/Poker

FullTilt Tourney $400,000 guaranteed on Sunday

T W — Sun, 20 Aug 2006 07:20:00 GMT

For those of you interested in observing, I'll be playing in the $500+35 FullTilt tourney on Sunday (Aug 20) at 2:00 pm. I won entry into this tournament through a satellite yesterday. My username on FT is "Taidi Waidi."

-Tighty Whitey

When's the next hotel game?

Amadman — Sun, 20 Aug 2006 00:53:00 GMT

With all this *** rain going on im getting the need for a 20+ table tourniment. When can i lose another 50 bucks???

Hi, I'm new here.....

AlaskaGal — Fri, 21 Jul 2006 23:09:00 GMT

I stumbled upon this site and thought I would join. I live in Palmer, AK. I usually play here in The Valley at various cash games and tournaments. I sometimes play the free tourneys in Wasilla and Anchorage (Crazy Horse). I also play on PokerStars under the name AlaskaGal. I prefer to play live instead of online. My husband and I just got back from playing in WSOP events. We had a great time and we can't wait to go back again next year!

Just thought I would drop in and say hello!

Hello from Las Vegas...

FSBONevada — Mon, 03 Jul 2006 07:05:00 GMT

Just wanted to check in to see how everyone was doing in Alaska... I moved to Vegas 3 months ago and am enjoying the new venture. Took about a month to get used to the heat thought... I have been doing fairly well playing cash NL games usually 3-4 nights a week... Im have not visited this site in a while with the move and all, but it is looking good...
-Richard Harbeson

Home Game Stats Tracking

ron2573 — Tue, 20 Jun 2006 22:57:00 GMT

Ok too much trash talk and nobody has their true stats tracked, they just guestimate their winnings and people always guestimate their wins/losses and higher wins. So since I am "Ron" and we all know "Ron Rulez!!!!" so I'll track my next 20 homegame tournaments, no cash games just tournaments. And show buy in and profit/loss with everything.

Yes I'm here just to shut people up and show an easy profit over you guys in the next 20 games.

Holy cow I didn't win, cash and more important I didn't bubble in this tourney :-) that's why i said 20 games is where i'll show an overall profit. I played how i should have for that 3 table maniac drunkfest at lindys and made it to 11th before i had to commit with crap and lost.

So far I'm zero for 1.......19 more games to go.

Comparisons

Jimboak36 — Wed, 14 Jun 2006 06:02:00 GMT

Decided to have a comparison blog to show differences in players and styles of play; and how they relate to profit/loss. There are four broad categories of holdem poker playing styles. By playing against an opponent and learning his or her tendencies, you can place them in a type and adjust your style when contesting a pot with them. I find that by putting names with categories it helps me remember how each holdem poker player plays.

I have registered to play in the PokerStars World Blogger Championship of Online Poker!

This Online Poker Tournament is a No Limit Texas Holdem event exclusive to Bloggers.

Registration code: 9023870

I'm in too

HonestDave — Fri, 09 Jun 2006 05:19:00 GMT

I have registered to play in the PokerStars World Blogger Championship of Online Poker!

This Online Poker Tournament is a No Limit Texas Holdem event exclusive to Bloggers.

Registration code: 8056270

Blogging for (err...BY) idiots

HonestDave — Fri, 09 Jun 2006 04:48:00 GMT

WTF is a blog anyway? I've heard that word before, maybe someone describing my girlish figure? Wait, maybe they called me the blob, or ***, or something similar sounding. Not sure.

So watching the NBA Finals tonight (we still had half a keg left over from Boogie's wedding) and I came to a few consclusions:

1. The Mavs played like SHI T tonight and still won. Bad bad news for the Heat fans.

2. Dwyane Wade was sandbagging with that little "I have the flu" B.S. That boy can jump. Loved it when he just tossed Dirk's shot early in the game.

3. I hate Antoine Walker.

4. Nobody on this site gives a rat's *** about basketball, so I'll stop here.

Back to poker, just played a silly $4 180 on Stars where I decided to move all-in if i was gonna play a hand. Worked FANTASTIC. Won my first pot uncontested. The second pot I played, one of the blinds had AA and 72h couldn't quite drop the hammer. So that was sweet.

Alright, the kid is cutting himself off, but I will be posting a bit more on my blog in the coming hours/days/weeks. Just random stupid stuff (kinda like having a conversation with me, but now you don't have to pretend to listen) and people at Brians BBQ last night know why I have to do this. HOLLA HOLLA!

Pokerstars Blogger Registration

FollowingSea — Mon, 05 Jun 2006 21:17:00 GMT

I have registered to play in the PokerStars World Blogger Championship of Online Poker!

This Online Poker Tournament is a No Limit Texas Holdem event exclusive to Bloggers.

Registration code: 8414127

What happened to the pics from the Tourney?

grandstrand — Mon, 05 Jun 2006 07:54:00 GMT

Are the pics going to be posted from the May tourney at the Best Western?

Grandstrand@hotmail.com

Tony Andrews

Pokerstars Blogger Tourney

two4suited — Sun, 04 Jun 2006 22:58:00 GMT

Here is the link to this tournament it is a freeroll for bloggers. I know that phil(MrAckley) won a xbox 360 last year playing in it. It looks to be a fun tournament with good prizes.

