Archive for January, 2010
Throwing Multitablers a Curve Ball
Monday, January 11th, 2010 | Poker Articles, Poker Strategy | 1 Comment
Submitted by James, this article belongs to the Poker Strategy series.
If you play cash games online, especially full ring, you’re bound to run into a lot of multitablers. Hell, you might even be a multitabler yourself. Multitabling gets more and more popular everyday. Players can earn a decent hourly income at fairly low stakes where fish make up a larger percentage of the player pool. You can also rack up a lot of bonus money or rakeback in the process. I play 24 tables at once on PokerStars, and I am aware that there are 100′s of others doing the same on any given night. You can read more about my experiences as a mass tabling, microstakes professional player here.
I, like most multitablers, rely fairly heavily on a heads up display or HUD for a quick overview of each players’ stats at each table. These stats give me a lot of general information such as how loose/tight or passive/aggressive they are, as well as more specific things like how often they have folded to a continuation bet on the flop, how often they 3bet preflop (to 3bet in poker is to re-raise an initial raiser, editorial), or even how often they win at showdown. There are two basic kinds of multitablers. Both play a tight aggressive style, but one plays with a full 100bb stack, and the other buys in for only 20bb.
Many of these players are fairly easy to beat and are generally trying to stay out of your way, but some of them are going to make life quite difficult for you, especially when they are to your left (meaning they will act after you on the table, editorial). Both the full and shortstack players will 3bet you quite light (i.e re-raise you with medium hands, editorial) when you are out of position forcing you to either fold or continue with a weak hand. They’re positionally aware players, and realize that you are also positionally aware. They see you playing tight in early position and trying to steal blinds and isolate fishy limpers in late position at a much higher frequency. So they capitalize on this weakness by either 3betting you, or floating your preflop raise and applying pressure postflop.
Many people refuse to admit that they cannot overcome the positional disadvantage and just leave the table or try to get a better seat and just end up losing money on that table. Don’t fall into this trap. If there are good regulars 3betting you and floating your flop bets, or aggressive shortstacks pushing their stack in every other time you try to steal blinds or isolate, get off the table – or adjust.
It kinda sucks, but the easiest way to adjust to these guys when they have position on you, is to just tighten up considerably. But wait a second, won’t they know that we’ve tightened up and that our range is really strong now? No. I came to this conclusion because I am a mass tabler myself, and if somebody whom I have over 5k hands of data on is suddenly folding everything but Aces, I’m not going to know the difference. I’m playing way too many tables to notice and who cares anyway because I’m there just to stack fish right? The HUD displays stats based on the entire sample that you have on the player, not just for the session.
The reason that we play loose in late position is so that we can steal blinds and isolate limpers. We don’t need a strong hand to do this a lot of the time. When we have good players to our left who are fully aware of our plan however, they are going to punish us for it. In the Art of War, SunTzu says that we should ‘Appear strong when we are weak’ and appear weak when we are strong’. When we raise to 3x bb in the CO (the CO or cut-off position is the position just before the dealer button, editorial), the good regular or aggressive shortstack is going to see that as weak. They know that I’m raising over 30% of the time here and that my continuance range when facing a 3bet or shove is ridiculously tiny. But what if say tomorrow’s session, I’m on a table where I have two aggressive shortstacks and a good regular in the 3 seats to my left? Based on what their HUD is telling them, they will assume that all my late position raises represent a fairly wide range. Everytime the good regular 3bets me, he’s sticking in anywhere from 10-15 more bb into the pot, and the shortstacker is sticking in at least 20. If I tighten up drastically at this one table, I won’t be making much money from stealing blinds and isolating fish but I will have an opportunity to pick up a nice size pot whenever I pick up a strong hand that can continue against a 3bet from these players who assume my range is much wider than it actually is. I can start 4betting with greater frequency when facing a 3bet because my range will be much stronger. One thing that I have found is that if you 4bet a reg a couple times in the same session, they tend to tilt. If I’ve already 4bet them a couple of times with say QQ or KK, I can start widening my 4bet value range and begin 4betting hands like JJ and AQ which are way ahead of a lot of the hands they may decide to fight back with by 5bet shoving in frustration.
