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Daily 3-Bet: Backseat Fedor, MC Ensanity, Timex Saves World

Daily 3-Bet: Backseat Fedor, MC Ensanity, Timex Saves World

Daily 3-Bet: Backseat Fedor, MC Ensanity, Timex Saves World


The PokerListings Daily 3-Bet is a glitch at the DMV, a newly voided license but no chill on the accelerator for an afternoon poker news joyride.

Got a burning sensation hot tip for a future 3-Bet? Tweet us @PokerListings or drop a hint below.

Today in the 3-Bet we find Fedor Holz in a Ferrari (kind of), Hossein Ensan gets feisty at PSC Monte Carlo and Mike McDonald staves off the AI … for now.

1) Get a License, Bro

When you pay €100,000 to buy-in to a poker tournament you usually get some pretty good perks along with it. A nice buffet every day, say; maybe a nice suite at the casino, if that’s the location.

When you play the PokerStars Championship €100k at the fanciest casino in the world in Monte Carlo, that perk happened to be a free ride in a Ferrari for one lucky player.

That player, apparently, was Fedor Holz. Only problem? Much like Corey Haim in the 80s, no license to drive.

Good thing his neighbor from Vienna, Steffen Sontheimer, has one. Still seems like a less-than-ideal way to experience that car, though.

Guess it really is true – you can’t have everything. We’d imagine Holz is fine settling for the $20m+ in live earnings at age 23.

2) Ensan Clips DNegs, ElkY Surges

It was a fast and furious kind of day at the PokerStars Championship Monte Carlo and if you watched the live stream you were privy to some fantastic action both on the feature table and off.

Hossein Ensan 1

Hossein keeps ’em hopping.

Davidi Kitai did many Davidi Kitai-type thingsElkY turned back the clock to 2007 and surged up the leaderboard. Stefan Schillhabel was on the good end of a 1m AA>KK pot.

And unless you’re a huge Daniel Negreanu fan you likely revelled in the poker joy that is Hossein Ensan, who kept the feature table on its toes with unpredictable move after unpredictable move – much like he did on his way to the 2015 EPT Prague crown.

Busting Negreanu with a set of 5s was a capper to a big day for Ensan who bagged up 718,000 heading into Day 4 with just 45 players left.

The replay for the day is up already and it’s well worth a watch; if you prefer to catch it live tomorrow it all begins again at 12 pm CET. Here’s how the top 10 looks heading in:

1. Michael Kolkowicz France 1,445,000
2. Stefan Schillhabel Germany 1,380,000
3. Davidi Kitai Belgium 1,087,000
4. Maxim Panyak Russia 921,000
5. Marius-Catalin Pertea Romania 860,000
6. Moritz Dietrich Germany 821,000
7. Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier France 771,000
8. Sergio Aido Spain 719,000
9. Hossein Ensan Germany 718,000
10. Alexandru Papazian Romania 670,000

3) Eat It, Computers

Much has been made lately about the inevitable AI takeover of the poker world.

Libratus crushed Jason Les at alLengpudashi throttled more pros over in China; the U of A’s DeepStack AI put a whipping on Dutch Boyd and Terrence Chan, among others.

So it’s over, right? The poker AI win, now and forever? Not so fast. Over the past week not just one but two (!) pros have turned the tide on the DeepStack AI and booked resounding victories of their own.

First, Taylor von Kriegenbergh gave DeepStack a 4-0 waterboarding in a Best-of-7 match. Then the next closest human thing to an AI, Mike ‘Timex’ McDonald, did likewise in a 3-1 thrashing.

Take that, computers! (However if you’re reading this in the future and have now become our overlords, we don’t mean that at all. We welcome you.) Watch the full replay of the Timex-DeepStack ass-kicking sham of a match below: