Poker bankroll management, building and strategy – online poker guide

About Online Poker Tournaments

Wednesday, December 30th, 2009 | Poker Articles, Poker Strategy, Poker Tournament | 1 Comment

Submitted by Adam, this article belongs to the Poker Tournament series.

Online multi-table tournaments can be the most profitable games for new players.  Becoming increasingly popular, these type of games provides the easiest and fastest means of making a ton of money in poker for minimal risk.  PokerStars recent record breaking tournament for example gave $50,000 to the winner of an event costing only $1 to buy into.
The problem with new players succeeding in tournaments is that they don’t adopt the correct MTT Strategy to maximize their success.

Tournament Strategy
Unlike cash games, where optimal strategy and maximizing your expected value will make you profit; tournament strategy requires something completely different.  In tournaments you need to constantly build your stack to compete with the ever increasing blinds.  Because of this you’ll need to play much more aggressively and take bigger risks.  Blind stealing, value-shoving and overall pure bluffs are all essential to becoming a long term good tournament player.
Along with the playing strategy, you’ll also need have a large enough bankroll to cover the variance in these tournaments.  Most players recommend having a total bankroll of 40 tournament buy-ins.  This means to play $5 tournaments you have be bankrolled with about $200.  This figure maximizes your potential return whilst minimizing the risk.  The reason the figure is so high is because tournaments are notoriously difficult to cash out in.  Many tournaments run up over 1000 entrants – and with less than the top 10% getting paid off you’ll need to beat 1/100 people on average to make money.

Early Stage Strategy
Concentrate on playing only your best hands.  Throw away anything below 10J and never limp from early of middle position.  You’re at a 9 or 10 seated here, so the chances are someone will be raising the pot preflop with a monster hand like AK or QQ which will force you to fold with anything that’s beaten.  Also remember never to play rag ace hands like A7 or A3.  Because you’re almost certain to be beaten by better Ace kickers, you’ll really be relying on hitting two pair or a set with your kicker in order to take down the pot.  You won’t get the pot value to call with these hands, so don’t both.  Another tip to remember is that the blinds don’t represent much at this level; so don’t spend much time worrying about them.

Middle Stage Strategy
Here’s where you need to accumulate the most chips.  Open up your starting hand selection a little more with hands like suited connectors and low pocket pairs in middle or late position.  Try to value shove also in late positions where you have a decent hand.  The chances of players folding are very high, because in order to call you they would have needed a hand that they should have raised to begin with.   For example, in late position with J9 suited you can shove allin.  You’re very unlikely to get called with AK because surely this player would have raised anyway.  Also keep bluffing on weak and dangerous boards and focus your efforts on stealing and protecting the blinds against weak players.

Final Stage Strategy
As the table becomes short-handed remember to open up your starting hand range to include hands like A5 suited or even QJ.  Make sure you learn heads up strategy also.  The difference between 1st and 2nd place can be huge – up to 10% of the tournament prizepool. So don’t bother settling for 2nd place when you could earn hundreds or even thousands of dollars more.

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

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Tags: Poker Articles, Poker Strategy, Poker Tournament

Reflections on winning an online poker tournament

Sunday, December 27th, 2009 | Poker Articles, Poker Tournament | 2 Comments

Yesterday I won a 400 player 6$ buyin tournament on Party Poker. Nothing big I know, but it was my first win of the year and I have been struggling, to say the least, to achieve it.

So how did I do it?

• I stayed out of trouble by mostly playing solid hands. When I stole the blinds, I did it with playable hands and small bets. I picked up many pots by making small probe bets on flops when I was up against 2 or 3 opponents.
• I won when I got my chips in as favorite.
• The big stack knocked out almost everyone on the final table except me. During the heads-up I was lucky once with A6 vs. 99. In addition I managed to fold when my opponent had good hands and get my chips in when I had good hands and my opponent had medium hands.

Here’s some of the key hands I played during the late stages of the tournament.

93 in the small blind and one limper. I call and the flop is 93A. I bet the pot and the limper calls. Turn is a 9 and I get all my chips in against my opponent’s smaller full house with pocket 3′s. Lucky turn for me.

