Some online site by site and Seabrook Poker Room poker goals for the remainder of March

DoylesRoom.Com – Clear (earn) my remaining $40 bonus without losing any of my remaining account bankroll of $50. There I have been having good success with Omaha Hi. Lately not enough players are there to make up a table so I might have to stick to Limit Hold ‘Em.

PokerStars.Com – Play Single Table Double-Up Sit N Go’s until my bankroll is up to $250 from my current account bankroll of $13. My basic plan is to play the $1.10 turbo SnG’s until I reach a balance of $27.50, at which time I will switch to the $5.50 turbos. If I go under $10, I will revert back to the $1.10 turbos. Rinse and repeat.

FullTiltPoker.Com – Avoid playing “Rush Poker” and rebuild my bankroll back up to $300 from my current account bankroll of $95. I might just play the $.25/.50 Limit Hold ‘Em, mixed with some Stud.

SeabrookPokerRoom.com – Continue playing once or twice a week at the $2/4 Limit Hold ‘Em, Enter one or two of the March Madness Tourneys for the month. So far I am $20 ahead for my last three sessions there. I generally buy in at $100 per session. On occasion, I have had to reload.  In the end I had winning sessions.

What are your March plans? Do you play online as well as at poker rooms? Which of these gives you the best chance to increase your bankroll?

Back to poker and blogging about it

After a brief respite, I am back to blogging about poker and my experiences with it. Having a bad January and February of online poker has caused me to step back and think about why I play poker.

First and foremost, I enjoy the game in its various forms and styles and I know that I have a lot to learn. I also have this thought that I can make a living at the game. Something that 80 million players also believe that they can do as well.

That is why there are so few very good professionals out there and even they struggle from time to time as evidenced from their blogs or tweets.

I am still struggling to find a game that I am good at, meaning a game in which I am a  consistent winner.

Will it be online or at a brick and mortar casino or poker room?

Will it be cash games or tournaments?

Will it be heads up, or short handed, or full ring tables.

Will it be single table or multi-table?

Will it be Limit, Pot Limit or No Limit?

Will it be Hold ‘Em, Omaha, Stud, Razz, 2-7 Triple Draw, etc.

I don’t really have an answer yet, just a lot of questions.

What is your current poker status? Do you know where you are going and how you are getting there?

Please “Help Put a Bad Beat On Cancer”

Help Put a Bad Beat on Cancer!
On February 21st, 2010 the Twitter Poker Tour is teaming up with Bad Beat on Cancer to raise money to benefit the Prevent Cancer Foundation.  Join the TPT and a host of Full Tilt Red Pro’s starting at 6PM ET on Sunday the 21st to raise money and awareness for cancer prevention!

For more information visit the Bad Beat on Cancer Charity Event page.

This is a great event and a chance for you to pick up some great prizes and help a great cause at the same time!

“Full Rush” tables at Full Tilt Poker

Play Online Poker

It would be hard to imagine that anyone who plays online that has not heard about “Full Rush” poker being played at FullTiltPoker.Com, an affiliate site of mine.

The concept is very simple. You can “quick fold” any hand when you are not the big blind and be moved to another table and get dealt a fresh hand. If you are the big blind, you can “quick fold” as soon as you are raised. You can also advance click a fold option selection, which is helpful if you are playing multiple tables.

The basic idea of the quick fold is to allow you to see more playable hands while folding away the junk … unless of course you crave the action and like playing position poker against the unsuspecting.

There are opportunities to steal blinds if you are the first raiser in the pot, say from middle position.  The blinds may defend button and cut-off raises so you cannot always count on the blinds folding to a pre-flop raise.

There are opportunities to defend blinds with air .. if you re-raise instead of flat calling and then make a pot size bet, the player trying to steal the blinds from the button or cut-off position will usually fold, although not always.

Play the Full Rush poker tables at FTP is a way you build your bankroll and experience action the likes of which you have not seen before. It is also a easy way to lose your bankroll when you make bad decisions. You are also going to run into maniacs and you will have worse hands hold up and beat your good hands.

Be prepared for a roller coaster ride as you end up having to play all styles of players and if you are unable to adapt, you will be losing out on a chance to chip up.

Where do I stand today … I am down about $25, but am now getting some of that back as I have adapted to the many styles of play needed to master these tables. A word of advice: If you lose more than two buy-ins, give it up for a while; if you are winning, keep playing until you start to lose your edge. Because of the increased number of hands you play, you will find that you might to lose your ability to concentrate after a couple thousand hands and that your decisions are not the best. So keep that in mind.

