In his latest (and highly controversial) blog post Daniel Negreanu makes list of players in some way connected in different poker discussions. He gives green light to participate in World Series 2015 to some disproves that to others. And former are the majority.

There is a lot of Negreanu-related news during recent months. Or even more so during recent years. The famous tournament and cash games professional became the voice of poker community. He has to say something on all the topics. His opinion is always being discussed.

Despite how loud Negreanu’s sayings are, the often seem one-sided. Mister Negreanu represents PokerStars. And many of his words and expressions could be explained by this fact.

The acknowledged best high roller from the season 9 of the EPT Russian poker pro Vladimir «vovtroy» Troyanovskiy is considered to be the strongest player of his country. A family man, a businessman, a gambler – he picks up all kinds of games in a jiffy and prefers playing without using the bankroll.

Meet Vladimir. Opposed to our previous protagonists under the heading “Heart-to-heart” he is over forty, has a family (a wife, a daughter). Despite that Troyanovskiy is an active online player named vovtroy. According to Official Poker Rankings data Russian’s earnings are over $1.2 million.

Small republic of Montenegro on the shores of the Adriatic Sea claimed its independence only in 2006. Back then administration of the country took course on tourism and gambling development.

Chernogoria (east name for Montenegro) has population of a little bit over 600,000 people, many European cities are even bigger. Nevertheless little country on southeast of Europe attracts big numbers of tourists, some of whom come to country with only one goal – to play poker.

Live game has its own rules. Playing online you can earn decent money using “standard lines” with the help of intense multitabling, but in offline poker you’ve got to invent 5-wheel bicycle (in a good way) every freaking time.

The main problem with live poker in that it is slow. You can’t have good win rate playing similar all the time (well, you can, if opponents are the same and in general this is only partly true). Live player must maximize his value in any favorable situation and his online vis-à-vis can score the same result with playing bigger amount of hands. Here are few tips on poker strategy.

Only in Deauville one can see a 49-year-old French confectioner singing songs at the playing table and demonstrating moves from tae kwon do. Only there the tournaments are carried out with four blinds and the chip leader stacks don’t worth a penny.

Ah, Deauville! A recreation place for Parisian bohemia, elite, aristocracy. At this popular resort in the north of France an episode of EPT takes place two times a year. For many years already.

Despite the long ago accustomed poker tradition, playing fields at the main event become reduced. In 2012 there were 890 registrations, in 2013 – 782, even less in 2014 – 671 buy-ins, and this year only 592 buy-ins.

When Daniel Negreanu claimed that it’s easy as pie for him to beat NL5000 ($25/$50), he received lots of crack jokes from the most persistent trolls of the poker world. One of the best tournament players was just a scapegoat in cash regs’ eyes.

One of the users of 2+2 forum asked a pretty logical, but a stupid in many ways question: why live tournaments winners are more respected than cash players?

The author of the question also made a suggestion to change World Series of Poker or to add a cash game championship there. Numerous tables, a few days, even a week maybe, a constant rolling. A player, earning more money than others as a result of the championship, becomes a winner.

The second official Belarus Poker Tour event has ended just a few days ago, with the Belarussian Poker Championship being the preceding evolutionary step. Despite the unstable economic conditions in the country, the series was a success.

Last summer Belarussian championship rose up to a new level: for the first time the series was taking place 11 days in a row. Internationally recognized tournament standard has got accustomed on the Belarussian land and become an official one.

The end of the Australian poker celebration favored us with a sensation. Phil Ivey won $250,000 Challenge for the third time for four years! Just fancy that! How it is possible – let’s try figuring that out.

Richard Yong’s victory at $100,000 Challenge (regular of the super big cash games in Macau) and local regular Manny Stavropoulos’ excellent performance at Main pale beside new Phil Ivey’s achievement.

Phil is cool – it’s a fact. But the degree of his awesomeness can be understood from performances like these.

An Australian player Alexander Trevallion won $25,000 Challenge, has entered $100,000 Challenge finals and is at the top of the Day 1c of the Main event.  And he hasn’t really achieved anything extraordinary playing both online and offline.

The first Aussie Millions 2015 side events have ended, and it’s time for the best trump-card. Right now a 3^rd Day of the Main event is taking place at the Crown casino, Melbourne.

But we’ll have the time to talk about it. And for now – meet the high rollers.

Melbourne, Australia. Crown Casino. Since 1998 one of the most significant poker series of the southern hemisphere takes place here – Aussie Millions. The first events are already over, but the most interesting things are to happen.

Every year thousands of poker players travel to the other side of the planet to take part in the most interesting event of the year. A famous high roller Patrik Antonius (and many of his “colleagues”) name Aussie Millions series their most favorite one.

American regular Faraz Jaka, who made more than $8 million playing poker, is officially... a homeless person. For many years he has been leaving a live of nomadism, owing no home.

No one and nothing can amaze people in such a degree, as a modest or simply unusual way of life of millionaires and billionaires. If a comet fell somewhere in Africa tomorrow (touch wood!), people would talk about it not so eager, as if Bill Gates kept strict Russians a company in a morning Moscow tramway.

PokerStars Caribbean Adventure (PCA) is one of the biggest starts of the year, traditionally opening poker calendar. Play in Bahamas is always special. This stage wasn’t any different.

Since January, 6 in casino Atlantis millions of dollars were distributed between poker players. During this week we saw Ronaldo’s first cash in tournaments, Mike McDonald’s push-ups and squats after lost bet and, finally, triumph of Azerbaijani player Ilkin Garibli who joined his friends to play High roller tournament for fun and won over $1 million!

Who earned more in 2014: tournament players, who roam from place to place eternally, or multitabling experts? Despite the striking differences of their specializations, there is a point in comparing creams of the crop. And the answer to the aforementioned question is not as easy as it seems.

At first, let’s make it clear who are we going to compare. On one hand there are tournament live players, we’ll take the data of the website Hendon Mob as a basis. On the other hand – online players of nosebleed limits actually. Why they? Well, the MTT-pro’s incomes are much lower, besides it’s far more complicated to find an appropriate info about them (many of them roll several websites at a time, and some of them have no statistics at all).

The Netherlands is a quite powerful poker empire, but there are not many classical casinos in the state as the business is monopolized by the government. However, most big cities, including Amsterdam, of course, have their own poker rooms.

In 1875 in Netherlands state company Holland Casino was created. It is still monopolist in the market. The organization is still the only one of a kind to have a license to work in gambling business. Big changes are to come into the gambling industry of Netherlands in 2015: private companies, some of which may be foreign, will be able to operate on online market.

There are around 170 gambling facilities in the Netherlands, most of which are slot machine halls of Jack’s Casino, Toy Toy and Fair Play Center networks.

In the second part of “Poker Notepad” we’ll try to cover or at least discuss a little such a matter as relative value. This concept helps to determine hand’s strength in specific situation.

First, let’s make several requirements:

• You have to at least have understanding of hands value
• You have to at least have understanding of ranges
• You have to at least have some experience of playing on real money.

Now we can continue.