HIGH STAKES POKER S5 Ep1

High Stakes Poker S5 Ep2

High Stakes Poker S5 Ep3

HSP S5 Ep4

The challenges of becoming successful at poker

The challenges of becoming successful at poker

All you have to do to beat the game of poker in the long-run is to be diligent enough to learn all the strategies which the various levels of poker thought consist of, right? Wrong. Even though being diligent in your poker-related studies will certainly help you propel your game to a higher level, it won’t be enough to secure your staying ahead of the rest of the pack. The internet features more and more poker articles each day, and what’s even more relevant: it features more useful articles each day too. That means it takes less and less effort on players’ part to seek out the right information and to improve their game.

The game of poker is a living entity. It evolves continuously, and in order to stay ahead of the crowds and to preserve your edges, you too need to be a flexible, evolving player readily taking in the newest trends and acting to adjust your game accordingly.

Take the notion of calling vs raising for instance. Only a few years ago, it was clear that fish called and sharks raised. It was an axiom, a general truth which you could always rely on. Nowadays, that statement is a much trickier one. People read and people watch poker on TV and the internet. The same article that stated the above named axiom a few years ago, may well have been the reason for quite a few people to re-think their calling and raising ways: nowadays, it’s not just the sharks who raise anymore.

Online players – who are usually suffering from a dire overconfidence syndrome anyway – would do anything to play like the greats, and they do attempt to ape them in every possible way. In order to stay ahead of the game, a good player needs to be continuously on the move, taking his game to newer and newer heights all the time.

Let’s take a look at the calling vs raising issue again, this time from a fresh perspective. Calling used to mean weakness. This is generally the same these days as well, but there’s a different meaning behind weakness now. With all the average skilled players going out of their way to be as aggressive as they can be, there’s newfound value in exhibiting weakness now. When you know you have the nuts, merely calling will often prompt your trendily aggressive opponents to try to push you out of the hand by repeatedly betting into you on the wrong read. Add to this the fact that ‘trendy’ players are also likely to put opponents on hands, again – with limited skills – and you have some excellent value in this setup.
These days however, calling can also be a sign of strength. When you are faced with good players, who understand these new levels of aggression, calling in order to show weakness will simply not work, especially not if they understand that you are a higher thought level player yourself.

In these cases, your call will ring a whole bunch of alarm bells, because your opponents will know that your aggression usually means defense of a good yet vulnerable hand, or the creation of better odds through the elimination of opponents who are not willing to face you through hell or high water.

Your call will tell them that you have a hand which doesn’t need exceptionally good pot odds, fold equity or protection.

By raising, you’ll still assert control of the pot. Pot control will enable you to keep the pot size small when you’re working on marginal hands or to increase it when you’re holding the nuts.
One thing that remains static about poker is the rake. This is why you should sign up for rakeback whenever you play in real money cash games or tournaments. Cash games produce more rake (you may even want to consider a poker prop deal here), but you’ll get a rake rebate on your tournament fees as well.

Triangle Poker Journal *** FOR SALE *** www.trianglepokerjournal.com

Yep, I hate it, but it has been a really bad year for me health-wise and I just haven't been able to dedicate the time and creativity to it that I feel it deserves. The TPJ and the TPJ blogsite
have a reasonable daily hit rate and an attractive mailing list and the right person with the
right circumstances could really make a go of it.

What is for sale are all web -related sites and accesses as well as the google groups
distribution list which is in excess of 600 members.

Bids will start at $5,000 and the highest bidder gets it all.

The bidding process will be managed through ebay.

https://webmailcluster.perfora.net/xml/deref?link=http%3A%2F%2Fcgi.ebay.com%2Fws%2FeBayISAPI.dll%3FViewItem%26ssPageName%3DSTRK%3AMESELX%3AIT%26item%3D260377452838

I do wish that it wasn't necessary to sell the site. I believe that when/if the state of NC government decides appropriately to legalize poker, it could be huge for the TPJ and whoever owns the site.

Please feel free to email me at charles@trianglepokerjournal.com with any questions. Thank you and good luck bidding!

https://webmailcluster.perfora.net/xml/deref?link=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.trianglepokerjournal.com
https://webmailcluster.perfora.net/xml/deref?link=http%3A%2F%2Fbadbeatsandgreathands.blogspot.com
And the following domain names are included as well.
https://webmailcluster.perfora.net/xml/deref?link=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.carolinapokerjournal.com
https://webmailcluster.perfora.net/xml/deref?link=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ncgamblers.net
https://webmailcluster.perfora.net/xml/deref?link=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.trianglepoker.com

Thanks for your interest and support of the TPJ. I'm sure I'll still be blogging.

