Great Poker Comic

I was surfing around the net and found a great poker comic strip called +EV. If you want to see more of them, go to http://plusev.keenspot.com.

The strip below is one of my favorites. Looks just like my laptop.

If I Had To Do It Again

Building my bankroll from $100 to a little over $4,000 has been a lot of fun, but there were frustrating moments too.  My aggressive growth goals meant that I had to play a range of different games and play buy-ins that violated traditional bankroll management rules.  Through it all I learned a lot about what games were good for bankroll building and which ones were a little too risky.  Here’s what I’d do if I had to do it all over again.

Start With Low Buy-in SNGs

Playing low buy-in Sit ‘N Goes is like printing money – very, very small amounts of money.  The players in these games have no idea what the Independent Chip Model is or what it means to adjust to rising blind levels.  Come to think of it, I’m not even sure they know they’re playing poker.

All you have to do in low buy-in SNGs is play super tight.  You only play JJ+ and AK in the early stages and when you’re stack is about 10 to 13 blinds deep, you use the ICM to make +EV shoves.  That’s all there is to it.

Move to Low and Mid Buy-in Turbos

These turbos are similar to the regular SNGs except there’s even less post-flop play involved.  In fact, if you’re playing post-flop poker after the early stages of a turbo Sit ‘N Go, you’re probably making a mistake.

Turbos are all about knowing when to shove.

Add Some Multi-Table Tournaments

Once your bankroll can handle the swings, some multi-table tournaments will give your bankroll a serious boost.  Multi-table tournaments offer winning players an excellent return on invest and going deep in a few tournaments will make your bankroll soar.

I prefer tournaments with less than 300 players.  You’ll usually have to go to fringe sites like Bodog or Cake to get decent tournaments without a field of several thousand players, but it’s worth moving your money.  Moreover, the skills you learned while playing SNGs will help you crush final tables.

Bum Hunt in Cash

Start low at first.  Maybe $50 NL or so.  Go to PokerTableRatings.com and find the worst players on your site and set up email alerts (it helps if you have an iPhone or Blackberry so you can be instantly notified).  When your fish are playing, just grab a seat in position.

This method can be a little high variance, but it’s profitable in the long run.

Get Rakeback

I’ve earned hundreds of dollars in rakeback over the course of my bankroll building challenge.  I’d have a lot less money if I didn’t sign up for rakeback right away.  If you’re playing without rakeback, go here.  All you have to do is enter your info in the ‘Existing Account’ field and these guys can get you set up.  It doesn’t work with Full Tilt, but it usually works with everything else.

*                      *                      *         

I truly believe that anyone can make money playing poker.  There’s too much information out there (and on this site) for lack of knowledge to be an issue.  Good luck and let me know if you have any question.  I’d love to help!

My First Poker Video

I just sent out a broadcast email with a link to my first free poker video and while I’m proud that I finally pulled the trigger on it, I think I played pretty terrible in the video.  Fortunately I chose to do the analysis post-mortem so I was able to point out what I did wrong and what I could have done better.

I learned something making the video.  Forcing action is always a losing move.  I only had one table up since this was my first video and I wanted to keep it simple, but I found that I was trying to make moves that I wouldn’t normally make just to make things more interesting.  It usually didn’t work out.

Poker players have a reputation for being a prideful group that likes to brag about how much they make or what great moves they can pull off, but the best quality for a player to have is patience.

I’m not saying that you always have to wait for a big hand to enter the pot.  I’m just saying that you have to wait for the right situation when you’re ready to make a move.

From now on I plan on keeping at least two tables open for my videos and maybe as many as four.  That should be enough that I’ll always have an interesting situation come up or something different to talk about.

If you missed this broadcast, make sure you sign up now so you’ll get my next one.  I’d be happy to hear your feedback or requests.  My hope is that these videos help me improve my game as much as they help others improve theirs.

The Newsletter Is Finally Here!

Finally the newsletter is ready!  I’ve promised Free Poker Videos for about two months now and I’m ready to pull the trigger.  Just click on the Free Poker Video tab (or the previous link) and put in your name and email address.  That’s all.

Every week I’ll send at least one poker video.  Sometimes it’ll be game play, sometimes it’ll be classroom style and I’m open to requests.  If this ends up being a successful newsletter, I’ll start doing freerolls for subscribers too.

What’re you waiting for?  The first video is coming tomorrow night.  Sign up now!

Why I Play

It’s late.  I’m tired.  And yet, I’m driven to make good on my goal to write one post every day in January. 

I’ve been thinking about what to write all day and I settled on an article about the reason I play poker and I realized something.  I don’t fully understand why I play poker.  At least, I didn’t when I woke up this morning.

This morning I would have said I play poker for the challenge.  The money I make playing poker is a long way from a livable income.  There are other things I could do with my time if I just wanted to make money.  In poker, money is just a way of keeping score and moving me up to more challenging levels.

But as the day progressed I started wondering why I didn’t play other challenging games.  I don’t play chess.  I don’t do crosswords or cryptograms and I don’t even know how to play backgammon.  Why poker?

I think the thing that attracts me to poker is the variability of outcome.  You can make the right strategic move in poker and still lose.  That doesn’t happen in chess for example.  Pawns don’t pull out a gun and shoot down the Queen from across the chessboard yet any two cards in poker have a chance at beating pocket Aces and sometimes they don’t even have to make the best hand to do it.

There’s so much to master in poker.  You have to master your emotions.  You have to master basic probability.  You have to master your opponent.  If you’re successful in one aspect and a failure in another, you won’t be a winning poker player and that’s why I play. 

I play for the intricacies of the game. I play to get inside an opponent’s head and know what move he’s going to make before he acts.  Board textures, betting patterns, table images, pot odds, reverse pot odds, implied odds; there’s so much information available.  The fun is in learning to use it all.

Maybe I’ve been up too long and I’m romanticizing poker a little too much, but it’s a beautiful game when you consider all its facets.

This morning I would have said I play poker for the challenge, but now I’d say I play poker so I’ll always have a goal.  No matter what I accomplish in life, I can always improve my poker game.