02 May 2012
Genting Poker Series, London
After the very successful leg 1 of the new Genting Poker Series at Star City, Birmingham, which had a guaranteed prize pool of £100,000 and actually made £146,000, it was down to London’s Fox Poker Club for leg two, which promised to be even bigger and better.
01 May 2012
Return on investment
The most important statistic for tournament poker results is return on investment. It’s a simple figure for how much you are expected to make on average per tournament, expressed as a percentage of the average buy in. So imagine you had played 100 tournaments with a £100 + £10 buy in and your total winnings was £15,000; your return on investment, or ROI would be:
PokerPAL: Be a Winner at STTs
Poker beginnings
The STT, or sit-n-go, is one of the best ways to get a poker grounding. They don’t take very long and you get to experience playing with various stack sizes. Players of all abilities will find a level that suits them, whether it’s for play money or a high-roller buy in. You can also find varying types of tournaments, from super-turbos to double-ups.
04 April 2012
The Biggest Leak: Social Media
Web 2.0 started off optimistically. It was supposed to be the ultimate form of mass media communication. The first stage was broadcasting, which was one to many – think early TV and radio. This evolved into narrowcasting, which was one to few – think Sky or cable TV with hundreds of channels.
30 March 2012
PokerPAL: Size Matters, Again!
You may think that I am obsessed with size, having talked about it in relation to MTTs last month. However, this month we will be looking at cash game bet-sizing, and in particular six-max NLH.
01 March 2012
Luck Horizon
A number of times I’ve wanted to write about the “long run” in poker. Each time I try to articulate the concept, and especially poker players’ general lack of appreciation of it, a clunky phrase comes out. I’ve said things like “the long run is longer than you think” and “variance in some forms of poker is higher than in others”.
MTTs – Size Matters
We all have our own way of playing multi-table tournaments (MTTs) and hardly anyone agrees on the strategy from start to finish. Whether it’s trying to get chips early by playing every hand or sitting pretty and waiting for monsters before investing any chips, there are numerous ways the pros will tell you to play to improve your results.
23 February 2012
PokerPAL: Ranges and Combinatorics
Once you have worked out an opponent’s range, using software tools or otherwise, you will then need to calculate the probability of them holding a specific hand or type of hand, such as a flush draw, one pair, etc. This can be useful pre-flop and post-flop but as more variables are added, it takes longer to calculate so it’s recommended that you familiarise yourself with using combinatorics while reviewing past hands.
01 February 2012
Why you are not Jason Mercier
What is it that separates the best players in the world from the rest of us? You may be inclined to answer that it is their technical knowledge of the game and their fundamental skill sets that are practiced and honed over time to near perfection.
Mid to low pocket pairs in early position
Playing mid to low pocket pairs in early position can be sticky situation, especially when you’re playing 15 to 20 big blinds in the middle to late stages of a tournament. Here's Paul Zimbler on how to play them profitably.