Williams vs Farha
Published July 13, 2011I’ve really discovered the National Heads-up Championships episodes as real good entertainment. Of course, still no High Stakes Poker, but some very interesting hands none the less!
This poker show has one great advantage: you’ll never get bored of seeing the same table all the time. Ok, and another great advantage: ALL the famous poker pros participate, which is already entertainment guaranteed in some cases. The sickest hand I’ve seen in the 2009 Championships must be the next one, between Sammy Farha and David Williams:
It’s the first hand they show from these guys in this part of the 8th episode. Williams flops the nuts and Sammy should be ready to pay him off to the maximum. Williams plays the hand the best he can, but Sammy catches his three-outer on the river. This is obvious a sick beat for Williams, holding the second nuts in an heads-up game (!) against the only hand that beats him. Also notice the priceless acting from Farha on the river!!
Players with a history
Published June 28, 2009When two players share a certain history which eachother, regarding poker confrontations in the past, a hand can be played completely different than in any other normal situation. This was showed exactly by Sammy Farha and Patrick Antonius, on High Stakes Poker (S04E16). I have the fragment right here for you:
Where Barry Greenstein folds his AJ, Sammy wants to play with his K6 against Antonius. The Finnish player makes a continuation bet on the flop, but Sammy is not scared with his middle pair, this obviously is a great call. Not because Sammy’s just a loose player but because he actually is convinced he has the best hand there. Antonius however sticks with his read that Sammy is not that strong and fires two more bullets on turn and river. Sammy makes two great calls. Those two guys will without any doubt collide again in the future.
Professional body language and speeches
Published June 3, 2009I saw some great piece of non-verbal as well as verbal action on episode 14 of High Stakes Poker (season 4). The first hand starts at around 5’20″ and the next one follows right after it:
Now in the first hands it’s professional gambler Sammy Farha against his wannabe-friend Jamie Gold. Sammy exactly shows in this hand why he’s the master and Jamie the student. After it’s checked on the flop they both make toppair and Sammy further improves his hand to top two pair on the river. Subsequently Sammy makes a great bet on the river first (making it look like a bluff) and then gives Gold a suspicious smile. It pays off.
In the following hand, the hand is again checked around at the flop and Sammy makes a set of deuces on the turn, while David Benyamine completes his straight flush. Farha makes a big raise on the turn and Benyamine’s speech gives him the feeling he has the best hand there. This had to cross his mind when he calls the reraise. Good play.
Sammy & Phil colliding again
Published April 19, 2009Not very surprisingly, Phil Hellmuth and Sammy Farha experience a new clash in the very next episode 
. Their profiles just don’t match: there’s Phil who considers poker as his life and there’s Sammy who… is just gambling^^. But above all they are both great players in their own way, best illustrated by the next hand:
Phil makes a big raise in the small blind with pocket Queens and Sammy, who has only one goal left after his previous clash with Hellmuth: get after Phil, calls with a quality K 7 off. Of course Sammy catches that King but the interesting stuff happens afterwards: Hellmuth lays down the QQ and Farha shows he’s great in getting somebody to steam (especially the speech during the next hand). But five minutes later, they both recognize those capabilities, great players. However, the legendary Bob Safai couldn’t care less, walking away in the middle of this hand .
Hellmuth strikes again with 99!
Published April 16, 2009So we all know Phil won the Main Event in 1989 with the magnificent 99. Now I was watching Episode 7 of the fourth season of High Stakes Poker and I saw Phil playing another brilliant hand with 99.
Phil gets involved in a hand with the tight Sammy Farha ^^. Sammy was redefining the concept of ‘playing loose’ during this and previous episodes and exploited his image earlier in this session when he made a straight with 5 7 against ‘Silent’ Mike Baxter. Now watch the following hand:
So Phil doesn’t get bluffed by Sammy in this hand, while Sammy easily could have had a 4 ofcourse. Great play, those two players will meet again!