• What Is Short Deck No Limit Hold Em
• Short Deck No Limit Rules
• Short Deck No Limit Rules
• Short Deck No Limit Hold'em

Andrew Robl is synonymous with high stakes poker action, and as the biggest games in Asia shifted from No Limit Hold’em to Short Deck, the Las Vegas resident was right there to see it grow and develop into the hype that it carries today. Before the start of play of the final table of the $10,000 Short Deck event at the 2018 Poker Masters on PokerGO we caught up with Robl to talk about why this game is catching on the way it is.

Three years ago, Robl got first introduced to Short Deck in Asia, where he’d been a regular in the biggest games that had been No Limit Hold’em for many years. Despite its roots going way back in poker history, it was the wealthy Chinese gamblers who brought the game back to life.

“A lot of the Chinese gamblers come from a Baccarat background and they don’t have the patience to play regular No Limit Hold’em. They don’t want to just sit there and fold, and I think one of them just got the idea to remove the small cards to make it more exciting, and ever since it’s been growing in popularity quickly.”

Robl’s a big fan of Short Deck himself as the game drives a lot of action and allows for a lot of hands to be played, but he doesn’t think that the same players that are drawn to the game from a gambling background will be swayed to dabble in the regular forms of poker anytime soon.

Dec 07, 2018 Many of the rules in Short Deck Hold’em are exactly the same as a No Limit Hold’em game: Each player receives two hole cards. There are three rounds of community cards (the flop, turn, and river) with a round of betting after each. You can bet any amount of your stack at any time. There’s something wrong with No-Limit Hold’em (NLHE) poker these days. That’s according to high-stakes poker pro Tom Dwan, who recently finished fifth at the HL$500,000 NLHE Short Deck Ante. With No-Limit Hold’em players generally want to have anywhere from 50-100 buy-ins in their bankroll. With Short-Deck it’s probably worth having at least 60+ buy-ins. Sunday, June 02, 2019 to Wednesday, June 05, 2019. $10,000 Short Deck No-Limit Hold'em (Event #8).

“I love it because there is no hand that’s a big favorite against another. This also makes it great for tournaments because there’s a lot of gambling in the game. Because many of the players in Asia have already played No Limit Hold’em in the past, I don’t think that they’ll come back to the game. I think that because of this there will only be more Short Deck tournaments in the future.”

Short Deck is making its debut on PokerGO today, seeing its first $10,000 buy-in tournament broadcast from the PokerGO Studio in Las Vegas. In the last 18 months, Triton has been putting on a series of Short Deck events as well, adding even more excitement to Robl’s views on the game’s potential growth.

“This event in Las Vegas got a great turnout despite most players here being regular No Limit Hold’em players with little to no experience in this game. On top of that, the Triton events have also done really well, so I expect to see the numbers only to go up in the future. Short Deck is a simpler game than No Limit Hold’em or PLO, and that makes it a bit easier for new players to get into.”

Living at the Mandarin, just a few steps away from the PokerGO Studio and ARIA’s Ivey’s Room, Robl’s always amidst the biggest action no matter what the game of the day might be. As he no longer plays tournaments unless convenient or particularly interesting, the man is formerly known as ‘Good2CU’ still holds a love for the Cadillac of Poker, but he also has to admit that the craze of this new game might be taking a hold on a lot more poker fans in the months and years to come.

What Is Short Deck No Limit Hold Em

“Short Deck is definitely more fun and makes No Limit Hold’em look boring, but I still like playing regular No Limit as well. There’s more skill in No Limit Hold’em, and I still enjoy playing both.

Watch the final table of the $10,000 Short Deck event live on PokerGO starting at 4:00 pm ET. On-demand replays of all Poker Masters event as are available on PokerGO after the live shows have finished. The Poker Masters runs until Sunday, September 16 when the series concludes with the $100,000 Main Event. New to PokerGO? Subscribe right now and never miss another minute of thrilling live high stakes action.

Table Of Contents

The first championship event in the 2020 GGPokerWorld Series of Poker (WSOP) Online is now complete, with Lev 'LevMeAlone' Gottlieb taking home their first WSOP bracelet after victory in Event #43: $10,000 Short Deck No Limit Hold'em Championship.

He made it through the field of 130 entries on just a single bullet, besting short deck crusher Mikita Badziakouski heads up to win the title along with $276,393 in prize money.

