The Online Railbird Report: Heinecker Week's Biggest Winner; Polk vs. Sulsky Update

September 20, 2013

Chad Holloway PR & Media Manager

It’s been a rough couple of weeks for Viktor “Isildur1” Blom on the virtual felt. In last week’s Online Railbird Report, the Swede finished as the biggest loser after dropping $1,366,606, and unfortunately for him, his downswing continued as he lost an additional $557,556 this week in 7,283 hands over 176 sessions — enough to make him the week’s biggest loser.

Others who failed to finish in the black this week were Sebastien “Seb86” Sabic (-$509,092 in 17 sessions/1,770 hands), “SallyWoo” (-$453,581 in 8 sessions/1,401 hands), Ben “Sauce1234” Sulsky (-$334,246 in 24 sessions/4,996 hands), and Phil “OMGClayAiken” Galfond (-$298,044 in 8 sessions/1,946 hands).

On the flip side, German pro Niklas “ragen70” Heinecker was the week’s biggest winner after banking $631,566 in 4,170 hands over 25 sessions. It was a modest win by the standards the million-dollar swings the Online Railbird Report has become accustomed to, but it’s still a healthy score nonetheless. Others who had a good week were “punting-peddler” (+$464,218 in 113 sessions/5,688 hands), Harry “Schoitl” Cassagrande (+$441,485 in 54 sessions/4,527 hands), Phil “Polarizing” Ivey (+$359,248 in 83 sessions/3,880 hands), and Doug “WGCRider” Polk (+$324,689 in 53 sessions/5,808 hands).

The Moorman Watch

The Online Railbird Report is dedicated to the high-stakes online cash games, but we felt compelled to tell you of some exciting news from the online tournament realm. On Wednesday, Sept. 18, PokerNews published an article that announced Chris "Moorman1" Moorman was less than $100,000 in online tournament winnings away from an unprecedented $10 million in lifetime online earnings. As of Friday morning, he’s just $77,000 away from the milestone.

"Being the first person to hit $10 million in online tournament cashes is incredibly important to me," Moorman told PokerNews on Wednesday. "I started playing online tournaments way back in 2006, and to have continued success throughout the last seven years, especially with the ever-changing environment of the game, is more than I could have hoped for."

Be sure to stay tuned to PokerNews for continued updates on Moorman's record-setting quest.

Polk Takes Lead Against Sulsky in FTP HUNL Challenge

On Sunday, Sept. 15, Doug "WCGRider" Polk and Ben "Sauce1234" Sulsky kicked off their highly publicized heads-up no-limit hold’em challenge on Full Tilt Poker.

The Online Railbird Report: Heinecker Week's Biggest Winner; Polk vs. Sulsky Update 101 — Ben \"Sauce1234\" Sulsky

The challenge will consist of 15,000 hands of $100/$200 NLHE over a number of sessions. Each session will come to a halt if either player builds an effective chip stack of more than 250 big blinds, and the player who is ahead at the time the 15,000th hand is complete will be awarded the $100,000 put up by the losing player.

In their first bout, the duo played for nearly 2,500 hands over eight and a half hours, during which time Polk pulled into the lead to the tune of $227,000. Polk pulled out to an early lead and never looked back, even winning the three biggest pots of the day (though in all fairness he did run well as you’ll see).

Hand #1: Sulsky ($46,902.09) opened for $600 only to have Polk ($53,527.25) three-bet to $2,200. Not to be outdone, Sulsky pushed back with a four-bet to $5,444, Polk called and the flop came down 4♦2♣Q♥. Polk check-called a bet of $5,872 and then checked the 7♥ turn. Sulsky took the opportunity to bet $12,379, Polk once again check-called and the J♣ completed the board on the river.

Polk checked for a third time and called when Sulsky shoved his last $23,207.09. Sulsky tabled the K♥K♣, but it was no good as Polk had flopped a set with his Q♦Q♣ to win the $93,804 pot.

Hand #2: Polk ($99,447.25) opened for $480 and was met by a three-bet to $1,440 from Sulsky ($35,941.75). Polk responded with a four-bet to $4,600, Sulsky called and the flop fell 10♠8♣2♥. Sulsky check-called a bet of $4,000, the 6♠ turned, and Sulsky checked for a second time. Polk opted to move all in and Sulsky quickly called off for $27,341.75.

Sulsky: 10♦10♥
Polk: K♠J♠

Sulsky got it in good with top set, but Polk was drawing live to a flush. The turn and river were run twice, and amazingly Polk scooped the entire $71,883 pot when both the 4♠ on the first run and A♠ on the second have him the winning flush.

Hand #3:

Heinecker Cleans Up at the 2-7 Triple Draw Tables

The Online Railbird Report: Heinecker Week's Biggest Winner; Polk vs. Sulsky Update 102 — Niklas “ragen70” Heinecker

On Tuesday, Sept. 17, Niklas “ragen70” Heinecker, who if you recall won the GuangDong Asia Millions in Macau for $4.4 million back in June, cleaned up at the 2-7 triple draw tables winning $475,000 in 12 hours.