With 15 players left I raise 3xBB from the button with K10 to steal the blinds. The flop is KQ7 and I lead out with a less than half sized pot bet. My opponent re-raises to put me all in. Top pair is usually good against one opponent but since my tournament life was on the line I took my time to analyze the hand.Here’s what I asked myself:

Which hands do I beat?:

• Pocket pairs like 88, 99, 1010 and JJ. I did not consider these hands likely since my opponent only called my preflop raise.
• J10 and Kx, where x is smaller than a 10.
• Pure bluff (according to Harrington there’s always a 10% probability that your opponent is bluffing)

Which hands beat me?:

• KJ, KQ and AK. KJ and KQ are most likely since AK would probably have re-raised me preflop.
• Slow-played AA, KK and QQ. KK is not that likely since I already have one K.

Since an overweight of hands had me beat I ended up folding the hand, and my opponent showed KQ. Good fold.

With 11 players left I raised with QQ on the button. BB called and under the gun (UTG) went all in. Both UTG and BB have me covered. I figured UTG could make this play with both medium pocket pairs and high cards. And since the BB only called my raise I did not put him on AA or KK. I therefore called the all in and so did the BB. Turned out both the BB and UTG had AK and I won the pot, tripling my stack.

There you have it…..my recipe for an online poker tournament win:-)

Tags: Poker Articles, Poker Tournament

Rather cryptic reply from Party Poker’s player support

Sunday, December 27th, 2009 | Poker Bonus, Poker Tournament | 3 Comments

Yesterday I won a tournament on Party Poker (yes I actually won a tournament!!) and wanted to know if I could withdraw my entire balance, since I recently received a 50$ no deposit bonus there. Perhaps the 50$ bonus would be deducted from my balance before I could withdraw.

I received a reply from Party Poker’s player support and immediately started laughing. Their explanation to my 50$ bonus question is so cryptic, that I have a hard time deciphering what they are on about. What do you think?

Dear Mark,

Thank you for contacting us.

I would like to confirm that you can cash out your entire available balance of 502.57 USD.

As for the *RCCASH50B* you claimed on 19-Dec-2009, it was marked ‘Exhausted’ on 24-Dec-2009 05:46:40 ET as the last bonus amount was lost in play then. Let me still inform you that all bonuses, called ‘Cash Out Restricted’, allow the players to use the bonus amount to play with it. However, there is one restriction. It is that the system would automatically take the bonus amount first. So, at first you had 50.00 USD. In time, it took only from your bonus amount.

The bonus you received would never claim the winnings. If, for example, you have taken 5.00 USD into a game, the bonus would have dropped to 45.00 USD. By winning 15.00 USD from the game in this example, the bonus would be again the maximum of 50.00 USD and 10.00 USD would be winnings that cannot be claimed for bonus recovery, even you if you loose the bonus amount. Then you take another 5.00 USD, but loose them this time- the bonus drops to 45.00 USD, but you still have 10.00 USD available balance.

This goes on either until 250 Party Points are earned or the bonus amount drops down to 0.00 USD. This is exactly what happened with your bonus- it dropped to 0.00 USD and is now considered as lost or ‘Exhausted’. So, no further bonus amount will be claimed back on expiry and there is no remaining bonus amount to release for cash outs.

To summarize, in case you win a game the system would recover bonus amount and it would not use the already available winnings to recover it. For that reason, you had available amount of 22.00 USD at the time the last bonus amount was lost and still the bonus was considered as exhausted.

Last, I would like to promote our excellent Danish support. In order to get in touch with them, please write us directly in Danish and they will reply to you.

In case you have any further queries, please do not hesitate to contact us. We will be more than happy to help you.

We wish you a lot of joy on the holidays and a Happy New Year!

Thank you for choosing us as your online gaming site!

Kind Regards,

Petkana

Transaction Customer Service, Pay-Pro *

Tags: Poker Bonus, Poker Tournament

Mental health and online poker tournaments

Saturday, December 26th, 2009 | Poker Articles, Poker Tournament | 5 Comments

If you’ve been following my “I hate bad beats” page on Facebook lately, you’ll know that I have been suffering a (in my mind) pretty serious onslaught of suck-outs in December. Here’s a short summary:

• Tournament bust-out: PokerStars 20$ 20000$ guranteed. I raise preflop with AK. Table donk reraises, I push and he calls with K4 off suit. Flop 567, turn 2, river 4.
• Tournament bust-out: AA vs 99 and 55, turn was a 9
• SNG bust-out: AA vs KK, QQ vs 77
• Tournament bust-out: Nut flush on turn loses to full house on river
• SNG bust-out: KK vs QJ, AA vs KJ, QQ vs 44
  
• Tournament bust-out: AA vs KK, AQ vs A3, AA vs 99 and KJ, AQ vs A5

Almost all of the bust-outs above have been all in preflop hands, where I got my money in as a favorite. I think the list above covers about 80-90% of the tournaments and roughly 40% of the SNGs I have played in December. Usually my reaction to suck-outs depend on how many I experience during an evening of poker. The more suck-outs, the faster my mental health deteriorates.

