Top 5 to Watch at 2008 WSOP

Last year, it was James "mig.com" Mackey and Dan "rekrul" Schreiber who came from nowhere (read: the interweb) to make dominating bracelet-winning performances.
Who are the best bets to do the same this year?
Here's your hipster poker fan's guide to the Top 5 players who will likely leave this year's World Series of Poker with a bracelet or two jingling on their wrist.
1) Tom Dwan (pictured) - Dwan, alias durrrr online, has been crushing the highest stakes online for the past few years. Newly 21, and already a multimillionaire, this will be his first WSOP cheat poker.
And if he can bring himself to give up all the profit he could potentially make in Bobby's Room and focus on these low-stakes donkaments, you can bet he will annihilate the competition - much like he's done in his first-ever WPT Championship.

Eric Liu.

2) Eric Liu - Known as p3achy_keen online before signing on as a red name Full Tilt pro, Liu has been crushing high-stakes games for a while now.
There's no denying his poker talent, and a recent 16th-place finish in the EPT Season 4 Grand Final says he's interested in taking his tournament game to the next level. Look for him to obliterate anyone who stands in his path.

Chad Batista.

3) Chad Batista - The infamous Lilholdem954 on PokerStars, jse81 on Full Tilt and M8kingMoves on Party Poker has over $2 million in winnings in online tournaments alone.
You can also count on him rocking a diamond grill and a crooked hat to the back as well as playing a ton of events and likely making a fair bit of scrillah in the process. This isn't Batista's first WSOP (he had a final table and a $129,064 cash in Event 52, No-Limit Hold'em w/ rebuys last year), but it will likely be his biggest.

Andrew Robl.

4) Andrew Robl - Good2cu online, Robl is another in the "22 and rich as an astronaut" crowd. This ShipitHolla balla has been killing the high-stakes online games.
His recent foray into live tournaments has led to immediate successes, including a very-late-in-the-game chip lead at the L.A. Poker Classic, and you can expect him to put some serious time in at the tables this WSOP marked card tricks.

Isaac Baron.

If the cards cooperate you should expect to see him at some final tables.
5) Isaac Baron - Known under the pseudonym "westmenloAA" online, Baron is fresh off a 2007 Online Player of the Year award and 11th- and fourth-place finishes in EPT Season 4 events in April.
He's a serious multi-table carnivore with over $1.5 million in winnings and you can absolutely guarantee that his online success will continue to carry over to the live poker world.

Winter Sports, Prop Bets and Warsaw Trip Report

A couple weeks after Copenhagen my friend Roland De Wolfe invited me out for a one-week skiing trip with him and his parents in Zermatt, Switzerland.
I elected to go snowboarding instead of skiing as I remembered having a lot of difficulty skiing as a youngster and snowboarding came really easy to me.
For the first three days at the resort, all we did was stay in the room and play Chinese poker and online poker; sometimes both at the same time. Finally we got out and hit the slopes. The mountains were higher up than I've ever seen before - so different than the kiddy hills I used to snowboard on back in high school.
It took about 20-30 minutes by train to get up the mountain, so you can imagine how far up it was. At first, I struggled keeping my balance on the snowboard and would fall quite frequently, but eventually I got the hang of it and picked up where I left off 5-6 years ago.
After only 1-2 minutes of boarding, my legs and feet were in excruciating pain and I was out of breath to the point of wanting to stop and take the train back down. I'm not sure if I was out of breath because the air is thinner at higher altitudes, me being out of shape, or me underestimating how strenuous of an exercise boarding actually is but it was probably a combination of all three.
I felt a little bit guilty about not wanting to continue, as it interrupted Roland's ski session and I knew that Roland, being the loyal friend that he is, would want to take the train down with me instead of continuing on without me and meeting me in the room. So we went down, played marked cards some more Chinese, went to the sauna and relaxed until dinner.
Every night Roland and I had dinner with his parents at this really nice restaurant in the "Alex," a hotel owned and operated by a family and THE best hotel I've ever stayed at by far. Roland and his family had been going to this hotel in Zermatt for the last 20 years and it's no wonder why.
The whole village of Zermatt is like an undiscovered paradise, almost like a world within the world. I highly recommend it to anyone wanting to go skiing or boarding. We tried boarding/skiing again the following day and I had the exact same problem after a few minutes.
This really got me disturbed. I guess punishing my body by eating junk food and not exercising for the last two years was finally catching up to me. Nevertheless, I shouldn't be out of breath from boarding at this young of an age.
I'm a firm believer that in order to make positive changes in your life, you need to get disturbed about your current situation. When I first started playing online poker, I got disturbed about not being a winning player and developed a keen and pulsating desire to become successful at online poker - and more specifically multi-table tournaments.
I know for a fact that I can use this same strategy to get back in great shape and have exercise and a balanced diet become a part of my regular lifestyle. Of course, It also helps if there's some financial reward for achieving my goal.
So I asked Roland if he'd be interested in a prop bet where each of us are required to lose a certain amount of weight by the start of the WSOP (May 31st). He agreed and we discussed the terms the following cheat poker day.
These are the rules/terms:

