Poker bankroll management, building and strategy – online poker guide

Thoughts on how to beat low stakes MTT online tournaments

Sunday, July 12th, 2009 | Poker Articles, Poker Strategy, Poker Tournament | 1 Comment

This article belongs to the Poker Strategy series.

Lately I have given a lot of thought to the notion of formulating an optimal strategy for playing low stakes MTT online tournaments. I’m pretty sure I don’t have it nailed down yet, but I want to share what I have come up with so far. Maybe you have some ideas of your own to add to mine? Before I start I would like to share one of the most important things I have come to realize lately when it comes to optimizing your chances of winning an online poker tournament:

Don’t expect to win if you don’t have the time and attention to invest in the tournament.

I myself have a tendency to run poker tournaments in the background when I write articles for my blogs or do work on my websites. Truth be told neither my work or my poker tournament results benefit from this. If you want to win tournaments force yourself to focus on the the action taking place on your table also when you are not involved in hands. Playing more tournaments at the same time could help you to prevent your mind from drifting.

Playing low stakes MTT online poker tournaments before the 1st break:

• Many of your opponents in this stage of the tournament will be paying most attention to their own cards and not so much on what kind of hands their opponents might have. They will more often call raises with medium hands such as AQ, AJ, 99 etc than re-raising them. If they hit top pair they will seldom fold. As a consequence trying to bluff them out of a pot with fancy play seldom pays off.

• You will see a lot of call – raise – call action in the beginning of low stakes poker tournaments meaning that you will rarely win pots through pre flop raises. This means that if you decide to try to pick up a pot through bluffing you need to be prepared to follow through post flop. Suited connectors are good hands to do this with as they need to see a flop to improve and are well disguised if you open them with a pre flop raise.

• When you get dealt premium hands raise them to 5-6BBs to isolate the field.

• If your starting stack is 1500 and you haven’t doubled by the time the blinds have reached 50/100 you should start taking risks and stop calling drawing hands; if you think a hand is good enough to call it is good enough to raise. Keep in mind that the chances taken early in a tournament, if payed off, mean that you won’t have to take as many risks later.

• Don’t go all in unless you feel confident that your opponent will fold his hand or call with a worse hand than you own

• Set as a goal to triple your stack before the 1st break.

Playing low stakes MTT online poker tournaments after the 1st break:

• The quality of your opposition will now have increased and some of your opponents are now considering your possible hands as well as their own. This opens up opportunities for stealing pots through bluffs but also means that you have to deal with opponents pulling the same moves on you. At this stage in the tournament being able to classify your opponents will improve the chances of your bluffs being successful.

• Have a plan and a purpose for every hand you play

• Loosen up your starting hand requirements and start raising more often. Since the blinds have now grown to represent a higher fraction of the average chip stack, 3xBB raises are usually sufficient. Your aim is to pick up as many pots as possible while risking as little of your stack as possible. This approach is known as small ball poker.

• Set as a goal to stay above the average stack size for the tournament.

Playing the late stages of a low stakes MTT online poker tournament:

• Turn up your aggression a couple of notches loosening up your starting hand requirements and raising often aiming to pick up the blinds.

• As Mitchell Cogert would say: Embrace the risk. You have to be brave and fearless to end up standing as the winner of any kind of poker tournament.

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 13 – Jonathan Little (SNGICONS.com) – Alan Zola Kronzek (52 Ways To Cheat At Poker) – Mike Matusow (Check RaisingThe Devil)

Thursday, July 9th, 2009 | Poker Articles, Poker News, Poker Pro | 2 Comments

This is the fourth 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 13 Vic and the guys are joined by Kevin “Irish” Smith, Jonathan Little of SNGICONS.com, Mike “The Mouth” Matusow famous poker pro and author of “Check raising the devil” and Alan Zola Kronzek author of the book “52 Ways to Cheat at Poker – How to Spot Them, Foil Them, and Protect Yourself Against Them.”

WSOP updates 0:00 – 21:00

The WSOP main event has started and the field this year looks to have decreased in participation numbers from the previous years of record setting fields. Has the financial crisis hit the WSOP?

Kevin Smith believes that the smaller field this year is due to a combination of the interest in poker having peaked and the crisis in the economy. However the day that online poker becomes legislated and regulated in the US, the WSOP participation numbers could explode again.

Vic doesn’t think interest in poker is dwindling in the US. The famous US newspaper “USA today” had an entire pull out section about the WSOP which indicates that the popularity of poker is still high.

While talking to Jonathan Little who is currently playing at the WSOP main event, the question arose how early in a tournament you should be prepared to put your life on the line with a coinflip.

According to Jonathan it is difficult to know if youre getting your money in as a coinflip. In general however all you can do is get your money in good.

I have been thinking about the same thing lately in the context of low stakes online MTTs and have come to the conclusion that you should not go all in before the middle or later stages of the game unless you are pretty sure your  opponent will fold or you have better cards than him.

Coming back to the WSOP Jonathan’s highlight this year is the fact that more pros have won bracelets due to slightly smaller fields and better tournament structures (100BB starting stacks)

WSOP Classic Clip 22:00 – 25:00

Mike “The Mouth” Matusow vs. Greg “The Fossilman” Raymer in the WSOP 2004 main event

52 ways to cheat at poker 26:00 – 35:00

Alan Kronzek talks about his book: “52 Ways to Cheat at Poker – How to Spot Them, Foil Them, and Protect Yourself Against Them.”

Read the book and get great advice on how to avoid poker cheats in poker home games and in casinos.