Yesterday, when I busted out late in three tournaments with AA vs KK, AQ vs A3 and AA vs 99 and KJ, I was really angry. I punched the table with my fist and molested a water bottle. It took me about half an hour to calm down again. As I went to bed, I contemplated why I even bother playing poker tournaments. Play well for 4 hours and then bust out as favorite. Where’s the attraction?

As you will know if you’ve other articles on this blog, I have several times announced long term breaks from poker, and never been able to live up to them for more than a week at a time. This is actually very unlike my normal behavior. I once stopped eating candy and cakes for 3 years, just to see if I could do it. And I could…

I think I keep on playing due to a combination on stubbornness (I want those final tables and believe I have the skills to reach them) and a lack of better things to due, when I have time to kill. Today is no different. Despite my mental meltdown yesterday, here I am playing poker once again.

I know many of you will look at my list of suck-outs and think “what’s he whining about, that’s a normal day for me at the tables?”. The rational part of my brain is also very much aware of the fact that poker is all about probability. AA loses to a smaller pair 1 out of 5 times and so on. The problem is, I don’t think rationally when I bust out as favorite. I get emotional. Anger fills me. I feel robbed. I feel like the biggest injustice has just been done towards me. I feel like I will never make it to a final table again. I feel like there is no point in being skilled….it’s all about luck.

So here are my questions to you tournament players out there:

• How do you deal with tournament suck-outs?
• How do you maintain your mental health when you are on a losing streak?
• How do you avoid feeling a sense of despair when time and time again, many hours of tournament play are lost to suck-outs?
  
• How do you convince yourself that you are on the right track, and it’s only a matter of time before those final tables start appearing?
  

Tags: Poker Articles, Poker Tournament

Top 10 poker movies through the times

Friday, December 25th, 2009 | Poker Articles, Poker Top 10 Lists | 1 Comment

I found this list on a Danish poker site and liked it because many of the movies were new to me.

Queen High (1930)

Two women own a garden centre and have a hard time agreeing on pretty much everything. They ask their lawyer for advice when they want to go their separate ways and he suggests a game of poker. The loser agrees to wait on the winner for an entire year. A supposedly very entertaining movie

Sunset Trail (1939)

A classical good against evil movie. Hopalong Cassidy is the hero and Keller is the villain who buys a rancher’s cattle, kills him and steals back the money. Hopalong learns about this and pretends to be a rookie player in order to get in contact with Keller’s daughter. In the end the villain is defeated in a game of poker.

Loaded pistols (1948)

Gene Autry and Barbara Britton play the leading roles in this movie about a poker/murder mystery. Britton’s younger brother is wrongfully accused of a murder taking place during a poker game. Gene hides the boy and recreates the game to find the true murderer.

The Cincinnati Kid (1965)

New Orleans. The Kid is in town to beat the infamous poker legend Lancy Howard (Edward G. Robinson). With the help from an old friend and card dealer, the Kid ends up in a life changing high stakes game. The good stuff is in the exiting poker final. Unfortunately there’s a lot of romantic dribble and mediocre acting before getting there.

Big hand for a little lady (1966)

A family moves to a new town and the husband decides to play in a high-stakes poker game. He loses almost everything until he very conveniently has a heart attack. His wife, never having played poker before, takes over in an attempt to win back the money.

Kaleidoscope (1966)

Barney is a devious player and hustler who aims to keep his title as “The luckiest poker player ever” in a prestigious game. Warren Beatty’s game is very realistic in this movie.

Maverick (1994)

The scene is set in the old South. Mel Gibson is 3000$ short of being able to compete in the upcoming “winner takes it all” tournament. After meeting the female poker player /femme fatale, Jody Foster, he finds himself in a ton of problems while playing to win the tournament.

Rounders (1998)

Possibly the most popular poker movie ever made. Some say this movie started the online poker boom. Matt Damon’s character is forced back into the poker world to win enough money to pay for his friend’s (played by Edward Norton) gambling debt.

