Sunday, March 30, 2008

Bankroll software.

I am currently testing some bankroll software which is loaded with graphics and features that make it easy to keep track of multiple accounts. Although it obviously isn't a poker calculator, it is very much a poker assist software tool that extends beyond online play to help account for your live play bankroll as well.
The team at Tournament Indicator is looking to improve their product by making it resizable to accommodate more of the multi-tabling regulars that use a poker calculator. Currently, Tournament Indicator and Holdem Indicator both attach to as many windows as you can open, even resized, cascaded or tiled poker widows, but the software itself stays the same size.

Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Cash Game Danger!!!



Cash Games can be dangerous for your Poker Bankroll health. Even those table that have .25-.50 blinds seem cheap, but they really aren't. I mean you have to sit down with 20 bucks at least, and that begs the question of how much is in your bankroll?

Keep in mind these are tables where you are likely to get stacked by a shark who is just waiting for you. Even WSOP champ Chris Ferguson avoided these tables when he was building his roll.

One of the most valuable aspects you learn in using that low buy-in tournament strategy is patience and personal control, whereby in cash games without that skill, it is soooooo much easier to run good, tilt and rebuy, repeat. I have even seen players (friends) lose track of how many rebuys they actually brought to a table while seeking revenge, redemption, and respect. The online poker odds are simply not in your favor. It's a very easy trap to get tangled in while learning. Best to learn where your losses are capped at your buy-in.
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Saturday, March 22, 2008

Tournament Indicator hand. I raised preflop and ended up with 2 callers. The flop don't hit me, however I am pretty confident it missed both them as well.

The both happen to have a VP of 22 and a 9 just don't fit in their starting hand matrix unless it was 99. Without a raise preflop, no reraise to my raise, neither have 99. Nether have AA-TT either as their pfr were low, around 6. If they had a top hand, they would have raised for those preflop. Since they called the pfr they had something. My thought are overcards like AQ, AJ, KQs or a small pp 77-88. 66 and below don't warrant a call for a pfr like I made. So my decision was to cBet as if this hit me or it didn't matter and I had AA-JJ as far as they knew.

How do you guys use tournament indicator or any other poker calculator to determine the likeliness of a cbet. (continuation bet)

At least, this is how I analyzed the situation. Would like to hear what others have to say about it.

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

David Williams joins Real Poker Training

Just watched the first video from David Williams as he has joined Real Poker Training. One of the best online video tutorials really. Hope there is more to come especially in tournaments from him.
If you have ever been interested in joining up for training site, this is the time because if you do so through one of my links, you also get access to the MTT5PAK membership included. RPT has nearly 200 videos covering tournaments and cash games.

Monday, March 17, 2008

Tough fold in a sit and go tournament.

Sometime even in the lower limits, when your poker calculator is basically telling you the right thing to do, you just gotta do it. I folded pocket aces here. Do you want to see more sit and go strategy videos for free?


Poker Tracker and Friends

There comes a point when a piece of software is so popular that other software developers start making software for the original software further extending its value and effectiveness. Poker Tracker is one of those pieces of software that when (and if) you ever figure out how to use all of it's features to the program's full extent, well there are more add-on programs that making it even more powerful.

I say "powerful" because the players that use this program with regularity are generally the sharks that are just waiting for you to land at their table while Poker Tracker is showing them exactly what to expect from you. Is that an advantage? LoL, if you didn't think that was a stupid question.

Anyway the other popular add-on programs are Spade-Eye and IdleMiner which to some degree allow you data-mine all by yourself - without yourself! In fact you don't even need to be at your computer to have this poker calculator software running.

Poker Ace HUD is a screen scraper display that overlays your poker client allowing you to customize the data over/near your opponents playing position on the table. Another nifty Poker Tracker add-on is Poker -EV which helps measure your optimal play when considering pot equity in difficult hand situations.

The makers of Poker Tracker are currently beta testing for version 3, and while the users are not surprisingly thrilled with the new enhancements, it remains to be seen if the learning curve will be any more reasonable.

Thursday, March 13, 2008

Using Poker Calculator Tools to Exchange Hand Histories

Your poker calculator may be collecting more information than you know, or even make use of. Other than the normal odds calculations, hand group rankings, and even bet or fold recommendations, hand history is something that a lot of users value most with poker assist software. This is especially true for cash game players.

Hand history research can be a valuable analysis session for you – but of course – learning how to use it and taking that extra time to delve into your collection of hands is somewhat of a measurement of how much you really want to improve.

You can analyze hand histories in two ways. The first is using a program like poker-spy that collects all the bets, opponents, pots, position and results of every hand you play. It then saves them for you to analyze later in a myriad of grids and graphics that shows you in some quick easy steps your playing style and some weaknesses you may have in your game. This isn’t that new but poker-spy also keeps a running tally of the last 17 hands in a grid that also puts out alerts about you and your opponents.

If you use one of the more hard-core hand history analyzers like poker tracker, poker sharpener, or poker prospector, then hand history analysis takes on even deeper implications whereby you start to get a better look at your opponents play as well.

