They have to be, really; there's no way you can maintain a bankroll at stakes like $200/$400 or $300/$600 without being comfortable shipping $150k to the other side of the table occasionally.
But it's also no surprise if a normally unflappable player gets a bit thrown off his game when a few too many of those huge pots go one way rather than the other early on in a big session.
And when he does, there are plenty of sharks waiting to reap the benefits.
Case in point: High-stakes icon Ilari "Ziigmund" Sahamies and his $200/$400 session(s) yesterday (Mar. 13) on Full Tilt Poker with fellow high-stakes pros Brian "$tinger88" Hastings and David Benyamine.
The trash-talking, big-swinging Finn stepped up for an early evening $200/$400 Hold'em session with Hastings and things seemed to go awry from the get-go, with more than a few $100k+ pots going Hastings' way - in particular a $154k pot Ziigmund dropped to a flopped full house.
#img: ilari-sahamies_17188.jpg: left: Easy come, easy go when you're a super-baller like Ziigmund.#
And while Hastings did go on to get the better of it in the Hold'em session, taking about $100k of Ziigmund's money, the true beneficiary of the early beats may have actually been David Benyamine.
Multi-tabling a $200/$400 Pot-Limit Omaha session with Hastings, David Benyamine and a few varying players after the Hold'em session ended, the big pots seemed to take their toll on Ziigmund and had him playing less than his best, even in his bread-and-butter game, PLO.
And by the time Ziigmund had closed up all his tables for the day - after about 13 hours all told - he had dropped $210k more at the PLO tables - the bulk of it ending up in the hands of Benyamine.
Total losses on the day for Sahamies, according to highstakesdb: a daunting $320,000.
The hand that may have set the downward spiral in motion, and the fourth biggest pot in the past week according to the PL.com MarketPulse Biggest Pots section:
Full Tilt Poker Game #5622471133 TABLE : Vasari (heads-up) $200/$400 - No-Limit Hold'em - Thu Mar 13 2008 - 7:12pm (ET)
Seat 1 Brian Hastings - $77,199
Seat 2: Ziigmund - $86,792.50
Brian Hastings posts the small blind of $200
Ziigmund posts the big blind of $400
The button is in seat #1
Pre-flop
Brian Hastings raises to $1,200
Ziigmund has 15 seconds left to act
Ziigmund raises to $3,600
Brian Hastings calls $2,400
Flop #Js-#6c-#Jh
Ziigmund has 15 seconds left to act
Ziigmund bets $7,200
Brian Hastings calls $7,200
Turn #Ts
Ziigmund has 15 seconds left to act
Ziigmund checks
Brian Hastings has 15 seconds left to act
Brian Hastings bets $15,600
Ziigmund has 15 seconds left to act
Ziigmund raises to $75,992.50, and is all-in
Brian Hastings calls $50,799, and is all-in
Ziigmund shows #8s-#7s
Brian Hastings shows #Jd-#6d
Uncalled bet of $9,593.50 returned to Ziigmund
River #As
Ziigmund shows a flush, ace high
Brian Hastings shows a full house, jacks full of sixes
Brian Hastings wins the pot ($154,397.50) with a full house, jacks full of sixes
Summary
Total pot $154,398 | Rake $0.50
Board #Js-#6c-#Jh-#Ts-#As
Seat 1: Brian Hastings (small blind) showed #Jd-#6d and won ($154,397.50) with a full house, jacks full of sixes
Seat 2: Ziigmund (big blind) showed #8s-#7s and lost with a flush, ace high.
To see more big pots from the Hold'em session, and more of the top 100 biggest Hold'em pots won online over the last day, week and month, jump to the PokerListings.com MarketPulse section.
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NETeller reports FY 2007 loss
The biggest impact on NETeller's bottom line for the year was the $136 million it paid the U.S. government to settle charges of handling billions of dollars of illegal online gambling proceeds. The company also spent $37 million in restructuring costs as it shifted its business away from the United States.
NETeller's founders John Lefebvre and Stephen Lawrence were arrested in January 2007 for their hand in creating NETeller and allowing the company to process online gambling transactions from U.S. customers. At the time of their apprehension they were no longer involved with the company.
The company was facing charges as well but chose to make a deal with prosecutors that would have the company pay the $136 million fine, cooperate with the investigation against Lefebvre and Lawrence, and discontinue allowing U.S. customers to transfer money through their e-wallet service to online gambling operators.
In 2006, NETeller had recorded a $107.38 million profit. In 2007, the company's revenue rose 15%, but couldn't make up for the legal and restructuring costs.