Charles E. Richards
Triangle Poker Journal

Poker Coverage

Elon University alum, Don Peters, is currently covering the WSOPC Event in Atlantic City (Caesars) for Pokernews. You can find current chip counts and post up to date messages in the Shoutbox here:

http://www.pokernews.com/live-reporting/2009-wsopc-caesars-ac/main-event/day1/

Don's Blog, Ramblings from an East Coast grinder, can be seen here:

http://my.pokernews.com/donpeters/blog/



Evereybody in the TPJ run good this weekend, have a Happy St. Patty's Day and root for the Blue Devils to win the ACC tournament...

Bradley

Insufficient Funds? A Letter to the Bank!

Dear Sirs:

In light of what seems to be happening internationally with banks at the moment, I was wondering if you could advise me. If one of my checks is returned marked "Insufficient Funds," how do I know whether it is referring to me or to you?

Playing Against Weak Opposition

Often, you’ll hear players complain about the level of the competition they have to go up against at the online tables. These people are usually not complaining about how good and difficult to beat their opponents are, of all things they’re discontent with the fact that the opposition they’re facing makes bad calls pretty much all the time and yet manages to keep them frustrated.
Never complain about how badly your opponents play. In poker, you’re supposed to make your money off your opponent’s mistakes, and in the long-run, the more mistakes they make, the more you’ll walk away with, regardless of the short-term streaks and bad beats.

You need to understand that Texas Hold'em is a game of high short term variance. The luck factor will throw wild swings at you pretty much all the time, making it appear that weak calls and bad players are getting the better of you. In the long-run however, playing against such bad calls is exactly what you should be looking for. It is statistically proven that – provided you come into the game on a hefty enough bankroll – you will beat the short term variance if you stick to EV+ and remain disciplined.

Here’s a small example: you pick up an A,A and some player calls you down with 7,8o to hit a straight on the river. Does this mean you’ve made a bad call? Not by a longshot. As a matter of fact you should be looking to make such calls as often as possible and let your pocket rockets tackle those 7,8,os as often as possible. There’s no starting hand in poker which can guarantee you a 100% win-rate, but if you get over 50% on your hand, you’re already in the EV+ zone. In the long-run, you will make a profit on such calls.

If you play against skilled opponents, who will fold their 8,7o when faced with your K,K every time, and call you only when they have A,A, you will take down a few small pots and give up several huge ones. That is absolutely not the way to go about making money at the poker table.
If you sense you’re unable to handle the short term variance of Texas Holdem without going on a tilt and wasting all your money, maybe you should think about taking up Omaha or Stud instead. The short term variance and the luck factor are much smaller issues there, while schooling (several bad calls ganging up on your good hand to cut down your odds) won’t happen at all.

Here are some of the mistakes bad players usually make and you should be looking to exploit:
They misread the board sometimes. OK, that’s not something you can consistently capitalize on, but there are plenty of other opportunities.

Weak players and beginners often bluff senselessly. They just fire out a bluff because they know the game of poker is supposed to feature bluffs too. They have no idea of the intricacies behind properly setting up a bluff.

These bluffs are called donk bluffs or dark tunnel bluffs and they represent one of the best sources of revenue for experienced players.

Beginners will often play well above their skill level. Since poker is a lot like driving – everybody thinks they’re better than average – beginners will often outplay themselves. It is all too easy for a beginner to fall into this trap, because without understanding the majority of strategic subtleties they will more often than not spring the trap for themselves through fancy play.
Getting married to their hands or taking losing hands way too far are also typical beginner mistakes which are highly exploitable.

If you find a weak table with players calling your set all-in with straight and flush draws time and time again you know you’ve struck a gold-mine. To avoid being frustrated by lucky draws, focus on your Sklansky dollars instead of the real money and don’t forget to sign up for rakeback. Most poker rooms give you 30% of your rake back, but some rakeback deals, like the PowerPoker rakeback are more generous.

Poker at Harrah's Cherokee

For anyone interested I understand that Harrah's Cherokee will be debuting five electronic Poker Tek tables tomorrow. They were supposed to open a live poker room a few years back but could never reach an agreement with the state and it never happened so looks like they decided to go electronic for now. Of course this won't be as good as actual live games but it's better than nothing and is at least a step in the right direction. Considering this will be the only actual legal live poker in a large area I would expect even these electronic tables to be popular. It appears the tables will be three 1/2 NL, one 2/5 NL, and one 3/6 Limt to begin with.