1. NO eating in the three hours before going to bed.
2. Must work out five times per week for at least one hour.
3. No eating the following foods: Fast food, candy, chocolate, chips, coffee, anything fried, hot dogs, corn dogs, donuts, pizza, soft pretzels, cookies, sugary cereals, cake, cupcakes, ice cream cake, white bread, pizza, fries, pies, pop/soda, hamburgers, fattening dressings, pastries, processed foods, red meat, alcohol, potatoes, white rice, egg yolk.
4. Alcohol only one day out of the week.
5. One cheat day per week (we can eat anything).
6. If one of us loses the required weight and the other doesn't, the person who didn't achieve his goal owes the other $25k. If both fail or both succeed, it's a total wash.
7. Roland has to lose 16 kilos; Sorel has to lose 12 kilos.

Starting weights:

Sorel 98.1 kilos
Roland 102.5 kilos
We get charged $1k per rule we violate to a cap of $3k in a single day. Obviously we're not going to be able to monitor each other efficiently, so we're just going by the honor system. I've already broken one rule.
I ate a cookie knowing that it would cost me $1k. It seemed worth it at the time =(. Good news is that Roland has already racked up $4k in violations and isn't showing any sign of slowing down so I'm liking my chances.
EPT Warsaw was a little bit uneventful. I got down to $1,500 chips after three-barreling some guy who called my K-Q UTG raise with 6-2 on the button, flopped trip 2s and called my bet on every street. I raised to $275 at $50/$100.
He called the button, I bet $550 on a board of 2-2-9. He called, the turn was a J and I fired $1,400. He called, I bet $3,300 on the 5 river and again he called. I really didn't put 6-2o in his range :(. Oh well, I don't feel too bad about the hand as I would have played A-J, K-J, QQ, KK, AA the same way for value.
I managed to get back up to $10k after a few lucky double-ups - QQ vs TT against Luca Pagano and then AA vs Q-K on a K-high board against William Thorson. After recovering, I made the same mistake I've made in every single EPT tournament this year - overvaluing A-Q when I have a very loose-aggressive image.
It's always the same thing: someone at the table makes a comment about how aggressive I am, and then I think that they think I have nothing and are re-raising me light and I three-bet all-in for all my chips.
I really have to stop thinking so deep when I get re-raised by older live players. They always have it!
I've run A-Q into KK and A-K 5/5 times this year in live tournaments when I could have avoided the situation, and only sucked out once (Irish Open). A-Q is the devil.
-- Sorel Mizzi

