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!