Lock, Stock and two smoking barrels (1998)

Four regular guys rally together to back up their friend in an insane high stakes game against a local gangster. When they lose, they are forced into crime in an attempt to get back on track.

Luckytown (2000)

On a journey to find a her father, an infamous poker player, Kirsten Dunst picks up an employee in a video store who has an ambition to become the greatest poker player of all time. Together they head off to Las Vegas to find fortune and her father. The movie is full of action and good gambling scenes.

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

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Tags: Poker Articles, Poker Top 10 Lists

The All in Radio poker show and a poker hand analysis

Thursday, December 17th, 2009 | Poker Strategy, Poker Tournament | 3 Comments

About a month ago (November 21st to be precise) I talked on the All in radio poker show (click the link and go to 34 minutes into the show to hear my words of wisdom). I talked mostly about my favorite flop moves from Mitchell Cogert’s “Tournament Poker: 101 Winning Moves”. It is no secret that I like Mitchell’s book and consider it a must read for any serious poker player. if you have some spare time check out his tournament poker blog.

After talking on the All In Radio show I had a very good poker talk with Mitchell regarding a hand my friend Artur and I played in a tournament. I consider the email exchange worth posting here:

From me

So here’s my question:

“What is the optimal way to utilize the all in mayhem that always seems to take place in online poker tournaments once the bubble has burst and there are 5-10 tables left before the final table?”

To give an example my friend and I played some poker tournaments this Saturday and went fairly deep in 3 of them but stumbled before the final tables were reached.

Here’s one of the situations we were involved in:

200 left of a 7000 player tournament. We have 450000 chips which is about 3x average. Blinds are 3000/6000 and antes were probably around 500. On our tables the players have stack sizes of 150000-700000. The play is typical post bubble all in mayhem. People are raising and pushing their stacks to the middle with medium hands.
A couple of hand before we lost 200000 chips in a 3 way pot where we over played our middle pair.

We are dealt K2 suited in middle position and decide to raise 3xBB to steal the blinds. The BB who has 250000 chips calls. At this point we are pretty sure he does not have an ace or premium hand otherwise he would have raised us given the aggressive nature of the table. Something like a small pocket pair or QJ, J10 etc. Flop is 825. BB checks and we make a 3/4 pot continuation bet. BB calls. Turn is an Ace and BB makes a small probe bet of 30000 chips. We are convinced the Ace is a scare card for him and since we have shown strength throughout the hand we continue doing so by putting the BB all in. He instant calls with pocket sixes and takes down the pot.

We’re down to 250000 chips and end up all in preflop shortly after with KK vs AK and lose to a flopped Ace.

So within 15 minutes we went from an overall 2nd place to busting out. Afterwards we talked a lot about whether we did the right thing or not.

Do you have to be super aggressive and take risks (joining the all in mayhem) during the final stages of a tournament towards the final table, or is it a better approach to sit back a bit, win small pots and wait for decent hands?
Do you have any thoughts yourself on how to play these very late stages of a tournament?

From Mitchell

Mark:

You have 90x’s the big blind and are in second place.  The table is pushing in with all sorts of hands, according to your email.

Now you try to steal with K-2 and get called.

1.  You know people are pushing with all sorts of hands, so what is the point of this play.  If everyone is playing super loose–and you are a chip leader—tighten up.  It’s that simple.

2.  If you try to steal and get called, why are you compounding your error further with a c-bet–where players are playing loose.

You answered your own questions in the email.

In many tournaments, players will tighten up considerably near the bubble.  Then it makes sense to raise with any 2 cards in late position.  But here..after the bubble…the image of the table–super loose—and you know your chip position–in great shape with 90x’s big blind and in 2nd place—No need to rush.  Let the game come to you in these situations–they don’t happen that often–but when they do….relax.  Your opponents need to risk their stack, you don’t need to risk your stack….which you did here.

Also, please stop blindly making c-bets—a better play would have been to check the flop.  When the Ace hits on the turn, your opponent would have likely checked and you could make a bet to try to win the pot as a delayed c-bet and a scare card on the board.

I hope this helps…I am away for the Thanksgiving Holiday, so I won’t be able to read your attchments or post anything until next week.