I have registered to play in the PokerStars World Blogger Championship of Online Poker!

This Online Poker Tournament is a No Limit Texas Holdem event exclusive to Bloggers.

Registration code: 3094903

Ways to generate money for the site

two4suited — Fri, 28 Apr 2006 06:17:00 GMT

I was talking to mike tonight and ways to raise money to pay for server cost, tournament setup and other things like free rolls for members etc. Basically just stuff to help build the member base and get people involved.

We use a few things to help us pay for site cost and other stuff, but this is mostly donations from the tournies, these tournies happen quarterly and basically are not enough to pay for the site costs, which is fine we are willing to eat some costs to get the site started.

There are also things you can do to help us, which I have listed below and explained.

So I am the only one playing on the full tilt site and am getting my bonus plus I am also getting some of my rake to go to the site. So I have cleared about 45 dollars of my rake and have made 30 dollars for the site, this is a very small amount and I probably play one day a week. I know some of you play alot and could generate alot of money, which would be turned around to the members.

Buy stuff off amazon through the site

If you are going to buy stuff off amazon you can use the link on the front page and then some of the money goes to the site. I use this whenever I buy stuff from there, figure it is free money for the site.

We will have a donation tag on the front of the site

This is basically just a way to donate to the site, we are not promoting this at all if you want to donate fine, if not no big deal we still welcome you :)

Ok so you may be wondering why all of sudden we are pushing for your support in gaining money. There are a few reason, we are starting a softball team and every member is welcome to play and actually encouraged. With this softball team we are buying jerseys and patches that we will put on hats and other stuff and give away.

So any help any of you can make is great, I just noticed that fulltilt is paying great to it's affiliates and would like to get more people on.

podcast is good stuff

la lamina — Mon, 17 Apr 2006 22:05:00 GMT

Fellas,

Just wanted to say thanks for the podcasts. They are fairly insightful, very entertaining, and a very good idea. Most of all, you guys have successfully killed two hours of work for me. I am now a member of the site and will most likely be making myself active in your forums. Once again thanks, and good luck.

Sincerely

la lamina

Quick update on WSOP

MrFish — Thu, 13 Apr 2006 16:16:00 GMT

Okay, I have been playing $16 WSOP double shootouts with some success, and also the $3 and $5 rebuy events to the various other WSOP Satelites. So far I haven't played any of the games I have satelited into, but to date, I have acumulated W$2459.

By the way, for some reason, I've had much better luck with the turbo double shootouts than the regular. Not sure exactly why since turbos aren't normally my game, but I money in turbos about 3 times as often as the regular games.

Last night I won both a $16DS and a $5 rebuy for entry into the sunday $650, and the $160 DS. I was going to start playing the weekly satelite, but since this sunday is easter, I guess that will have to wait one more week. Hopefully by that time I will have over W$3k.

I also will be playing in the 150 seat guaranteed in June whether I have won a seat by then or not. The way things are going, the odds of winning a seat are looking pretty good!

Tracking and Getting money in and out of Poker Sites.

two4suited — Thu, 30 Mar 2006 16:51:00 GMT

Discuss

One of the biggest things that I notice about most poker players and people that gamble with money for that matter is that few people can tell you how much they have actually won or lost, either over their whole poker career or sometimes in even as short of time as a month. Personally, I like to know exactly how much money I am donating to poker or how much I am pulling out to buy cool new toys.

I am going to talk about some of the tools that are available out there for tracking hands and tracking overall money flow. I am also going to talk about getting money in and out of poker sites and some of the services that are easy to sign up for and the advantages and disadvantages of those.

I personally have always used my bank card to deposit money into sites and then I would either lose all that money, or pull it out via Neteller. This worked all great until a few weeks ago when PokerStars stopped accepting my debit card. This was a not a huge problem as I could just use pokerstars and get instantcash out of my bank account and into stars, then deposit it back out to neteller and either have it sent to my bank account or go withdraw it with my neteller card. Then I started to read some articles about people's neteller accounts getting hijacked and neteller just turning their head and these people lost all their money. I didn't want to this to happen to me and even though it would probably only be a few hundred bucks, I still did not want to lose it. So I decide to signup for a Firepay and look at other options for keeping my money secure.

Neteller and Firepay are both very easy to sign up for. On Neteller you just fill out information like you would on a normal site, answer some questions that are taken from a the US census if you answer those correctly, someone will call you and ask you to verify more information, then you are good to go. In order to put money in, you can either deposit with a credit card/bank card,instanCash(must verify account), EFT, or Bank Wire. In order to verify your account you just have to enter all the information in from one of you personal checks and then wait for them to deposit some small amount, then go back to the site and verify that amount and then you are set to go for instaCash. I would also not do the instacash through the neteller site as they charge 8.5%, if you do it through pokerstars or UB I think they have some deal where they cover the charge. Neteller is free to put money back into your bank account and also has a debit card which is real nice for pulling cash from an ATM.

Firepay is even easier to signup, you fill out your information like you would on any other site, answer the US Census question then you enter your bank account information. You can put money into your firepay account before verifying your account but it costs 6.99, once you verify your account that charge goes down to 3.99, so if you are dealing with larger amounts of money firepay is the way to go. Also it is free to put your money back into your bank account.

