POTD #319 FT Fri-Monday: A Blind vs Blind Hand vs Mustapha Kanit
I search for a hand I played vs Neymar and settle for a hand vs Mustapha (Photo: Thomas Stacha)
I attended a wedding in New York this weekend, I boarded a plane in Toronto on Thursday at 1pm and due to a variety of travel snafus, I did not land in New York until Friday at 9am. I had planned to get some time off to write about the Jumalon vs Saaskilahti HU hand and some other hands from the FT of the Main Event, but I barely had enough time to sleep. These posts will be coming this week and they’ll be published as soon as they are ready, so the schedule will be slightly irregular, but there will be three punts, a Week in Review and Sunday Special this week. However, we are kicking off this week with a punt I originally had scheduled for last Friday. Check your inbox regularly, you’ll be hearing from me a lot this week.
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“Who is the most famous person you’ve ever played poker with?” is a common question I get. While there are of course the famous poker players, your Iveys, Negreanus and Hellmuths, their fame is miniscule compared to actual celebrities. There are some very famous entertainers I’ve played poker with, but they aren’t famous in North America, so they aren’t particularly famous to me, people like Patrick Bruel or Gackt. The most famous entertainer I’ve ever played poker with is Kevin Hart. However, the type of celebrity that I’ve played the most poker against by far are athletes. It can be tough to determine who is more famous, a Japanese pop star or a billionaire podcast host, but with athletes, there is a pretty clear hierarchy. At the bottom tier you have people like Evan Mathis [one of the most athletic offensive guards in history! -ed], then you have someone like Phil Kessel, who is a very nice guy, a good poker player, and a key figure in my personal sports fandom, and a borderline Hall of Famer, but not that famous because hockey is not that popular a sport. You also have people like the late Shane Warne, who is incredibly famous in Australia and in the world of cricket, which I know nothing about. However, by far the largest contingent of pro athletes that I’ve played high stakes poker with are soccer players, and with all due respect to Sergio Aguero, who I only played against online1, Arturo Vidal, and Gerard Pique, the most famous athlete I’ve ever played poker vs. is Neymar da Silva Santos Júnior, who you may know by the mononym Neymar.
Neymar mostly played in EPT Barcelona when playing for FC Barcelona. He was going to play in EPT Paris while he was playing for Paris St-Germain, but he got injured the day before and spent his off day recovering instead of playing cards. I’ve played a little bit of live poker with Neymar, but I’ve also played a fair amount of online poker with him, and I thought it would be fun to find a hand I played vs. him to coincide with the 2026 World Cup. Unfortunately, I was so busy covering the WSOPME that I forgot about this plan, and even then, the best I could do was find an online FT I played where Neymar finished ninth and the hand in question occurred when we were eight-handed. Neymar and Brazil had a disappointing World Cup, but at least they had a better World Cup than the home country of my opponent in today’s hand, Mustapha Kanit, whose Italian squad did not even qualify after losing to Bosnia and Herzegovina in penalty kicks. In today’s hand, we will see if I have a clinical strike or punt it over the net.
June 16th 2019 $2,100 Sunday High Roller
(4k/8k/1k) (SB/BB/ANTE)
8th: 7k, 7th: $8.8k, 6th: $11.2k, 5th: $14.3k, 4th: 18.3k, 3rd: $23.3k, 2nd: 29.7k, 1st: $37.9k
UTG (64K) folds, UTG+1 (114k) folds, LJ (366k) folds, HJ (277k) folds, CO (147k) folds, BU (165k) folds, Mustapha Kanit (586k) completes, I (207k) check with 4♦️2♥️
Flop (24k) J♣️9♥️9♦️: Musta checks, I check
Turn (24k) 4♣️: Musta bets 12k, I call
River (48k) 3♠️: Musta checks, I bet 24k, he calls with Q♦️4♥️
