Poker: Martonas Wins Some More
Online poker phenom "Martonas" continued to generate interest as the week started, clashing on the high stakes virtual tables at Full Tilt Poker with big names that included Tom Dwan, Phil Ivey, Gus Hansen and John Juanda.
Earlier this week, Martonas ended an evening's action on the website almost $900 000 up at the expense of leading online poker aces, but this time around he had to be content with an overall profit of ‘only' $234 000 after a few Internet hours of $500/$1 000 NLHE poker.
Speculation continues to rage over who Martonas really is. Many believe he is Stephanie Calhoun, a onetime highly successful stock trader from the Philippines, whilst others believe him to be a Swedish player being staked by big money investors.
Dwan was the biggest contributor to Martonas's coffers this time, playing a three hour heads up with him that saw massive pots – one to Dwan for $585 952, which is believed to be one of the biggest pots on the high stakes tables at Full Tilt so far this year.
Dwan, who has won the top three pots this year and lost another according to independent stats website MarketPulse, continued to tangle with Martonas to his cost, subsequently losing a big ($450 781) pot to his opponent.
Despite his record pot, Dwan was up only $110 000 on the evening, thanks to action on other tables whilst Martonas took home $234 000.
