Two4Suited

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.

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.

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.

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.

Low Limit SNG Strategy

two4suited — Sun, 30 Oct 2005 21:13:00 GMT

SNG Strategy

This is some stuff I have learned from playing sng's at UB and Pokerstars, a lot of what is said here would not be prudent for sites such as Party Poker, Bodog, or many other sites that increase blinds by hands instead of time. It is also not to effective for turbo tournaments. Any of those tournaments that this is not effective for I believe are a lot of luck and not much skill.

The buyins this form of playing is effectiveat is low limt sng's(under $50). The main difference between these limits that I have seen is the aggressiveness preflop, there are very few limped pots at higher limits, in the early part of the SNG. That of course is not all the differences, the trickyness and skillis also very different.

I have broken this into 4 different times in the tourney. Early when there are 5 to 10 left, middle or bubble play when there are 4, 5 and sometimes 6 but only if the blinds are higher. ITM play and heads up play. I also have six categories of hands I play. I will also open this up 3 handed and will play any two cards when it is heads up.

Early Play

Early in the tournament I like to play drawing hands. The key early on is to trap these bad players with the nuts and also keep yourself out of situation that you are unsure about, it is best to stay in the tourney and you will get chips later on when the blinds go up. I also don't like to play many of these hansd in early position, if I do and someone raises later on I will fold unless 3 or 4 people have called, it is not really a good idea to get heads up with these hands since they are mostly drawing hands.

Suited Connectors
You are of course hoping to flop either a straight, straight draw, flush or flush draw. You have to be careful with suited connectors because a lot of people are playing any ace that is suited and if you hit the flush there may be a higher flush out there. So it ok to fold your flush if the flush shows up and someone gets really crazy. Usually the pot will be small and you may only win a few hundred it chips or get knocked out of the tournament
One or two suited gappers and I usually like these low so you don't get stuck with top pair of like K or Q and are looking at a 10 kicker.
- Again you are playing for a straight here, it is also nice to hit two pair with these put you must be careful for the straight, and the flush is nice but use caution. I would not recommend playing these if they are not suited unless a crap load of people are in the pot.
Ace suited
- This is your flush hand, you are hoping for the flush. I actually hate seeing a ace on the flop when I have ace small suited, I will be very cautious when playing ace small.
Small PP(99 or smaller)
- I basically look at these like drawing hand, if I hit a set good deal time to make some money
Premium Hands
- This is pp higher than 10's and AK(which is actually a drawing hand) These hands are dangerous. This is also the only hands I will raise preflop early in the SNG. You of course want to raise preflop, but I don't get too crazy maybe 3x or 4x times the blind. Then I try and take it on the flop, if I meet a lot of residence I will even fold a PP that is higher than the flop. When you start looking at AK, that is very dangerous hand if you hit top pair you also have top kicker, I will bet the top pair, but not get to crazy. Also, early in the tourney I will not bluff on the flop with AK, people play interesting hands and may call you all the way down with a pair of 3's after calling your preflop play with 93. DO NOT SLOW PLAY PRE
High Cards Meduim Kicker

So basically early on you want to hit draws, not over play pairs. You also want to survive, but survive with enough chips to damage people.

Middle Play

This is where you have around 3 to 5 people left. A lot of the folks are waiting to get in the money and do not really want to gamble, this is still low limit though and people will have a hard time folding any PP or AK preflop and will usually play these hands for all their money. This is when you open up your game and start stealing blinds and out play people on the flop, guy bets on flop try reraising him as long as it is not going to pot committ yourself. I am also not afraid to finish out of the money, so I will bluff a lot more and bet on the come more, since you have to do this since the people are probably more aware and you smooth call and then draw hits it is hard to get paid off, also use this as a bluff method.

Suited Connectors
- Again come into the pot cheap, if they are high suited connectors raise preflop. I will also use these hands as stealing hands, so call a raise from someone then out play them on the flop, you could even be semibluffing.
One or two gappers suited
- Same thing as suited conectors, I am not neccesarily looking to hit my draw and will play them heads up for the potential to bluff.
Ace Suited
- Flush is not worth as much I will raise with Ace small, but be careful if ace shows up. I may also just call with these and then play a bit harder if ace shows with no preflop raises
Small PP
- Value of these hands increased greatly since there are now less players, push with these hands preflop. I would be careful calling allins with them though. If you can not lay them down with 4 or 5 people left after you raise and get reraised then just go all in preflop. I like to play these fast and will raise preflop, then usually continue to bet since I will probably be heads up.
Premium Hands
- These are the hands you can knock these people out with, they are too be played fast preflop and don't be scared to reraise and get all your money in with these.
High Cards Meduim Kicker
- I will raise preflop with these, again if I flop top pair and get resistance I will usually lay them down. I am looking to win preflop with these and if not I still have a ok hands.

