Tournaments are Harder Than They Used to Be, but Intertops Winner is Confident About His Chances at Caribbean Poker Tour

With more and more players developing online tournament skills, winning one isn't as easy as it used to be. But an Intertops Poker player that won his way to the Caribbean Poker Tour in St Maartens by winning an online satellite thinks he'll do well in the live tournament if he plays the way he does online.

Two winners of Caribbean Poker Tour satellites hosted by Juicy Stakes Poker and Intertops Poker will be going to St Maartens next month. Chris P aka “Grandma Mary” won his $2700 prize package in an online satellite in August. “Sim79” from Quebec, Canada just won his trip last Sunday.

The Caribbean Poker Tour Main Event (buy in $1000 + $100), November 1-2, will bring poker players from around the world together a few days before the WPT Caribbean Tournament. Schedule of CPT satellites and main events.


Grandma Mary, 30, whose lifetime total winnings total over $160,000, recalls the online tournament where he won the all-inclusive luxury tournament trip: “I didn't play scared. In a top heavy tournament like this you have to be able to make some plays and grind out all the small edges you can. It was up and down for me. A few times I got overly aggressive but I always picked up hands when I needed them.”

“It was when we were three handed and I had a slight chip lead that I realized I might win. I was short stacked coming into the final table so I obviously ran really well.”

He thought his competition at the online satellite tournament was fairly soft.

“Most players were either too nitty or too aggressive. There were a few decent MTT regulars in the tournament but it was a Sunday so I figured most of them were playing lots of tables and probably weren't paying much attention to this one. This allowed me to open a lot more on their blinds and fold some big hands to them as well.”

“One thing I’ve I learned is the biggest thing is to understand bankroll management. Make sure you have a minimum of 100 buy-ins, preferably 200 – 300.”

“The guys who are doing really good at poker are putting in the hours. Michael Jordan didn't become the best basketball player by sitting around, he practiced every day and that's what all poker players need to do too.”

“Poker has always been fun for me. The money is nice, but I love competing. I’d like to win a WSOPC ring event. If things go right, I could see moving to Costa Rica to grind full time.”

Triple Win for Badbeat.com Sponsored Player, Edijs Grins

Edijs Grins is yet another newly sponsored and mentored Badbeat.com player to have three big wins in less than a week. For his double MTT win, Grins first took down the $22 Short Handed (6 Max) $3.5k GTD for $850 and also the $54 Canadian $5k Guarantee for $1530. He went on to complete his spectacular performance by winning the $16k GTD Rehab by beating a tough field of 520 to take home the first place prize of $3175.

Badbeat's, MyGame Poker Training Service, has introduced an innovative and brand new Multi Table Tournament “MTT” Scorecard to help get to the winning level like Grins. The new MyGame feature explains how your scores are graded and how you are guided to tutorials and videos to help improve any part of your game that is struggling.

Grins explains how Badbeat.com has helped him to achieve this potential in such a short space of time: “Without Badbeat.com I would not have this chance to earn enough money to play live events. I have way more motivation to grind for Badbeat.com than I had on my own.”

Badbeat.com, the original and leading poker staking and poker training site, has been sponsoring and mentoring promising players like Grins since 2005. This summer it made its revolutionary new MyGame poker training system, modelled on that experience, available free to anyone that wants to learn, win and transform the way they play. It builds players’ poker skills from the ground up by analysing actual play. Access to tutorials, the unique hands analysis tool, Report Cards, and Social gaming features are all free after registering a new account with any of Badbeat’s partner poker sites. A new iPhone app now enables MyGame poker trainees to compare Report Cards with others enrolled in the program and even get advice and access training videos from their phone.