2009 July | Poker bankroll management, building and strategy

Archive for July, 2009

PokerBRB Freeroll League freeroll at PowerPoker

Friday, July 31st, 2009 | Poker Freeroll, Poker News | 10 Comments

This article belong to the Poker Freeroll series.

We are kicking off the opening of the PokerBRB Freeroll League with a number of exclusive freerolls. The first exclusive freeroll will be hosted by PowerPoker this Sunday:

Poker site and Network: PowerPoker, CakePoker Network, US players allowed

Tournament name: “pokerbrb freeroll league”, you can find it under private tournaments

Date and start time: Sunday the 2nd of August at 18:00 GMT corresponding to 14:00 EST

Prize pool: 75$

Minimum number of players: 10

If you don’t have an account at PowerPoker, you can download the client here.

By signing up through us you get 33% rakeback and a 100% sign-up bonus up to 600$.

To get a password for the tournament you need to sign up to both the PokerBRB forum and the PokerBRB Freeroll League. Once you have done this you will receive the password by email or PM via the forum. You will also automatically receive passwords for all the other freerolls we have planned to kick off the PokerBRB Freeroll League.

You can find more details about how to sign up (it’s not that difficult I promise) here:

The PokerBRB Freeroll league is now open for registrations.

Hope to see you at the tables!!!

Tags: Poker Freeroll, Poker News

Gardening project update 5

Thursday, July 30th, 2009 | Off topic | No Comments

It’s been exactly 17 days since I posted a piece about my gardening project which means that it is about time for an update. In line with my previous update I will write something poker related first since this is after all a blog mostly about poker.

Last Saturday I was on the All In Radio Show again. This time I talked about poker player levels and how to apply the concept to online poker tournaments. I think I did an OK job explaining it, although I definitely find it a lot harder to get my points across verbally as compared to writing them down. I think it has a lot to do with English being my second language.

In addition to the interview I also got to play some large (in my view at least) online tournaments together with my poker buddy Artur. We didn’t win anything but played really well; debating each hand and making good decisions all the way through. It’s difficult to win online tournaments when you lose with AA vs. 88, AK vs. KQ and KK vs. AJ. But hey we got our money in as favorites every time, and you can’t really ask for more than that. The rest is up to the poker gods.

Finally Artur and I also managed to complete our testing of the database systems underlying the pokerBRB freeroll league. The systems passed inspections, so we have now opened the league for registrations. We are in the process of hosting two promotional freerolls at Power Poker to kick off the league. One of them will be played this Sunday. I will post an article about it as soon as the details are confirmed by our affiliation manager at PowerPoker.

As for the garden it has really picked up lately. We just picked and consumed our first tomatoes today. One of them had actually been left too long on the plant and was overly ripe (lesson learned). The other tasted marginally better than the tomatoes you buy in a supermarket (so with the time spent on watering and pruning the plants I’m not sure it has been worth the effort..LOL). Check out the pictures below:

Tags: Off topic

All In Poker Radio Show 15 – Doug Campbell Cashes in the WSOP Main Event – Jonathan Little (SNGICONS.com)

Tuesday, July 28th, 2009 | Poker Articles, Poker News, Poker Pro | No Comments

This is the sixth installment of the weekly All in Poker Radio Show resume series I have planned for the Poker Bankroll blog.

The All in Poker Radio show is hosted by Vic Porcelli who is joined in the studio by Big Slick Andy Kazen, The Young Gun Aggressor Craig Hogard and The Insider Cody Duffey. Produced by Game On Network Entertainment the show can be downloaded as podcast at All In Podomatic and listened to live each Saturday through the Team 1380 website.

In show 15 Vic and the guys are joined in the studio by Doug Campbell who recently cashed in the WSOP Championship Main Event and Jonathan Little from SNGICONS.com.

Highlights from Show 15

Judging from the amounts of traffic to the WSOP official website during the final elimination to 9 players in the WSOP Main Event, there is no drop in poker popularity in the US

Phil Ivey is one of the 9 finalists. Everyone’s rooting for him in the studio except for Craig or Cody (sorry guys, you sound alike on the radio).

Vic has a lot to say about how he prefers poker players to be stoic at the tables and not display any emotion. Personally I think that’s a bit boring and I don’t think I will ever be able to do it. According to Jonathan Little there is also an added benefit of being flamboyant at the live tables. Loud players tend to get better sponsorship deals.

