I was chatting with my old mate Jim, who I always call on Christmas day, about the quality of poker information out there.  We were reminiscing about how 15 years ago you had to search far and wide for a good book on Poker Strategy.  Now there are hundreds of books and websites all offering their opinion on poker.

The issue now is quality of information.  Jim was telling me about a good site he had looked at, that reviewed online poker - a Texas Holdem Portal.  That’s what you need nowadays, one place that will take you through the steps of playing poker.  But the fact that it is written by Holdem Pros really does it for me.  These guys have been there and done it!  They don’t just know the theory, they’ve put it into practice and they have been for a while.

Where do you go when you need help with your game?  You turn to a Pro.

I trust that you have had a good Christmas.  Well maybe mine has been a little too good!  I’ve put on a few kilos from all the over-indulgence over the holidays, so I guess my January will have to include some trips to the gym.  Damn thats only going to get in the way of my poker playing!

For many, this is the time of year to look back, to reflect on what has happened and to think about what you want to happen in the new year.  In order to set our goals it is important to look inwardly at what we want to achieve, our experiences through the year, what we have learned, what we could have done better and perhaps what we would like to change.

It is also important to set achievable time limits to our goals, for example: by June I want to have finished in the top ten in a poker tournament… If we don’t put time limits, then we keep allowing more and more time to complete it, or we keep putting it off.  Perhaps that is why we put so much emphasis on goal setting at the beginning of a new year, because it is the start of a new calendar.  Or maybe its just a good time to wipe-off the old goals we didn’t get to…

And note, I said achievable goals.  All too often we set crazy ”new year’s resolutions” that we can’t achieve and by the end of January we have given up ever trying to accomplish the goal.  Know the feeling?

Break-up one big goal into many smaller goals.  By setting many smaller, achievable goals, you will feel much better achieving these goals and will become more focused on your goals.  By achieving all the small steps you will get to the big one.  Bite size chunks!

One of my goals for 2009 is to keep my blog up-to-date and to keep you informed.  So watch this space!

If you’re looking for a truly “stiff” rakeback deal, you may not even know it yet, but you are in fact looking for a poker prop deal. A prop deal is basically a rakeback deal on steroids, as even the weakest prop deal offers players a 70% rakeback. Some prop deals offer as much as 100% or even more: I’ve seen and offered one deal which gave a 135% rake return.

So what’s the deal with these prop setups? Can any poker room offer more than 100% rakeback and if so why? If there are such great rakeback deals out there, how come regular (30% or so deals) are still being offered?

To answer these questions one at a time: prop deals are usually offered by new start-up online poker operations which still have difficulties securing a basic “player liquidity”. This means they’re unable to fill up some of their tables on all limits, all the time. A poker room without action on all limits, all the time is a non-viable operation, it cannot survive. New players, signing-up in the usual way, will not be getting the service they require.

This is why poker rooms need prop players. Prop players are paid to play, and in return they bring “player liquidity” to the site. This is why it’s possible to earn such an incredible rakeback.

Can the room afford to offer such deals? Well those which can’t, won’t be around for too long. It is something they have to invest money into, it is one of the most efficient ways to get the “player liquidity”.

How come there are still much smaller percentage rakeback deals offered? Simple: a prop deal - though rather enticing at first sight - might not be the right kind of setup for everyone. Being a successful prop means that you have to be successful under difficult circumstances. A poker prop may not be allowed to play on any limit he/she desires.

Several prop players will be forbidden from playing at the same table, they won’t be allowed to wait in queue at full tables either. They will usually be required to sign in with a prop manager before they start propping, and they will have to obey a bunch of other restrictions depending on the policies of the site that hires them.

In short, being a prop can be a pain in the neck, and if you’re not a good player who can handle pressure, you will probably not appreciate the atmosphere in which you’ll have to play. Regardless of its drawbacks though, a prop deal is an excellent way to turn otherwise losing players into long term winners.

If you reckon you have what it takes, you’ll see that you’ll find it much easier to walk away with a profit at the end of the month when propping.

Heh Chris, sorry its taken a while to get back to you. I’ve been hard at it, trying my luck at the tables. Here’s my advice.

Oh and David, who wrote to me way back, I hope you’ve found an online poker site, I mentioned Party Poker in a previous blog, it’s a great site. But do a search and whatever you do, stick with a reputable site.

Chris, it’s quite obvious that you’re in a bad streak, something all poker players have to deal with from time to time. A bad streak is a period when nothing hits, and if you manage to get a hand, an opponent always flips over a superior holding. You get the feeling that you can’t win, which is an unpleasant feeling for every poker player.

But how do you get out of this losing streak? First of all, you should NOT move up in limits. That solution to this common problem has devastated many bankrolls in the past and chances are that the same thing will happen to yours, if you decide to “win back what you’ve lost”. When you lose a lot, you move down, not up!

Moving up in limits to “try to get rid of them (bad players)” doesn’t make any sense when you think about it. You are frustrated because you always push with the best hand and some donkey always draws out. If you play with higher stakes, that won’t happen that often. But that’s only because the people at, say, $2/$4 are better poker players.