If you have not tried Full Rush poker tables and are a FTP member, give it a try. If you are not an FTP member,  click on one of the FullTiltPoker.Com links and join me at the tables. Look for StevieTrips. But you might have to look quickly as I jump from table to table.

Do you play online poker? Have you played at FullTiltPoker.Com? Have you tried playing at the “Full Rush” table? What were your results?

A “Full Rush” table tip! If you want to see how hands play out at the table you are currently on, click the “Sit out” option before folding. This way, you will be able to see the action at the table. This is helpful when you want to find out what someone was playing when they went all-in and were called.  I once saw an 83 suited go all in against a K8 suited. A three hit the board and the “83″ won. These players wagered over $20 each on what was a coin flip.

The Professor, the Banker and the Suicide King – a review

Cover via Amazon

I have just finished an interesting book written by Michael Craig entitled The Professor, the Banker, and the Suicide King: Inside the Richest Poker Game of All Time.

This story details perhaps one of the biggest cash games ever played, in excess of $20 million dollars and these events occured between 2001 and 2004 between some of the best professional poker players in the industry and an amateur, a banker by the name of Andrew “Andy” Beal.

Before reading the book, I had not heard a word about this event and yet it involved almost all of the poker superstars that I follow and read about.

The cast of players included the likes of Doyle Brunson, Ted Forrest, “Chip” Reese, Todd Brunson, John Hennigan, Jennifer Harman, Chau Gang, Howard Lederer, Bary Greenstein,  to mention a few.

For the most part, these pros would play heads up or one on one with Andy Beal.  These were his demands and he made them so that he would not feel that he would be cheated. He tried to make them play in games with the blinds being at least $100,000/$200,000 or higher in order to get the pros off of their comfort levels.

Overall this book gives a good insight into the type of lives and thinking the poker pros use on a daily basis. This was a real eye opener for one who might aspire to reach their lofty ranks. You better bring plenty of gamble to the table with you and be prepared to lose as well.

This was a hard book for me to put down. I finished it within a week.

Do you read any poker books that are about the history of the game and about the players?

Small Ball Poker – a tourney strategy!

I have just finished reading Power Hold’em Strategy written by Daniel Negreanu. He has five other contributors including himself in the book.

There is something there for both the amateur and the semi-pro as well as secrets that even the poker pros might be able to use to increase their wins. This book is intended for those players that participate in playing tournaments, both online and in a casino.

The bulk of the book is an explanation and tutorial on how to play “Small Ball Poker”, written by Daniel, who excels in that type of play,

On the surface, “small ball” is about winning small pots and building up your stack. It is about avoiding the all-in crippling confrontations that face all of us from time to time. He does not say to totally avoid those situations. But it is best if you only go all-in when you have the “nuts” or the best hand.

While his style of play was for tournaments, I have tried it in cash games with limited success.  This is certainly a book that belongs on your bookshelf if you play lots of tourneys.

Do you already play using “small ball” techniques?

Registered to play in the PokerStars WBCOOP!

I have registered to play in the PokerStars World Blogger Championship of Online Poker! The WBCOOP is a free online Poker tournament open to all Bloggers, so register on WBCOOP to play.

Registration code: 716924

Please donate to Haiti relief – because we can!

By now, I think that most poker players realize the seriousness of the disaster facing the people of Haiti.

As a group and as individuals, we can help. The easiest and best way to help is by giving a donation to any of the organizations that are set up to provide assistance in times of crisis.  Just using your cell phone and texting, you can contribute cash – your service provider will bill you.

The following is just a few of the avaialbe texting options:

Text the word “Haiti” to 90999 to donate $10 to the American Red Cross.

Text the word “Haiti” to 25383 to donate $5 to the International Rescue Committee

Text the word “Yele” to 501501 to donate $5 to the Yele Foundation, the leading contributor to rebuilding Haiti founded by Wyclef Jean.

Text the word “Haiti” to 45678 (In Canada Only) to assist the Salvation Army in Canada.

There are other ways you can help as well. There are even poker events being sponsored to benefit the efforts of providing relief.

One group, the Twitter Poker Tour, is sponsoring a tournament with proceeds going to the American Read Cross. Click here for details. Over the weeks and months to come, I am sure that more ways and events will be available to aid the people of Haiti.

Please do what you can. No effort or donation is too small. Together we can make a difference.

Pot Limit Omaha Sit n Go’s

For the last week I have been playing mostly Pot Limit Omaha Sit N Go’s on CLubWPT.Com, a site I am affiliated with.  The format is fairly simple. The buy-in is 25 TP’s or tournament points. The prize is 250 TP’s divided between the first and second place finishers in the amounts of 150 and 100 respectively. Each player is given 1,000 starting chips. The blinds and antes increase every 10 minutes.  I have played over 20 tournaments so far and have started placing in either first or second place in the last 6 Sit n Go’s.