Jonathan Little answers the 10 random questions for poker players. Jonathan thinks Annette_15 is the best female poker player. I disagree, mostly because Anette has never answered my tweets on Twitter. Best poker book: “The theory of poker” by Davis Sklansky. Great book!!!

WSOP classic clip from WSOP Main Event 2007. “Miami” John Cernuto vs. Dave Backstrom. Miami John sounds like a bad ass gangster. Funny stuff.

Vic and the guys discuss how to play weak aces. Most of them agree that A9 or below qualifies as a weak ace. Craig rather unconventionally considers A3 weaker than A9 since with A3 you have the possibility of hitting the low straight. IMO I wouldn’t play weak aces early in tournaments unless you are a comfortable post flop player. Later in tournaments however, any hand with an Ace becomes playable depending on the circumstances. LOL, just realized that any hand is playable depending on the circumstances.

Doug Campbell from St. Louis recently cashed in the WSOP Main Event and it sounds like he had a great time playing some good poker, meeting poker celebrities and even placing his hand on Annie Duke’s butt. In addition Doug picked up some pretty good tells on his opponents during the tournament. There’s a good lesson to be learned here: In live games, don’t look at your cards before it’s your turn. This way you prevent players from making tells on you.

Does he have the nuts, or his he nuts? Erik Lindgren vs. Julian Meer.

You could be posting your articles on the Poker Bankroll Blog. Read all about it here.

Tags: Poker Articles, Poker News, Poker Pro

The PokerBRB Freeroll League is now open for registrations

Sunday, July 26th, 2009 | Poker Articles, Poker News | 5 Comments

This article belongs to the Poker News series.

I am very pleased to announce that the PokerBRB Freeroll League is now open for registration.

The first 50 players to sign-up to the league will be invited to participate in a number of freerolls during August which will be exclusive for the PokerBRB league.

It is completely free to sign-up to the PokerBRB Freeroll League and here’s how you do it:

First sign up to our forum here:

http://www.wosb.com/betting-forum/register.php

Second proceed to the PokerBRB Freeroll league sign-up page:

http://www.pokerbrb.com/pokerbrb-tou…eague-sign-up/

Here you will find a registration form where you enter:

Your forum user name
Your preferred email address where you will receive information about the PokerBRB Freeroll League
Your different user names with our collaborating poker sites (it is important that you make sure you submit your correct user names otherwise our database will not be able to locate your results)

If you are not signed up to all our sites you can just leave the fields in question blank. We will send you a confirmation email once we have verified your registration. If you sign up to additional sites later on, simply re-submit the registration form with the updated information and we will update you in our system.

In addition to hosting exclusive freerolls during August for players registered for our league we also plan to start up the actual league itself on Poker Nordica.

We will host five (5) 20$ freerolls at Poker Nordica in addition to regular buyin tournaments during the month through which you can earn points towards our leaderboard. The top 20 players on the leaderboard at the end of the month will be invited to participate in an exclusive monthly freeroll final.

The leaderboard tournaments will be listed on our league overview page:

http://www.pokerbrb.com/pokerbrb-tou…ague-overview/

You can check out the leaderboard standings during the month here:

http://www.pokerbrb.com/pokerbrb-tou…e-leaderboard/

You can check up on your own results here:

http://www.pokerbrb.com/pokerbrb-tou…league-results

It goes without saying that in order for us to be able to summarize the points you accumulate in the Poker Nordica leaderboard tournaments you need to:

Have an account at Poker Nordica
Send us your correct user name through the registration form on our sign-up page

I think that just about sums it up. If you have any questions please let me know in the comment section.

Tags: Poker Articles, Poker News

How to apply the concept of poker player levels to online poker tournaments?

Saturday, July 25th, 2009 | Poker Articles, Poker Strategy, Poker Tournament | No Comments

This article belongs to the Poker Tournament series.

If you are not familiar with the concept of poker player levels start by reading my article: Poker player levels revisited. Having read my article, I will assume you are now a level 3 poker player .

I will use the following situation as a starting point for my discussion:
You are playing an online poker tournament and you pick up 7 diamonds 8 hearts in middle position. A player in early position raises 3xBB and you call. The rest of the table folds. The flop comes 6 diamonds, 5 diamonds, K spades. Your opponent bets ¾ of the pot. What do you do?

