The Railbird Report: Why Doesn't Jared Bleznick Get Along With People in Poker?
I was watching the World Series of Poker episodes on ESPN the other day. The biggest poker event in the world is packed with recreational players and pros from all over the world. On top of being there live for the last decade, I enjoy the broadcasts intensely. I love the atmosphere, the commentary and seeing who's going deep from the people I know. Knowing is a big word by the way; most of them I only know from their online results.
This year, an especially big group of "known" online players made deep runs. With just 50 players remaining, I recognized Cliff "JohnnyBax" Josephy, Griffin "Flush_Entity" Benger, Vojtech "Vojta_R" Ruzicka, Kenny "SpaceyFCB" Hallaert, Gordon "Holla@yoboy" Vayo, James "Andy McLEOD" Obst, Tom "kingsofcards" Marchese, Jared "harrington10" Bleznick, Jeffrey "YoungSupremacy" Hakim, Paul "paulgees81" Volpe, Daniel "mrgr33n13" Colman, Jonas "llJaYJaYll" Lauck, Max "goodeh99" Silver, Chris "SLOPPYKLOD" Klodnicki, Anthony "wwwBTHEREcom" Gregg (and smiling next to William Kassouf)Jason Les. I'm sure I'm missing some of them as I'm not as in the know as many others that play online daily.
The ESPN broadcast is meant for the everyday fan, but every now and then they do cater to people like me that idolize the online poker players, by featuring one of the "online names." In the seventh episode, they went with Jared Bleznick. The segment was only a couple of seconds long, but here's what he had to say:
Honestly, I don't like a lot of the people that are involved in poker...you know, poker is a... it's a very selfish game and I would say a lot of the people I don't really get along great with because everyone's just about themselves... but for the most part, I like a lot about the game.
So where's this coming from? People watching must have asked that very question. It's most likely correlated to him being accused of multi-accounting. Besides his generally known accounts "Harrington10" on PokerStars (+$252,372 according to HighStakesDB) and "Harrington25" on Full Tilt Poker (+$1,978,785), he's accused of being the one behind accounts "longerpig," "nypogadi11," "setokaiba1," "crain85" and "gozoboro" by former poker pro Ryan Daut in a twoplustwo thread back in 2013. Daut's proclamation prompted a thread with a wider scope about multi-accounting.
On top of all that, Bleznick was reportedly banned from the WSOP 2016 early in the summer after crumpling up his cards after busting out of the 2-7 Triple Draw Lowball event. He got back in after Phil Hellmuth spoke to the WSOP organization on his behalf. When Hellmuth announced on Twitter he was coaching Bleznick, another slate of well-known pros blasted Bleznick (and Hellmuth at that):
Monday I am officially coaching Jared Bleznick in @WSOP Main Event: there are 27 left. Goal: make it to November Nine (final table) @ESPN
— phil_hellmuth (@phil_hellmuth)
@phil_hellmuth @WSOP nice move Phil! hitch your wagon to Bleznik, a notorious & unapologetic cheater. In total shock you're this dumb.
— steveodwyer (@steveodwyer)
@JosephLiberta @phil_hellmuth @WSOP @espn kid is a complete clown and by far the easiest player left to root against
— Chris Hunichen (@BigHuni)
So there's your answer: Bleznick probably doesn't like the people involved in poker because they don't like him. And they have good reason not to.
With such a huge group of online players to pick from, including some very talkative and charismatic players, ESPN went for Bleznick who is not only widely disliked by the poker community but was also banned earlier in the series. To top it all off, he was incredibly negative without any sort of back story supplied, nor a follow-up. To say I was surprised that the Poker PROductions crew went with Jared Bleznick was putting it mildly. What do you think?
Last Week's Biggest Pots Online
All three of the biggest hands online this week came from the $200/$400 tables. The two biggest pots were played on the no-limit hold'em tables and both were won by "candela2005." The third biggest pot was played in pot-limit Omaha and was won by Timofey "Trueteller" Kuznetsov who still ended up down for the week.
1) "candela2005" Wins a $90,446-Pot (226 big blinds) versus "1nvoker"
($200/$400 NLHM 6-Handed)
Action folded to "candela2005" on the button and he raised to $800. From the small blind, "Katya_18" three-bet to $3,200 and big blind "1nvoker" cold four-bet to $8,200. Both "candela2005" and "Katya_18" called, making it three-handed and growing the pot to $24,600.
The flop came Q♠4♦J♥ and "Katya_18" checked. "1nvoker" followed his preflop aggression up with a continuation bet of $6,378.50 and "candela2005" shoved for $39,078.80. "Katya_18" got out of the way. "1nvoker" called for $32,923.
| (user)name | hand | equity on Q♠4♦J♥ |
|---|---|---|
| "candela2005" | Q♦Q♥ | 98.08% |
| "1nvoker" | A♣Q♣ | 1.92% |
The 6♠ on the turn and 5♠ on the river couldn't save "1nvoker" and the biggest pot of the week went to "candela2005."
2) "candela2005" Wins a $84,200-Pot (210 big blinds) versus "ICEMAN2710"
($200/$400 NLHM 6-Handed)
Action folded to "AceSpades11" in the cutoff and a raise to $828 followed. On the button, "candela2005" flat called. Alexandros "mexican222" Kolonias folded his small blind before big blind "ICEMAN2710" squeezed to $4,400.
