Win Poker

Strange thing. I’ve found a new cure for insomnia. It’s called online holdem poker. :)

Every time I start to play late at night my wife is going to bed. As these two things usually start the same time I could observe this strange trend. She is very interested in what I’m doing she doesn’t like my raises and she is very disappointed if I’m loosing. But she starts sleeping in just a several minutes.
For the first time the action of this cure wasn’t so radical. I could play about half an hour before she falls to sleep. But right now we could reach this goal in really several hands.
By the way I felt the influence of this “cure” too.
For some last session I fell myself tired very soon. And last session I’ve fell asleep twice in the first hour. When I was awaken by some reasons I could see myself sitting out of the table. So I could conclude that online holdem poker helps to sleep calmly…
Or maybe you think we should work less and start playing earlier?
  P.S. If I only could not sleep I would be able to earn the money at my constant day-time job and increase that amount by night poker session. I would play higher limits for the moment as I’d have a lot of experience…
If I could…

That there is falsehood in his looks,
I must and will deny:
They say their Master is a knave,
And sure they do not lie.
Robert Burns “On Dr. Babington’s Looks”
 

Every poker player will assert that bluffing is a very important concept of successful poker. Every book on poker is dealing with this concept. Most of people not playing poker consider bluffing the main and even the only way to win the money. OK, I thought so too.
Maybe this felling is caused by different fiction books and films. Do you remember Maverick? “You’ve hold you breath…”
Online holdem poker gives a player fantastic opportunity to bluff. Look, nobody could see you, nobody can’t interpret your gestures, your style of conduct… Nobody could see if you are glad with your card or not. Nobody looks for falsehood in your looks. Seems you can bluff every worthy hand.
BUT everyone understands this. Every person you oppose knows nothing about you and your habits but they do understand this clearly and have to act in these conditions. The guys in front of you know that you can bluff. And many times they desire to check if it is so.
Micro limits will change your attitude to bluff. I promise. I faced the same problem. Everything that is connected to bluff could lead you to losses while you are playing micro limit table. I spent almost 3 month in vain trying to overcome the situation. I’ve changed the tables and started new limits. But still bluffing shows strong trend to bring losses.
I couldn’t understand that. Is it possible to play poker and not to use bluff?
What do you think?
The right answer for the question is NO of course. Definitely you can play without bluff but if your opponents understand this you’d better change the table. If you are not trying to lie the guys you’re playing against will fold their cards every time you have something worthy so you will not get any money from them ever.
So the right conduct is to bluff. At least sometimes. But be aware to bluff too often at the lowest limits. Your opponents don’t consider their money too valuable comparing to the satisfaction of catching a bluffer. They call this honesty check. And they practice it too often.
Maybe you had known that before playing poker. I didn’t. And thanks to David Sklansky and his Theory of Poker. I like this book much more than Holdem Poker for Advanced Players. It seems more concrete to me. And I’ve got a lot of tricks I’m using now from there.
So David explains why it’s almost impossible to bluff at micro limits tables.
Do you know the main feature of $0.1 - $0.2 tables at Poker.com? I think the same situation is in other pokerrooms. The number of people watching the flop. It reaches 60% at 10-max table (a table that could played by 10 players) and 80% at 6-max. Yesterday I’ve seen 99% number at one 6-max table.
When there are so many people your probability to win decreases in geometric series. The only deserving variant of bluffing that shows positive expected value is bluffing against ONE opponent.
Don’t repeat my mistakes. And don’t believe the guys who haven’t played poker professionally – writers, producers, scenario writers.

“The time has come,” the Walrus said, 

“To talk of many things: 

Of shoes - and ships - and sealing-wax - 

Of cabbages - and kings - 

And why the sea is boiling hot - 

And whether pigs have wings.” 

Lewis Carroll “The Walrus and the Carpenter” 

So the new part of my fables is about my decision to start new limits. It’s a difficult decision of course. Every time you start a new project you have to weigh all pros and cons. 

At least you supposed to… But in practice we don’t perform such an analysis. And especially that is true for poker. 

Every poker player is supposed to make decisions every minute. If he plays several tables in a row then he makes decisions every second… We are forced to do so and we have used to. 

So we don’t hesitate too much before the decision. We just go ahead in order to have fun and win. Sometimes you may think that we make decisions impetuously but mostly it isn’t so. We just feel that way. 

So do I. I hope. I felt that the time had come. I could win at $0.1 - $0.2. So the time to start new limit really had come. but at the same time I couldn’t choose the right moment. First I decided to start when I get $75 bankroll. But it appeared to be too difficult. Right that time I faced a strange black streak in my poker. I couldn’t close a session with profit. I wasn’t too disappointed as I could understand that I was playing better than my opponents though they were luckier. 

But that night was an outrage. Could you imagine me loosing $14 at 2 tables on $0.1 - $0.2 limit? 70 BB seems to be an excess… I was upset so much that I decided to regain my money. That became the last drop and the main incentive that had driven me to shift to new limits. I took a place at the table with $0.25 - $0.5 limit. 

What do you think the result was? 

NO, you are not right! I’ve won almost $12 in just 40 minutes! The game became wonderful. I was getting better hands. My opponents believed my bluff and I haven’t lost ANY hand I played till river. 

Maybe I should start $50-$100? (^_^) 

First freeroll I’ve entered was $500. It had gathered more than 1000 pretenders. So the task was very tough. Anyway I hadn’t felt nervous. I had no need to pay for the participation. I was just playing poker when I got a message the I’m eligible to take part in freeroll. I hadn’t risked my money but I could win it. I had finished 180th… Now I could say that I was too lucky to stay so long. But that time I considered my pride hurt. I thought I could win at least anything. I was complaining on bad beats and poker algorithm that couldn’t deal better cards to me. 