Being a level 3 poker player you will have already put your opponent on a hand range. With the current flop it is likely that he has hit top pair. Your next job is to figure out what your opponent thinks you have.

If it’s early in an online poker tournament chances are you are up against a level 1 poker player who doesn’t even consider what you have. He has hit top pair and is prepared to go all the way with it. If this is the case you won’t be able to push him out of the pot, so you don’t have the additional value of your opponent folding if you move all in. In addition, if it’s early in the tournament your stack sizes won’t justify a call. You are better off folding in this spot and probably should have folded preflop in the first place.

The situation described above changes later in online poker tournament. Here the probability of facing a level 2 or level 3 player increases. In addition you are likely to be playing with deeper stacks. All of the sudden an all in raise to your opponents flop bet makes more sense. A level 2 or level 3 player might still call you, but your chances of your opponent folding are bigger and if you get called you still have outs to win. These are the kind of situations you need to seek out in order to win online poker tournaments.

In conclusion, your chances of winning an online poker tournament will improve if you are at a higher poker level than your opponents simply because in addition to winning chips from your own hands, you can also win chips by outplaying your opponents. However, take care to pick your spots only against players that are susceptible to your moves and at times where the other factors such as stack sizes and position at the table are in your favor.

You could be posting your articles on the Poker Bankroll Blog. Read all about it here.

Tags: Poker Articles, Poker Strategy, Poker Tournament

Poker player levels revisited

Saturday, July 25th, 2009 | Poker Articles, Poker Strategy, Poker Tournament | No Comments

This article belongs to the Poker Tournament series.

My good poker buddy McTap wrote an excellent article some time ago about the second major leak he had discovered in his game. In this article he introduced us to the concept of poker player levels which I believe were first coined by Phil Gordon in his article : “Inside the mind”

I’m revisiting the concept of poker player levels because I will be talking about it on The All in Poker Show later today. Currently I do not feel confident I will be able to explain to the listeners in a concise manner what poker player levels are all about. Therefore I will be using this article to focus my mind in preparation for the show.

To get started with the subject let’s say you are playing an online poker tournament and you pick up AK hearts in early position and raise 3xBB. A player in middle position calls and everyone else folds. The flop comes 6 diamonds, 5 diamonds, K spades. You bet ¾ of the pot and your opponent raises you all in. He has you covered, so your tournament life is at stake. What do you do?

If your reasoning is along the lines: “I have a good hand with top pair top kicker, no way I’m folding” then you are thinking like a level 1 poker player.

If you consider the range of hands your opponent could be holding as well as your own hand before you make your decision, you have moved up a level and are now thinking like a level 2 poker player. In this situation you will probably end up folding the hand because you don’t want to risk your tournament life with a call where your opponent’s hand range includes pocket 5’s and pocket 6’s.

If you try seeing the hand from your opponent’s perspective and consider the hand range he thinks you are holding, you have moved up yet another level and are now thinking like a level 3 poker player. In the mind of your opponent, you have probably hit top pair. Knowing this he still chooses to re-raise you all in. He could have hit his set or have slow played the Aces, but he could also be trying to push you out of the pot with a flush or a straight draw because he suspects you are capable of folding top pair. If your opponent did have a set wouldn’t he have re-raised you with a smaller amount? His all in bet smells like a draw where he would be happy if you folded but also have outs to win the pot if you called. In my opinion this kind of level 3 thinking will bring you closer to making the call as compared to level 2 thinking.

According to Phil Gordon, expert players take an ever deeper look into their opponent’s minds. In my opinion it all becomes a bit speculative and overly complicated when you start considering what your opponents think that you think they have. In an online tournament you have 30 seconds or less to make your decisions. There is no way you will have time for these kinds of considerations. Live tournaments however are a different story. Here you have the time to put a lot of thought into a hand. This is probably also why you see a lot more raise – re-raise – re-re-raise – fold action in live tournaments as compared to online tournaments. Players have time to complicate things .

Having now introduced you to the concepts of poker levels I will spend my next article debating how to apply the concept when you’re playing online poker tournaments.

You could be posting your articles on the Poker Bankroll Blog. Read all about it here.

Tags: Poker Articles, Poker Strategy, Poker Tournament

All In Poker Radio Show 14 – Jonathan Little (SNGICONS.com) – Michael Craig’s WSOP RAZZ Cash

Wednesday, July 22nd, 2009 | Poker Articles, Poker News, Poker Pro | No Comments

This is the fifth installment of the weekly All in Poker Radio Show resume series I have planned for the Poker Bankroll blog.

