Archive for June, 2008
Short stack strategy_the theory
Saturday, June 28th, 2008 | Poker Articles, Poker Strategy | No Comments
This article is a part of the Poker Strategy series.
I have made a decisive decision for my person bankroll building project. In order to reach my 200$ poker bankroll goal I am going to make a radical change in my general poker strategy. I will start using a short stack strategy from now on.
My short stack strategy is a modification of the famous Ed Millers short stack strategy. Basically the Ed Millers short stack strategy is based on the fact that short stack players have an advantage compared to the other full stack players at the table. In short - and I will go into more details about this in later bankroll building updates - when you play the short stack strategy you often get folding equity for free.
Folding equity is the value you get when your opponents fold. Let’s say you are using the short stack strategy and have 5$ at a table where all the other players have 50$ and you pick up QQ. You go all in preflop and get two callers. One of the two callers bets on the flop and the other player folds. You win the hand against the remaining player, but would have lost if the third player hadn’t folded. Your folding equity in this hand was that one of the preflop callers forced the other caller -who otherwise would have won the hand-to fold.
Here’s my version of the Ed Miller short stack strategy (check out my online poker guide for further information):
- I will buy in with 20xBB, starting on the 0,15/0,25c tables
- I will rebuy to 20xBB when my stack drops below 15xBB
- I will leave the table whenever I reach 40xBB
- In early position I will raise AA,KK,QQ,JJ,AKs,AKo and 1010 8-10xBB preflop, and always go all in on the flop. I will go all in on preflop reraises
- In middle position I will also raise AQs,99 and AQo, go all in on the flop and on preflop reraises
- In late position I will add 88, AJs, 77, AJo, ATs and KQs to my raising hands, go all in on the flop and on preflop reraises.
- When I am in Big Blind and don’t have an early position starting hand, I check if there are no preflop raises. On the flop I only bet if I hit something good like two pairs, and I only call with drawing hands if the pot odds are ridiculously good.
- When I am in Small Blind and don’t have an early position starting hand, I call up to the big blind if there are no preflop raisers, otherwise I fold. On the flop I only bet if I hit something good like two pairs, and I only call with drawing hands if the pot odds are ridiculously good.
- If I have raised preflop in position and don’t hit the flop I go all in if my opponents check. If they make a significant bet before me I evaluate the situations on a case to case level. I would say I fold the majority of the times when my opponents bet.
I have great expectations for my short stack strategy, and I will keep you updated on my progress on my bankroll building thread on the pokerBRB forum.
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SNG Poker Bankroll project, update #2
Saturday, June 28th, 2008 | Poker Articles, Poker Bankroll Building, Poker Project | No Comments
Follow up on the SNG Bankroll Building Project.I am still playing the 50% double up SNG at Inter Poker, where half of the contenders double up on the buy in. But because of a software update the lobby currency is now only UK Sterling. So the table is now £5+£0.5 which is approximately $10. Very high buy ins compared to my very low bankroll.
But it seems like it’s the poker gods intention that I should have a go at the higher table. And don´t ever go against the poker gods!
This is of course one of the biggest errors you can make. Even though you have an edge at a given table your risk of ruin decreases with the size of your bankroll. And with a bankroll of 8 buy ins my risk is too large if I want to build a bankroll.
I have therefore moved down to a more appropriate level compared to my bankroll. Most pro players would advise you to have at least 50-100 buy ins when playing SNG.
SNG statistics so far:
SNG Played: 18
Rake: $11.5
In the money: 13 times. 72%.
Net profit: 40.5$
Michael, June 27th.
Bankroll Building Skills - Acceptance
Thursday, June 26th, 2008 | Poker Articles, Poker Bankroll Building, Poker Bankroll Management | 1 Comment
This article is a part of the Poker Bankroll Management series.
