Poker bankroll management, building and strategy – online poker guide

Merry X-mas and a Happy New Year

Saturday, December 24th, 2011 | Off topic | 1 Comment

Merry X-mas and a Happy New Year to all readers of pokerbankrollblog.com. It’s been a so so year for this blog, as I haven’t gotten around to writing as many poker articles as I would have liked. Perhaps it’s because I’ve reached the limit of what I’m able to write about. Perhaps it’s because I’ve been busy with a bunch of other projects. Who knows?

One thing’s for sure: next year I’ll reach my milestone of 500 articles and then new milestones have to settled upon. Perhaps one of them will be to sell this blog to someone who can take it to the next level.

By the way, in 2012 spammers will still not be allowed to post comments on my blog. It still amazes me how many gut-wrenchingly bad spam comments I receive every single day. JUST FORGET IT. I will not publish your crap!

Don’t allow rocks to take your money

Sunday, December 11th, 2011 | Poker Articles, Poker Bankroll Building, Poker Cash Games | 3 Comments

There is nothing as frustrating as seeing a rock take a pot from you when they show you the nuts and you called them down with nothing but two pair. You feel somewhat of a chump for calling down with such a weak hand. But this is exactly why watching your opponents very carefully is so important. In games like full ring then rocks thrive for one simple reason, this is because they can fold far more and still make money. Folding is what the rock loves but they love it even more when someone pays them off and they thrive in weaker games where their strategy gets paid off often enough by weak players or even the odd strong loose-aggressive player who hasn’t noticed that they are a rock.

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They like full ring games as stated because they can fold more but this allows us a sneak preview into their mind-set. This is because if they will not commit a lot of chips unless they have a lock or a powerful hand then this allows us to build a framework for how they like to play and what their method of operation is. For example rocks in full ring games will steal and bluff but only pre-flop and on the flop. They may fire another barrel on the turn but they will never go for the big river triple barrel bluff. So when they show every sign of betting and raising early in the pot and that they want to play for stacks then you had better watch out.

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However you beat these players but not by defeating them in big pots when you play them in full ring. It is very hard to defeat them in bog pots often enough because they simply do not get all in for 100bb without the nuts or a powerful non-nut hand. You beat them by winning small and mediocre pots and you beat them by playing what is known as small ball poker. You will be on the wrong side of big pots as often as you are on the right side and so this isn’t where you make your money against rocks. Steal from them and force them to commit more money when they don’t really want to and you will basically own them.

Carl “The Dean” Sampson plays poker at www.pokerstars.co.uk

Why players struggle in no limit cash games – part 3

Sunday, December 4th, 2011 | Poker and Life, Poker Cash Games, Poker Strategy | No Comments

Everywhere you look these days then there are poker coaches, poker websites and poker books and magazines all discussing no limit hold’em. But yet even as a full time player and writer then I am still not blinded to the fact that this form of poker is probably the most difficult of the lot for novice players to succeed at. In the final part of this series then I want to discuss variance and how this affects your mind set. I often hear how tournament poker has the worst variance out of all of the major forms of poker. I am certainly not going to dispute this as it is a given.

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However what you also need to factor into the equation is that if you are playing a live event then even if you bust out horribly, you are never going straight back into another event in a negative frame of mind. This is not the case in online cash games where if you get AA busted by KK for 100bb then you just may be multi-tabling and facing several more key decisions within the next few seconds. In fact you may be buying back into the very same table that you have just lost 100bb on.

What makes matters even worse is that these beats can come thick and fast online and you can take several very big punches in a very short space of time even though the speed of online play means that you will get into the long term faster. This is not always seen or noticed by novice players in the heat of the moment and is why variance can often be the most formidable enemy that any poker player has to face during their lifetime as a player.

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In fact many a potential successful player has probably stopped playing the game simply because a really bad run very early in their poker life totally and utterly destroyed their confidence. Someone once said that poker was a “tough way to make an easy living” and these words are very prophetic. Poker can be an easy living if you can accept everything that comes with it or it can just be the hardest thing that you have ever tried to do in your life.

Carl “The Dean” Sampson plays poker at www.pokerstars.co.uk

Why players struggle at no limit cash games – part 2

Sunday, December 4th, 2011 | Poker Cash Games, Poker Strategy | No Comments

Following on from part 1 and in this article I want to discuss a very obvious but yet under-estimated part of no-limit hold’em. This is the fact that it is a two card game and not a four card or a six card game like at PLO. So what does this very obvious statement have to do with difficulty in playing the game?

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Well only having two starting cards in your hand means one very important thing. It means that it is much more difficult to flop or to make a strong hand. Now you may say that this isn’t bad news at all but good news as this means more bluffing opportunities.

This much is true but the mere knowledge that both you and your opponent are unlikely to have a hand causes many players a lot of problems in this form of poker. Players who understand how difficult it is to make a hand then begin to think that they are quantum leaping their game by being very aggressive. So they start bluff-raising, floating, double and triple barrelling and all the rest of it simply because they know two things……this is that their opponents are unlikely to have a hand and that their aggression will likely win the pot a high percentage of the time.

But here comes the problem because if you are putting more money at risk without the necessary skill then who do you think comes out on the positive side of your strategy……certainly not you. Blind aggressive play is not good poker play and if you take these strategies into higher levels then you are going to get picked off by the better players.

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If your own skill level or lack of skill makes you –EV against the field or against selected players then you are going to be placing more money on the table in these situations. You are also going to be polarising your ranges as well and so the blind aggression will fail miserably because your more astute opponents will begin to call you down lighter. So the fact that it is more difficult to make a hand in a roundabout way is actually getting an awful lot of players into trouble and hence the term “Dumb LAG” and “LAGtard” became part of the poker dictionary because these are terms used to describe poor aggressive players who have no idea what they are doing or why.

Carl “The Dean” Sampson plays poker at www.pokerstars.co.uk