About Annette Obrestad

Name	Annette Obrestad
Born	Sep. 18, 1988
Birth Place	Sandnes , NO

Annette Obrestad is a nice, quiet, unassuming girl - until you meet her at the poker table.
Known as Annette_15 online, Obrestad has played thousands upon thousands of hands online. While doing so she developed a highly effective poker game that is reminiscent of that of other famously aggressive Scandinavians. In 2007 Obrestad shook the poker world by winning the inaugural World Series of Poker Europe Main Event. By doing so, Obrestad broke several records, including youngest
marked cards player ever to win a bracelet and largest single-event payout to a female.
Obrestad grew up in the small Norwegian town of Sandness. She was only 15 years old when a friend shipped her some money on an online poker site. The idea of a 15-year-old playing poker online created controversy and is exactly why many governments have attempted to ban online poker. It's worth noting that Obrestad never actually deposited any of her own money.
After winning a few freerolls and slowly moving up the online poker ranks Obrestad got good. Really good. She was so good, in fact, that she didn't even need to see hole cards. During one legendary online tournament Obrestad put tape over her computer monitor so she couldn't see her own hand. By using superior bluffing techniques and reading her opponents perfectly she outlasted 180 opponents and went on to win the tournament.
By 2006 Obrestad had elevated her online game so high that she was dominating the online world. She won countless $100 buy-in tournaments on both Full Tilt Poker and PokerStars, garnering around $10,000 to $20,000 for every victory. Annette_15 had built her bankroll to such a size that she could afford to compete at the highest levels.
Having conquered the online world, it seemed only natural that Obrestad would turn her attention to live play, given that some of the most lucrative poker tournaments are of course the live ones.
Despite some minor cashes in some EPT events and a good showing at the Aruba Classic, Obrestad didn't really capture the attention of the mainstream poker media at first easy cards tricks.
Because of her age Obrestad couldn't go to Las Vegas and compete in the World Series of Poker, but when it was announced the WSOP was coming to Europe, she was probably one of the first players in line.
Although Obrestad made an appearance in the Pot-Limit Omaha event it was during the Main Event that she began to find her game. Obrestad ironically eliminated two of the top female players in Annie Duke and Jennifer Harman on Day 3 of the tournament. She was just getting started, however, and by the end of the day Annette_15 was one of the top five chip leaders. The next day she had some ups and downs but she made it to the final table in the middle of the pack.
Through calculated play and a couple risky moves Obrestad made it to heads-up play against Londoner John Tabatabai. After several hours of play that went back and forth, Obrestad took a commanding lead. The final hand of the day, one that Obrestad will likely remember forever, saw her dealt pocket sevens against Tabatabai's #6d-#5c. The flop went #7c-#6c-#5h and Obrestad thought for a minute and then pushed all-in. Tabatabai made the call but was shocked to find his two pair bested by Obrestad's set of sevens. The board finished #2c-#Qh and Annette_15's place in poker history was secured. At only 18 years old (her birthday was the day after the Main Event) Obrestad had won one of the most prestigious poker tournaments ever held in Europe.
Obrestad won £1 million ($2.01 million) for her victory, which was the best ever for a female player in a single event (she narrowly beat out Annie Duke, who scored $2 million for winning the Tournament of Champions). Ironically organizers had marketed the event with the tagline, "Who will be the King of Europe?" Needless to say, they had to change their tune when it was in fact a Queen, not a King, who won the prestigious poker tournament.
A number of poker professionals who were at the WSOPE, including Kirk Morrison and Daniel Negreanu, touted her performance as one of the most impressive they had ever seen.
Shortly after the WSOPE Obrestad was signed by Betfair Poker, and she continued to frequent online tournaments. She also began to make the rounds in European live tournaments and other bigger-buy-in events that allow players under 21 to compete.
Of course the one tournament series Obrestad has her eye on is the WSOP in Las Vegas. Unfortunately because of her age it will be a while yet before she is allowed to compete but when she does get there, she will already have won more money in poker than most players make in a lifetime.