Now that you have easy ways to get that money in and out of your poker account how are some of the best to track your money flow. The first one that I would recommend is get another checking account, get it with all the bottom of the barrel stuff so you are not paying fees, also not a bad idea to get it at the same bank you have your normal checking at, because you can then transfer funds between the two. You are probably thinking to yourself, why the heck would I go through that trouble of getting another account, would that be easy for someone to track. The answer is yes and this is not a bad thing, it also makes it easier for you to track your wins and losses, without it getting mixed in with your real money account. Also, if you are making alot of money in poker it is really a good idea to pay taxes, I think that if you make under 10k in a year, not too big of deal but if you start pushing 20 to 30k, the last thing you want to be busted for is tax evasion for money you won in poker. This account could be used to figure out your taxes quite easily. Another reason is if you better half doesn't want you spending bill money on poker you can make some deal to take so much out of your account every month, or for that matter you can take out as much as you want and they will not figure out. Also, I don't believe that neteller and firepay are backed like most other banks in the US, so it is always good to store your money in some place that, if it gets lost it will not be gone.

Ok now that we have the money part figured out and how to track our overall wins and losses and put money in and pull money out it is time to figure out how to track different games and even down to particular hands that are winners and losers.

Two of the best programs out there for doing this our PokerTracker and PokerOffice. I have used both of these and prefer PokerTracker, because it seems a little easier to use and also is more supported in the poker community. The only issue I have with it is, it seems like it is a windows 3.1 app, so it is a bit clunky. PokerOffice is newer, but seems a little slower and also I find it hard to read my stats with. I would try a demo of each of these before you decide to buy one just to see which fits your needs and likes. Once you get it setup you just need to point it to the directory where you are saving your hand histories and set it up to automatically import them. They both work great for cash games, but in order to get your tourney summary in place you have to either manually enter it or request an email for tournament history from the Pokerstars application.

These two pieces of software, which ever one you chose, are both great ways to see how well you are doing in different types of games(ring, stt's, and mtt's) and also see which hands you are misplaying and why. Once you start to get the game you are best at and most profitable you can start to see huge increases in your new bank account you started and pull some of that money out to buy a nice new thing for the wife or just buy that new electronical device you have always had your eye on.

Just remember if you are making any profit from poker, Uncle Sam needs his chunk or you can get thrown in the slammer where you now have to play for cigarettes.

LuckBoxOn Project

LuckBoxOn — Fri, 24 Mar 2006 11:23:00 GMT

In this blog we will be tracking the progress of luckBoxOn the player we are using on stars for all of our podcasts. We will be posting hand histories and complete stats as we build his bankroll. We will post audio, video, hand history, stats for the game and overall stats for each podcast we do. You can also look forward to a decent set of show notes as well. This should be an interesting experiment, absolutely everything about the games will be offered up for your consumption.

Check out the first Podcast Here

The image is the first podcast crew minus Lindy who took the picture as we could not figure out the timer =) His picture is below the crew picture

From left to right - Phil, Brian, Mike, Ron - Is it me or does Brian look like a deer in headlights about to get kicked in the toolshed?

Quest for a WSOP Seat

MrFish — Tue, 07 Mar 2006 17:10:00 GMT

Since Mike has given us the ability to post these fancy blog things, I figure I might as well use mine to keep track of my quest to win a seat to the WSOP main event this year. So far I have satellited into one qualifier through a $11 rebuy. The qualifier paid 4 places, and I went out in 11th, which is a lot better than I really couold have hoped for since I was shortstack almost the whole game.

I also played in a WSOP freeroll on fulltilt. This was stage one in a three step structure. I was one of the top tehn stacks the whole time. Out of 1800 players, 27 advanced to the next level. At about 100 players left, I took a pretty bad beat for 1/3 of my stack, which still left me in the top 27, but I was frustrated and tired, so the very next hand, I pushed all in with 72o and flipped off my comptuer. I must have got a lot of callers, and hit something big, because when I woke up the next morning, I found that I had somehow managed to finish in the top 27 players and advance to step 2, even though I folded through 3/4 of the remaining field. Gotta love freerolls!

On an even stupider note, I completely spaced the step 2 tourney and forgot to play in it. Amazingly enough I didn't fold into the final table and advance to stage 3. Can't quite figure our how that's possible, but weirder things have happened (like the time my 84 got cracked by rockets).

Back on topic, since Stars isn't running WSOP satellites yet, my current plan is to move some money to UB or Full tilt, and continue to play satelite into qualifiers there. Hopefully stars will have some good offerings too. Can't wait to see.

Site Overview Video

FollowingSea — Mon, 06 Mar 2006 05:27:00 GMT

Hello everyone,

Thanks for checking out the new version of the site. To help you get acquainted with all of the new features, I have put together a short video. It is close to 27 min long and gives you the highlights. As I turn on more features, I will add more videos to this thread. I will also publish a downloadable version in the file library each time. The video is pretty low resolution as I talk you through it and I wanted to limit the bandwidth you reguired to view it. Hopefully you will get the idea. If it does not work, let me know and I will post a higher res version.

