Bluffaway

Strategy: How to avoid Tilt as a new Poker Player

George Wilewicz — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 14:36:28 +0000

Tilt happens to all poker players. I don’t care if you say it doesn’t, we’ve all been there. Take a big loss with the best hand (well before they hit something), and you’re going to react. For poker players, that reaction is called Tilting. Once you’re on tilt, you don’t play the same way you normally would. You make decisions that will give you odds to win your money back, but you may not have the best hand.

Avoiding tilt is extremely hard for poker players. Tilting is part of the game and every poker player experiences at varying levels. Preventing tilt will dramatically increase your odds of playing correctly, and winning money.

Avoiding tilt in online poker games is far easier than in home game or casino play. Leaving an online poker table after a bad beat is the best solution. My strategy lately has been to table jump after beats, or to take a break. Next time you loose a cooler, sit out, get up, and take a break. Take a 30 minute break to forget about the hand, and start fresh. Don’t keep playing to try and make back your money.. without luck, it’s a loosing mentality.

This of course is preventable by playing within your bankroll, but I know this isn’t feasible for some players. If you’re playing online and take a bad beat, restructure your thought process, take a break, and start again. It’s as simple as that. This way, you’ll have a fresh mind, and you’ll put yourself into profitable situations with the right mentality. You don’t want to be the guy that takes one beat, and follows that with a massive chip dump trying to re-gain your position.

When playing at a casino, the way to avoid tilt, is to get up. It’s extremely hard for new players to get up at all, but once you take a beat, go smoke a cigarette (or take a walk for you non-smokers). It will help greatly. You’ll re-think your last play, and you won’t be on tilt when you return. I usually suggest that new players take a break every hour for 5 minutes just to cool off and not get wrapped up in every single pot. There are many professional players that may disagree, but this is what has worked for players i’ve taught in the past.

Home games are probably the hardest, since you most likely won’t want to leave the table or sit out. There is usually a wait list at home games, so getting up for breaks every hour or after bad beats may not be a possibility. In this situation, after a bad beat, i’d recommend cooling off on the table. Sit out, pay your blinds, and watch the game. You’ll not only cool off and get your head right, you’ll watch other players more carefully while you are not in the hand. Use this time to gain an advantage by reviewing the play on the table, and watching for new reads for future hands.

New poker players will go on tilt. It’s inevitable. Taking precautions to avoid tilt or to manage tilt will help you improve your game, and become a profitable poker player.

Bluffaway Online Poker Magazine will have new poker strategy articles online daily. Make sure to bookmark BluffAway.com or follow @bluffaway on Twitter for instant updates.

Strategy: Open up your hand ranges at lower stakes.

George Wilewicz — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 13:55:25 +0000

Recently I had a discussion with a poker player that plays professionally regarding opening hand ranges at online poker tables. He has just turned pro and plays poker solely for a living, but isn’t a rich poker player by any means. He asked me for advise on his playing style online, as he is mainly a casino cash game player. After reviewing his play and watching a session he played, it was extremely easy to see that he was playing far too tight, and out of his bankroll. Now he doesn’t do this at the casino or in real live games, but in online games, he seems to buy in to games out of his bankroll, and then proceeds to play tighter than he has ever player before.

My suggestion for him was simple, open up your hand ranges, and move to table with lower stakes. With a $500 online poker bankroll, you SHOULD NOT be playing a $100 $1/$2 NL game as the short stack at the table. It would be much more profitable and logical in the long run, to take your $500 bankroll, and sit with $25 or $50 at a $0.10/$0.25 NL or $0.25/$0.50 NL game.

When you move down in stakes, open up your hand ranges. While I wouldn’t call a 4 bet raise with T8 suited in $1/$2 NL, you bet i’m in the pot when it’s $2 to call and there is plenty of action at a $0.25/$0.50 game. Opening your hand ranges gives you a better oppourunity to hit a better hand, and a hand that your opponents would not expect.