Who do you want to play against? Good or bad players? I know for sure that I would choose those who make bad calls all the time. Sure, you’ll get sucked out on more often against inferior players, but in the long run you will win.

It’s hard to say what you should do with your strategy since I really don’t know how you play. But in general, when trying to get out of a down streak, you should play a tight game (which I think you do) and be quite aggressive. If people wish to draw against your good hand, make sure they have to pay for doing it.

…and lastly, don’t forget to analyze your game after every session. Maybe everything is not the opponents’ or the streak’s fault. Could you have played differently in any situation?

Good luck, I hope your luck turns!

Hi!

I have decided to start blogging again. I miss sharing my thoughts on poker with you guys. Lately I’ve been playing lots of poker online and the urge to write about and discuss poker has increased.

A few years ago some people feared that online poker would peak and then slowly decrease in popularity. Maybe the influx of new players has slowed down, but the online poker action is as good as it ever was in my opinion. I play on several sites at the moment; my favorites are Poker Stars and Full Tilt Poker. There are always plenty of good games at the mid stakes levels where I play and I see no evidence that this will change anytime soon.

Follow my blog to read about everything regarding poker - especially online poker with a focus on holdem. But I’ll also write about tournaments and lots of other stuff concerning this wonderful game.

The key to all successful poker is information. Without information you will be gambling blindfolded. A situation that looks the same on a superficial level usually isn’t – it’s always a sum of all the players involved. For this reason you should avoid certain situations when you’re new to a table.
Always take some time to get to know the table and your opponents when you sit down. Try to play cautiously until you have a good grasp of your new table. Identify the players that stick out, like tight aggressive and very loose players. Get to know how large a standard raise is, if the table is tight, loose etc. If you have players at the table that you played with before you should try to see if they play their regular game, or for some reason play in a different way than usual.

All this is off course easier to do in a live game, where you play against the same opponents for longer periods of times. It can also be done online, but here you have to keep in mind that the nature of a certain table can change very quickly. Always try to analyze how the game changes when players leave or enter the game (especially players that stick out in any way.) If a maniac for example leaves the table it can go from loose to tight in a second.

Your worst enemy can often be yourself. Therefore it is equally important to know what state of mind you are in. Often you can’t know this until you sit down at the table. You might be restless, tired or upset for some reason and this will almost certainly affect your game. So take some time and try to read yourself when you sit down at the table.

Playing with caution in the beginning on a session will help you avoid dangerous situations in which you don’t know where you stand. This decreases the risk of taking a big loss early on, which could threaten to ruin your whole session. I would argue that a big part of the losses good players experience can be blamed on sessions starting in a bad way, which affects their game more than they are ready to admit. This can often be avoided if you play cautiously until you feel you have a good grip of the game.

Good luck at the tables!
Mike G

Read more about betting patterns here.

After playing poker for a long time, both online and offline, I have to tell you – I love online poker! When I started out playing back in the days, Internet didn’t even exist and if someone would have told me that in ten years you will be able to play poker on your computer with players from all over the world I would have laughed and called them crazy.
The Internet revolution
But the Internet revolution came and changed poker forever. In the beginning I was skeptic and couldn’t really see how you could play poker against someone who wasn’t sitting across the table. I mean what happens to tells, social interaction and so on?

Still I realized that I had to see what all the fuzz was about and once I tried online poker I was hooked. The first site I played at was the classic True Poker a poker room that was using realistic avatars, movements and sound, ages before PKR came along. But it wasnt until I found Party Poker that I got my real online schooling. The action at Party Poker was fast and loose - and still is. Man I loved the sit n’ gos, even at the $100 level, which was pretty high back then, the action was crazy. Before two rounds were over half the field was usually busted - and a solid player like me could make some serious money. But it wasn’t only the great action that hooked me; I also realized that online poker had some big advantages that could be exploited.

The advantages of playing online
You could take notes of your opponents and their style of play. This was before the poker rooms incorporated the note taking option in the poker software. At first I was using a notebook where I wrote down the information by hand, but it was hard to organize and I started using Excel instead. That the detailed recollections of my opponents’ actions had a great impact on my bankroll is an understatement.

Another novelty online was the speed. I could play more than twice as many hands per hour online as I could at my local poker room - and this was only at one table! This together with the possibility of multi-table play fundamentally changed the way poker was played.

Multi-tabling
Multi-table play is different in many ways, and there are both advantages and disadvantages. The major disadvantage, as I see it, is that it is impossible to have the same level of knowledge of how your opponents play. But even though this affects your winnings at the table, the fact that you can play several at the same time more than makes up for it. The major advantage is that you won’t get bored playing tight, solid poker, which is good news for a rock like me.

So all that I can say is that I am glad that I was wrong – I fell in love with online poker once I tried it and have never looked back since.

Mike G.

As you probably know my playing style is mostly tight-aggressive, even though I try to vary my play in order mot to get too predictable. One of the most important tools a player has if he wants to keep his opponents guessing is bluffing. If you don’t bluff you will have a hard time beating anything above nickel and dime games in either limit or no-limit holdem.
Players that don’t bluff will hardly ever get paid for their strong hands, easily be pushed out of pots when they have marginal holdings and fail to make the most out of many potentially profitable situations. But bluffing to much can be disastrous.