There is also the more difficult issue as identified by some of the major poker sites and their security protocols of hand history exchanging. This is particularly problematic with Poker Tracker where a network of cash game players have built up a database of opponent playing profiles through their own table monitoring, then tabulate that data and make an exchange with another player. Suddenly someone’s hand history file can go from 20,000 hands to 50,000 entrapping that many more players while doing so.

Notwithstanding the fact that this type of activity is completely not allowed by Poker Stars and many other sites, it’s extremely difficult to police, so there is a huge policy challenge there for them.

Among the higher end cash game players this is a common practice, and some forums even have connection facilities to help with such exchanges. So if you are looking to exchange hand histories (files) with another player (computer), let it be known that you are surely entering the dark side, and may find yourself in murky circumstances. So be sure you can trust the source of a file exchange.

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Even your Poker Calculator Knows Ace-King is a Drawing Hand.

One of the most common mistakes made by players in the low level buy-in multi-table holdem tournaments online is over-valuing ace king as hole cards. A lot of this has to do with inexperience, impatience and poor judgment, and the fact that ace king just “looks” so darn strong when you look up at your monitor and see them just sitting there for you.

Big slick, as ace king is commonly referred to can be a powerful hand to play aggressively in tournaments but the execution of that aggression requires a whole lot more specificity than you might think.

Now depending on if your AK is suited or not you are looking down at a group 1 or 2 hand as your poker calculator will likely be pointing out to you. If you happen to have Ace King both of hearts, then it is group 1 of the Sklansky hand group rankings. In accordance with that though, careful thought must be taken to know that the groups were categorized with ring game play in mind and also that of the group one hands, AKs is the ONLY drawing hand, where AA, KK, QQ and JJ could be considered “made” hands.

Therein charges your underlying strategy when playing Ace King. It is a drawing hand and during the early stages of a tournament in particular, you should be treating it like most other drawing hands – playing it with at least some help from the flop.

If you always remember that ace king is a drawing hand, it may offer you up a more reasonable strategy for playing it after the flop. Now of course depending on your opponents, the tournament stage, stack size, m zone etc. this could be radically different – even of the flop doesn’t help you. However, there is simply no reason to dump your tournament strategy in an early stage holding AK when the flop come 2-6-9 rainbow.

The utterly ridiculous thing about that very situation is that in the low buy-in multi-table tournaments (and even some high buy-in tournaments), many players will let their tournament stack ride holding AK high when the flop has not helped them. It is purely an unreasonable aggressive move that more often than not will see you on the rail in short order. Sure there are times when you can take the pot down when someone called your pre-flop raise. So what? You made the pot maybe 350 chips when the blinds are still 25 and 50. Now you want to go all in with your remaining 1400 chips to win that 350? It’s not worth it. This is the time to play passively, cautiously, with an eye to preserving your stack, not letting it ride with a drawing hand. If you happen to be using a poker calculator it will be shouting at you that you are likely behind, but players still often ignore this advice.

So when do you push with Ace King? You will get plenty of such opportunities when the blinds are higher, you know your opponents better, and your stack size warrants such a move, until that stage, play it coy and no one will be able to figure your pre-flop call hit two pair on the flop of A-K-9 and you are much more likely to double up with some schmuck being aggressive on you.

Monday, March 10, 2008

making the right read

From JP in the forum:

While it wasn't hard to SEE the maniac playing stupid, his stats were VP71, PFR29, AF2.3, 36sd 60W$sd So not only is he insane, he's lucky.
I used his aggression right before this to milk him and took half his stack
with KK, flop Krags and two hearts, I looked at his stats and knew he woud try and take it so I checked, he bet and I slo called, turn is a blank and for value I bet 1/3 my stack which is about 1/4 the pot and tru to form he shoves. He had 79h, paired the 9 on the turn and has 4 to a flush, no heart on river, whew!

Then this flop hits and he min bets, I looked again at the stats to confirm it was this maniac player from my King set and it was. I'm holding QT and I fold. For him to minbet when he was such a maniac on everything else it was real obvious to me what he had. Had I stayed, the turn gave me a boat and I give him back his chips. Instead I used the player profiling info in Tournament Indicator and observation skills to A)milk a big chunk from him and B)save from giving any of it back.

Friday, March 07, 2008

in the money with my poker calculator

I was in this hand late in a tournament and thought is wa quite interesting in that tournament indicator really helped me make my decision which might be considered over-aggressive. I think this is an example of when you get really comfortable using a poker calculator you aren't second guessing yourself afterwards and it helps you live with yourself even if you loose the hand, like I did this one.


Tuesday, March 04, 2008

From the forum: "Hey, I've trying to understand the relationship with the graphic display of the pot odds -vs- the win odds. I presume if the win odds is higher in relationship to the pot odds graph, it should indicate a call, giving all the other variables involved with that decision. Yea??? or would it be the other way around? just a little confused on how to read the graph at a quick glance from a poker calculator. thanks Jeff"

This is represented grahically with the color bars in Tournament Indicator's win/pot odds display. They mean completely different things and have more or less relevance in given situations.

Your win odds need to be a low ratio represented by a tall scale, and pot odds should be a high rationalso represented wiht a tall graph. (pssst... tall is good)