Trivia

• Youngest player ever to win a WSOP bracelet
• Renowned online player
• Once won a 180-player online sit-and-go without looking at her hole cards
• Won the inaugural World Series of Poker Europe Main Event
• Owns the record for highest single-event payout to a female player ($2.01 million)

  Annette Obrestad recent tournament placings

  Place	Winnings	Tournament
  89	$71,053	WSOP 2013, $10,000 Main Event
  42	$6,051	WSOP 2013, Event 7: $1,500 No-Limit Hold'em
  41	$6,534	WSOP 2012, Event #28: $2,500 No-Limit Hold'em / Four Handed
  8	$28,409	WSOP 2012, Event #3: $3,000 Heads Up No-Limit Hold'em / Pot-Limit Omaha
  36	$12,561	WSOP 2010, Event 50 - $5,000 Pot-Limit Omaha
  11	$13,654	WSOP 2010, Event 39 - $1,500 No-Limit Hold'em Shootout
  72	$10,497	WSOP 2010, Event 17 - $5,000 No-Limit Hold'em
  11	$25,000	2010 Special, 2010 NBC Heads-Up Championship
  7	$175,000	2010 Special, 2010 Aussie Millions Main Event
  17	£17,000	EPT Season 6, EPT London
  13	$100,100	EPT Season 5, PokerStars.com EPT Grand Final
  21	$50,000	2009 Special, 2009 Aussie Millions Main Event
  2	€297,800	EPT Season 4, EPT Dublin
  1	£1,000,000	2007 WSOPE, Event 3, No-Limit Texas Hold'em Main Event

Top 5 Keys to Spreading a Successful Poker Home Game

Those of you who have spread a poker home game will understand that there are a bunch of little things you have to account for before you can get the cards in the air.
Here are five of the most important things to be sure you have covered before you try to spread your home pker game. You might notice that "buy beer" is nowhere on this list ... I just figured you wouldn't need any reminding of that one.
5) Choose Your Stakes. Choosing your stakes is an important aspect of running a solid home poker game. You have to play marked cards for enough money that the game is meaningful and fun, but you also have to keep it cheap enough for everyone to be willing to play. This can cause issues if you have a wide variety of friends.
Half of my friends are unwilling to play for anything less than a couple hundred dollars, while the other half are unwilling to play for anything more than $20. To run a home game, I have to first choose who I want to have at the game.

You want to get some decent cards.

4) Get Decent Chips and Cards and a Table. If you're going to run a home game, you need to get yourself some real chips and some decent cards. The half-ounce plastic poker chips from the dollar store simply don't work. You need chips with size and heft to be able to properly stack and count your chips.
Cards get abused more in poker than in any other card game. They're bent, tossed, twisted, thrown and shuffled far more often than in most other games. A cheap deck of cards will be battered and torn before you finish your first round.
Although they cost more at the start, if you get a nice set of KEM (used in most North American poker rooms) or Kopegs (official card of the WSOP, and very popular in Europe), it will save you money and frustration in the long run.
If you've ever tried to play poker at a regular kitchen table, you'll understand the need for some sort of poker table. Whether you buy a legit poker table or a poker table topper, or build your own, having a table with a rail and some felt will do you wonders.

Learn the rules.

3) Brush Up on the Rules. There are a lot of rules and odd situations that may arise when playing poker. When you have real money on the line, it's crucial that these situations are resolved in a fair and consistent manner. You need to be sure you have at least one player at the game who fully understands all of the rules and resolutions for various odd situations that may occur.
PokerListings.com published an article with a variety of odd situations that occur in home games, and guidelines for remedying them. If you ever get stuck, check it out for the answer.
2) Line Up Other Activities. Especially if you're playing a tournament, there is a very real possibility that one or more of your players will bust out quickly. It's common for players to lose their whole stack in the first hand of play (I've done it myself a couple of times). In these situations, you should be sure to have some other sort of activity to keep the disqualified players entertained.
Sports games, movies, video games and a loser's tournament are some simple options. The more people you can keep around and happy, the better a time everyone in the room will have card cheating.

Invite as many people as you can, and try to get commitments.