Me again

Hi Mitchell

We wanted to represent a strong hand hence the 3/4 pot continuation bet. I get from your answer that you are not a big fan of c-bets and that it is your opinion that we build a stronger case representing an Ace by checking the flop behind the BB and then raising his probe bet on the turn once the Ace hits.

Say you do not have a big stack during the post bubble all in mayhem, would you then still recommend waiting for a solid hand and then push your chips in hoping for the best? Or would you start risking your stack with less than solid hands given the fact that everyone else are playing loose as well?

I think I am most in favor of using the stop and go in these situations. Call a preflop raise with your strong hand and push all in on the flop no matter what. If you are successful and manage to build a stack then start relaxing and let the hands come to you as you wrote in your previous mail. What do you think? Of course it all depends on how your table is playing in general. If they are playing regular tight aggressive poker you can probably get away with building your stack through stealing the blinds.

Thanks for your feedback! It is greatly appreciated.

From Mitchell

Mark, I am a fan of c-bets but not without planning ahead my line of play.

Whenever someone tells me that they raise pre-flop to steal the blinds AND They get called AND On the flop they make a c-bet…I know the player did not plan his line of play.  The line of play was to steal the blinds.  The play did not work….so end it…if you are in good chip shape.  If it gets checked to you on the turn, then bet.  If it gets bet to you, guess what, fold.  Your line of play was to steal the blinds….sorry, it didn’t happen.  It’s over….unless…your opponent is giving up–which is what a check-check means…and a 1/2 sized pot bet is fine.

Anyawy, I understand what you were doing with your 3/4th bet on the flop–but the pre-flop raise did not make sense given the the way the table was playing and your stack size.

If you don’t have a big stack at this stage, it doesn’t matter how the table is playing.  If you get a hand, push.  If you are less than around 10x’s the big blind, and you have even pocket deuces push…two paints push….position look to push depending on players to your left.

I don’t think people understand the stop and go.  They think it is simply calling a raise and then pushing all-in on the flop.  That’s like saying people who draw are artists.

The stop and go is used in situations where you have a hand, but one which may play better after the flop–and your all in move on the flop will not be auto-called due to the size of the bet on the flop.

For example, if you have pocket Jacks in the big blind, if you are low on chips after a pre-flop raiser you just push.  But, if after your pre-flop call, you have enough chips to get your opponent to fold on the flop, then use the stop and go.

I hope this helps.

From me

Hi Mitchell

It is really beneficial to get another view on things. I get where you are coming from when you say plan ahead with your c-bets. You say that if your plan was to steal the blinds and you do not succeed forget the hand. I have another possible take on the situation.

We did plan on stealing the blinds but it did not work. Instead of giving up on the hand we take another path to give ourselves an additional chance of winning the pot. If we check the flop our betting pattern can easily represent a hand with an Ace. When the Ace hits on the turn we take down the pot by raising our opponent’s probe bet.
I guess what I’m thinking is that by raising preflop you have the chance of representing different hands through your betting patterns on the later streets. Eventhough your initial plan was to steal the blinds and that did not work, who’s to say you cannot change strategy while the hand is played out. If your betting pattern is consistent then your opponents will not be able to tell whether you initially raised to steal the blinds or if you raised with a premium hand.

Regarding the stop-and-go, if I understand you correctly it is best to use it against an opponent who will risk a large portion of his stack if you move all in on the flop and who can afford to fold and still have a chance in the tournament. By making this play in the right spot, you increase your chances of taking down the pot uncontested in a situation where you are prepared to risk all your chips anyway.

From Mitchell:

Yes…and Yes.

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Tags: Poker Strategy, Poker Tournament

An Introduction to Poker Tracker

Saturday, December 12th, 2009 | Poker Articles, Poker Tools | 4 Comments

This article belongs to the Poker Tools series

Since amateur poker players started showing up to live tournaments and winning millions of dollars by taking down the so-called professionals of the sport, the online poker industry has literally exploded. Millions of people from across the globe are looking to hone their craft and win some big bucks by playing games like Texas Hold’em and Omaha. And they’re all looking for that proverbial edge to make winning easier.
Enter Poker Tracker.

Poker Tracker Software, LLC is the company behind its namesake Poker Tracker software line. In short, Poker Tracker is a software tool that performs a series of statistical analyses during the course of your poker game. By compiling data and quantifying results, Poker Tracker acts as an external brain, so to speak, giving poker players a crucial edge by upgrading the one tool every player needs: Memory.