Click on the video to start it.

The Slashpoker Alaska No Limit Hold Em’ Invitational Details #2 2/11/2006

two4suited — Thu, 19 Jan 2006 22:17:00 GMT

Where: Golden Lion Hotel in Kenya Banquet Room http://www.alaskarama.com/glion/kenya.htm

When: Saturday Febraury 11th, 2006 Registration starts @ 10:00 am. Tournament starts precisely @ 11:00. We started the last tourney about 30 min late we are cutting registration off at 10:45 AM, because we have to be out of the room by midnight.

Entry: 50 dollar entry with no rake or buy in fee. All of the money goes into the prize pool. We are not making a profit off of this. 50 dollars from each player will go into the prize pool, which will pay the top 10% of people (ex. 100 people top 10 get paid)

We are also asking that you donate 5.00 to help cover the costs of the location rental and supplies. This tourney and the last will put us $483.00 in the hole and we cannot afford to continue to host unless some of our costs are covered.

You can donate directly through the link below. This is a secure process. PayPal will handle the transaction. You do not have to have a PayPal account, they take regular credit cards as well. You can also donate when you see any of us from the site at your next home game etc.

You can also go to PayPal, hit send money and use the email address: donations@slashpoker.com to send payment as well.

How: You can sign up through this link. Also if you are not a member you can email one of these people:

Brian Sheridan at brian@slashpoker.com
Mike Fleckenstein at mike@slashpoker.com
Jim French at alaskaspeed@hotmail.com
Ron Onyon at ron0101_98@yahoo.com
Jim Lindemann(1st /Poker Champion) at lindy0331@gmail.com

There will also be an additional prize for the person that comes out on top, they will receive a plaque and a commemorative slashpoker stein to celebrate their victory.

I will be posting the rules, blind structure, flyers, etc... all by monday.

Discuss

Blind Structure.

**Antes will go into effect when there are two tables left and it will be 10% of the BB***

				starting with 5000 chips
	sb	bb	ante	Time goals for starting at 11am with 40 minute blinds
1	25	50		end 11:40
2	50	100		end 12:20
3	75	150		end 1:00
BREAK 15 MINUTES				TAKE 25's OFF TABLES
4	100	200		end 1:55
5	200	400		end 2:35
6	300	600		end 3:15
BREAK 15 MINUTES
7	400	800		end 4:10
8	600	1200		end 4:40
9	800	1600		end 5:20
DINNER BREAK(45 MIN)				Take all but 10 100's off table
10	1000	2000		end 6:45
11	1200	2400		end 7:25
12	1500	3000		end 8:05
BREAK 15 MINUTES
13	2000	4000		end 9:00
14	3000	6000		end 9:40
15	4000	8000		end 10:20
BREAK 15 MINUTES
16	8000	16000		end 11:05
17	10000	20000		end 11:45
18	15000	30000		end 12:25

Payouts

Place	Prize
1st	1470
2nd	1000
3rd	500
4th	320
5th	260
6th	200
7th	150
8th	100

SNG Challenge 10's Over

two4suited — Sat, 03 Dec 2005 21:55:00 GMT

Discuss

I finally finished up my 100. I wish I could say that I learned somethign ground breaking but these where 10 dollars so it is basically playing your cards since not alot of folks fold. Really a good thing it did is keep my brain fresh for poker and to pick up on some of the betting patterns of people online and practice reading people's tells.

Here is a overall breakdown of the 100 tourneys.

# of tournies: 100
Buyin+fee: $1000+$100
Amount Won: $1323
Bonus Cleared: $100
ITM %: 42%
ROI(w/o bonus):20.27%
ROI(w bonus): 30.27
Profit(w/o bonus): $232
Profit(w bonus): $332

Avg Finish: 4.49
1st Place: 17
2nd Place: 12
3rd Place: 13

Here are some links to files that I exported out of PokerTracker to give people more information(if they care).

*These are all PDF's so you will need Adobe Acrobat to read them.

A List of all the hands I played at every level and win % etc...

Information by level, how much I stole blinds, how often I preflop raised......

How I did in what position, interesting to see some positions where not profitable

Some summary info, how many flops I see, what aggression is on each street.....

If you have any question on what some of the abbreviations are let me know or if there are any other stats you would like to see, .i.e, all the hands where you had K10os or something please let me know.

I had to take an unplanned break from starting the 20's because of vacation and getting sick right on the tail end of vacation but I should be starting those pretty soon and will let you know how I do.

Bankroll Management

two4suited — Mon, 21 Nov 2005 22:35:00 GMT

Comment

I saw this on another site, by a respected player. Note these are the max you should have.

multi : i believe its 200 or 300.
sngs: 50
limit: 1000-2000bb's.
nl: 30 max buy-ins. 3000bb's

I would say for multi's 100x is the bare mininum, but 200x to 300x is much better.
sng's I would not have less that 30x at your disposal.
Limit I really how no clue I would have to say 1000bb though, that would garunteee profitablility for me at least
NL I have always thought about 10x to 15x buyin for a min, and 1000 to 1500 bb's

These may seem a little crazy and I doubt that many people are able to be this disciplined. I will say though that if you are probably bankroll for the limit you are playing bad beats don't seem to effect you and in turn you play better after a bad beat. I mean if I have 4k in my account and I am playing 2/4 limit and get 2 outtered on the river adn lose 100 that is not really a big deal, but if I have 500 in my account and I lose that say pot their goes 1/5 of your total money for poker, which in turn will put you on tilt.