"AceSpades11" called but "candela2005" shoved all in for $39,800. "ICEMAN2710" committed a $40,000 stack as well; "AceSpades11" folded.
| (user)name | hand | equity | chop |
|---|---|---|---|
| "candela2005" | A♥A♣ | 86.84% | 1.24% |
| "ICEMAN2710" | A♦Q♦ | 11.92% | 1.24% |
The 3♣J♣2♠ flop only left "ICEMAN2710" some runner-runner outs. The K♠ on the turn made for a gut shot to "ICEMAN2710," but the K♥ on the river was a blank and the $84,200-pot went to "candela2005."
3) Timofey "Trueteller" Kuznetsov Wins a $84,060-Pot (210 big blinds) versus "Aron0621"
($200/$400 PLO 3-Handed)
Ben "Ben86" Tollerene folded his button and small blind Timofey "Trueteller" Kuznetsov raised to $1,440. Big blind "Aron0621" three-bet to $4,560 only to get four-bet to $13,920 by Kuznetsov. "Aron0621" called.
The flop came J♦Q♠10♦ and Kuznetsov bet $18,716.66 into the $28,230 pot. "Aron0621" called.
With now 65,753 in the pot, Kuznetsov had just $9,273.34 left and he moved in as soon as the 6♣ hit the turn. "Aron0621" called.
| (user)name | hand | equity on J♦Q♠10♦6♣ |
|---|---|---|
| Timofey "Trueteller" Kuznetsov | A♠A♥10♠5♦ | 72.50% |
| "Aron0621" | K♣K♦J♣3♥ | 27.50% |
The river 2♥ was as blank a card as they come and the pot went to Kuznetsov.
Online High-Stakes Action Last Week
A relatively quiet week ended up with "BERRI SWEET" as the biggest winner, followed by Henrik "hhecklen" Hecklen and Sami "Lrslzk" Kelopuro. Two regulars ended up the biggest losers: Dani "supernova9" Stern andBen "Sauce123" Sulsky, who both ended in the red.
| (user)name | hands | profit/loss last week | profit/loss 2016 | profit/loss all time | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Winning Players | |||||
| 1 | BERRI SWEET | 1,074 | +$223,985 | - | - |
| 2 | Henrik "hhecklen" Hecklen | 4,928 | +$144,191 | -$37,476 | +$38,008 |
| 3 | Sami "Lrslzk" Kelopuro | 2,842 | +$144,063 | - | - |
| 4 | Lottenice | 1,201 | +$90,504 | - | - |
| 5 | Fredrik "Kaarem" Kaarem | 837 | +$83,892 | +$171,826 | +$186,390 |
| 6 | candela2005 | 1,903 | +$74,211 | -$407,524 | -$1,311,723 |
| 7 | Brian "aba20" Townsend | 2,836 | +$66,537 | +$189,725 | +$139,308 |
| 8 | captaincube | 4,128 | +$63,398 | - | - |
| 9 | RaúlGonzalez | 873 | +$57,468 | - | - |
| 10 | zerfer03 | 479 | +$56,417 | +$121,820 | -$7,960 |
| Losing Players | |||||
| 1 | Dani "supernova9" Stern | 809 | -$216,105 | -$15,718 | -$450,178 |
| 2 | Ben "Sauce123" Sulsky | 1,968 | -$123,990 | +$881,336 | +$4,918,539 |
| 3 | bajskorven87 | 1,165 | -$85,024 | - | - |
| 4 | Mikita "fish2013" Badziakouski | 1,049 | -$72,638 | - | - |
| 5 | Timofey "Trueteller" Kuznetsov | 2,218 | -$63,963 | - | - |
| 6 | EEE27 | 381 | -$59,549 | -$143,572 | -$133,520 |
| 7 | ICEMAN2710 | 650 | -$55,438 | - | - |
| 8 | 40and7 | 676 | -$42,895 | -$330,965 | -$374,748 |
| 9 | Viktor "Isildur1" Blom | 2,612 | -$42,350 | -$727,917 | +$1,273,043 |
| 10 | ImagineKing | 893 | -$41,611 | -$111,340 | -$1,034,664 |
The 2016 Leaderboard
The top three of biggest winners of the year all lost this last week. Andres "Educa-p0ker" Artinano only lost a bit while Ben "Sauce123" Sulsky and Mikael "ChaoRen160" Thuritz suffered bigger losses. Thuritz and Artinano swapped places, with the latter now in second place.
In the bottom row of the table underneath, both Viktor "Isildur" Blom and Alex "Kanu7" Millar lost this week, but remained their positions."bodamos" wasn't seen online at the high stakes and remains in second place.
| (user)name | hands 2016 | profit/loss 2016 | profit/loss per hand 2016 | profit/loss all time | ↑/↓ this week | most played game 2016 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Winning players | |||||||
| 1 | Ben "Sauce123" Sulsky | 74,075 | +$881,336 | +$11.89 | +$4,918,539 | ↓ | 8-game |
| 2 | Andres "Educa-p0ker" Artinano | 29,380 | +$561,403 | +$19.10 | +$982,391 | ↓ | NLHM |
| 3 | Mikael "ChaoRen160" Thuritz | 47,862 | +$542,489 | +$11.33 | +$1,403,037 | ↓ | PLO |
| Losing players | |||||||
| 1 | Viktor "Isildur1" Blom | 166,338 | -$727,917 | -$4.37 | +$1,273,043 | ↓ | 8-game |
| 2 | "bodamos" | 9,983 | -$662,795 | -$66.39 | -$1,989,916 | - | 8-Game |
| 3 | Alex "Kanu7" Millar | 27,743 | -$608,514 | -$21.93 | +$2,652,077 | ↓ | NLHM |
The above top three biggest winners and losers in online poker for 2016 and the top 10 biggest winners and losers online for the last week only consist of PokerStars accounts that haven't opted out with HighStakesDB.com.