Since its legal trouble in the United States, NETeller has been focusing on other markets, setting up services for customers in Australia and Asia.
According to the company's report, trading during the first two months of 2008 showed continued growth from 2007. Plus NETeller joined with Centricom Europe to distribute the POLi online bank payment platform in Europe.
They also launched the POLi service through NETBANX in the United Kingdom.
"2007 represented a milestone for the Group as we successfully resolved our issues with the U.S. authorities, and energetically refocused the business to put into action our updated vision and mission," said Ron Martin, NETeller president and CEO. "The renewal of the Group's businesses to leverage changed market opportunities has created energy and enthusiasm throughout the organisation."
Martin also said he is confident the changes will reflect in the company's performance in 2008.
"I would like to thank all our employees for their contributions during a very challenging period in 2007, and I look forward to greater progress into 2008 and beyond."
Related Articles:
- NETeller to Make Final Payment to U.S.
- NETeller Report Shows Recovery
- NETeller Looks to Rebound
- NETeller Customers Already Seeing Money
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2008 World Series of Poker Europe Dates Announced
Harrah's Entertainment has officially announced the dates and sites for the second annual World Series of Poker Europe Presented by Betfair. The 2008 edition of Europe's WSOP outpost will again be held at the same three London Clubs...
Poker Players Alliance Names State Directors
The Poker Players Alliance has furthered its intentions to continue growing as a "grass roots" organization with the announcement that 50 PPA members have now been selected as State Directors, one for each state. The PPA's...
Canadian wins free EPT seat at Pacific Poker
Moreau, 40, lives in Pembroke, Ontario, where he is a softwood lumber grader. He learned to play poker with his friends when he was a kid, but just started playing online poker about six months ago.
At first he played just once every two weeks or so, but Moreau, who plays under the name dave4008, has been playing three or four times a week for the last month or two.
In his short time as an online player, he's managed to turn the player points he earned at Pacific Poker into a €5,000 seat at the EPT San Remo event that begins April 1.
His prize package includes the buy-in for the event plus money for travel and accommodation.
The Pacific Poker freeroll may turn out to be a good practice run for the live tournament as well. Moreau described the playing field as "a lot of European players, and they are usually pretty good players I find."
The top 10 players in the freeroll came from Canada, Italy, United Kingdom, France, Germany and Italy. The playing field had representatives from several other European nations as well, plus players from Colombia and New Zealand were eager for a seat to the EPT event.
In the end, the freeroll came down to Moreau versus grandp57 from Italy.
"My winning hand was A-J against A-2," Moreau said. "My opponent was on the big blind, so I think I raised about three times the big blind, then my opponent went all-in, so I called."
He said the flop didn't help either of them, but there was a three, and when the turn brought a four, grandp57 had four more outs to hope for.
"I was now getting a lot more nervous, but the river was a seven," Moreau said. "I then celebrated with my son. I was very excited that I will have the opportunity to play in such a huge tournament such as the San Remo EPT event."
Moreau's excitement is mixed with anxiety, though: he thinks the predominantly European playing field will be very tough, plus he'll have pro players to contend with.
"One pro I would like to play against, but I don't know if he will be in the event, is Daniel Negreanu because he comes from my country," Moreau said.
There isn't a whole lot of time left for Moreau to prepare for the San Remo event. With the event starting April 1, he only has a couple weeks to hone his game and pick up any tips he can.
One place he can read up is on PokerListings.com, which he already visits two or three times a week.
"I think PokerListings is awesome," Moreau said. "I've never found any promotions or freerolls on other sites that even come close to you guys, plus you give reliable information about a lot of poker sites."
Don't be surprised if you see dave4008 a little more often at Pacific Poker as well. He has been visiting the site three or four times a week, but perhaps he'll be trying to get a few more hands in before he takes his game live.
"I think it is a great poker room," Moreau said about Pacific Poker. "You sometimes get soft competition. The guaranteed tournament pools are very good."
Other poker players who would like to take advantage of what Pacific Poker has to offer PokerListings.com players just need to sign up at the poker site through a PokerListings.com link.
Once they've created an account and get playing, they'll be eligible for the $75,000 in exclusive World Series of Poker* freerolls, the private World Poker Crown freerolls and the monthly $5,000 freerolls available for PokerListings.com players.
*World Series of Poker and WSOP are trademarks of Harrah's License Company, LLC ("Harrah's"). Harrah's does not sponsor or endorse, and is not associated or affiliated with PokerListings.com or its products, services, promotions or tournaments.
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