You may also think the mtt bankroll is huge I mean for $5 tourney you are talking 500 to 1500, which I think is basically dead on, I think we the huge mtt fields and beats you take you need even more money to substain the variance.

The Slashpoker Alaska No Limit Hold Em’ Invitational Details

FollowingSea — Fri, 11 Nov 2005 23:04:00 GMT

We are currently full and not accepting anymore players.

Rules posted here.

The location of this game has changed !! You should be receiving detailed information about the change in your email shortly. If you have not received the information, please email us for it. mike@slashpoker.com

Sorry for the change but this tourney just blew up in size and we needed more room!

We will also be at the old location until 11:45 just in case you get missed, handing out the new location information. It is only a couple of miles away.

Come join us for the first of the SlashPoker Hold Em' Invitationals. We will be updating this article as information about the even becomes available.

Please bring a foldout chair if you have one as we only have about 40 chairs so far.

Feel free to bring all the food and beverages you like for the day, plus there will be stores nearby if you need to pick up snacks. The owners of the facility would like this to be a dry event, in the past everyone has noticed that a lot of emotions are involved in these poker games and we don't want this to be a bad experience for anyone. In case you missed the point of the above paragraph, no booze of any for will be allowed into the game. =)

When:
Saturday November 12th, 2005 Registration starts @ 11:00 am. Tournament starts precisely @ noon.
Entry:
50 dollar entry with no rake or buy in fee. All of the money goes into the prize pool which pays the top 10% of people (ex. 100 people top 10 get paid)

There will also be an additional prize for the person that comes out on top, they will receive a plaque and a commemorative slashpoker stein to celebrate their victory.
Blind Structure:

				starting with 5000 chips
	sb	bb	ante	Time goals for starting at noon with 45 minute blinds
	25	25		end 12:45
	25	50		end 1:30
	50	100		end 2:15
	75	150		end 3:00
BREAK 15 MINUTES
	100	200		end 4:00
	150	300		end 4:45
	200	400		end 5:15
	300	600		end 6:00
	400	800		end 6:45
DINNER BREAK FOR ONE HOUR START BACK AT 7:45
	600	1200	100	end 8:30
	800	1600	100	end 9:15
	1000	2000	200	end 10:00
	1500	3000	200	end 10:45
	2000	4000	200	end 11:15
	3000	6000	200	end midnight
	4000	8000	300	end 12:45 if necessary
	5000	10000	500	end 1:30 if necessary

Discussion Thread

SNG Challenge 75 Down

two4suited — Wed, 09 Nov 2005 06:08:00 GMT

Discuss

Just got done downing some quality Taco Bell and watching the WSOP, so I figured I would get in my last SNG before I hit 75 and then convey to you folks how I was doing and what I discovered.

For those of you who are not familiar with what I am doing, I am playing 100 $10 sng on pokerstars and keeping track of every hand and how I am doing. I started with $100 in my account and figured once I got up to $600, which is 30x the buyin, I would move up to $20 and then continue. I also take an advantage of pokerstars bonus program, so basically that means that I don't pay any rake on sng's.

Here is an overall breakdown of the overal stats, I will get into same hole cards and stats on those.

(w/Bonus)

SNG's Played: 75
ROI%:            24.36(33.45)
ITM%:            42.67
AVG Finish:    4.40
1st:                  14
2nd:                  8
3rd:                  10

Overal hand stats:

# of Hands:             5336
Saw flops:             31.52%
Saw flop not in blind:17.04%
Won % when saw flop: 41.20%
Went to showdown:   30%
won at showdown:     49.71%
Raised Pre-flop:         14%

Now some hands:

My top five hands are:

KK 88%
AA 81.25%
QQ 79.17%
AKo 78.05%
A5s 73.68%(not really sure why on this)

Bottom Five are:

94os
J3s
96s
72s
62s
42s(Tried to win pot with this but they would not fold)
Have not won a pot with any of those

Hand I get the most:

AQo   67
KJo    63
K2o    63
T4o     61
54o     60

Hands I get the least:

T3s 8
J6s   8
Q5s 9
ATs 9
65s   10
QJs   10
95s   10
62s    10
42s    10

These hands I have won everytime I saw the flop:

93o
k8s
102s
J5s
K3s

These are hands I raise with the most when in the pot first

ATs 66.67%
AKs 60%
TT    56.52%
AQs   56.25%
AKo   53.66%

So it seems in this challenge that I go through games where I win 5 or 6 in a row, then lose 3 or 4 in a row. I am not 100 percent positive why this happens but I think it has alot to do with the hands I get late in the tourney, basically late in the tourney I raise alot, like about 30% to 50% of the pots. These donkeys I am playing seem to get mad at me. So basically I have set them up to reraise me and then I can call when I get a big hand. Well when I go out 3rd,4th or 5th it seems I never get that big hand either on flop or later or preflop and there for I just get reraised alot and have to dump my hands.