3 Handed

Well you have made the money and should have a pretty good stack. If you don't push extremely hard preflop and play for first. The game actually loosens back up again since everyone is happy they are in the money, but people are still a bit scared cause they want to finish first since that is 50% of the money. So steal blinds here and try and out play people.

Suited Conectors
- Raise preflop, bet on come and out play people on flop. These type hands will actually make you a lot since people will push here with top pair since it is only 3 handed. I like defending my blinds with these hands, and check raising on the flop.
One or to gapper suited.
- Raise with these, same as suited connectors at this point
Ace Small maybe suited
- Might as well raise with these, but I will sometimes limp in SB to trap BB. I will not call a preflop all in with these unless they are very small stack
Small PP
- Push with these. I am willing to reraise all in or call an allin from someone half my stack size, good hand to reraise blind streal.
Premium Hands
- Pretty Clear here push preflop, reraise all in. Against aggressive player slow play these to blind steal or if person likes to raise from blind when you limp on button just call and then reraise him after he raises
High Card Meduim Kicker
- Raise with these, will call blind steals depending on player. Do not get all in preflop with these unless super small stack. You will usually be looking at 3 outs unless they have small PP

Heads Up

Not much hand selection here and this is probably the most skillfull of any of the other levels. I like to play the opposite of the other player. If the person is super aggressive I will raise every hand preflop and bet on the flop, watch for slow players in this, but most of the time they will start to get crazy and that is when you switch your style. If you are against a super aggressive player, I like to call and slow play them or value bet them, make it look like you are weak. The biggest thing is to stay on the opposite side of your opponent. That has worked well for me, also look for tells. Online your only tell is bet amount, look at their hands and how they bet them.

Well good luck and I hope this helps. I would also like to hear some feedback.

Thanks

Brian

Story of the MF

two4suited — Thu, 31 Mar 2005 06:26:00 GMT

This is going to be a short and hopefully entertaining story about MF, also know as Tony W. I had to write this article because he took down our friday game and MF'd a bunch of folks, including me.

It all started a few years ago, when I went over and played at Poker Dave's game. Many of you may remember Poker Dave, he has since moved on to Fairbanks and I am sure is taking down games in that town. Poker Dave is another legend in the anchorage poker circuit, with his fro wig, glasses, and endless stream of *** talking.

Anyway, MF and Uncle Wally(MF's Uncle) played over there every weekend.

If my memory serves me correctly this is where the nickname of MF orginated, I am am not sure who coined it but it caught on quick.

He would call allins with inside straight draws and an ace and hit, call with a flush draw and hit, he could not not miss and still doesn't. He would do this to put folks out of the tourney. You could hear the murmurs of the people that had just gotten busted saying "How did he call that with x(x usually less 5) outs that ***" with a smile on their face.

This kind of thing would happen every week, people be getting up from their chair "That ***." MF would just reply, "Sorry Man, Good Game" in his sincere way.

This guy was amazing, odds did not mean anything, he would get the feel that the cards were coming and if you ever got called by the MF, you knew you were ahead but if it was not the river you knew you were losing.

I have been MF'd countless times, if he was not such a great guy I would be mad at him and not invite him anymore. It is funny that when you get MF'd you are suppose to be sad and mad, caused you just got rivered on a 2 outter, but you could not feel happier that you got MF'd.

He is the one guy I fear going all in against, he has this magical power to sense the cards that are coming. So he has two unders to your high pp, you are losing and you know it.

That is what happen in our most recent game I have 77 and about 750 left out of 1500, I go all in UTG, it is folded around to MF, please fold, please fold. Oh no he calls, I am like you got two overs, nope he flips over 54 and I was about to get MF'd and I knew it. I basically get up from the table cause my walking sticks are no good. The flop comes 594, dam. The turn is a 6, wow now I have alot more outs, can I actually out draw MF, nope the turn is a 5 and he hits a FH with two unders.

I know that all of you that have played with MF have been MF'd out of a tourney, it is one of those weird things in life where you are suppose to feel anger and depression, but when you get MF'd you feel part of some special group, the anger and depression seem to turn into joy that you just got MF'd.

Keep MF'n MF