Now when I have players to my left that will let me run over the blinds and isolate the fish with impunity, then I’m going to do it even more often than I normally do. The end result will mean that I still run around the same Vp$ip (voluntarily put money in pot) overall, but I’ll be playing very loose with weak tight players to my left, and rather tight with positionally aware aggressives to my left.
I hope that you’ve enjoyed and got something out of this article. I’m currently blogging and writing articles at www.phatstackspoker.com.
PokerBRB Harman Tribute 50$ freeroll the 15th of January 2010
Friday, January 8th, 2010 | Poker Freeroll, Poker News | No Comments
We have decided to pay tribute to one of all time greatest female poker players by having the PokerBRB freeroll and tournament league host PokerBRB Harman Tribute 50$ freeroll on Full Tilt Poker the 15th of January 2010 14 EST.
Jennifer Harman, born November 29th 1964, started playing poker at the early age of 8. She is one of the few female players in poker history to earn more than 2.3 million $ in live tournaments. She is also the only woman to hold two bracelets in WSOP open events. Having overcome 2 kidney transplants, Harman founded the Creating Organ Donation Awareness (CODA), to raise awareness about organ donation.
In order to get the password for the PokerBRB Harman Tribute 50$ freeroll on Full Tilt Poker here’s what you need to do:
- Create a Full Tilt Poker account by clicking on this link: Full Tilt Poker
- Remember to use the “POKERBRB” bonus code when you sign up
- Create an active PokerBRB freeroll league account – active means that you register at least one poker site username in your account details.
- Log into your “My league profile” page through the log in feature situated in the top right corner of the Pokerbrb front page. In order to log in you need to use the username and password you chose when you registered your PokerBRB account.
- Go to your “My league profile” page at the top of the left menu.
- Go to the “password” subpage to find the password for the PokerBRB Harman Tribute 50$ freeroll.
- We will reveal the password for the PokerBRB Harman Tribute 50$ freeroll one hour before the freeroll starts at 14 EST
If you have any questions feel free to contact us on pokerbrb@gmail.com or find more information on the PokerBRB forum.
PokerBRB Rousso Tribute 50$ freeroll the 29th of January 2010
Friday, January 8th, 2010 | Poker Freeroll, Poker News | No Comments
We have decided to pay tribute to one of the best (and hottest) female poker players by having the PokerBRB freeroll and tournament league host the PokerBRB Rousso Tribute 50$ freeroll on Full Tilt Poker the 29th of January 2010 14 EST.
Vanessa Ashley Rousso is also know as Lady Maverick from her PokerStars poker screen name. Born February 5th 1983 this former law student / brainiac started her poker career in 2005 and has since then won more than 2.3 million $ in live tournaments. This ranks her in the top 5 in history when it comes to all-time money winnings of female poker players.
In order to get the password for the PokerBRB Rousso Tribute 50$ freeroll on Full Tilt Poker here’s what you need to do:
- Create a Full Tilt Poker account by clicking on this link: Full Tilt Poker
- Remember to use the “POKERBRB” bonus code when you sign up
- Create an active PokerBRB freeroll league account – active means that you register at least one poker site username in your account details.
- Log into your “My league profile” page through the log in feature situated in the top right corner of the Pokerbrb front page. In order to log in you need to use the username and password you chose when you registered your PokerBRB account.
- Go to your “My league profile” page at the top of the left menu.
- Go to the “password” subpage to find the password for the PokerBRB Brunson Tribute 50$ freeroll.
- We will reveal the password for the PokerBRB Rousso Tribute 50$ freeroll one hour before the freeroll starts at 14 EST
Note that the results of this tournament will not count towards January’s PokerBRB competiton. They will however count towards the overall leaderboard on PokerBRB.
If you have any questions feel free to contact us on pokerbrb@gmail.com or find more information on the PokerBRB forum.
Sit N Go – Playing on Tilt – What is it?
Thursday, January 7th, 2010 | Poker Articles, Poker Tournament | 2 Comments
Submitted by Stuart, this article belongs to the Poker Tournament series.
The term Tilt in poker is used to explain a state of mental anger, confusion or frustration in which a player uses a poor judgment or strategy. This usually leads to a player becoming very aggressive (in his/her playing style).
