Ivey nearly cracked $1 million in profit this week while Blom happily added $352k to his 2014 online campaign.
Alexander Kostritsyn also had a good week and now has more than $3 million in profit this year.
German Sebastian Ruthenberg, on the other hand, dropped half a million dollars.
Ivey Dominates Cates
In sports, when players near the end of their career they often go on a so-called farewell tour before they finally quit. They might have one or two big moments again but that’s it.
In poker things are a little different. Take Phil Ivey’s performance last week. Only ten days ago the artist formerly known as the best player in the world looked like he would be better served to stay out of the way of the young guns regarding his losses since Black Friday.
But people like Ivey are 100% professionals. All they think about is how to find and exploit weaknesses in their opponents. It took Ivey only two days to win $850k and dramatically cut his losses for 2014.
Ivey’s first victim was Daniel Cates. In just one session of $2k/$4k 2-7 Triple Draw, Cates lost $300k to Ivey. Two days later, Gus Hansen (-$165k) and SanIker (-$200k) also found no way to overcome the champion.
Ivey then turned his attention to 8-game, where he took money from Alexander Kostritsyn, Patrik Antonius, and Chun Lei Zhou.
Sebastian Ruthenberg Gives Back
For the last couple of months when we mentioned Ruthenberg it was usually in connection with big wins.
In August alone the man from Hamburg, Germany, added $800k to his bankroll. But last week that money ran through his hands like sand.
Surprising: Ruthenberg stuck to his favorite game, 2-7 Triple Draw, a game he’s been known to dominate.
However, he is not the only player to do so and last week Mikael punting-peddler Thuritz, Trueteller and Alexandre alexonmoon Luneau did a better job of it.
Ruthenberg is still a winner in 2014 but on last week’s leaderboard he finds himself in last place.
Biggest Hand of the Week
Alexander Kostritsyn was involved in most of the biggest pots last week. And most of the time, he was pretty successful. Over the course of 2014 he is now at more than $3m in profit, more than any other player on the net.
Unfortunately in the largest pot last week he had to hand the money over to his biggest competitor, Daniel Cates.
They met at a $300/$600 Mixed Game table, with Phil Ivey and Chun samrostan Lei Zhou also present.
The current game was No-Limit Hold’em, and neither Ivey nor Chun wanted to have anything to do with this hand.
Cates raised from the button to $1,500, Kostritsyn re-raised from the small blind to $6k, and Cates called. The flop was
Kostritsyn had no chance of seeing what was coming. He bet $6k on the flop and Cates made the call. On the turn
Kostritsyn fired the second barrel of $17k, and again Cates called. After the
fell on the river, Kostritsyn decided to move all his remaining $45k into the middle and Cates didn’t need a second to make the call.
The showdown revealed why.
Kostritsyn:
Cates:
Jungleman flops the world in this hand and he also gets lucky as there is no over card to Kostritsyn’s jacks before the river.
He gets the full payout and almost $150k makes its way to Cates’ bankroll.
Leaderboard and Loserboard
Winners of the Week
Phil Polarizing Ivey: $+855,369 Viktor Isildur1 Blom: $+352,773 Mikael punting-peddler Thuritz: $+243,816 Alexandre alexonmoon Luneau: $+242,981 Alexander PostflopAction Kostritsyn: $+230,055
Losers of the Week
Sebastian taktloss47 Ruthenberg: $-549,646 SanIker: $-421,346 Gus Hansen: $-375,948 Elior CrazyElior Sion: $-308,517 Kyle KPR16 Ray: $-211,047
Biggest Winner in 2014
Alexander PostflopAction Kostritsyn: $+3,178,691 Dan jungleman12 Cates: $+2,936,028 Alexandre alexonmoon Luneau: $+2,247,799 Mikael Punting-Peddler Thuritz: $+2,118,315 Patrik FinddaGrind Antonius: $+2,033,611
Biggest Losers in 2014
Chun samrostan Lei Zhou: $-6,547,628 Gus Hansen: $-4,777,967 Phil Polarizing Ivey: $-1,618,295 Julius KagomeKagome Fleischer: $-1,408,487 Viktor Isildur1 Blom: $-1,280,312
Visit www.pokerlistings.com