Summary

As I promised I will share my achievements for this semester. The last months have been really interesting for me not only because I made a good profit, but also because I improved my game significantly. I became much more confident and concentrated, which help me make less mistakes.

My primary source of profit this semester was cash games. I made a little over 2000$ of direct profit plus about 725$ of bonuses including first deposit bonus (150$), rakeback (about 400$) and rake-races (175$). That makes a total of 2725$ profit of cash games.

I have also three tournament winnings, one second place, one third place, and a bunch of final tables. These are worth a total of a little over 1000$. That is how I turned my initial investment of 225$ in the beginning of the semester into a good 4074$ right now. Also tons of experience and exciting moments with over 10 final tournament tables.

I achieved all this with less than 10 hours a week on average, which makes a total of about 120 hours. So if you work hard and put enough effort, the improvement in your game will come with a nice profit. I wish you to work hard and enjoy playing poker as much as I do, and I will see you all at the tables!

Psychology of Poker

Have you ever wondered how do the great poker players think and how do they maintain such a calm behavior? Because emotions don't have a place on the poker table. You should be cold-blooded and take the best decisions in every single hand, no matter what the outcome of the previous one was. Try to focus and not get distracted by things like Facebook and Skype. Be concentrated and the results will come along.

No one was born with such nerveless consciousness, so that is one of the skills you need to practice in order to become a good poker player. The positive mindset is the key to success. When you play a cash game, try not to always look at your bankroll - try to play your best game regardless of the short-term results. When you play a tournament play every hand like it is your last in your poker career. Be confident but not too overwhelmed.

Some players get very tilted when they lose a big pot - you should be able to take advantage of these people, because they are inclined to make a lot of mistakes like stupid big bluffs, desperately trying to win back their losses quickly, not realizing that they will most likely lose a lot more that way.

If you obey these simple rules you will be able to overcome the bad variation of the cards that happens to everyone, without losing a lot and taking advantage of others who are too emotional you should be able to make a good profit. I wish you all good luck and I will see you calm and nerveless on the online poker tables!

Sit and Go Tournaments

You want to feel the thrill of playing a tournament final table but you don't have the patience required? You feel you are not good enough or don't have time? Then Sit & Go tournaments are your best choice. I will also give you some basic hints on how to play these profitably, even though I haven't personally played a lot of these.

First thing you need to know is that these tournaments start whenever a certain number of people enroll (usually it is 1 table of 9 players). So you can play them whenever you want and they do not last long even if you survive all the way to the win. That's the reason they are preferred by many people over the multi-table tournaments. The payment structure is usually 50/30/20 which means 50% of the prize pool goes towards the winner, 30% goes for the 2nd place finisher, and 20% are left for the 3rd.

This game in these mini-tournaments is very similar to a final table of a big tournament. That is why a lot of people (including me) play them occasionally to practice their final table skills for the big tournaments. You start by playing cautiously and observing your opponents and pick up some reads on them. Then you start exploiting their weaknesses - by raising them often if they seem too tight, or waiting to hit a big hand and stack them off if they are too aggressive.

Sit and Go tournaments attract a lot of people because they offer a constant action, similar to one on a big tournament final table. Therefore you see a lot of weak players - either overaggressive or too tight, which if you can use well, you can make a big profit. I wish you good luck and I will see you at the Sit & Go tables!

Freerolls

You are a novice player and you don't know how to start? You want to play for real cash, but without risking your own money? Simply look for freerolls! Every poker site offers a variety of tournaments which are free to play and top players win some real cash. The prizes are not huge, but you can use it as a starting point to build your bankroll or just to have some fun.

People in these tournaments are generally very hazardous types, people who have registered to play 5-10 minutes and have some fun. They do not pay attention to things like bet sizing, position or what hand you might hold. That's why the strategy is very simple - play very very tight and very very aggressive at every stage of the tournament. Tight because your bluffs never work - people just don't find a reason to fold their hand even if it is very crappy. Aggressive for the same reason - when you have a good hand you can get a maximum value out of it.

If you follow these simple rules, I can guarantee that you will succeed in freerolls. You have to be very patient because I know it is sometimes very tempting to bluff or try to outplay your opponents in similar way but it doesn't work. So just sit calm and wait for your big hands to come - they will most certainly be payed off. I wish you good luck and I will see you on the freeroll tournament tables!

Cash Games

Although cash games or the so-called "ring" games are not as exciting (at least for me) as the tournaments, they are my main source of profit. Why? In this post I will explain some of the advantages of the cash games over the tournaments and will show you how you can use them to gain a constant profit.