So it’s when we play poker in a manner that is not in sync with the ‘normal’ or usual way we play our hand.
Discipline
Having the discipline to use what we know is right is critical to wining or cashing in the game. We know to use patience. We know to use position. We know to use information, but on tilt, all of this goes out the window. It’s not what we know, It’s what we do.
Control
Mental control is necessary to win or cash in poker. We know tilting is bad, but after a bad beat or 10 straight hands of bad cards, it is difficult to maintain the focus we need to win. Keeping this control is the most important thing to do after you have learned how to play the game AND it is the hardest to master. Yes, poker is a game of skill, but it is also a game of luck and most of all it is a game. It’s called POKER.
My biggest Tilt problem
The problem that causes me the most frustration and anger is playing a hand incorrectly when I KNEW what I should have done. At this point, I have to get up from the table for a few minutes and cool off.
Another Big Tilt Problem
Playing in a game above your means. Not staying within the limits of your bankroll. If you can’t afford to lose the game, you can’t afford to be in it at all.
The Best of us all
The really great players are those that have mastered tilt. The ones that stay within their limits, give total focus to the game by gathering information, having patience and knowing when to make the ‘move’ (position).
Remember
Over-aggressive actions due to frustration and anger will almost always lead to defeat.
You could be posting your articles on the Poker Bankroll Blog. Read all about it here.
Check out our Poker Freeroll and Tournament League.
GrinderSchool membership to be won in January’s PokerBRB tournament league competition
Saturday, January 2nd, 2010 | Poker Freeroll, Poker News | No Comments
We have big prizes in January’s PokerBRB freeroll and tournament league competition.
This month Sun Poker has joined our league and will be hosting a 125$ freeroll final as well as 3 25$ freerolls during the month. We also have identical freeroll programs on Power Poker and Poker Nordica.
This month we have also teamed up with the skilled people behind GrinderSchool (check out my recent review of GrinderSchool); the best online poker schools for low stakes players.
We are therefore able to give out a one month free GrinderSchool.com membership to the player who finishes in 1st place on our leaderboard in January.
If you haven’t already signed up to the PokerBRB freeroll league now is the time to do so!!
Sit N Go Poker; Double or Nothing (DoN) Tournament
Friday, January 1st, 2010 | Poker Articles, Poker Tournament | No Comments
Submitted by Stuart, this article belongs to the Poker Tournament series.
What is it?
Double or nothing (DoN) tournament, although they have been around for a long time, are becoming more popular as compared to regular Sit N go tournaments. In short, a DoN tournament is a Single Table Tournament (STT), usually 10 players. The payout structure makes it “Double or Nothing”. If you are playing a Double or nothing tournament, all you have to worry about is coming in 5th. All players who are left (5th or better) are paid double what they put in to play. For example, if you put in $4.00 along with nine others then there is $40.00 to split. The final five are paid $8.00 each and the rest receive nothing. REMEMBER…there is a rake.
Early Stage Play
Play Tight! Even decent hands can be folded at this time while you gather information on the other players. When you spot a player also playing very tight, remember him/her. Double or nothing tournaments can be considered as “outlast ‘em” tournaments. The Idea is to keep enough of a chip stack to be around for the final five. Avoid playing against others whom you have noted are also playing very tight whenever possible. Chances are they are betting because the have a “premium hand”. You have to preserve enough chips to make it to the final five.
Middle Stage Play
The blinds will have increased to 50/100 or 75/150 in most cases. Now POSITION becomes very important. Since the table is playing tight by now, blind stealing is possible if you have a playable hand ([A,Q] or better)and are in good position. If you are raised by one of the ‘very tight’ players left, they are most likely playing the way you are and confrontation should be avoided. I know this sounds like you’ll never play a hand and in many cases you will be mucking 90% of your hands! Remember…FINAL FIVE!
LATE STAGE PLAY
Avoid being the Bubble Boy
If you have a decent chip stack, you should not be considering an all-in play no matter what your pocket cards are. With a smaller chip stack, an all-in bet in position and a decent hand will probably take the blinds. The idea here is to let the others take each other out.
I know this sound totally different from the normal tournament play, but just remember that coming in 5th or first nets you the same result and the tournament is over when there are 5 players left.
Got Questions? go to Q&A for answers.
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