So I decided to revenge in the next tournament…  Next 3 freerolls including 3k I finished somewhat like 600th-800th… 

But soon I’ve won my first freeroll money. That was 3k. And from the very beginning I faced difficulties. I was playing tight, very tight. But seems the dealer decided to offense me. He has given me good cards only twice. First time I’ve won a lot of chips with my all in and two guys called me. Second I’ve lost most of my chips calling someone’s all in with worse hand. Most other hands I’ve folded on preflop. No more river at least… 

But the God decided to make a little joke that day. The pokerroom had upgraded their tournament software a day before and that was the first freeroll with the newest version of client. And software developers had made some strange mistakes. So in the first hour of the game our table had pended for some reasons. We couldn’t play any hand. We were joking, telling anecdotes chatting but not playing poker. Just 2 or 3 tables among of 30 had this problem. And as we couldn’t play we nobody had lost. As a result the software couldn’t rearranged our table. We’ve waited till the break that was in 90 minutes. After the break the tables were rearranged but this hadn’t solved the problem. In just 15 minutes it appeared at most the tables of the tourney. As a result organizers have closed the tourney and have paid all the participants left. As there were about 240 participants and they paid me about $10 I think that they decided to pay according to the number of chips earned. 

Anyway thanks God and poker.com. I started my freeroll earnings. (*_*)  

During my first month at poker.com I decided to come in some free tournaments (freerolls). First of all I could do that as I had entering coupon from pokerroom. They were giving those coupons as another bonus for the money deposited. Another reason for my decision was the possibility to win a huge amount of money compared with the winnings at my limits during just a couple of hours. And by the way I knew the guy who had won some of such freerolls so I was sure in possibility to do this. That was just the reasons that could motivate me to start. 

That time poker.com was organizing different kind of freerolls. They were $100, $200, $500 and $3000 tourneys. The amount stated in the name of the tourney shows the full amount of prize money in the particular freeroll. The winner could usually get 20% or 25% of that amount. The exact number depended on the number of the participants. The more participants the tourney gathered the less part of the amount was kept for the winner. To win at least anything you had to stay in last 80 in the tourney (the number also depended on the number of participants). Everybody could take part in $100 and $200 freerolls. The only difference between them was the frequency of their start. $100 frerolls were organized every 3 hours and $200 were organized every 6 hours. Anyway both those kind of freerolls were not interesting for me. I considered the opportunity cost of spending 3, 4 or even 5 hours to win a tourney with the reward (usually $20 for $100 freeroll and $40 for $200 freeroll) and decided not to waste my time. Some say that taking part in such contests I could get the necessary experience in no-limit poker to win better tournaments. But I’d prefer not only getting experience but to have the chance to win the Money. Anyway everybody decides. 

$500 freerolls were more interesting. $100 the winner could get was the amount worthy to participate. But that was more difficult. In order to take part in those tourneys you had to play at least 80 raked hands. The raked hand is a hand you have entered in and pokerroom has taken a small amount of the pot. According to the rules of poker.com you had to be in the flop to consider the hand raked for you. The pokerroom didn’t take any rake from hands finished on preflop. I could make up the that amount of raked hands every three or even four days. So I participated in that kind of freerolls from time to time though they were organized once a day. 

The last but the most interesting freeroll was $3000 or just 3k. 3k started 18pm EST every day and could bring $750 to the winner. Sounds good, don’t you think so? The coupon to enter it was granted every 250 raked hands. And it was very rare to me. But every time I got the coupon I participated for sure. Next time I try to describe the most interesting episodes of my freeroll career. 

TBC  

That was my another poker session. Nothing special… I feel myself more and more comfortable at these limits ($0.1 - $0.2). I could even read some hands of my opponents making the moves that are really profitable for me (both winning hands and avoiding loosing ‘em). Now I could say that I’ve earned somewhat $15. And by the way the pokerroom had granted me my bonus. I was so happy getting that $15 as I’ve never been before. I don’t remember properly how much I had won for the moment THAT guy sit at our table. A dollar maybe less… It really doesn’t matter. 

But the guy had exploded the table. Take a look on this hand that had become usual from that moment. 

Preflop There were nobody at SB. I was #6. The guy was #5. 

BB Posted Big Blind $0.10 #3 Posted Initial Blind $0.10, #4 Posted Initial Blind $0.10 

#1 Folds, #2 Calls, #3 (Poster) Checks, #4 (Poster) Checks, #5 Raised, #6 Calls, BB Calls, #2 Calls, #3 Calls, #4 Calls.  6 players, 12 Bets 

Flop   

BB Checks, 3 Checks, The guy Bets, #6 Raised, BB Reraised, 3 Folds, The guy caps, #6 Calls, BB Calls.  3 players, 24 Bets 

Turn

BB Bets, The guy Raised, #6 Calls, BB Reraised, The guy caps, #6 Calls, BB Calls.  3 players, 24 Big Bets 

River

BB Bets, The guy Raised, #6 Folds, BB Reraised, The guy caps, BB All In. 

The guy Shows -  

BB Shows -  

$0.18 Returned to the guy from pot. BB Wins $5.74 (32 Big Bets) from pot with : Three of a Kind, Sixes 

As for me I can’t understand the guys that could cap the flop having nothing except the pair on the deck… Maybe this conduct could be profitable in heads-ups (or in the case when everybody folds except one very suspicious gambler). But having two callers it’s obviously brings losses.