1) Get the Numbers. In order to have a home game, you need to have players willing to play at it. If you're looking to spread a Texas Hold'em home game, chances are you're going to want somewhere around nine players. Once you've chosen the stakes you want to play for, you need to find players willing to spend the night playing for those stakes.
Judging by all the home games I've hosted and attended, if you invite 20 people, you'll be lucky to get nine of them to show up. People who don't normally play poker are more liable to show up, as they'll see the night as something fun to do outside of their normal routine.
If you're trying to get a group of poker players together, you'll have a much harder time - they'll be quick to bail when another option comes their way. Always invite far more players than you want, and be sure to get commitments.

Ignoring Results, Reducing Tilt and the Mental Game

Happy April! I realized just now that I let all of March go by without updating this blog, and I definitely didn’t mean to do that!
I’ve actually had so much to write about the past few weeks, but I couldn’t seem to sit myself down and get it done.
Last time I wrote, I said that I was going to run a little experiment: I was going to avoid looking at my online poker cheat poker results for a week. The experiment took place well over a month ago, but I suppose reporting the results late is better than never.
The bad news: I didn’t last a week. I have a couple excuses for this, but I’ll spare you.
The good news: the experiment still lasted five days, and it was wildly successful!
In order to make sure that I truly didn’t know how much I was up or down, I had to do a couple things. The biggest problem was hiding my account balance mid-session because, as you might know, PokerStars shows your account balance every time you register for a tournament.

Courtney on the PokerStars Big Game.

At first I tried to find an AHK tilt blocker, but I couldn’t seem to find one and it seemed like a lot of trouble to try to get someone to create one for me.
A friend suggested I just let TableNinja handle my tournament registration for me, though, and it worked like a charm.
TableNinja just handles all my “ok” pop up boxes, and I never have the chance to see my account balance.

Ignoring Results Really Helps

To say that it helped to avoid my account balance and results during my sessions is an understatement. The experiment taught me that a very large source of my tilt was knowing that I was losing and watching my account balance go down throughout the session.
The experiment also taught me that unless I check my account balance or Holdem Manager, I often have no idea whether or not I am up or down money during a session.
This became clear when one day I thought I was running so badly and I was sure I lost a ton, only to find out that I actually won money. Then another day I thought I ran great and I was up a bunch, only to find out that I had only broken even.
The experiment went so well that I now avoid my account balance and results during my session 100% of the time.
I check every day after the session is over marked card tricks, but I never know whether I’m up or down while I'm playing. As a result, I would say that my tilt has reduced by at least 70%. Things that used to tilt me at the tables just don’t anymore, which is really amazing to me.

The Mental Game of Poker by Jared Tendler

My experiment can’t take all the credit, though. I also started reading The Mental Game of Poker by Jared Tendler.
I read a bit of it before each session, so I have only read a little over half of it so far. It is an excellent book, though, and I have already gotten so much out of it.
I recommend it to anyone that plays poker seriously.

New Direction for this Blog

I haven’t made much money this year so far, but I’m still enjoying online poker more than ever thanks to some of these changes that I’ve made.
Learning to not care about results is something that has become very important to me, and I hope that this blog will start to reflect this. Looking at past entries, the entire blog has been focused on how much money I’ve won or lost and pretty much nothing else.
Moving forward, I hope to talk more about win rates, mental game, and other things that hopefully will be a little more interesting than just win/loss numbers.
The next time I write (which I intend to be sometime later this month), I’ll talk about how my year is going so far, as well as the foolish volume prop bet I made for April. Thanks for reading and good luck at the tables!