In show 14 Vic and the guys are joined in the studio by Michael Craig author of “The Professor, the Banker, and the Suicide King”, who recently finished in second place in the WSOP Razz championship and Jonathan Little from SNGICONS.com.

WSOP updates: 0:00 – 25:00

Apparently a lot of players showed up for the 4th and final day of registration for the Main Event, so many that some pretty big names such as Patrick Antonius were turned down.

So if you want to play in next year’s WSOP Championship Main Event, make sure you register in time.

There should be some good entertainment once the Main Event hits the air. Apparently Phil Helmuth and Josh Arieh have a go at each other on one of the tables.

Jonathan Little was doing well in the WSOP Main Event with 100000 chips while the average for the tournament was 40000 chips. Unfortunately he got moved to a new table where the table average was 150000 chips and lost with a straight and flush draw against top pair. On a side note, according to Jonathan, WPT events are a lot better structured than WSOP events. I will keep that in mind if I ever get a big enough bankroll to play large live events.

Jonathan had a good tip on how to avoid being tilted by annoying players on live tables. Bring your favorite music and just put on your headphones to block out the player comments.

If you want to have your SNG or MTT play scrutinized by poker experts you should sign-up at SNGICONS.com

WSOP classic clip: 25:00 – 27:00

2008 WSOP Main Event. Phil Helmuth plays a pot with QQ against Kathleen Gliva and Gil George. Flop is 794 giving Gil both straight and flush draws with his J10. Phil bets 4500 and Gil moves all in. Phil takes down the pot and boy is he happy.

Playing suited connectors: 29:00 – 32:00

Suited connectors such as 78 diamonds, 910 clubs etc are great hands to get in cheap in a pot with the chance of taking down a big pot if you hit the flop. Most of the guys prefer to limp in late with suited connectors, however Andy sometimes likes to raise with suited connectors as it disguises the hand well. IMO suited connectors are great hands to make moves on players with similar stack size to yours later in tournaments. Forget about trying to steal pots with them early in tournaments since most of your opponents will not lay down hands that for example give them a pair on the flop.

Interview with Michael Craig: 35:00 – end

Michael Craig talks about playing Jeffrey Lisandro heads up in the final of the 2500$ buyin 7 card Razz WSOP tournament. Apparently Jeffrey Lisandro looks very much like Tony Soprano and is quite intimidating at the tables.

Razz sounds like a game I will never learn to understand.

You could be posting your articles on the Poker Bankroll Blog. Read all about it here.

Tags: Poker Articles, Poker News, Poker Pro

Draftbug Blogger Fantasy Baseball Invitational Contest player picks

Friday, July 17th, 2009 | Sports and Fantasy betting | 1 Comment

Tonight I will be playing in the Draftbug blogger MLB fantasy betting freeroll. My aim is not to finish in last place as I did last time I played in a Draftbug invitational event.

Before I reveal my picks I thought I would share with you some basic information about Major League Baseball and the way contests are scored at Draftbug.

A Major League Baseball team consists of 9 players that have different roles depending on whether the team is fielding (trying to catch the ball) or batting (trying to hit the ball). When the team is batting, all 9 players take turn hitting against the pitcher (the guy throwing the ball) of the other team. When the team is fielding the following positions need filling out:

1B: First Baseman

One of the 4 infielders. The first baseman covers the first base.

2B: Second Baseman

One of the 4 infielders. The second baseman covers the second base.

3B: Third Baseman

One of the 4 infielders. The third baseman covers the third base.

SS: Short Stop

One of the 4 infielders. Covers the area between second and third base.

C: Catcher

The guy who catches the ball thrown by the pitcher

SP: Starting Pitcher

The guy who throws the ball to the catcher in an attempt to strike out the batter of the opposing team.