You may be saying well duh Brian why don't you just tighten up and wait for big hand and nail them. Well the problem is sitting around this late in tourney is just appettite for failure, especially if you have a pretty meduim stack. It also seems the players never raise or raise min pre if they do raise, then if you raise them they just call. I have no problem with smooth calling an aggressive player, but then if you are too scared to bet your hand when you hit and don't get paid off cause aggressive players slows down, you are missing chips and also might get your hand outdrawn.

This is really the only problem I have ran into and this is why I am doing this challenge. I am doing it for the money in the long run, but I want to learn how to play against different players. I understand that most $10 players are not very good, but as I move up I am sure I will encounter better players who will make me better.

I will let you know when I get to 100 and also when I move up to $20 ones.

Aggressiveness and ability to fold.

two4suited — Mon, 07 Nov 2005 02:06:00 GMT

Discuss

I originally wanted to write an article about why it is good to fold when you are unsure about where you are in the hand, but I decided that I would group aggressiveness into it and show how folding a hand you are unsure can actually be profitable via later aggression.

When I talk about folding I am not talking about you hit no pair and have no draw and then you fold that is easy. I am talking about when you have over pair, top pair or a good hand preflop and the ability to fold these. All of this I am talking about is mostly for MTT's and SNG's, but it can also be used for No Limit Ring games cause the biggest sucker at a cash game is someone who can not fold over pair or top pair.

If you want to be able to fold an hand you have to be able to do a few things:

Read people(hard to do online but can tell by betting time)
Remember how they play hands
Look at what this call will do to you in the overall scheme of the tourney.
Being able to raise and reraise and not fall in love with hand.
Be ok with being bluffed and not having it effect you(Biggest thing have to swallow ego)

Reading people is something that takes years of practice and with so much material on what clear tells are people practice avoiding them and/or faking them. Hopefully when the decision comes up whether are not to fold it is later in tourney and you have seen them play a few hands. You may know that when they bluff they bet over the pot, but when they have a monster then bet smaller. If you are online you should know what their betting time is like, alot of folks if their connection is fine bet fast when they bluff and take some time when they have a monster(think about that try to avoid that).

There are also some clear clues and pretty standard ways people play hands, Let's say that you have 2k in chips the blinds are 30/60 and you have QQ and have one guy that limped in 2nd position you make a standard raise of 4x(little more than 3x cause the other guy in the pot), well everyone folds and this guy just smooth calls your raise. This play usually tells me a couple of things we are messing with low pp 77 and under or a hand like A10 or AJ. We are going to say this person is tight and also does not raise preflop much but we have seen him raise with JJ, AK and KK(pretty standard player). So the flop comes 248, he checks to you and bet 1/2 of pot and he reraises you all in. So you have 440 in pot and need to call 1200 more to see what this guy has. I personally think this is an easy fold. Here is why:

You have enough chips for blind levels
I think that I am better than everyone at the table and can out play them, you have to think this if not then just go all in preflop with QQ and gamble, and will get more chips later without a showdown.
You might be able to use this play later to set someone up
Everything leads to him flopping a set.

Here is another thing remember how they play hands, do they bluff alot, do they slow play top pair, will they call anything for a draw and try to value bet when they hit draw, what percentage of pots they play, how aggressive are they? I remember MrFish(phil) writing something about folding a set of 9's on the flop against an ultra tight person cause he thought he flopped a set of A's or K's and the guy showed his set, he knew his player.

Ok here is the biggest thing for a tournament. If you are having an easy time stealing blinds and out playing people why call off half your chips with a small pp and hope to win a coin toss or call a raise from an another big stack with a hand like KJ, AJ, A10 and if you are going to try and play these hands then reraise him and if he comes back over the top then you have to fold. Which is another one, just because you where the first one to raise or reraised someone does not mean that you can now not fold. I see this all the time people with a hand like AQ come in for a standard raise, then get reraised from a solid player with alot of chips and then they try and push it all in with an even stack. Yep and guess what the other person has AA,KK,QQ, or AK They are bounced from the tourney with AQ. What is wrong with raising here other big stack comes over the top you fold and then few hands later steal the blinds a couple of times and get chips back. Here is an example where I laid down a mid pp and then got some chip back the next hand.

PokerStars Game #2989603814: Tournament #14762780, Hold'em No Limit - Level III (25/50) - 2005/11/06 - 16:23:35 (ET)
Table '14762780 1' Seat #1 is the button
Seat 1: SHERIBR (3185 in chips)
Seat 2: pegrn (1065 in chips)
Seat 3: eastharbor (820 in chips)
Seat 5: JBiver (2200 in chips)
Seat 7: oscareyes (1815 in chips)
Seat 8: wrongshui (1450 in chips)
Seat 9: BubbaR (2965 in chips)
pegrn: posts small blind 25
eastharbor: posts big blind 50
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to SHERIBR [9c 9h]
JBiver: calls 50
oscareyes: raises 200 to 250
wrongshui: folds
BubbaR: folds
SHERIBR: folds
pegrn: folds
eastharbor: folds
JBiver: folds
oscareyes collected 175 from pot
oscareyes: doesn't show hand
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 175 | Rake 0
Seat 1: SHERIBR (button) folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 2: pegrn (small blind) folded before Flop
Seat 3: eastharbor (big blind) folded before Flop
Seat 5: JBiver folded before Flop
Seat 7: oscareyes collected (175)
Seat 8: wrongshui folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 9: BubbaR folded before Flop (didn't bet)

