Since Black Friday, insight into higher stake poker action has mostly fallen off the map. Shows like High Stakes Poker, Poker After Dark, and the Big Game were great ways to see how poker at the highest level was played. Viewers could watch their favorite poker player play for large amounts of cash with every detail from bet sizing to poker tells, as well as table conversation. After Black Friday, these shows went dark and the poker community became woefully ignorant on much of what went on in the high stakes poker world. To keep up with any kind of action these days people are forced to turn to twitter and poker forums for daily updates.
One person frequently viewed is John Roberte Bellande. You can follow him on twitter @brokelivingjrb. John Roberte certainly is not shy about tweeting his every up and down after each session, as well as retweeting what the doubters and believers say about him. He plays exclusively at the Aria in Las Vegas and will frequently post pictures and videos from inside “Ivey’s Room” which often runs some form of mix game ranging from 7 game to 11 game as well as including some No Limit Hold’em, depending on who is present. The games in 11 game consist of things like Stud08, Pot Limit Omaha, as well as games such as “Badeucy” which much isn’t known about unless you play in those games. Bellande’s goal with his twitter was to have a journal of sorts while he takes his bankroll from zero to a million. Unfortunately, thus far Bellande has not had much success, mostly jumping from backer to backer due to poor results. I don’t play in these games nor do I have any knowledge of most mix games so I don’t feel it’s fair to comment either way if he is indeed a good player running horribly or a bad player who ran hot at one point in his career. Either way his story is certainly fun to follow and I wish him the best of luck.
Another option is to read blogs from top name pros, in particular Gus Hansen and Daniel Negreanu are of interest to read from time to time. Daniel mostly keeps a recap of what he has been doing for the past month or so in his blog while Gus tends to write shorter posts, but usually after he finishes his poker sessions. According to Gus’ blog, he has recently been in Macau playing with players such as John Juanda, Sam Trickett, Andrew Robl and Richard Yong, along with others who he does not name. Gus does not name the other players in the pots he plays out of respect for the other player, but he certainly keeps the reader interested by talking about some of the hands he’s played. According to Gus, there has certainly been no shortage of large pots in Macau as he has won and lost many pots worth 13.5 to 16 million HKD, which is roughly equivalent to $1.6 million to $2 million. While this information is small, brief and offers very little insight into what’s going on the same way TV poker did for the poker world, it is certainly better than nothing and we hope all three players continue to keep us updated.