Author Archive
Shipped my first MTT
Just a quick update… I only play MTTs sporadically and I’m sure I am down lifetime at them… but I shipped a deep stack $22 freezeout on Pokerstars this past Sunday. A great feeling, although because of the deep-stack slow level format it took 10+ hours to win a 400 person $8k prize pool tournament. I felt like I had jet lag at work the next day.
Anyway that has accelerated my plan to move up to $1/$2 since first prize was ~$1550, which is conveniently about the amount I wanted to make before moving up from 100NL. So 1/2 here I come, wish me luck. Best of luck to the three (?) remaining readers of this blog.
The Coaching Debate
This past weekend I had a brief session where I was coached by a local high stakes player. Actually, “coached” is probably overstating it, as a) no money was exchanged and b) he was playing, not me. I watched him on Teamviewer – a very nice collaboration tool that I recommend for poker coaching and sweat sessions – and we were talking on the phone while he played. He played 5-6 tables ranging from 5-10 NL to 25-50 NL at pokerstars.
Review of The Workbook from DailyVariance Publishing
As I mentioned in my past post, Try Nguyen (Slowhabit) of DailyVariance publishing was kind enough to provide me with a review copy of “The NL Workbook: Exploiting Regulars.”
This is exactly the sort of book I’ve needed, for a number of reasons. First, the majority of my play is at small-stakes (mostly 100NL, sometimes higher) at the major sites like Pokerstars and Full Tilt. At those sites and stakes, there are a lot of regulars; not as many as at mid-stakes, but even 100NL is a level where the majority of players play somewhat frequently, have reasonable stats, and can read hands the tiniest bit. Unlike microstakes, the median player is not a 72/10 fish who just wants to limp-call every hand. There is a set arsenal of plays that most players are familiar with, the so-called “standard” lines that most TAGs learn from training sites or simply from trial-and-error.
Reviewing “The Workbook – Exploiting Regulars” from DailyVariance
Recently I was in touch with Tri Nguyen of Daily Variance publishing, and he was gracious enough to offer me a review copy of their new e-book, “The No Limit Hold Em Workbook: Exploiting Regulars.”
Tri is the author of two other well-regarded ebooks on poker strategy, “Let there be range!” and “The Pot Limit Omaha Book: Transitioning from NLHE to PLO.” Tri is a successful mid- and high-stakes player whose books are well received in the online poker community, garnering praise from forum readers and the coaches at major training sites.
Review of Poker Co-Pilot for Mac
A while back I received a review copy of the very promising software Poker Co-Pilot. If you’ve ever owned a Mac computer, you’re familiar with the problem: virtually all poker software is developed for Windows exclusively. Some of the larger rooms like Pokerstars, Ongame and Full Tilt have Mac clients or browser-based poker, but the associated tools like HUDs and database trackers have been solely the domain of Windows.
Poker Co-Pilot is the first serious Mac competitor to Hold Em Manager and Pokertracker. It’s still in the early stages of development, but offers the potential of a fully comparable Mac tool, at a reasonable cost and with the minimalist Mac look that many people enjoy.
Update from the small-stakes
Just a few quick bullet points in lieu of a full post:
one of Those Nights
Had one of Those Nights last night. The games were insanely good on Pokerstars, I had at least one 65/4 superfish on every table and two had guys with VPIP > 90. Obviously I dropped 7 buy-ins with all the usual beats like losing every pre-flop allin, losing a 300BB pot with Q9 on a KJT flop, that sort of thing.
The Next Step in Poker Marketing?
There’s been quite an uproar on some online sites and forums about the latest promotion from pokerstars. Pokerstars is giving away massive bonuses to ANY UK player who earns a minimal amount of points over the course of May, up to 80,000 points which is most of the way to the exalted Supernova status that small-stakes players like me grind 6 months to achieve (confirmation from a huge 2p2 thread).
I’m quite torn on whether this is a positive step for online poker. I’ve heard at least two compelling arguments for why this makes sense:
High Stakes Poker back on television
Just got back into the only poker television show worth watching. This season has been referred to as “the Tom Dwan show” and it certainly appears that way from watching an hour and a half or so. It’s hard to know how many tedious hands they edit out where somebody opens and everyone else folds, and unlike televised tournaments they don’t give live chips counts so you can’t even tell who’s up.
I’m a little curious about Daniel Negreanu’s play, he does some strangely fishy things like open-limping the button. I’m sure there is a good reason for this – he seems to tinker with his style pretty regularly so I suppose limping is just a randomizing strategy against very good players.
And the winner is…
Avert your eyes if you haven’t seen it already….
Peter Eastgate defeated Ivan Demidov heads-up to win the main event. Chip leader Dennis Phillips finished fifth (I think). Too bad as I was hoping for another Moneymaker-style boom due to a fairly average-looking middle-aged midwestern guy winning it instead of some young gun in a Full Tilt cap. Oh well.