First of all - imagine yourself playing tournament for 3-4 hours straight. Pretty exhausting, isn't it? And if something happens and you have to leave your computer all your efforts become pointless. That is what I like the most about cash games - you can sit and play for as much time as you want to and can leave without any hesitation. Therefore you have the opportunity to play for an hour, then go out with friends, and maybe come back and play another hour.

Another significant advantage is that you don't have to schedule your time for play ahead. What I mean is you don't have to conform with the tournament schedule so you can play whenever you want. You don't have to start playing at exactly 8:00pm - it's up to you to decide when you can afford to spend an hour or two.

The last reason I like cash games is the most important for my bankroll - the profit you gain on the cash tables is much more reliable. That means if you are playing well, you can gradually build your bankroll - slowly but securely. That is because the variation in the cash games is way less than the variation in tournaments, where you can have a whole week or even a month without any profit even if you play your best game.

I hope today's lesson finds you all well and you will seriously consider playing some poker ring games. I wish good luck and I will see you on the cash tables!

Tournaments (part 2)

As I promised in my previous post, I will share some of my experience about the poker tournaments and give you some hints on how to play in the different stages of the game. It is crucial to understand the basic concepts if you want to be a winning poker player. So lets get started!

In the beginning everyone starts excited and impatient to collect as many chips and prove to the others that he is the best. However, most of the people have absolutely no idea of strategy and planning ahead. That is why you should play very tight (as we call it ABC) poker in the beginning. Pick your spots very carefully and do not bluff because most of the people playing are still weak players who tend to call you down with weak hands. Be patient and if you are not very unlucky you will have a medium or big stack for the next stage.

In the middle stage the stacks become shallower and most of the weak players are already out of the tournament. You need to consider how big is your stack - if you are one of the short stacks, seek an opportunity to get all your chips in the middle with a premium hand - double up is your only chance for a top ranking. If you have a medium or big stack this is the time when you have to steal as much as you can, bluff from time to time, because the blinds and antes are very high, compared to the stacks of the players. The main goal is to arrive on the final table with a big stack.

The final table is where everyone wants to be - big prizes, tough competition and adrenalinе. That is the moment when you have to slow down and return to your solid tight image. Pick the spots for bluffs very carefully until you pick up some information about the players on the table - some of them will play for the win only and will risk more than others who play just to climb one or two places on the leaderboard. At this stage you will have to play your opponent, not your cards, and if your reads are correct you may be the winner.

I hope you learned something new and I will see you on the final tables!

Tournaments

The poker games that you see on your TV screen are all big and famous tournaments. Tournaments are poker format that require every contestant to pay a certain buy-in + tournament fee. For example one of the biggest tournaments is The World Series of Poker Main Event, which has a buy-in of 10 000$ + 500$ - that means 10 000$ from each player go towards the huge prize pool and 500$ go to the sponsors.

Each player starts with certain amount of chips and usually they cannot re-buy (unless the tournament allows re-buys) and plays until he loses all of his chips or wins the tournament, collecting the chips of everyone else. The blinds grow steadily, and the stacks become shallower and shallower as time goes by so the strategy is very complex and difficult. It requires different approach in the early, middle and late stages. In my next post I will discuss further how I play the different stages of the tournament and will probably give away some tricks that I use.

Although the tournaments are very exciting and offer a chance to win huge prizes, they have a lot of disadvantages. First of all, most of the times you will not cash so you will lose your buy-in and be left empty handed. Secondly, tournaments take very long time and it is very disappointing and annoying to you play 4-5 hours straight without even cashing. Thirdly, bad beats have usually significant and crucial impact on your performance so if you are very emotional and these things disturb your psyche, better stay away from tournaments.

However I recommend to everyone interested in poker to try playing tournaments. It's a really exciting experience which will help you develop your own style and improve your game significantly. I wish you good luck and I'll see you at the tournament tables!

Poker Games (part 2)

As I mentioned in my previous post, I would like to make you familiar with poker games that most of you might not have heard of. If someone tells you "I know how to play Texas Hold'em, and I don't need to know about other games", he is probably a narrow-minded fool. Everyone needs to know how to play different games in order to improve his skills. That helps you look at the game from different perspective which is always an eye-opening experience.