Ok let's look at this a guy 1800 in chips just raised into a small stack who has 820 left almost 1/2 of the initial raisers stack. So I have to assume that he has a hand that he wants to risk half and possibly all his stack with. So I decide to fold 99 with small stack in bb and thinking that he was ready to go all in so a call of 800 more, so if I just call, small stack raises all in then initial raiser reraises all in I have to fold and I just wasted 250 in chips without seeing the flop. One of the things I don't want to do right now is get rid of my big stack and give chips away for free. Also I am not calling two allins for 2/3 of my chips with 99 if small stack goes allin and other guy reraises, when I think initial raiser loves his hand.

PokerStars Game #2989612352: Tournament #14762780, Hold'em No Limit - Level IV (50/100) - 2005/11/06 - 16:24:43 (ET)
Table '14762780 1' Seat #3 is the button
Seat 1: SHERIBR (3185 in chips)
Seat 2: pegrn (940 in chips)
Seat 3: eastharbor (670 in chips)
Seat 5: JBiver (2350 in chips)
Seat 7: oscareyes (1940 in chips)
Seat 8: wrongshui (1450 in chips)
Seat 9: BubbaR (2965 in chips)
JBiver: posts small blind 50
oscareyes: posts big blind 100
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to SHERIBR [3d As]
wrongshui: folds
BubbaR: folds
SHERIBR: raises 250 to 350
pegrn: folds
eastharbor: folds
JBiver: folds
oscareyes: folds
SHERIBR collected 250 from pot
SHERIBR: doesn't show hand
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 250 | Rake 0
Seat 1: SHERIBR collected (250)
Seat 2: pegrn folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 3: eastharbor (button) folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 5: JBiver (small blind) folded before Flop
Seat 7: oscareyes (big blind) folded before Flop
Seat 8: wrongshui folded before Flop (didn't bet)
Seat 9: BubbaR folded before Flop (didn't bet)

This is the very next hand. I decide to attack the person who just raised, from utg. I am the first one to come into the pot and still have alot of chips, would not have had if I called off last hand with 99, so I gain 150 without showing my hand and save a min of 250 the last hand for a min gain in chips of 400 from folding and being aggressive.

The way you should play especially, late in tourney's, is very aggressive, but you also have to understand what your table image and how people are trying to play you. Just because you raise or reraise without a hand does not mean that you are committed to this hand. I think alot of this comes from watching poker on tv and people see the allin fest that is tv and think that is the way to play, they seem to miss the times all the blind steals go on and the times blind steals go bad and people have to fold their blinds steal. Just because you raise preflop and mis the flop and then your continuation bet gets called you do not need to lose all your chips, this happens most of the time with AK. Also if you have QQ or KK and person calls your preflop raise and A hits and you get bet at or reraised on flop don't just say I got unlucky fold your KK or QQ and battle back. Eat your ego and fold your under pair.

So let's say throughout this tourney we have been aggressive and especially when the blinds got bigger, what alot of your oppenents are going to do is try and slow play you and trap. You have to very cautious of this and be able to fold to save chips. I was in a sng with 5 players left and all of them super tight. I was raising about 1/2 the time and knew that someone would smooth call me and try and trap me. The amount of chips I got from stealing these people blinds meant I was clearly the chip leader, but if I got involved in a big pot with a few of them I could become a mortal again, thus losing my blind stealing power. So I raise in 2nd pos with J10, guy next to me just calls, other players fold. I think I have about 7k in chips he has about 3500 on the flop. THe blind where 75/150, my raise was 450, so 900 in the pot. the flop comes 2J9. I am first to act and decide to bet out 800 on the flop, this guy reraises me all in to 3500. I think and think and decide to fold and still ahve 6200 in chips and the chip lead. I figure in this hand I have to be killed, he decides to show AJ and I was. So in two more rounds I have regained all my chips I lost this play from just stealing blinds.

Everyone online is bluffing if he reraises me or goes all in he must be bluffing, I thought this when I first got online and it cost me alot of money. The majority of time people online are not bluffing and they are just betting their hands, and if they are bluffing who cares they made a nice play and won that pot. Don't let the fact they bluffed you and outplayed you in this one pot effect the way you play from here on out.

I also am not saying that you should fold your hand everytime one of these things I mentioned occurs. This is where experience comes, oppenents reads and their style. There are times when you have to gamble, that is if the players are better than you, you have no chips and need chips. Neither of those should be true and if you have no chips that is because you got bad beat or cards are dead, cause you have to think you are the best player at the table.

There are way to many pots during a tourney that are free and can be won uncontested to risk your money on coin flips and pots you are uncertain in. Don't give up that big stack, no need to race with meduim or even stacks. Push the low stacks and get in coin flips with them cause it will not hurt you as much and you can steal the amount back from the blinds.

