Online Poker
How bad do you want it?
OK, so it has been a loooooooooong time since I wrote anything. There is a good reason for this. I doubted anyone was interested in how bad I was running. Nobody wants to hear how my bankroll was destroyed by coolers, bad beats, and just plain bad plays on my part. Let’s just say it was pretty ugly. I was down in the dumps and back at the microstaked and I had to ask myself how bad I really wanted to be a winning poker player.
Missing Poker.. And New Online Cash Out Options
I just returned from 8 days in Shanghai, China.. which was quite the experience to say the least. My brother was marrying his Chinese bride and we all flew out for the celebration. If you ever happen to find yourself on a plane to China.. a few tips: Don’t travel in the summer- insane humidity- worse than Florida- and the pollution didn’t help, pack snacks- the novelty of the food took 5 days to wear off- I would have paid $100 for a cheeseburger on day 6, pack tissues, and don’t plan on driving while there- traffic rules are merely a suggestion and do not apply.
What makes the Poker Economy Chug?
I’ve recently switched my primary playing location from from one major poker site to the other; let’s call the one I left the Full of multi-tabling TAGs site, and the other one hopefully will be a Moneymaker in the long run (Pokerstars, obviously). These two sites are the big players in the US market and aside from PartyPoker, probably the biggest sites in the world.
Technically, the sites are quite similar: both offer smooth-running clients for multiple operating systems, with all of the attendant abilities to tile and cascade tables, automatically set buy-in preferences, locate “friends” on the site, and quickly contact support. As far as the interface, there’s not too much difference between them, although I think Pokerstars has the better client and I get disconnected far less frequently.
I (almost) hate floppin’ the nuts in Omaha
I got into a huge hand with my old professor, Jim McManus, at our home game a few weeks ago where I should have laid down the nuts on the flop. The notion of laying down the best band sounds crazy to hold’em players, but it’s something that you have to be willing to consider in Omaha.
At our home game, we play alternating rounds of $5/$5 no limit hold ‘em and pot-limit Omaha. In a big family pot that had been raised preflop, the board came down 9h 7s 6s. It had checked around to me on the button, which made me feel pretty safe. I bet the pot with my 8 10 straight, hoping to take it down right there, but then Jim reraised the pot.
Moving on Up
It’s been quite a hiatus from writing, but I’m hoping to get back into a regular posting schedule in the next few weeks. I’ve been playing a lot, and I’m playing at five times the stakes I was at the beginning of the year. This still isn’t much, of course; I was playing the micros before and I’m hardly making a living from poker, but moving up is quite a satisfying experience. In the past I took shots on really thin bankrolls and it never worked out for long, so I finally just took the slow-and-steady route. What a surprise, it actually works.
Not Afraid to Look the Fool, Another Difference Live/Online
Poker is a game of incomplete information, and the more information you can accumulate and process, the better you will do. One thing that actually hurts a lot of players in this regard is ego. I have a pretty big ego internally, but externally I will very rarely talk about my accomplishments or show my big laydowns, bluffs, etc. at the table unless I am doing it to set someone up for a play later on or get information.
Ship it!
Because things in Omaha go so wrong so often, it feels all the sweeter when they happen to go right. Check out this hand I won on stars recently.
I raised my button, then made a defensive min-reraise on the flop, hoping to see the last two cards cheap. On the turn, I a questionable call (drawing to the non-nut flush is usually a no-no, but because of the way he was trying to bet me out of the pot, I thought a flush would be good). I did made the jack high flush on the river, but had to give my call a lot of thought since he shoved for such a big amount. This player had been slow playing his big hands all session, and I just had a feeling (because of that, the timing of his bet, and the way the hand had played out) that I was good. Indeed it was. I made $160 on that one hand, and am still dancing around my living room.
Stars Payout Schedule
So finally able to blog about something that has intrigued and annoyed me since last Sunday. I finally redeposited after a few months layoff on Stars and decided to play the $10+1 15k guaranteed tournament. They ended up getting 3364 players for a prize pool over $33K. I ended up playing for over 4.5 hours and busted out 20th for a whopping $74.01 for a $63.01 profit. Now the issue I have is that first place was slightly over $4.6K. Now this seems awful small for a 33k prize pool…just over 14% was set aside for first. I thought my payout for 20th place was small also.
Cashout Problems on Poker Stars
Is anyone else waiting on a cash out from Poker Stars? I keep forgetting about my cashout and I was reading 2+2 today and noticed other people were complaining about waiting on their money…
I cashed out $100 on 4/16.
On 4/24 I received this email from Poker Stars:
————————————-
Hello,
We regret to inform you that due to technical difficulties on our eCheck
processor’s end, some of the cashouts we sent for processing from April
14th to April 22nd have been delayed. Unfortunately, your cashout(s) may
be included.
Poker is Fun Again!
For all of you microstakes online players out there who are looking to build your bankroll, I have a strong recommendation - learn how to play microstakes HORSE.
There are usually 2 or 3 .25/.50 games going on Full Tilt, and not only are they really fun, but they are ridiculously easy to beat. I am not a good HORSE player at all - I barely know the rules for some of the games and have easily read less than 1000 words of strategy on Razz, O8, Stud, and Stud8, but as long as you research starting hand requirements and are familiar with basic poker concepts, you should be a winner in this game.
