Archive for April, 2008

Mayday approaches, save our souls

Posted By : CarbonPoker April 29th, 2008

Mayday means several things for Carbon Poker. This month is the launch of a new event, which is similar to our highly successful Christmas Scavenger Hunt. Players will be able to check out their admin to find a list of tasks to be completed and their corresponding prizes. There’s thousands of dollars of prizes to be won, all with a stylish theme of impending airborne action!

The origins of our Mayday promo lend from the distress signal of the same name. Here’s a few fun facts about Mayday usage:

- The signal is universal – any personnel capable of receiving such a message over a radio broadcast will understand its meaning. This means you won’t be entirely lost for words while adventuring in Machu Piccu or something.

- When a Mayday broadcast is being transmitted, it is forbidden to take up radio traffic for any other non-emergency communication. That handy radio-based deep sea pizza delivery network you set up with the chaps on dry land will have to wait until Johnny Nautical gets out of his sinking vessel alive.

- Don’t name your aeroplane “Mayday”. The air traffic controllers will have a hard time figuring out what you’re going on about when calling for help. “Mayday, mayday, mayday, this is mayday in mayday!”

- May Day also happens to be the name of a holiday which celebrates the social and economic achievements of the labor movement. YAWN. Mayday is at its best when used in a daring action-hero situation, preferably one involving Sam Jackson.

– Phil @ CarbonPoker

  • Share/Bookmark

A new WPT champion is crowned

Posted By : CarbonPoker April 27th, 2008

Much to the chagrin of the spectators at the Bellagio, Tom “Durrrr” Dwan didn’t make the televised final table of the WPT Championship, where he would have been sporting yet another wacky hat.

On the plus side, the final table included Gus Hansen, 2007 Aussie Millions champion and poker legend. He was also set to take out the title, coming into the final table as the chip leader.

Afetr knocking out Cory Carroll, the second in chip counts, Gus rocketed to an almost unstoppable lead. In heads-up play, David Chiu held approximately 4 million chips, where Gus was sitting pretty on 23 million. The title was all but his.

Well, after a lengthy heads-up match including several double-ups, David Chiu came back to win the title and over $3,300,000. On the final hand, Gus had a ten and eight for two pair, where David held a pair of Aces with a flush draw. Gus moved all in on the turn, and David called. The river was another Ace, and David eliminated Gus Hansen in second place!

Congratulations David and Gus!

– Phil @ CarbonPoker

  • Share/Bookmark

A tropical time at the WPT Championship

Posted By : CarbonPoker April 20th, 2008

Heh. Apparently online pro Tom “Durrrr” Dwan lost a prop bet to a friend of his, Alan Sass, and was obligated to wear a funny hat throughout the entire WPT Championship, running right now at the Bellagio.

The final hat was chosen to be this nifty number, complete with a giant purple feather and fruit. How can he be nervous when he looks as stupid as that!

He won’t be going home anytime soon, either – at the conclusion of Day 1B, Durrrr sits near the top of the chip counts with 120,000. Good luck!

– Phil @ CarbonPoker

  • Share/Bookmark

Our biggest Caribbean Stud jackpot ever!

Posted By : CarbonPoker April 20th, 2008

After only recently reporting that our Caribbean Stud jackpot has been paying out thousands of dollars left right and center, along comes a player to win the whole thing! We’re defying all odds to pay out as much cash as possible, and ureadmnweepagain has won a grand total of $72,025.47!

Donna was ecstatic with her massive win, as you can plainly see! For a jackpot bet of just $0.20, a win of 72k is not a bad profit at all.

As a forum and poker room regular, there couldn’t be a more deserving winner. It shows that dedication and the right choices at the right time can certainly pay off, and for Donna this means winning the biggest jackpot in Carbon Poker history.

You can play Caribbean Stud at Carbon Poker for as low as $1 per hand, with a $0.20 jackpot bet. You need to make sure you put that jackpot bet in every hand, because you don’t want any Royal Flush hands being unpaid!

Congratulations again, and may all your hands be Royals!

– Phil @ Carbon Poker

  • Share/Bookmark

The Bluff League comes to a close!