Part two of the interview with Mike “The Mouth” Matusow 39:00 – 44

I will leave you with one of my favorite Matusow quotes: “I play to win baby, I play to win. You’ve got to get 26 million chips to win. I play to win”

Does he have the nuts or is he just nuts? 45:00 – end

Daniel Negreanu is heads up against Phil Laak in high stakes poker. Flop is QJx and Phil makes a large flop bet. Daniel sighs in disbelief muttering something along the lines “The brutality…the brutality” and then reraises Phil’s flop bet. Does Daniel Negreanu have the nuts or is he just nuts?

Go to All In Podomatic and find out.

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

Tags: Poker Articles, Poker News, Poker Pro

The Major Styles of Playing Online Poker

Sunday, July 5th, 2009 | Poker Articles, Poker Bankroll Building | 3 Comments

Submitted by Julia Stanlie, this article belongs to the Poker Bankroll Building series

Julia Stanlie’ represents the Dozen Poker site. The site offers the Top Coverage as well as the Worse Coverage of the poker game.

Online Texas Hold’em Poker players can be classified according to four different styles of play, namely:
•    Loose Aggressive
•    Tight Aggressive
•    Loose Passive
•    Tight Passive

The words, Loose and Tight describe the number of hands the player will actually play, whereas the words Aggressive and Passive define the betting strategy of the player.

If you are familiar with the playing styles in your online poker game then it could probably help you combat their game and actually beat them. Following is a brief summary of each of the playing styles:

Loose Aggressive: A loose aggressive player can be easily found at the online poker game. They usually bet frequently and bet big preferring to go all-in. Such players are difficult to be judged because  it is clear that he may not always have the best of cards but how to identify when he’s bluffing?

Tight Aggressive: A tight aggressive player only bets when he has good cards. And so he is the diametrical opposite to a loose aggressive player. These players will hardly ever bluff. If this player gets a good hand he will place a big bet and keep the betting action going.

Loose Passive: These players are always keen to see every hand but are not prepared to be a part of the betting. They usually call small to medium bets  but won’t commit to a hand by raising bets.

Tight Passive: Such a player hardly gets involved in the game and you would probably question why he is there at all. These players usually fold all but the best hands. Even if they get a good hand they will rather call than bet.

Among all the styles mentioned above, the tight aggressive is considered to be the best. It requires the player to be patient but actually pays off in prize money at the end of the game.

Tags: Poker Articles, Poker Bankroll Building

All In Poker Radio Show 12 – Jonathan Little (SNGICONS.com) – Mark (Poker Bankroll Blog) – Mike Matusow (Check RaisingThe Devil)

Friday, July 3rd, 2009 | Poker Articles, Poker News, Poker Pro | 2 Comments

This is the third 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 12 Vic and the guys (now guest starring Paul “Hollywood” Peterson) are joined by Jonathan Little of SNGICONS.com, Mark (that’s me!!!) from Poker Bankroll Blog and Mike “The Mouth” Matusow famous poker pro and author of “Check raising the devil”.

The All In Radio Poker Show team’s weekly results 0:00-6:00

Craig played aggressive this week even for his standards and didn’t do too well. In one tournament he actually busted out in the 1st hand with JJ against AQ all in preflop. Good to see it happens to others as well.

Paul mostly played freerolls and a good point was made by Craig I believe that “goofing around online” in freeroll and low buyin tournaments will develop you as a poker player since the more hands you see, the more experience you get.

Vic played Full Tilts SNG madness and qualified to a 50000$ guaranteed tourney. In the same sentence he whipped up a couple of bad beat stories despite his crusade to eliminate them. What can I say….join the dark side Vic LOL.

WSOP update with Jonathan Little 6:00-23:00

Jonathan Little was asked how he plays pocket 10′s in different situations, here’s what he answered.

• Raise if you are in middle position and no one has entered the pot before you
• Raise 5-7BB if you are in middle position and have two or three limpers before you. Fold if you get limp re-raised
• Call if there is a raise behind you and see if you can catch a good flop

Jonathan does not like re-raising in the third situation:

“You are only going to get a lot of action when you are beat and you are going to be beat a lot more often than not” which I think is very true.

Jonathan also advised Vic to loosen up his game. In MTT’s you have to end up in the top 99% to get real money, so you need to add more variance to you game.

WSOP classic clip 23:00-27:30

Peter Eastgate vs. Ivan Demidov in the 2008 WSOP Main Event final. Peter Eastgate won with a straight on the turn against Demidov’s two pair.

Interview with Mark from Poker Bankroll Blog 27:30-36:00

My 10 minutes of fame. I talk about two articles from the blog namely The Poker Bestiary and Loco Poker. Vic and the guys seemed to like the interview, so I am pretty sure I will be on the air again mid July.

Interview with Mike “The Mouth Matusow” 36:00-46:00

Mike Matusow has a new book out titled “check raising the devil” where he shares his life’s experiences. It’s been a tough life with drug and alcohol problems, jail time, ADHD and Bi Polar condition.

Read the book and discover that the life of a Poker Pro is not a luxurious as it’s cut out to be.

During the interview the  now famous fold made by Romanello in the WSOP 2008 main event was mentioned. You have to check this out on You Tube. Romanello folded JJ on a AJK1010 flop against Geller’s KK.

Does he have the nuts or is he just nuts? 46:00-50:00

In this soon to be classic radio show piece we join Roland de Wolfe and Justin Bonomo in the WSOP 2008 5000$ buyin Mixed Hold’em event.

Roland de Wolfe has pocket 6s and calls both flop and turn bets made by Justin Bonomo on a 8872Q board.

Justin makes a massive 200000 chip river bet, but does he have the nuts or is he just nuts?

Go to All In Podomatic and find out.

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

Tags: Poker Articles, Poker News, Poker Pro