The majority of his score came from two afternoon sessions. In the first, he took Alexander “PostFlopAction” Kostritsyn for $246,000 in an hour, and then he followed that up with a $175,400 win off Sebastien “Seb86” Sabic, though that took more than 600 hands over four hours.

Another man who did quite well in Tuesday action was Alex “Alexonmoon” Luneau, who finished as the day’s second biggest winner with $331,800 in profit. More than half of that came from a 4.5-hour session at table “Renny,” which also hosted Gus Hansen, Viktor “Isildur1” Blom, and Patrik “FinddaGrind” Antonius.

Speaking of Blom, he was up $300,000 at one point, but ended up giving it all back at the no-limit hold’em tables, $230,000 of which went to “RookieNFL.” Blom ended up finishing nearly even on the day while “RookieNFL” finished $166,900 in the black.

Ivey Finishes as Wednesday’s Biggest Winner; Heinecker Wins Again

On Wednesday, Sept. 18 (the same day as the Runner Runner world premiere in Las Vegas), Phil “Polarizing” Ivey finished as the day’s biggest winner after taking $330,000 from Kyle “KPR16” Ray at the $2,000/$4,000 fixed-limit Omaha hi/lo tables. The two played for nearly two hours, and in the first half of the match Ivey pulled out to a $200,000 lead. Ray fought hard and recouped $100,000 before falling victim to an Ivey upswing.

Niklas “ragen70” Heinecker also had a good day on Wednesday, winning $291,600 at the 2-7 triple draw tables. That put him up over $750,000 for two days and near $3 million in profit on the year.

Polk Continues to Thrive in FTP HUNL Challenge

The Online Railbird Report: Heinecker Week's Biggest Winner; Polk vs. Sulsky Update 103 — Banner courtesy of the FTP Blog.

Another spectacle to behold on Wednesday was Part II of the Polk vs. Sulsky FTP HUNL Challenge. Polk began holding a $227,000, and after their latest four hour, 1,350-hand session, he added another $170,000 to that total. The two were even after 400 hands, but then Polk kicked things into high gear and slowly built up his profit. During that time he also won the only two pots over $50,000. Have a look.

Hand #1: Polk ($42,803.44) opened the action with a raise to $480, which was not enough for Sulsky ($62,219.19), who popped it to $1,440. Polk responded with a four-bet to $4,200, Sulsky called and the J♥7♥8♠ was run out on the flop. Sulsky check-called a bet of $5,600, both players checked the Q♥ turn, and the A♥ completed the board on the river. Sulsky checked for a third time, but still called when Polk moved all in for $33,103.44. Polk tabled the K♥Q♦ for the nuts, and he was pushed the $85,806 pot after Sulsky mucked.

Hand #2:

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Biggest Winners/Losers (Full Tilt Poker)

Week’s Biggest Winners (9/13-9/19): Niklas “ragen70” Heinecker (+$631,566), “punting-peddler” (+$464,218), Harry “Schoitl” Cassagrande (+$441,485), Phil “Polarizing” Ivey (+$359,248), Doug “WGCRider” Polk (+$324,689), “samrostan” (+$305,836), Kyle “cottonseed1” Hendon (+$286,807), Alex “Alexonmoon” Luneau (+$192,712)

Week’s Biggest Losers (9/13-9/19): Viktor “Isildur1” Blom (-$557,556), Sebastien “Seb86” Sabic (-$509,092), “SallyWoo” (-$453,581), Ben “Sauce1234” Sulsky (-$334,246), Phil “OMGClayAiken” Galfond (-$298,044), “Lefort”* (-$188,591)

Year’s Biggest Winners: Kyle “cottonseed1” Hendon (+$3,431,142), Ben “Bttech86” Tollerene (+$3,001,660), Niklas “ragen70” Heinecker (+$2,989,265), Alexander “PostFlopAction” Kostritsyn (+$2,798,237), Patrik “FinddaGrind” Antonius (+$2,553,815), “Rhje” (+$2,478,572), Hac “trex313” Dang (+$1,659,232), “Odd_Oddsen”* (+$1,512,516), “no_Ola” (+$1,1469,564)

Year’s Biggest Losers: Gus Hansen (-$4,435,448), “MalACEsia” (-$3,773,524), “samrostan” (-$3,083,935), Phil “Polarizing” Ivey (-$2,585,871), “punting-peddler” (-$1,561,442), “patpatpanda” (-$1,330,885), Scott “mastrblastr” Seiver (-$1,220,399), Ben “Sauce1234” Sulsky (-$1,216,804), Rui Cao (-$974,166)

*Denotes PokerStars