What's Your Stars Rank?

[Boris]

[eMarkM]

Zing, are you Premier on Stars? I have played against you quite a few times and see your name high on the finishing lists very often even when you don't money. You're not a guy I like seeing at my table. Can I ask how many tourneys you've played total as a full time player? I know I've seen you play just about every type of tourney offered. How many in a given month when you commit full time? How many in a typical work day? Thanks.

[ClunkerDuds]

#581 with 4205 points. Not bad for only starting poker in august [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[Zing Zing]

Yea that's me. I play on average 5-10 tournies a night, which means 35-70 tournies a week, and about 140-280 tournies a month. Obviously I take it easy some days, and some days I got 5 tournies open at the same time. Depends how I feel, I play any limits, any game, and also play cash games sparingly. I have never played live, but do plan to within the next 2 years after I move.

[eMarkM]

I think you're anwsering my question and mis-replied.

280 a month? Wow. No wonder you're tenth. And never played live? Interesting to see how you'll handle live tourneys when you get/give real tells.

I've argued that you could be in that top 100 and be a net loser just from the sheer volume of tourneys required, I think it could easily happen. I imagine you're doing ok, despite all those buyins, I recall you chopping a huge pool in a $200 awhile ago (where you guys bickered forever), so I imagine that goes a long way. I'll say hi next time I see you at the tables.

So let me ask you, who are you most impressed with at Stars, besides yourself [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] I don't play all you do, but my vote right now is gank. He's just been on a pheonomenal tear and I don't think he's been playing all year there, but I could be wrong. I watch alex1 play and he was leader most of the year, but I'm not all that impressed with his play. There's the current leader, Riverloser, of course, but I think he plays just a ton of tourneys like yourself. I don't think I've seen him take too many breaks. Still, he's pretty impressive, too. You've played all these guys a million times, what's your opinion.

[Guy McSucker]

eMarkM brings up the topic of PokerStars tournament hotshot gank.

I haven't played many multi table tournaments lately: two in the last three months I think. Both times I made the final (yay me!), and both times, gank was there and ended up winning. He's had a lot of other results too, so obviously I've been trying to watch carefully and figure out what he's up to. I can't.

Here are some plays he made. Are these good plays?

Down to 27 players or so, gank has about 15k. Blinds, oh, I don't know, 400-800? Folded to the button who has a stack of about 5k and has not been getting very involved. Button makes it 2400 to go. SB folds, gank reraises all-in.

Now, to me, it looks like the button isn't folding here: far too much of his/her stack is in there. I was right: button calls with AQ; gank shows T-2.

Granted he had a big-ish stack, but this was 1/3 of it, against an almost certain call from an almost certain better hand. Is this a good play? I think it's lunacy.

At the final table, blinds 1000-2000, I have 18000 and gank 32000 or so. Folded to me in middle position. I have AT and don't bother to think: I push in. gank calls in the BB with K-5. Surely that's a bad move? I haven't been raising much.

A bit later, gank has 36000 and I 40000. We're five handed. gank has been raising a lot. It's 1000-2000 blinds, he opens for 10k. I push in with pocket 7s. I just don't think he's likely to call, but he does, with K-4.

This looks like some pretty ropey play to me. Now, these were just $50 events, so maybe he's just messin'. And he did win them both. But I can't for the life of me figure out what he's up to with these plays. With a huge stack I could understand, but all of these plays were for a decent chunk of his stack. Hmmm.

Of course I could just be bitter at the amount of whooping, cheering, and "great call"s coming from the rail when he hit his K in the K4 vs 77 encounter. Where do all these gankstrokers come from anyway?

Guy.

[ohkanada]

I am proud to say I am in the top 7000 [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

I wish I had the time to play more tournies on Pokerstars. Maybe next year!

Ken Poklitar

[William]

I'm in 190th place. And in my opinion, Gank is not even close to a good player. The best is Kid Blaast.

[KC50]

754th with 3636.32 points...been playing at Stars since June. I've looked at the posters of your reply and never heard of most of them. I guess that's because Stars is so big. Anyone ever run across me? Guess I'm not doing so bad for a 2-5 per week tourney player.

On the gank discussion, I've only ran across him on 3 occassions and he never showed hands in the likes of K-4, 10-3 etc...he seemed pretty snug and selective in his aggressiveness. But I agree with the poster on questioning these plays.

[Bozeman]

"Down to 27 players or so, gank has about 15k. Blinds, oh, I don't know, 400-800? Folded to the button who has a stack of about 5k and has not been getting very involved. Button makes it 2400 to go. SB folds, gank reraises all-in. "

This is the only one that has even a chance of being a good play.

If you figure that the only reason the button wouldn't raise allin with only 6xbb is that they are prepared to fold.

Craig