gabe kaplan

Action After Dark

Wow, I just saw a huge three way pot on Poker After Dark, on the same table as last time. Before you look at the fragment, remember to watch at the terrible body language from the amateur Dee Tiller. He really has no clue between those pros, who are all kinda laughing with this guy. He doesn’t even know what’s going on when they have to split a pot. Let’s watch, starting around 2’15″:

Eli had a huge winning streak last time, but on this episode he experiences the opposite: he loses almost every pot he’s involved in. But of course he’s not going anywhere in this pot with this typical Eli-hand: low suited connectors. Eli flops the absolute nuts and makes a good check behind Kaplan, because he knows exactly that Tiller made a continuation bet in EACH pot he raised preflop. But it’s Gabe Kaplan who check-raises and Eli + Dee both call. When the turn comes the ten of hearts, everybody knows all the money goes in with Dee and Gabe having the nuts and Eli adding a flush draw to his straight. It’s kinda typical for a losing streak that Eli insta calls here, maybe he knows he’s beat but he just doesn’t wanna believe it. And there’s the flush draw of course. G-r-e-a-t pot.

Israeli Gears

I didn’t write a lot about one of my heroes Eli Elezra yet, but today I have one fantastic move from this poker phenomenon. It dates from the first episode of High Stakes Poker Season 5.

Now first of all, what an impressive personality is this guy on a poker table? I mean look at that leather jacket and that magnificent accent. You can place this guy without any problem right next to Silvio Dante in the Soprano’s :) . His appearance also plays an important role in the following hand (first hand to play completely):

 

As Gabe Kaplan already mentions, this is great body language by Elezra. After he has raised the straddle from Tom Dwan, he acts very artificially distracted on the flop, like he has indeed flopped top pair top kicker, two pair or a set. You can perfectly see the reaction on Durrrr’s face: he thinks he immediately figured out this hand and folds quickly. But Tom’s still young and has a lot years in front of him to learn from this guys ;) .

Howard Lederer gets pwned!

I enjoyed watching some episodes of Season 2 of Poker After Dark today :) . Main reason for watching those ones was the appearance of one of my heroes on the shorthanded tournament table: Gabe Kaplan. Of course every poker fanatic knows him for his commentary on High Stakes Poker, but Gabe likes to play for himself too.

Suddenly a table discussion rises about the brilliant movie The Big Lebowksi. Gabe decides to make a bet with Howard Lederer on the release date of the movie ^^ (starts about at 5’45″):

So Lederer is waaaaaaaaay off here! First he says Vanessa Rousso was only eight when the movie came out but I thought he just made a reasonably good joke there, considering the sense of humour of Mr. Lederer. But then he seriously thinks it was released in 1992 :) . And he even dares to laugh at Gabe’s heroic bet offer: a bowling ball!

H: What would I do with a new bowling ball?
G:Play hockey?

Gabe Kaplan is a hero!!