In my last post I didn't talk about the oldest version of poker - 5 Card Draw. That is the first poker game I learned about 12-13 years ago. It is actually very simple - every player is dealt 5 hole cards, visible only for him, and after that there is a betting round. Then the players that continue in the hand (that haven't folded) can choose how many and which of their hole cards they want to throw away and replace them with new cards from the dealer. There is a final betting round after that and the best hand wins. This game becomes less and less popular as time goes by maybe because there are only 2 betting rounds and only 1 draw when you can exchange cards - that makes it a perfect game for a beginner player but is not as exciting as Omaha for example.

Another poker game that I really like (but unfortunately I'm not very good at) has some variations and is called Stud in some places and Razz in others. I won't go into further detail how are they different because I want to focus on the main rules of the game. Every player is dealt three cards, two hidden and one face up. After a betting round, the remaining players receive 1 more face up card. That procedure repeats until every player has a total of 2 face down and 4 face up cards. Then there is a betting round after which players receive one final face down card. From these 3 "dowcards" and  4 "upcards" every player makes his best 5 card hand and the best hand wins. Razz is unique because the winning player is the one, who has the lowest hand - for example the best hand is "A 2 3 4 5" because ace is counted as low, and the straights or flushes doesn't matter.

I hope you will enjoy playing these exciting poker games. It will help you develop a more complex view of the poker as a variety of games, all of which offer you a unique and unforgettable experience. I wish you good luck and I will see you at the tables!

Poker Games

"Poker games? Isn't poker a game itself?" - that's what most of you would say. Actually poker is a family of games and in this post I will try to make you familiar with some of them. Then you can choose which one appeals to you the most and start having fun playing it.

The most popular among the poker games is Texas Hold'em. It is actually very easy to understand. Each player is dealt two face-down cards - they are called "hole" cards. After this a total of five cards are dealt face-up on the table; first three cards, then two more one by one. These are called "community" cards, because everybody can use them in conjunction with their own two cards to form a hand. In between the dealing of these cards, there are four rounds of betting in which you can either bet chips, or fold your hand. You can choose between "Fixed Limit", in which all bets are with fixed amount, and "No Limit", in which you can choose how much you want to bet and you can put all of your chips in the middle at any time if you want to.

Another really exciting (at least for me) poker game is Omaha.  It is similar to Texas Hold'em with two key differences. You are dealt four "hole" cards instead of two. There's still Flop (first three face-up cards), Turn (the fourth face-up card) and River (the last fifth face-up card), but to make a five card hand you need to use exactly two of your hole cards and three from the board. The most popular version of Omaha is PLO (Pot Limit Omaha), where the betting is limited - the most you can bet or raise is the size of the pot.

In the next post I will probably make you familiar with some not so popular poker games, which are also very interesting and exciting. Hope you learned something new and will enjoy playing one of these great poker games.I wish you good luck and I will see you at the tables!

First Steps

Who doesn't want to be in this guy's position? Who doesn't want to win million dollars playing poker? That is Chris Moneymaker - an amateur who won a seat into the main event of the 2003 World Series of Poker through a $39 satellite tournament, where he went to win the first prize of $2,5 million and the most coveted bracelet in the world.

But don't let these figures fool you - there's no easy money! If you want to maintain a long term profit you need to work hard and improve your game. In this blog I will give you some tips and advices from my personal experience that I hope will help you become a better poker player. I will also keep you in track of my personal progress.

Let's assume that you are familiar with the game - you've been playing it with friends from time to time and now you want to start playing online. Why online and not live in a casino? The answer is very simple - it is much easier and it is also way more comfortable to play from your room. The next step is to choose a poker site - unfortunately the US government shut down the biggest poker sites but there are still several smaller(but legal!) ones with very weak players to play against.

It is your choice how much money you want to invest initially - I suggest not more than a hundred dollars for a beginner player.  Then you start playing from the lowest possible stakes so that you can gain experience and sense of the players without having to risk a big portion of your investment. You can also find a lot of strategic materials online that can help you with a basic strategy that you can use until you develop your own style - would it be loose or tight? Would it be aggressive or passive? It's up to you and no matter what you choose if you work hard and analyze your game you will certainly encounter a profit. Once you increase your bankroll so that you have more than 25-30 buy-ins for the upper limit you can try it, but don't forget to go back on the lower stakes if you lose several buy-ins and you feel you do not have good reads on the players on that limit. That will protect you from going broke and will keep your investment alive.

Even the best players have started from playing small stakes so don't be embarrassed to start playing for cents! Remember that the hard work and a good bankroll management are the keys to success in the poker world! I wish you good luck and I'll see you at the tables!