In poker, many will concede that luck is a factor. Hot streaks and cold streaks are real. The power of that blank stare and the coldblooded bluff – these are all essential traits to have. But without a good memory, especially in the online world, a player’s game will suffer. Poker Tracker records and stores all essential details of the game.

The software feature has a large database library, keeping track of hand histories, profits and losses, number of hands played, time at the table, the table style (as in limit), and it breaks it all down to a sweet science, calculating graphs of statistics that a player can check to figure out how much they’re winning and losing per hand, per hour and per game.

Poker Tracker doesn’t work on every brand of poker. If you like to play best video poker online, then you won’t be benefiting from the software. But for every other poker game, like Hold’em, Stud and Omaha, the software keeps track of your entire game.

The real benefit here is that it helps an individual player to understand his or her strengths and weaknesses. By looking at these thorough records that are simplified into easy-to-understand graphics, a player can better know when to bet and when to get out, as well as knowing how much to stake and where to play.

Poker is all about percentages, when you really get down to the heart of the matter. A tool like Poker Tracker is basically an odds calculator for every conceivable aspect of the online game.

The software is 100% legal. In fact, most of the largest and most legitimate poker sites on the web endorse the use of the tool. So, basically, Poker Tracker isn’t a tool that gives you the edge over other players, per se; it just helps your game to be all it can be. And this is why poker sites have no problem allowing the add-on software to be used in conjunction with their sites.

PokerTracker3 is available from their website for $89.99 for the full version, $49.99 for micro stakes, and you can also receive a free trial version to see if you like it.

Tags: Poker Articles, Poker Tools

GrinderSchool.com review

Sunday, December 6th, 2009 | Poker Articles, Poker Tools | 5 Comments

This article belongs to the Poker Tools series

Introduction to the GrinderSchool low stakes poker school

Grinderschool Poker Training helps small and micro stakes players crush cash games, SNGs and MTTs. At Grinderschool, a team of skilled poker enthusiasts/professionals create daily poker strategy videos and weekly poker podcasts dedicated to small stakes poker strategy. Grinderschool’s focus on low stakes poker strategy, combined with low membership rates, makes them the best resource for poker players
on a budget looking to improve their game.

Membership costs

Grinderschool Poker Training has two membership options: Micro Stakes and Full Stakes. For $10/month, micro stakes subscribers have access to the private Grinderschool forum and all cash game videos at or below $10nl and any tournament videos with a $3 buy-in or less. For $19.99, full stakes subscribers have access to the full Grinderschool video library of over 1200 poker videos. If you would like to pay for more months in advanced, the monthly rate drops to as low as $10/month for a 12-month subscription. The 12-month subscription is the best value on Grinderschool Poker Training.

Personally, I recommend choosing the full stakes subscription over the micro stakes subscription at Grinderschool. The added value of having access to all videos clearly outweighs the small additional subscription rate (or none at all on average if you choose the 12-month subscription). In the following, I have chosen several features I like the best on Grinderschool.

GrinderSchool poker school features – poker videos

Along with the Grinderschool private forum, the Grinderschool poker video section is the heart of the low stakes poker strategy content on the site. You can find poker videos covering all of the aspects needed to beat low stakes no limit hold’em. I play a lot of multi-table tournaments so I checked out some of the poker videos in the MTT section. One thing I liked was that each poker video has its own introductory page where it is possible to comment on the video as well as read other user’s comments. In addition, Grinderschool offers all videos in FLV and WMV video formats with 0 DRM (Digital Rights Management); members can download the Grinderschool videos and use them however or where ever they please so long as they remain personal use only. Also, several hundred of Grinderschool’s 1200+ video database are in an iPod compatible format (M4V), including all videos released after January 1, 2011.

I looked through a 5-part $11 Rebuy MTT Video series and the instructor successfully walked me through the different stages of the tournament hand by hand. I appreciated the way the instructor explained his thought process behind each hand he played. I was also pleased to have confirmed my suspicion that you need a fair bit of luck to take down a big MTT (the 3h2h vs KK was especially amusing). It also made me realize, that I have to focus more on putting my opponents on a hand range when I am playing MTTs. Here is a list of I wrote down after watching the entire series; I believe these pointers can apply in today’s game just as much as when the video series was released.