Courtney Gee Takes on Heads-Up Hyper-Turbo SNGs

So I changed games again. Last time I mentioned that PLO was a temporary solution while I tried to figure out my next move. I never really expected to play
infrared contactlenses it long term (although a girl can dream).
You might have already guessed that the main problem with PLO cash games as a long term solution is the variance involved. While I didn’t research the variance possibilities myself, my friend did a bit of scouting. We estimated that with my volume, I could easily run bad for an entire year. Losing money for a year? I’m gonna go ahead and say no thank you.
I seem to talk about my multitabling woes and inability to amass volume ALL the time, but can you blame me? It really does cause tons of problems. If I could multitable properly, PLO cash games might be a viable option. Instead, there is pretty much no way to consider it unless I want variance to run my life.
I think PLO is a super fun game, though. I really enjoyed the hours I spent learning it, and I definitely improved a lot in a short period of time. Once I become competent at heads-up hyper turbo SnGs, I intend on playing PLO around once per week so that I can slowly improve at it.
Oh yes, heads-up hyper turbos. That’s the game I switched to. Who knows how long I will play it, although I’m hoping it’s for a while.

Heads-Up: A New Challenge

I’ve always kind of avoided playing heads-up in the past. I think the main reason is that I tend to tilt pretty easily, and heads-up is easily one of the most tilting forms of poker. I just assumed that there was no way I could ever handle the tilt that came from playing it.

Courtney Gee

Unfortunately for me, though, the time to test this theory has come. At this point, I’m running out of options. I don’t want to play MTTs, I can’t play enough volume to make regular or turbo SnGs profitable, and I don’t want to play hyper 6-max. Where NLHE is concerned, this means that I have to play cash games or heads-up SnGs. Given my background, I figured I should probably try heads-up first. I am also lucky enough to have a good friend that does very well at them, so it seems like a wise choice.
I started at $30s and $60s so that I could learn juice cards the game without losing too much money. After some review I felt comfortable that I kind of knew what I was doing, so I moved to $100s. I have played 20-25 hours of heads-up over the past week, with plenty of review in between.
So far I find the games pretty enjoyable, although maybe I just like running hot because I am definitely doing that. It’s nice of the poker gods to give me some run good while switching to a new game, though – it always makes the transition easier.
Since I have been running hot, I haven’t had the chance to see if the games tilt me as much as I thought they might. I am definitely going to run bad sometime, though, and I hope I’ll come back to report that hey, I didn’t get tilted at all! Am I being totally unrealistic? Yup. This might be a good time to find my copy of The Mental Game of Poker…
Speaking of The Mental Game of Poker, I need to get back on track with my “mental game blog”. I’m supposed to be updating my other blog after every session to keep track of my mental game progress, but instead I have usually been updating before each session (which is much less useful). I’m gonna really make an effort to do it properly this coming month because I think it’s very important.
This is getting kind of long, so I’m gonna stop here. Hopefully I am still playing hyper heads-up next time I write ;) Good luck at the tables!

  

Boris Becker to battle players in Caribbean

The 2009 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure is coming up in January, and a few poker players will also be treated to a battle at the felt against six-time Grand Slam winner Boris Becker during their trip to the Bahamas for some poker action.
Becker will be taking on seven PokerStars qualifiers in a heads-up Battleship-style match for a seat in the 2009 PCA main event. Four of those players are from North America.
Battleship poker is where two marked cards players compete in a heads-up poker match sitting across from one another. Instead of being played with a live dealer, the game itself is played online at PokerStars, with the two players on back-to-back laptops.
"Battleship poker gives you all the fast play luxuries of online poker, but also allows you to look your opponent in the eye," Becker said. "It's an exciting game to play and I'm really looking forward to competing against these players."
[[PokerRoom:Logo:poker-stars:left]]
Battleship poker made its debut at the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure in 2006. This year, four North American PokerStars qualifiers will compete against Becker using that style of game to try to get into the Caribbean Adventure main event.
The four lucky North American qualifiers from PokerStars are Itsik Oknin of Ottawa, Canada; Joshua Miloy of Oley, Pa.; and Keith Anderson and Michel Dion of Quebec, Canada.
The 2009 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure main event is scheduled for Jan. 5-10. It has a $10,000 buy-in, and brings together some of the world's top online and live players to compete for major cash prizes.
Previous Caribbean Adventure winners include Gus Hansen, John Gale, Steve Paul-Ambrose, Ryan Daut and Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier.
There's still time to win your chance to join the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure main event as well poker lenses. PokerStars has been hosting online qualifiers, and will dish out a bunch more the weekend after Christmas.
On Dec. 27 and 28 the poker site will host two big qualifiers to award 40 main event seats to players.
The first event is Dec. 27 at 4:30 p.m. ET. It has a $650 buy-in and will award a guaranteed 10 seats to the Caribbean Adventure.
On Dec. 28, the site will host a tournament at 6 p.m. ET that will award seats to the top 30 players.
For more information, head to PokerStars.