When to bluff
So when should you bluff and when should you avoid it? – As always - it depends. Bluffing is all about timing.

If you, like me play pretty tight you will have great opportunities to make successful bluffs. Your opponents will show you more respect, than a player that are in there hammering at every pot. But even I have to choose my spots with care. To make successful bluffs you have to know your opponents.

The naked check-raise
Let me give you an example. Some players will bet every time it is checked to them – as long as the board is not super scary. I try to check-raise these players no matter what I am holding, whenever I get the chance. This is a good move for several reasons. Because they usually don’t have anything, they will mostly fold, making my bluff successful.

After a while they will also be more reluctant to bet when I check, which occasionally gives me free cards. This naked bluff is one of my favorites, because if I get any action, I have an automatic fold. (To avoid becoming too predictable I occasionally check-raise in the same situation with strong holdings. You should always keep your opponents guessing.)

Know your opponents
This was only one example of a good spot to bluff. The important thing when it comes to successful bluffs, is knowing your opponents. Are they tight, over aggressive, will they lay down a pair with a weak kicker when facing a re-raise etc. When you manage to answer these questions with some accuracy, your chances of making successful bluffs will increase.

Good luck at the tables,
Mike G

Read more about check-raising and other special moves.

I know I have been speaking about money management in previous blogs, but it is a very important (maybe the most important) factor when it comes to becoming a successful poker player and I thought I would elaborate a bit more on the subject. But not necessarily focus on the money per se.
Play within your limits
It is a known fact it does not matter how good a poker player you are, if you play on a level to high for your bankroll you will almost inevitable go broke sooner or later. This is because poker is a game with great fluctuations, and you need to have a bankroll that can withstand them. I am sure this is old news for most of you. But there is also another important aspect I want to stress – your comfort zone.

Let’s say we have a player with more than sufficient funds to play $2-4 no-limit Texas holdem. How many buy-ins can he loose before it is time to quit? Well, it really depends! If loosing another buy-in hurts him emotionally, he should quit right away. He is then leaving the comfort zone, which will put him off his a-game.

Your mental state
So it is not only the monetary losses you should worry about – but your mental state. How many buy-ins a player can loose without it affecting his game differs a lot between different players. The important thing to know is when you’ve reached your limit.

It doesn’t matter if you have been really un-lucky and you think that the other players all suck, if your losses affect you to much emotionally, you have to quit. Even small changes in your game can have a great negative impact on your results.

Stop and analyze bad session
So when you have a bad session, take a break and analyze the situation. This is especially important online, where the action is really fast and you can Ask yourself the following questions:
- Why are you loosing? (Bad luck, getting out played, etc.)
- Have the losses affected you negatively in any way?
- What is the reason for me to continue the session?

Once you have answered these questions for yourself, you will have a good idea weather you should go on playing or not. Nothing will cost you more in poker than continue playing when you are in the wrong mental state. Remember that the important thing is your long term results.

Mike G

The World Series of Poker is at full swing and we are already at event eleven. It’s hard to keep interest up with so many events going on – I mean, what does a WSOP bracelet mean these days when there are at least 55 of them up for grabs. I am still waiting for the big ones like the $50,000 HORSE Event and the (in)famous Main Event. But things are already getting interesting with the controversy between Tony G and the Schulman family.
CardPlayer lost to Bluff
The Schulmans are the main owners of CardPlayer magazine and used to be the ones providing live coverage from the WSOP, but not this year. The exclusive rights to provide the live coverage, including the chip counts, this year went to Bluff Magazine. They in turn sold the rights to provide live chip counts and updates to PokerNews.com where Tony G is one of the main owners - and this is where it is getting interesting.

Tony G goes ballistic
I can imagine that it is quite costly to buy the rights for the chip counts from Bluff and then have a 40 person staff running around the tables counting chips. And it is understandable that you would go ballistic (especially if you are Tony G) if someone uses that information on their own site as soon as you make it available, which is in fact what CardPlayer seems to have done.

Tony G could off course not stand for this and he wrote a threatening statement in his blog where he talks about how he is from the streets and would not stand for anyone stealing from him, yada, yada, yada. But the question is, is providing chip counts that are made available on the internet stealing? Probably not.

You can’t own public information
NBA recently lost an interesting case against Motorola. Motorola developed a delivery system for real-time statistical updates of NBA games and was sued by NBA for doing this without authorization from the league. The district court in New York ruled in Motorola’s favor and stated that: “federal copyright statute forbids ownership of purely factual data”. Maybe it’s just me, but I can’t see any difference between this and what CardPlayer is doing and it will be really interesting to see how the issue will develop.

Well, well what do you know. While I was writing this text Tony G put up another post on his blog. It says that CardPlayer has agreed to stop posting PokerNews chip counts’ and follow the WSOP guidelines for media reporting from the events. The two parties are supposed to meat in Vegas in about two weeks to discuss the matter.

It is too early to say what will happen now. But I will definitely keep you posted.

No matter if you are going to Vegas or not; keep your head cool and good luck at the tables!
Mike G.