Martin "Bathroomline" Zamani raised under the gun to 875, one player called and then Mark "Nostradonkus" Liedtke three-bet to 3,875, Ian "bootleg23isk" Kurzer four-bet to 8,122 all in. Zamani called as did Liedtke.
The flop came the . Zamani bet enough to put Liedtke all in who called and all the cards were revealed.
Zamni had the change to knock out two with the , Liedtke had the and Kurzer had the .
The turn was the but the river was the to give Zamani a set and bust two players, only Liedtke re-bought.
No stage in poker stood as a bigger goal for a tournament player than the final table of the WSOP Main Event. For years, that meant going to sleep knowing you had the chance of a lifetime, to go down in poker history in the next few days as the cameras captured your every bet, raise and fold.
All of that changed in 2008.
The year after Jerry Yang's Main Event victory was broadcast to all on ESPN's standard tape delay, organizers made a decision to try to increase the excitement and anticipation around the final table: after the final nine was reached, play would be paused. At that point, everyone left would go home with 9th-place money and the players would reconvene a few months later to play out the final table on a short tape delay.
That lasted until 2016, and this is the history of the November (and October) Nines.
One player who has been doing quite well on playing online in recent years is bracelet winner Daniel "centrfieldr" Lupo, 37, of West Milford, New Jersey. You might recall in 2019, Lupo topped a 1,767-entry field to win the WSOP.com Online $500 NLH Turbo Deepstack for $145,274 and a gold bracelet. Last year, he added a ring to his résumé by taking down the WSOP.com Online Circuit Event #3: $320 NLH 6-Max for $32,595 and a month later won the WSOP.com $100,000 GTD Sunday for $50,715.
PokerNews caught up with Lupo, who went to NJIT for Architecture and baseball, to ask him about poker, which he squeezes in between working for an Architecture firm in Bridgewater specializing in single-family residential and smaller commercial projects and his family, which includes three kids ages 2-5 and his supportive wife Laura.
PokerNews: When and how did you learn to play poker?
Lupo: I started playing/learning in college during the Rounders and Moneymaker boom with a bunch of the baseball guys. Within a year I found myself hosting games at college, at home on breaks and basically anywhere I could find or make a game. I didn’t play much online early on, regrettably.
What sort of poker do you play these days?
Mostly online MTTs playing like three sessions per week on average with buy-ins typically from $50 to $1k with the occasional $2-$3k buy in for a big event. I average around 500-600 MTTs a month despite not playing full time, I tend to put in a lot of volume when I’m on. The games are mostly NLH and some PLO MTTs, but love when StarsNJ runs a series as they run a fun 8-Game MTT with a bunch of other mixed variants.
What’s it like to play poker while raising young children?
It’s been a constant evolution. I could probably write a book about all the highs and lows and life adjustments I’ve had or chose to make. It gives me a lot of inspiration to succeed while also adding some weight to my losses as it's like 'not only was I way from my kids for all of Sunday afternoon but I lost (insert obnoxious Sunday schedule cost here)'.
Daniel Lupo and his family. (Photo c/o Daniel Lupo)
What are some of your poker goals?
Try and win everything I play. Actually, my biggest current goal is trying to optimize my MTT game selection. Since quarantine began the schedules have been exploding site to site and while it's been great, with lots of new players and lots of live players playing online it has also drastically increased my average buy-ins and session costs as well as the field size which further increases variance.
I'm trying to optimize the balance of table quantity and expected value vs individual session costs and the variance that comes with it. Having an average buy-in of $250 adds up pretty quickly when it's spread across 60+ entries on a Sunday. My biggest ongoing and long-term goal is to win enough to help my family live comfortably.
Lupo is in action today looking to make a run at his second gold bracelet.
A series of preflop raises saw James "pokercpa" Hoeppner four-bet to 11,200 from the small blind and Martin "bathroomline" Zamani called off his 5,100 stack from the big blind.
James "pokercpa" Hoeppner:
Martin "bathroomline" Zamani:
Zamani was ahead with his pair of kings until the flop appeared giving Hoeppner the nuts straight.
The turn left Zamani drawing dead and the river ended his tournament.
. Zamani bet enough to put Liedtke all in who called and all the cards were revealed.
, Liedtke had the 
and Kurzer had the 
.
but the river was the 
to give Zamani a set and bust two players, only Liedtke re-bought.
. Action went check-check. The turn came the 
. Yang fired again for 7,200 which forced a fold to give Yang more chips to add to his growing stack.
turn left Zamani drawing dead and the 
