But for me to have made a correct play I should have either check / folded to a strong bet or pushed for all my chips, giving me so many more ways to win.

I decided to cut the loosing session short and head to a local coffee shop to write down my session minutes on here

I guess the lesson here is that if you find yourself making an inordinate amount of smallish mistakes, it’s best to quit the session and regroup for a later attempt when you are truly on top of your game. Often times in cash games small mistakes and cooler hands lead to disappointing results.