I discovered that most of the players were very wild, betting and raising the pot with hands that had a lot of drawing potential but not necessarily the best hand.  I found that unless I had AAKK or 8877 double suited, meaning that the AK’s or 87’s were in the same suit, I could just wait until everyone else lost to the chip leader. Then I could play heads up and either win all of his chips or finish in second place.

This stratagem has worked very well, except for the last game I was involved in.  There were three of us left and the short stack was sitting out. The chip leader had about 7,500. I had about 1,750 and the short stack had about 1,250.   I folded most hands losing the blinds and antes to the chip leader. I was able to keep my chip level from going below 1,000.

Basically, Pot Limit Omaha is considered a drawing game, in that your hand values change from pre-flop, to flop, turn and river. To be successful at PLO, you need to know when to call, fold or jam it, raising the pot. I had forgotten all that in one hand when I had pocket Kings with a Jack and an eight. This was not really a good hand and yet not only did I call the raised pot, I re-raised and was all-in in just two clicks of the mouse. As I said, I had KKJ8. My opponent had 6795. The flop was 5 7 3 with the turn a 7 and the river a 9. I went out in third place with the player that was sitting out with only 75 chips, winning second place.

In just one brief hand, I had forgotten my original plan and caved in to the action of the game. Had I done nothing more than folded every hand, I would have finished in second place.

Do you have a game plan when playing Pot Limit Omaha? Do you ever get impatient with waiting for the best hands to develop?  How do you play PLO?

Giving yourself a chance…

I have been having a heck of a time lately in tournament play, either MTT or single table formats. I had forgotten that I need to give myself a chance to win or at least finish well.

I had gotten into the bad habit of trying to shove my chips all-in to win a pot by force. Of course I am always called by someone else that has a better hand or a better draw and more chips than I had. Busto!

I have just started reading Power Hold’em Strategy by Daniel Negreanu. This book was a Christmas gift from my wife, Diane, and it could not have come at a better time.

There was a time when I would enter a small MTT tourney with the expectation of placing in the top 5. But of late,  I seemed to have lost my rhythm  or tempo as a twitter friend of mine called it. It seemed that all of my moves were the wrong ones. So I went to playing mostly cash games instead. Then I hit the brick wall there as well.

Power Hold’em Strategy is much like Doyle Brunson’s Super System 2: Winning strategies for limit hold’em cash games and tournament tactics in that there are contributions from well known and successful professional poker players. Featured in this book are: Evelyn Ng, Todd Brunson, Erick Lundgren, Paul Wasicka, David Williams, and of course, Daniel Negreanu.

The difference with Daniel’s book is that it features the top young guns of poker. The book discusses image, ideas and tips and Daniel shares his “small ball” strategy.

I have already started using many of the suggestions I found in this book and they have helped to get me on track in my tourney play.

Last night I was in a satellite on ClubWPT.com. The prize was a seat for a tournament  on January 31st at 9 pm. The ultimate prize is a paid WPT Boot Camp training session. There were 110 entrants to the event. Each of us was given 1,000 in chips. The blinds and antes levels increased every 6 minutes.

By the 35th hand, I managed to grow my stack from the starting size of 1,000 to over 5,100 and was in the top 3 when I overplayed Q9 off-suit. The flop was 6 5 J. I bet out 600 and was called. The turn was a Q, giving me top pair. I bet out 1,260 and was re-raised to 2,250. Without batting an eyelash I insta-called. The river was a J and my opponent went all-in and I called, leaving me with 150 in chips. All I had was the pair of queens with the board having a pair of jacks. My opponent turned over his pocket pair of jacks, giving him four of a kind, or quads.

Even though I had only 150, I decided to wait for a good hand before attempting to dig myself out of the hole I had made for myself. Two hands later I looked at pocket  Jacks, went all in for my remaining 150 and won 600.  Four hands later with AJ, I was able to go from 500 to 2,200. With a J10 and a good flop, my chip stack went up to 4,925. My chips went as high as 9,500 and I finished the tourney in 7th place with 5,345 chips remaining. Along with nine other players, I had won a ticket to the 1/31/10 WPT Boot Camp event on ClubWPT.com.

This all happened because I did not give up and had some luck as well.

Do you ever give up when you are short-stacked? Do you just throw your chips in and hope for the best? How do you handle downswings in an event?