In the series of articles describing necessary skills required for good Bankroll Management at PokerBankrollBlog.com the personal skill – acceptance – will be the next skill I will go into depth with. To know what I refer to when I say acceptance a definition of acceptance is necessary:
…the act or the process to perceive reality accurately and consciously acknowledge what is perceived without resistance or aversion to what is……
In the game of poker, acceptance is important in two areas. Failure to acknowledge where you stand right now in terms of your poker skills will most probably hinder improvement in that area. Bankroll management is the other area where acceptance is important.
Why is acceptance important in Bankroll Management?
It is a known fact that even the greatest poker players experience prolonged periods with losses - so it will most likely also happen to you. It can be hard to accept the realities, especially if you are experiencing a losing streak against the probabilities (also known as being unlucky). As a poker player it is important to realize that everything can happen and will happen - it’s only a question of time.
Without accept you go into denial and lose your common sense. If you don’t accept that the improbable will also happen to you – you will risk tilting and jeopardizing your Bankroll. The ability to accept any outcome at the poker tables will faster return your common sense to you after adversity and consequently you will regain the balance of your game.
How is acceptance developed?
The answer sound obvious – just accept the realities as they are…..but some times it’s not that easy. In a period with prolonged losses and bad beats your mental state will probably be different to your state of mind while you read this post. As I see it there are two ways to help you accept undesired situations.
Change your cognitive perspective by seeing the game as simulation over time. If you are in an very unlucky poker period with bad beats you almost won’t believe in - a simple sentence like “In the long run bad beat hands will bring you lots of money if the same cards before the bad beat where dealt again” might help soften your tilting propensity.
I think acceptance is developed much like your muscles. With training they get stronger and able to cope with even more resistance. The things that were heavy to lift in the past are now very easy and won’t require much effort. The same with losses at a certain level – the more you get used to them the less bothered you will be with down periods. When you start moving up in limits and the potential losses get larger – they might be harder to cope with. But as you settle yourself at the higher limit for a longer period you will get used to the losses at that level and you will be less bothered with them again.
Knowing yourself and this process will help you through the tough periods.
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Learning the poker rules and how to play Texas Hold’em No Limit_step 1c
Wednesday, June 25th, 2008 | Poker Articles, Poker Rules | 2 Comments
This article is a part of the Poker Rules series.
Step 1c: Learning which starting hands to play:
Starting hand selection is one of the fundamental skills of Texas Hold’em No Limit, so take your time with this step. The concept of position is closely tied to hand selection and thus needs explaining before we can move on. In my previous post I described the Texas Hold’em No Limit gameplay and the role of the Big Blind, The Small Blind and the dealer. The dealer in Texas Hold’em has the best position on the entire table, since he/she is the third last player to act in the first betting round and the last player to act in all the subsequent betting rounds. Being the last player to act is a major advantage in Texas Hold’em. You won’t be betting blindly into a pot without knowing what players after you will do, and being last to act you gain a great deal of information on which cards the other players might have from their betting patterns. In addition you will know exactly what your pot odds (I will explain this concept in a following post) are for calling and therefore make correct decisions every time.
Due to the importance of position, the range of starting hands you should play changes according to your placement on the table relative to the dealer button. Generally speaking you will have a much tighter hand selection when you are in early position (Small Blind, Big Blind, UTG (”under the gun”; the player to the immediate left of the Big Blind), UTG+1) as compared to middle position (UTG+2, UTG+3, UTG+4, TB-2 (”The Button”; the position of the dealer) and late position (TB-1, TB). I am a conservative player which is reflected in the following hand selection suggestions. If you are an agressive player you will play your opponents more than your cards, but since this is not my style of play I will not write about it here.
Early Position:
Raise with AA, KK, QQ, JJ, 1010, AK (suited or unsuited), AQ (suited)
MIddle Position:
Raise with AA, KK, QQ, JJ, 1010, AK (suited or unsuited), AQ (suited), 99, 88, AQ (unsuited), AJ (suited or unsuited), KQ (suited or unsuited)
Late Position:
Raise with AA, KK, QQ, JJ, 1010, AK (suited or unsuited), AQ (suited), 99, 88, AQ (unsuited), AJ (suited or unsuited), KQ (suited or unsuited), 77, ace-x, QJ (suited), J10 (suited)
The hand selection listed above, applies in the situation where all players before you have folded of if you have very few callers. In my next post I will give a more detailed explanation of how your hand selection and betting patterns should change according to the action before you.