OF: There are 3 Outfielders namely left fielder, center fielder of right fielder

Guard the playing area outside the infield

The way you score points in Draftbug is when the players you choose for your team complete one of the following actions:

1B: 1 point is given when the batter hits the ball into play and reaches the first base safely

2B: 2 points are given when the batter hits the ball into play and reaches the second base safely

3B: 3 points are given when the batter hits the ball into play and reaches the third base safely

HR: 4 points are given when the batter hits a home-run

R: 1 point is given for each run scored

RBI: 1 point is given for each run batted in

BB: 1 point is given for each base on ball

SB: 2 points are given for stolen base

K: -1 point is given for each strikeout charged to a batter

W: 10 points are given for each win a pitcher is credited for

L: -3 points are given for each loss a pitcher is credited with

SV: 7 points are given for each save a pitcher is credited with

IP: 3 points are given for each inning pitched

H: -1 point is given for each hit charged to the pitcher

K: 1 point is given for each strikeout charged to a pitcher

ER: -1 point for each run allowed by a pitcher

BB: -1 point for each base on ball allowed by a pitcher

You can find more information on Major League Baseball here.

From a quick glance on all the different MLB stats that are out there, I can see that I am in way over my head here. To keep things simple I am therefore going to choose players from the two teams that from an odds point of view are the biggest favorites tonight, namely New York Yankees and St. Louis Cardinals.

So here are my picks:

SP: AJ Burnett from New York Yankees

SS: Derek Jeter from New York Yankees

C: Yadier Molina from St. Louis Cardinals

1B: Mark Teixeira from New York Yankees

2B: Skip Shumaker from St. Louis Cardinals

3B: David Freese from St. Louis Cardinals

OF: Johnny Damon from New York Yankees

OF: Rick Ankiel from St. Louis Cardinals

OF: Nick Swisher from New York Yankees

Tags: Sports and Fantasy betting

Draftbug Blogger Fantasy Baseball Invitational Contest

Thursday, July 16th, 2009 | Sports and Fantasy betting | No Comments

Tomorrow I will be playing in the Draftbug blogger MLB fantasy betting freeroll. My aim is not to finish in last place as I did last time I played in a Draftbug invitational event.

I will be checking out either Yahoo (Yahoo|Sports|MLB|Players) or Hardball Times for player stats and try to understand player positions before I make my picks.

For those who aren’t familiar with Draftbug contests, the concept is simple – fantasy baseball contests lasting just one day. Each participant picks a team of players within a salary cap, and wins (or loses) based on the performance of their players in that night’s games. Cash contests range from $1 up to $55, and a daily freeroll (with no entry fee and small cash prizes) is offered every day.

The format allows players to obsess over all the same details as in full season salary cap games (park, opponent, lefty/right match ups, home/away splits, weather, injuries, etc.), while not imposing any future time commitments on participants beyond the current day’s contests.

I will be competing against 11 other bloggers, some of which are very much into fantasy betting and MLB. Beating any of them will be a great victory for a noob like me.

Here’s a list of my competitors:

Alex from Daily Baseball Data
Sean from 27 pitches
Dave H. from Rotoguru2
Dave R. from Dinks and dunks
Charlie from Fantasy Baseball 365
Josh from Future of Fantasy
Jay from Cardinal’s front office
Ryan from Lester’s Legends
Tim from Rotorob
Troy from Rotosavants
Carl from Five Tool Fantasy Baseball

I will update you with my picks tomorrow as soon as I receive the password for the event.

Fantasy betting at Draftbug.com

You could be posting your articles on the Poker Bankroll Blog. Read all about it here.

Tags: Sports and Fantasy betting

Gardening project update 4

Tuesday, July 14th, 2009 | Off topic | No Comments

It’s been about 16 days since I posted a piece about my gardening project which means that it is about time for an update. In line with my previous update I will write something poker related first since this is after all a blog mostly about poker.

My good friend Artur visited me this weekend and as usual we played some medium buyin online poker tournaments. I actually had planned to give Artur an introduction to the pokerbrb freeroll league and especially how the database tables are updated since he will be helping me with that from now on. Unfortunately my website host shut down SSH access to all database files due to some security issue and hasn’t reopened access yet.

We busted out quite late in most tournaments (as favorites of course) without hitting the money though. Fortunately we finished 31st in a 50000$ guaranteed 50$ rebuy on Bet24 which broke us even for the weekend. Once again we were reminded that you can’t just sit around late in tournaments and wait for good hands to come along. It is essential to steal blinds and make moves on your opponents on a regular basis in order to stay above average and avoid being blinded out.

The pictures below show how our small garden looked like about a week ago. Some new and more exiting summer flowers have started blooming. Our tomatoes are still green…wonder how long the take to ripen?