Weekend Success

Well, this weekend went well on VP Poker. On Friday I experimented with playing poker whilst drunk. Yes, I know this is a big no-no but I actually managed to play one tournament and win it. Then on Saturday I entered another three sit n gos and managed to at least get paid in them all. Things are looking up! There will definitely be some more poker getting played this week!


Red Shades

Saturday night poker marathon

On Saturday night I am going to put in a decent poker session on VC Poker. It's been a slow week basically because of work / life commitments so I haven't been able to give it the time I need to but this Saturday I will be back and Ill continue my climb up the ladder! Come along and play!

Red Shades.

P.S. In the coming days / weeks I'm going to finish reading 'The Science of Poker' and give you my views on how it's affected my poker game for the better or worse!

Back in the game!

Hi All!,
It's been a busy week this week and I've not been able to put some time in for the poker but this weekend I will be online at VCpoker (redshades86) playing SnGs for $10 stakes. So come along and have a go! I've just started reading 'The Science of Poker' (http://www.amazon.com/Science-Poker-Mahmood-N/dp/1843440148)

It's good as a reference I think showing you the probability of hitting cards etc! Just a recommendation and another weapon in the armoury.

On another note I think pokertracker is cursed as I have not played well since using it!

Adios, Shades

Multi-tournament (MTT) play

'Tight is right'. Why is it that I spend 3-4 hours playing in one tournament, building up considerable chips and then decide to blow a load of chips playing something like J-8? Ridiculous! Ah well, we live and learn. I'll put it down to going for a massive chip lead!

Lost it?

I didnt' place in 3 tournaments in a row last night on vcpoker, playing $10 SnGs. This is unprecedented. When I looked at my play though I was playing too loose and got stung. Also some really bad beats. You know what they say, "if you're getting bad beats, you're playing well" (still hurts though). On the +ve side, the HUD on poker tracker is sensational, I think it gives you a 5% edge on everyone not using it. Ill put an overview of it's features on here shortly!

Adios, (stay positive Red, stay positive, that's what I keep telling myself)

Poker Tracker - Hud Explanation

Right, here's a brief explanation of the poker tracker HUD. Once you've configured it to auto-import your hand histories and your opponents a HUD appears on the table showing you stats for each player, these include:

Player Name,Player Icon,Total Hands,Voluntarily Put $ in the Pot,
Pre-flop Raise,Total Aggression Factor

I won't go into detail of what each one is right now but in essence it tells you how tight or lose a player is and how aggressive they are when they bet etc. This really does give you an advantage e.g. If you've holding A-10 and the flop comes 10-9-K, you've bet and a re-raise from another player comes in. You can check that players stats on the HUD. If they're super tight then they prob have you beat. If they play loose then go ahead and call it! Don't get me wrong it should never take away playing with your instincts but I think it gives you a 5% - 10% edge on people who don't have it. It could save / win you a lot of money if you use it correctly!

More aggressive flop play - Success!

Well, you may remember my earlier post regarding changing my play to be more aggressive on the flop when Ive missed. Well it was extremely successful last night. I absolutely massacred a couple of Sit n Gos (SNGs) and never had to put myself all in once! This is definitely the way to go now I feel.

On the -ve side I decided to play some cash limit poker ($1 - $2) and was losing cash quickly. So annoying not being able to get people off draws when you are ahead! Ill be writing a blog item about this shortly! (frustration overload and I need to collect my thoughts).

The theory of poker by David Sklansky - 'The Sklansky Slide'

Every time I read this book I end up changing my poker strategy and go on a run of losing chips and getting knocked out of tournaments. I end up thinking, "mm, I've got 4,6s he's prob got 8-8. He's bet 17,000 chips (a big bet), but if I call that then I'm getting value as I could take his whole stack (170,000).Needless to say, I don't get the cards I need. I end up putting in too many calls and bets based on implied odds etc. I think I'm far better off playing super tight , aggressive before the flop and make the big hole cards pay.

Although, just to let you in to a little secret. I've identified that I'm not very strong playing after the flop so I'm going to make a conscious shift towards being more aggressive after the flop. I think this is a side of my game that's letting me down. I'm going to adopt a more 'devilfish' approach.

Anyway, let me know if you've experienced the 'Sklansky Slippery Slide' as I'm now calling it!

Adios,

Get as much information as you can!

One of the key aspects of improving at poker is making as much information available to yourself as possible. I'm not entirely sure what standard of poker player this blog is being picked up by yet so I apologise if you already know this but....
A weapon you need in your armoury is pokertracker. This is by no means an advertisement, I simply use it and find it a big weapon. It's such an eye opener to see which hole cards you generally lose money on or in which position you are giving away chips consistently. It's a quick install downloadable from the site. I use it with VC Poker which just requires a quick manual install (simply pointing pokertracker to the directory where the hand histories are stored). So if you don't have some sort of system like this then get one installed quickly and learn from your mistakes.

Ill be playing online at VC Poker again tonight if anyone fancies a game (redshades86)!

Find me on VC Poker

If you're wondering where I play, I play on www.vcpoker.com. I play under 'redshades86' and can usually be found playing $10 / $20 sit n gos.

And, with perfect timing I've just been knocked out calling an all in with Q-10s. It turns out the guy had J-9 off suit. So i'm ahead, slightly. Anyway, he gets a 9 on the turn and that's me gone. I had to push though as I only had 1000 chips and the blinds were up to 50 / 100.

The way I'm playing at the moment it was inevitable a 9 would come and knock me out!

Do you think positive thinking has any impact at all?

What do you want?

This blog will be building rapidly over the coming days and weeks. I thought this would be a good opportunity to throw a couple of questions out there for my followers.


What do you want to see on this blog?

What sort of poker issues really get your goat?

What do you hate about the blog so far?

When is the best time of the day to play poker?

There's a theory going around that the best time to play poker is after midnight when people who've had one too many beers are online. Is this actually true? Or is that time now saturated with people trying to take advantage of drunk players?

What do you think?

Play hands for experience vs playing tight for profit?

Here's my quandry. I generate money from playing tight on sit and gos and cashing in as winner or runner up. If I had the patience I could generate some income from this on a monthly basic. However if I want to become a lion of a poker player I need to play more hands, learn to be more astute, read players and predict hole cards etc. To learn this is going to cost me some serious money along the way. I think it's worth it in the long run

What do you think?
How do you normally play?
If you are a lion, how did you get there?

How do you play J-J in the hole?!

This is something that's been troubling me for a while. How on earth do you play this in the hole? My preferred technique is to build the pot and if I hit overcard(s) on the flop then make a judgement call.

Let me know your preferred plays for j-j in the hole!

Can you consitently generate money playing online NL Holdem?

Recently I've been pretty successful playing sit and go $10 tournaments. I've now decided to chance my arm at 50x - $1 NL HL Holdem. I have a bank roll of over $100 that I will take to the table every time. My strategy is to play tight, playing only the top 10 hole cards. One rule, I will never go all in or call an all in unless I am mathematically 100% that I have won the hand. My aim is to prove to myself whether it is possible for me to successfully generate income playing NL poker. I'm interested in your thoughts on this so............

What do you think?