FullFlush1 spews: The Luke Schwartz interview

Just who does this __FullFlush1__ guy think he is?
That's what railbirds and nosebleed players alike have been asking themselves as __FullFlush1__ leapfrogged his way to the top of the No-Limit Hold'em charts over the past couple months.
The trash-talking __FullFlush1__ has already tallied big wins against Tom "durrrr" Dwan, David "Raptor" Benefield and Phil "OMGClayAiken" Galfond while playing at the highest stakes available online.
It turns out the man behind the myth is Londoner Luke Schwartz.
Although he's only been playing poker for the past four years, Schwartz built his bankroll and reputation by dominating the cash games on Betfair Poker marked cards.
"When I started I was just a donk, but I somehow managed to beat the fish," Schwartz told PokerListings.com. "I went broke a couple times, but I had a couple MTT wins to get me back in."
Since then Schwartz has primarily played cash games, and he's been incredibly successful at it.
Starting in 2009, Schwartz turned his attention to the ultra high-stakes games on Full Tilt Poker. He deposited just $10,000 at first, but has since run that up past $1 million.
The 25-year-old Brit immediately started getting noticed for his complete disregard for some of the most elite online players.
In a recent interview with BBC radio, Schwartz mentioned he had no fear when playing the best players. He's also been known to trash-talk whomever he's playing.
"Some of these spazzes on the Full Tilt rail seem to hate me since I've been making their gods all look like fish," said Schwartz. "It's [funny]."
Although he wouldn't talk about any specific strategies he uses against the top-tier players, Schwartz says he is confident he can win against anyone, even the vaunted Dwan.
"I do have a huge heads-up No-Limit edge on every player on this planet," he said. "[Dwan] has run like god the last few sessions and I'm beating him for like $500,000 so far."
While beating some of the best players online, Schwartz has continued to unleash a barrage of insults against them, including referring to Dwan as "durrrr-balls" and the rest of his crew as "OMGweNerds."
When asked where he comes up with this stuff, Schwartz responded simply, "It comes naturally when the truth stares me in the face."

Never one to shy away from controversy, Schwartz has already said he'd like to take on the $1.5 million, 50,000 hand durrrr Challenge, and pretty much anyone is a fair target.
"The Dangs [Di "Urindanger" Dang and Hac "Trex313" Dang] are quite weak," he said. "They ***hunt Gus [Hansen] and Guy [Laliberte] and that's in mixed. Their No-Limit heads-up game is weak."
One might begin to think that Schwartz has no respect for any other poker
poker lenses players at all, but he did mention there are a number who are very skilled. Sami "LarsLuzak" Kelopuro was one, and he said he likes INTERNET POKERS' game as well.
"Some of the $50/$100 players I think are much better than the OMGweNerds crew and company," Schwartz said.
He was even able to dig up at least one compliment for Dwan, albeit a slightly backhanded one.
"I respect durrrr's stamina and willingness to gamble, even though he's still a nonce-cake," he said.
Schwartz's live tournament results to date amount to under $35k in cashes, and when asked what he would like to accomplish in poker over the next couple years he mentioned he had some interest in winning a major tournament.
A frequent player on the PokerStars European Poker Tour, he also said he hoped to see a few other Brits find the same success he has.
But more than anything, he said he wants to keep dominating the nosebleed cash games online.
"I'd like to send a lot of nits broke all over the world," he said. "I'm done trash-talking - time for OMGweBROKE."