Posted By : CarbonPoker April 17th, 2008

After several months of tough competition, the Carbon Bluff League has now come to a close. We teamed up with Bluff Magazine to organize this league, to award three WSOP seats for 2008! First place was to receive a $10,000 Main Event buy-in, and second and third picked up a $1500 seat each.

The Bluff League ran from October until April, with a $10 buy-in tournament running every Wednesday night. With points being awarded for placing in each tournament, the player with the highest points at the end of the league would win a $10,000 Main Event seat.

Over 400 players played at least one Bluff League tournament, with the added incentive of receiving $25 instant cash for eliminating the current first-place leaderboard player. All the points were adding up each and every week, and the stars of the Bluff League began to emerge.

Although it was a close race in the early beginning, Jazzer12 took the top of the leaderboard and maintained his momentum throughout. Points were awarded based on number of participants in each tournament, and Jazzer12 finished the series with a grand total of 2833 points. A number of players were within reach of catching up, but couldn’t pull off a last minute win to snare the first place prize.

Each winning player over the course of the league was awarded a Bluff League Champion accolade, so these players are not to be underestimated if you see them at your table. The Bluff League brought some incredibly tough players to the field, as evidenced by the very last land of the final Bluff League tournament:

With blinds at 1500/3000, SirYangZi completed from the small blind and Gobleracin89 checked his option in the big blind. The flop came down 5d Tc 9h, and SirYangZi instantly moved all in. Amazingly, Gobleracin89 made the call with 5h Jd, holding nothing but bottom pair with a mediocre kicker! Worst of all, SirYangZi was on a stone cold bluff, with nothing but a seven or eight for a gutshot straight able to save him. The turn and river bricked, and Golberacin89 became the final Bluff League Champion with an amazing call.

With the points now awarded, we have out top ten on the leaderboard. Jazzer12 stayed on top of his game the whole way, and we wish him and our other two $1500 tournament winners best of luck at the 2008 World Series of Poker!

FINAL LEADERBOARD

1 Jazzer12 2833
2 BluffMagJeff 2451
3 Prolific1 2061
4 TheOmen111 17
5 quesswho 1688
6 OldDogNewTrick 1687
7 Bud0518 1677
8 UM9xnc 1670
9 ScottE51 1588
10 etalons 1583

  • Share/Bookmark

WPT bracelet winners?

Posted By : CarbonPoker April 16th, 2008

The WSOP has always been very successful because of its popularity (resulting in increased prize pools), and the prestige of winning a World Series of Poker bracelet. The bracelet is a symbol of poker prowess, and players can be defined in two categories – those who have a bracelet, and those who don’t!

The whole bracelet theme seems to be pretty popular, so the World Poker Tour decided to jump on the bandwagon. In a ceremony on April 21 (coinciding with the current WPT Championship), the WPT is going to award a bracelet to each of its winners over six seasons, coming to 96 players.

Getting bonus stuff after already winning a WPT event would be very cool. On the other hand, the WSOP bracelet is such an iconic symbol in poker, it’s hard to associate the same jewelry item with the WPT.

The bracelet winners will probably be quick to throw on their new prized possession and hit the tables at the 2008 $25,000 WPT Championship, starting on April 19.

– Phil @ CarbonPoker

  • Share/Bookmark

Pirates of our Caribbean

Posted By : CarbonPoker April 16th, 2008

This month has been kind to our dedicated Caribbean Stud players. In less than two weeks, we have given away over $21,000 in jackpot prizes!

The winners forkliftterror, calgon73 and milleke all won jackpot payouts of just over $7000 cash, each for winning with a Straight Flush. Our Caribbean Stud tables pay 10% of the jackpot for a Straight Flush, and 100% for a Royal Flush. We gave away a $55,000 Royal jackpot not long ago, but clearly plenty of players are due for a nice cash injection.

Before the two-week winning streak, xpander1216 and nate1874 each picked up over $5500, also by winning with a Straight Flush. Massive congratulations to all our big winners!

The more players hitting the Caribbean Stud tables, the higher the jackpot will rise. Our tables start at 20 cents, so a payday of thousands wouldn’t be such a bad profit at all!