This post belong to the following series:
You could be posting your articles on the Poker Bankroll Blog. Read all about it here.
Want to play poker? Read the in-depth Coral Poker Review
Malta News
Tuesday, June 24th, 2008 | Poker and Life | No Comments
Our two current main projects namely poker bankroll building and world online sports bookmakers are now up and running as we envisioned and the start up problems have been eliminated. We are now entering the phase for search engine optimization (SEO) where especially WOSB with lots of content and more than 1.000 web pages stands strong. We have hired a programmer full time the next month to exclusively do search engine optimisation on WOSB and PokerBankrollBlog. I think these pages are going to get huge amount of traffic from the search engines due to massive content at the pages.
Us behind the scene have decided to develop our SEO skills and become mini SEO experts instead of outsourcing the task to an external part. This decision has been made due to several reasons. We are going to launch a number of big websites in the next couple of years in addition to those we have now – where SEO for each page will be a critical common element. With our background at the university we have (hopefullyJ) learnt to study a large amount of information quite fast – which makes it possible to go efficiently into depth in a new field without spending unnecessary time. And finally the theory behind SEO is constantly changing so SEO for each website would be an ongoing development instead of just a onetime optimization.
— Join the Poker Bankroll building community on the PokerBRB forum and get support and useful hints from other bankroll building poker players.
— Get a PokerBRB rakeback deal to maximize your revenues.
Hope you are as exited as I am with the future of these projects – so stay tuned at PokerBankrollBlog for news J
Michael’s SNG Bankroll Building Project
Tuesday, June 24th, 2008 | Poker Articles, Poker Bankroll Building, Poker Project | No Comments
Hi GuysI have finally found the time to play some more poker. So will have a go at building a bankroll by playing SNG’s at Inter Poker (Cryptologic).
I have deposited $60 and will start playing $5 ($0.5 rake) SNG’s and gradually move up in buy ins. This gives a rather small bankroll compared to the buy in, only 10 x buy in (plus rake), so will have to try to avoid back luck… How does one avoid bad luck?? My first goal is to stabilize my bankroll for $5 buy ins. Should in theory have at least 50 buy ins.
As for activity, I hope to be able to play 5-10 SNG´s per day.
The process so far:
8 SNG played.
In the money: %
Winnings minus buy in: 0.5$
$4 rake.
Net profit: -$3.5
Mark’s personal bankroll building project; update 3
Saturday, June 21st, 2008 | Poker Articles, Poker Bankroll Building, Poker Project | No Comments
I have been really busy this week, working as a research project manager during the day and on the PokerBRB Community in the evenings. I think we have managed to integrate the 4 branches of our community nicely; I am really looking forward to see if our changes bear fruit and increase traffic to our sites.The downside to my busy week has manifested itself in my Bankroll Building Project; I have only managed to play 6 session hours since my last update. On top of this I haven’t won a single session since I started at Everest poker.
Here’s the cold hard facts:
Session hours played: 41,15
+/-: +23$
Bankroll: 70$
I have started a new Bankroll building thread on the PokerBRB forum, and hope my bitching and whining in this thread will bring me back on track.
The first post in my new thread says it all:
My personal bankroll building project
June 21st
If you exist, stop screwing me!!
Finally I had time to play poker again, and just finished playing 6 session hours:
I got AA 3 times, everyone folded
I got KK once, everyone folded
I got AK 6 times, people called my preflop raise and I hit nothing on the flops.
I got a set twice, everyone folded
I got curious once and it cost me 5$
I lost to a runner runner straight once
Final result: down 8$ for 6 session hours
Since I started playing at Everest poker I have lost almost 2 buyins.