Our favorite players

ron2573 — Tue, 01 Nov 2005 23:35:00 GMT

1. The “Gotta protect my hand guys” they have a small pp, AQ or AK in the hole so they bet out ¾ of their chips or more because they have to protect their hand and they are happy with the 30 in chips they picked up from the sb and bb then they show the table their hand like they did some big play because they didn’t want their hand to get “outdrawn” Yeah these guys do this once or twice more then run into a bigger hand and lose all their chips in one play because they “didn’t want to get outdrawn and had to protect their hand”

2. The I’m scared so I’ll minimum bet guy: they call your pre flop raise and hit top pair but they are scared so they min bet then when you re-raise them they call, then they min bet the turn hoping you don’t have a better hand and will let them go to showdown at the river very cheaply. Nothing more aggrevating than having KK and an ace flops and some monkey min bets to the river hoping their A9 offsuit holds up. Eventually these guys lose all their chips but they still deserve a savage beating for being stupid.

3. The I play higher limits so I’m more skilled player: This guy is fantastic because today he’s gracing you with his presence at the 5 dollar sng but normally he’s a 20/40 player and plays in only 100 sng’s so obviously he’s skilled and so he’ll point out all the mistakes everyone makes all game. Two things if you’re so great why are you at the 5 dollar sng table getting aggravated at how bad everyone is playing, if you really play at the higher limits go up there and leave us alone. Two if you’re really that high of a limit player how much do you suck at it to where you’re playing at a 5 dollar sng now.

4. Mr. Double negative: I know you’re bluffing so I’ll call, damn I knew you had a better pair than me. This guy is wonderful to have around, he’s right and wrong in every statement he makes……”I know you’re bluffing so I’ll fold with my two pair because you’ll probably outdraw me.” This guy always makes the right call that makes no damn sense.

5. The guy that minimum raises into a field of 5. This guy needs to get kicked in the tool shed because you get 4 people limping for 20 chips and they minimum raise it to 40….WTF????? if you want to raise then raise damn it because you know you’re the first one to fold on the flop when we bet at you but you just cost everyone an extra bet and another vein to burst in our head.

6. Are we playing blackjack: Because this guy plays any hands that makes a good blackjack hand from any position…..K 10 offsuit utg yeah I’ll limp call any raise because I am going to hit a King and hope it’s good to the river, then I’ll turn into the scared minimum bet guy. Sure I know I’ll never win a tournament but I’ll cripple a few good players on my way out of this thing, good times J

7. Rabbit hunting guy: television created these monsters with the rabbit cam because they are hunting down every single hand to see if they would have outdrawn you. “man that’s a big bet, I know I would have outdrawn you, I have mid pair with a crappy kicker and you raised over the top of someone else…..I fold but I want to see what comes next to see if I should of called” The beauty of this statement is they fold and want to see the next two cards to see if “they should of called” they don’t know that just because you would of made some dumbass suckout play doesn’t mean you should of called monster bets to do it. The truth is they lose a ton because their curiosity gets them and they outdraw some then piss their chips away the following hands but like a few other players mentioned on the list they cripple some decent players on their way out of the game, thanks for coming boys

8. Mr. Human Calculator: Stop trying to show off and talk about odds of cards coming and how many outs people had when you’re not even in a hand. Fine, great you read a book and you’re not the typical donkey playing online, so stop trying to impress us with your chip shuffling and “outs” calculator brain of yours(which we know is a lie because you aren't that smart, you just memorized a couple of random card stats...."oooh you're a 33% to catch your flush draw" duhhh we got that one off of television, now shut the hell up). Just go back to playing Hellmuth’s book on Beginner Level hold em and stop tell everyone they are making stupid plays.

Ok a couple of more first one given to me from Phil...good one too, I'm mad I didn't think of it Thanks for the addition Phil.

9. He knows he's beat and folds, then proceeds to attempt to name everyone else's hole cards, WHILE THE HAND IS STILL PLAYING OUT.

10. This one is from me but it sorta ties into Phils. The guy that calls out all the possible winning hands, like, say the flop is 679 rainbow and everyones betting strong and then some idiot not in the hand goes "Wow, it'd be really cool to hold 8 10 right now or even 5 8 could make a straight......." This is usually when you're holding the 8 10 for the nut straight but your disguised straight is now halted because everyones betting has slowed down cautious of that hand.....HEY THANKS SPECTATOR MORON FOR WARNING PEOPLE THERE ARE STRAIGHT POSSIBLES OUT THERE!!!!!

11. Ok got this guy from last night playing in a 180 person sng: The short stack trying to creep to the money-guy: When you are in a mtt and it's less than 10 people until you cash and you get some short stack telling everyone "Ok guys just 8 to the money.....6 to the money......3 to the money guys" Thanks for telling us goofy, I'm guessing you want us all to not raise you now so you can limp into the cash to show a .02% profit, thanks for the info expect a raise from me on everyone one of your small blinds and big blinds which will be given to me risk free, glad to see you're scared not to cash....CHA CHING$$$$$$$.....The bad part is i'm usually talking to them encouraging it...."don't worry you're almost there, just 4 more people to go....damn didn't mean to raise your blind dealer gave me a monster again....just hang in there you're almost there....wow you limped from middle position and i re-raised you all-in, sorry i had a monster again, you know i want to see you cash...come on just hang in there.............."