– Phil @ CarbonPoker

  • Share/Bookmark

The Bounty Graveyard Grand Finale

Posted By : CarbonPoker April 14th, 2008

We’ve now come to the end of the Bounty Graveyard. Now, this might seem a little morbid to some players, but we have had a couple of extreme killers throughout the second week. In fact, it’s more brutal than we could have ever expected!

After the first week of play, Rafael19 was the first-place champion, having picked up 525 bounties over the seven days. During the second week, two newcomers stepped into the fray and took bounty hunting to a whole new level.

Schyzza completely dominated the entire field, and even eliminated several players five, six and seven times each in separate tournaments. In seven days, the total bounty count was 811. All lost their tournament lives at the hands of Schyzza.

One other player came close. Stuck333 managed to score 794 bounties over the week, which would have been a champion effort if Schyzza wasn’t in the mix! The third-place weekly winner is Godoy84, with a comparatively lowly 407 bounties – though realistically, this is also very impressive. The top three win cash prizes of $300, $200 and $150 respectively.

Out Bounty Graveyard was a huge success, with over 4000 players taking part in a bounty tournament throughout the second week alone! Congratulations to all!

Top Ten winners:

1. 811 Kills – Schyzza
2. 794 – Stuck333
3. 407 – Godoy84
4. 354 – bigrich804
5. 313 – Sharapova69
6. 313 – buzinez
7. 297 – alijoli
8. 273 – 2fast443
9. 253 – fixn2win
10. 218 – dillusional

– Phil @ CarbonPoker

  • Share/Bookmark

More Sunday Shenanigans

Posted By : CarbonPoker April 14th, 2008

The latest Sunday 20K Guaranteed was very interesting, with a few newcomers to the final table and a lengthy battle for the first place prize.

228 players were present for the five hour tournament, and the final table was a long hike, despite the rising blinds. It finally came to heads-up play with LeroyPaige and RaginAZN the last two players standing. Only eight hands were to separate the two players from their prize money!

With the big stack and playing the part of the bully, RaginAZN shoved all in with KQo, and LeroyPaige took his chances against at leat two overcards, holding pocket Deuces.

The match was all but over on the flop, when it came down K 4 5 rainbow. LeroyPaige needed a Deuce or runner-runner straight to pick up the win, but the Kings held up and RaginAZN picked up $5400 for first place!

The CarbonPoker Sunday 20K Guaranteed has incredible overlay, and you won’t find better EV anywhere else. With only 228 players last week, we bumped up the prize pool to include the value of over 100 extra buy-ins. That’s a lot of opponents you won’t need to face to win their cash!

– Phil @ CarbonPoker

  • Share/Bookmark

Version 4.3 recap

Posted By : CarbonPoker April 10th, 2008

It’s been a few weeks since our biggest update so far was released, and version 4.3 has been a huge success so far. I’ve had a browse over how far some of our features have progressed, and it’s pretty impressive to say the least.

The bad beat Jackpot has more than tripled since it began, and the standard law of physics implies that the higher the jackpot, the more players sit down to win big! From there, it will keep growing and growing, until someone walks away with (hopefully) tens, maybe even hundreds of thousands of dollars. Trust me when I say you’ll want to be there when the jackpot goes off, because everyone at the table receives a tasty piece.

The Bounty tournaments have been attracting lots of action, particularly because of our current Bounty Graveyard event. The chance to win cash for eliminating players is pretty darn tempting, and today I honor both Rafael19 and huntingfool38, who steamrollered the field in the first week. So far through the second week, both Shyzza and stuck333 have easily proven their skills, consistently placing first and second.

Deal it Twice is new … very new. I’ve only previously seen this technique employed on High Stakes Poker, and for this reason some players may be a bit apprehensive to give it a shot. However, I noticed we have at least three full Deal it Twice tables running, so that sure showed me. Our highest limit players all comment that it really is a feature employed by the best professional players, so it’s definitely a concept to read up on if you haven’t already!

– Phil @ CarbonPoker

  • Share/Bookmark