Here’s an up to date update:
Session hours played: 41,15
+/1: 23$
Bankroll: 70$
This will be my new whining and bitching thread for my bankroll building project. If possible I will whine more than I did in my last thread, and I will keep whining until I reach my 200$ bankroll goal.
PokerBRB News
Saturday, June 21st, 2008 | Poker News | No Comments
June 21stThe full PokerBRB Community is now a reality. We have 4 branches, some of them you might already have visited:
PokerBRB Rakeback: Great Rakeback deals
PokerBRB Competitions: Bankroll boosting competitions
PokerBRB Forum: Interact, exchange, share and learn
PokerBRB Blog: Poker articles and PokerBRB News
Your PokerBRB team
Poker Bonus and Rakeback
Saturday, June 21st, 2008 | Poker Articles, Poker Rakeback | No Comments
This article is a part of the Poker Rakeback series.
As a response to the article “10 Questions About Rakeback” I was asked whether a rakeback deal results in a forfeit of the poker room sign up and reload bonuses. This is actually not always the case, which makes a rakebackback deal even more valuable for you when building a bankroll.
I will elaborate on three of the bonuses given with a rakeback deal at PokerBRB.
Inter Poker
When signing up at Inter Poker you will be eligible for a 100% sign up bonus up to $500. All you need to do is download the software and type in the bonus code “SUPJUN” (the code for June 2008) and make a deposit. You will need to deposit $500 and earn 2500 MPPs. Full detail about the Inter Poker Rakeback can be found at PokerBRB.
Celeb Poker
The CelebPoker sign up Promotion is a 200% bonus up to €500. The bonus release is €10 for every €50 in generated rake. So the bonus is actually a 20% rake back. The bonus is automatically added to your account when you sign up. This is on top of the 30% rake back offer. So for the first €2500 you rake you will get €1250 back corresponding to 50%.
Read more about Celebpoker rakeback at PokerBRB.
Poker Nordica
Poker Nordica is on the US friendly Merge Poker Network. When you sign up and make a deposit you are eligible for a 100% sign up bonus up to $200. The bonus is payed in $10 increments for every 250 comp points earned. So to receive $200 bonus in sign up bonus, you will need to deposit $200 and earn 2500 comp points. When playing ring games you will recieve between 1 and 10 comp point per raked hand played at the table (you need to be dealt a hand).
Read about the Poker Nordica rakeback deal and the sign up procedure at PokerBRB.
You could be posting your articles on the Poker Bankroll Blog. Read all about it here.
Want to play poker? Read the in-depth Centrebet Poker Review
Written by Michael
Chris Ferguson Challenge
Thursday, June 19th, 2008 | Poker Articles, Poker Bankroll Building, Poker Pro, Poker Project | No Comments
This article is a part of the Poker Bankroll Management series.
For those who haven’t heard of the Chris Ferguson Challenge – here is a short summary of his project. The Poker Pro player Chris Ferguson started his own mission – turn 0$ into 10.000$. This project was an exercise in bankroll management – with clear rules for his buy in strategy.
From the very beginning the project Ferguson set up some clear guidelines he strictly had to follow:
- Never buy into a cash-table or a Sit&Go with more than 5 percent of his total bankroll (with an exception for the lowest limits: it was allowed to buy into any game with a buy-in less than 2.50$).
- Never buy into a multi-table tournament for more than 2 percent of the bankroll to a minimum tournament buy in of 1$
- If at any time during a No-Limit or Pot-Limit cash-game session the money on the table represents more than 10 percent of the total bankroll, he must leave the game when the blinds reach him.
Starting with an account at Full Tilt Poker with a balance of 0$ Chris Ferguson had to play freerolls until he earned enough for a cash-table buy in.
Eventhough Ferguson is a pro it wasn’t easy for him to build up his bankroll. Especially at the low limit tables he had difficulties picking up momentum for the first 7 months.
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