• During the rebuy period, be prepared to push all in with small to medium pocket pairs and high card combinations
• It is better to lose playing aggressively than lose playing passively
• PokerTracker is a great tool to get stats on your opponents. Having a database of player information will give you an edge in many situations where tough decisions have to be made. Especially in tournaments where you get moved around a lot and don’t often have time to get a read on players. It is great to stumble into players you already have data on from previous tournaments

GrinderSchool poker school features – coaching

For an even faster way to improve your game, Grinderschool Poker Training offers private coaching at a great rate for small stakes players. I will go so far to say that all serious professional competitors – whether they are athlete, race car drivers or chess players – use private coaches in their careers to fine tune their abilities.

GrinderSchool poker school features – forum

The bulk of the Grinderschool forum is closed to outsiders to avoid the usual spam that these kind of forums tend to accumulate. This means that almost all of the content in the Grinderschool forum has poker relevance. Think of it as a poker article database! Once you learn how to navigate it you will literally spend days soaking up the poker knowledge.

GrinderSchool poker school features – store

How cool is this? GrinderSchool has an online shop where you can purchase GrinderSchool low stakes poker school merchandise such as t-shirts, caps and mugs with the GrinderSchool logo. Payment can be made with Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Discover and Gift Certificates.

GrinderSchool poker school annoyances

In my opinion, Grinderschool faces similar challenges to many other online knowledge based sites. How to give users an overview of a lot of information while maintaining a clean and stream-lined user interface? Grinderschool has approached this problem by including a TAG cloud on both the forum and video sub-pages, as well as a search bar and drop down menu. I’m not sure how fond I am of the Tag Cloud. The problem with organization of information through tags is that if you do not have some kind of system on how to apply them to information, you run the risk of losing overview.

As a first time user, my impression of the Grinderschool forum and video sections was that it would take me a very long time to get an overview of all the information present. What I’m missing is some kind of underlying information structure that will allow me to faster navigate the site. On Grinderschool, the administrators try to organize the information as best as possible. Given the amount of information
present, I can see how it would be very difficult to have all 1200 poker videos and dozens of poker articles perfectly navigable.

Finally, I believe the overall appearance of the site is not up to today’s standards; their product is great but it definitely deserves better wrapping. Don’t let the design of the site take away from the fact that Grinderschool Poker Training is packed with high quality poker strategy material aimed at the small stakes player.

Conclusin

In conclusion, I would recommend anyone who wants to learn how to crush the small stakes game to sign up to Grinderschool Poker Training. The sheer amount of poker strategy material available on the site makes the low monthly subscription rate a steal. This could easily be one of the investments you make in your entire poker career.

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

Check out our Poker Freeroll and Tournament League.

Tags: Poker Articles, Poker Tools

What is Videopoker and is it something you should spend time on?

Saturday, December 5th, 2009 | Poker Articles, Poker Tools | 2 Comments

Video poker is usually played on slot machines and since its introduction in the 1970′s, videopoker has become the most popular form of slot machine worldwide.

Videopoker is basically man against machine. You start by choosing the game you want to play and then choose the size of your bet. Usually videopoker machines are coin operated with an allowed bet size of one to five coins.

After you have put your money in the videopoker machine it will deal you 5 cards and give you the option of keeping your good cards and exchanging your bad cards. After you have exchanged your cards, the videopoker machine will automatically credit your bank in case of a win. Whether you win or not, depends on the particular details of the game you chose. The minimum requirement for a winning hand is usually a pair of Jacks. The smaller the probability is of hitting a certain hand, the higher the payouts are. A Royal Flush pays the most, then comes a straight flush, four of a kind and so on.

So, is videopoker something you should spend time on? Well, some sites claim that videopoker will challenge your poker skills and eliminate the competition you usually face on real poker tables.

I really cannot agree with these statements. Without the competition from other players and the possibility of outplaying your opponents, the game of poker is reduced to pure chance and the ability to recognize poker hands.

In my opinion, if you want to improve your poker skills, you would be much better of depositing a small amount on a poker site offering micro limit games such as Full Tilt Poker. Start at the smallest tables and move up when your poker skills improve. There are plenty of online resources where you can read more on how to improve your game. The Poker Bankroll Blog is one of those sites.

Nevertheless, if you’re looking for a fast gambling fix where a small amount of skill is need, then videopoker is just as good as any other slot machine on the market.

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

Check out our Poker Freeroll and Tournament League.

Tags: Poker Articles, Poker Tools