Little is known about the newest bracelet winner. Gottlieb does not appear to have any live cashes, so not only does this look like Gottlieb's first bracelet, but it may well be their first poker cash as well.

The cards are in the air in the GGPoker WSOP Online. The PokerNews live reporting team is on top of all things WSOP. Don't miss a beat!

Short Deck No Limit Rules

Final Table Results

The Day's Action

Action got underway at 2 p.m. Eastern time today with just 20 players in the field. Among the early entries were GGPoker ambassador Felipe Ramos, Jason Koon, Christopher Brewe, and the runner up of last year's Short Deck Championship, Thai Ha.

The field grew quickly during the four hour late registration period, with new entries, as well as rebuys. By the time registration was done, 130 entries had been recorded for the event, 16 more than the inaugural 2019 Short Deck Championship won by Alex Epstein. That put $1,261,000 in the prize pool, and meant that 17 players would get a piece of it.

Among the players that took a stab at the championship bracelet but fell short were Canadian high stakes regulars Lucas and Sam Greenwood, as well as Michael Watson. Isaac Haxton, George Wolff, and Martin 'FuTimReilly' Zamani represented the United States, and internationally, Joao Vieira, Sergey Lebedev, Danny Tang and Jesus Cortes, among others, rounded out the field of players who didn't quite make the cut.

Registration Closes

After registration closed, they played about three hours before getting down to the bubble. During much of the post-registration period, it looked like Ramos might make a deep run, but the GGPoker ambassador ended up as the hard bubble spot, going home empty handed in 18th place.

Japanese grinder and organizer of the Japan High Roller Festival, Nobuaki 'Sasa JHR' Sasaki, was the beneficiary of Ramos' bad luck. He had been the short stack, and doubled up just prior to Ramos busting, putting him in the cashing spots. He then turned that chance into a 4th place finish worth more than $100,000.

Once the bubble burst, it went crazy. It took less than an hour to play down to the final table, and it was six-handed less than half an hour later after Canada's Ami Barer, Germany's Carl 'Swetomir' Schrader, and Hong Kong's Bjorn 'wong1324' Li went out in rapid succession.

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Short Deck No Limit Rules

Pace of Play Slows

Play slowed down considerably at that point, with six-handed play going on for almost an hour before Chi Zhang got his small stack in against Gottlieb and couldn't get there, ending his run in 6th place for $70,397. It took another half hour before Dan 'oiltrader' Shak took 5th place for $92,545. Most of the damage done to Shak was the result of Sergi Reixach's ace-king getting there against Shak's pocket kings.

After barely surviving the bubble with one of the shortest stacks, Sasaki spun it up to make the final table, but finally ran into a wall for 4th place. It happened in a hand against Badziakouski where they both flopped two pair, with Sasaki on the best of it, before a dirty river nine gave the boat and the pot to Badziakouski.

They played three-handed for almost an hour with Badziakouski mostly holding a dominating stack. Reixach and Gottlieb were trading the short stack back and forth until Gottlieb finally got the best of his opponent. Reixach got it in good with kings, but the ace-jack of Gottlieb spiked trip jacks on the turn to eliminate Reixach in 3rd place for $159,933.

Heads-Up Play

That set up an epic heads up match that went on for nearly four hours before the game was decided. Badziakouski came into the heads up with a big chip advantage, but Gottlieb fought his way back to take the chip lead after the first hour or so of play. The two then traded the lead back and forth, with the small stack always winning heads up.

At the end of Level 20, they paused the tournament to fix a clock issue. Badziakouski was running low on time bank, and a graphical glitch prevented him from seeing his remaining time. After contacting support, they restarted the tournament with normal time banks instead of the 'chess clock' style typically used for final tables.

The pause lasted a little over 30 minutes, but it didn't speed up when they got back to the felt again. They traded the lead back and forth for another two hours before Gottlieb crushed Badziakouski with jack-six versus ace-ten after they turned trip jacks. That left Badziakouski very short, and it was over soon after with Badziakouski collecting $210,249 for 2nd, while Gottlieb scored $276,393 for the win as well as the first championship bracelet awarded on GGPoker.

2020 Online WSOP Bracelet Winners on GGPoker

Short Deck No Limit Hold'em

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PokerNews will be on the virtual floor throughout the 2020 GGPoker WSOP Online, with live coverage here of every event. Stay tuned here to find out who the next bracelet winner will be in 2020.

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