Yesterday marked the first installment of Poker Stars Superstar Showdown. For those of you who are unfamiliar with this challenge, the format is one session of 2500 hands of NLHE and/or PLO played over four simultaneous tables against our favorite degenerate, Isildur1.
The first player to step up to bat was Isaac Haxton who goes under the nick ‘philivey2694’ at Pokerstars, so it was by no means an easy match that was awaiting Isildur1 in this match. And as it turned out, the Swede got all the opposition he could handle and then some. Of course, 2500 hands is not very much, so the result of one such match says very little about who is the best player, but even so it must have felt good for Haxton to come out a $41K winner when the dust had settled after four and a half hours. Looking at the graph, you will see that there were a few lead changes, but that Haxton took over in the last quarter and never relinquished his lead from then on.
It will be interesting to see who will be the next one to pick up the glove and sit down with Isildur1. For us railbirds I think there is more entertainment value in this format than the durrrr challenge. A shorter match where the players are forced to finish will appeal more to the masses than a match that has no timeframe and no set schedule. But time will tell, I guess.
Haxton had Isildur1 out-kicked and scoops a $44K pot.
The largest pot of the match, but not one with a lot of drama, really. What is interesting to see is Haxton’s decision to just call all the way with top pair and a good kicker. He was obviously trying to use Isildur1’s aggressiveness to his own advantage knowing that it was quite possible to get Isildur1 to bet his whole stack with a lesser hand than top pair. Of course, Isildur1 also knew that Haxton was waiting to find a spot to let Isildur1 bluff away his chips, so from Isildur1’s point of view the hand must have seemed like a good opportunity to get value from a relatively strong hand. So Isildur1 was value betting while Haxton was bluff catching and in the end it was the latter who happened to have the best hand.
Haxton flops the nut straight, but Isildur1 hits his big draw on the turn. $34K pot.
Haxton flops two pairs and picks off Isildur1’s bluff. $29K pot.
Haxon rivers a flush and Isildur1 a straight. $27K pot.