Of course, opening up your hand ranges doesn’t mean that 7-3 suited is a good hand for a raise, but it does mean that you will have more chances to make big hands, against players that won’t expect it, and are more willing to dump $25 or $50 rather than $150 or $200.

Also, playing deep stack in a smaller game, rather than short stack in a larger game, is obviously better. If i’m sitting with $400 in a $1/$2 NL game and i’m running good, don’t sit down with $60 at my table, because sooner or later i’m going to crack your hand and you’re going to leave broke.

If you’re not doing well at the stakes you are playing, get up and move to a smaller table and sit with a full stack rather than playing as a short stack. You’ll find yourself playing more hands, winning more pots, and if you lose, you end up losing less than you would if you were at the higher stake table.

This Week’s “How Do You Play It?” Discussion

George Wilewicz — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 14:37:41 +0000

This situation comes up for me over and over again, and after discussing with fellow BluffAway members as well as poker professionals, i’ve decided to bring it up to a public discussion about how you should technically play this hand.

You’re sitting in a $11 6-person sit-n-go tournament online. Top 2 players get paid with $42 going to first place and $18 going to second place. You’re obviously shooting for first, but second is better than even as well. You play relatively tight and pick your spots until there is 4 people left.

The blinds are 200/400.

Seat 1: 4,200 in chips
Seat 2: 6,600 in chips
Seat 3: 11,200 in chips
You (Seat 4): 5,400 in chips

The cards are dealt and the action begins with Seat 3 who smooth calls the 400.

You are dealt:

and raise to 1,200. (You have 3,200 left in chips)

Seat 1 folds his small blind, Seat 2 insta-calls, and Seat 3 instantly re-raises all in covering every stack on the table. It’s now on you, for your remaining 3,200 chips, in a pot that will easily make you the dominant chip leader poised to take at least 2nd place, if not the entire tournament.

What do you do here? Fold and wait or shove and hope it’s the best? Let’s keep in mind that you already raised 1,200 pre-flop, so your answer shouldn’t be “i would have shoved pre-flop”.

Discuss in the comment section below or on the Online Poker Forums.

Weekly Poll: Hit-n-Run or Table Jumping.. Opinions?

George Wilewicz — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 14:19:12 +0000

Every week we have a poll for our members to participate and vote on BluffAway. This week we’ll look at a controversial topic, table jumping. Table jumping means you sit at a table, roll up your starting stack, and leave the table regardless of how many hands you’ve played.

According to the un-written “rule” in poker, you should give opponents a chance to win back their money after you take down a big pot. Although frowned upon, there is no rule in poker against table jumping. It’s much easier online or in a casino, rather than in a home game. In a casino or online, you can get up, move, and sit down without anyone batting an eye. It happens all the time. But when you’re at a home game with “friends” a hit-n-run will not only give you bad looks from the players at the table, you could be kicked out, or not welcomed back again. I’ve seen both plenty of times.

What do you think about table jumping or performing a poker hit-n-run?

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

Vote here, and comment below.

$650,000 guaranteed in Poker Maximus Main Events

George Wilewicz — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 14:30:59 +0000

The Merge Poker Network includes poker rooms like Lock Poker, Sportsbook Poker, Aced, and Poker Host, just to name a few.

This Sunday, the poker network will host four poker tournaments, with guarantees of $200,000+, all together at least $650,000 is guaranteed over 4 tournaments.

Here is a list of the Events with details, and buy-ins:

Event #67: Main Event — $109 Poker Maximus Main Event – This tournament will be this Sunday (March 25th) at 3:00pm EST. There will be $200,000 guaranteed in the prize pool. The blind levels will be 20 minutes and the starting stack will be 7,500. 1ST PLACE IS GUARANTEED AT LEAST $50,000!

Event #68: Main Event — $530 Superstack NLH – This tournament has a larger starting stack of 10,000 and also has a $200,000 guarantee, and will be starting this Sunday (March 25th) at 4:00pm EST. Blind levels will also be 20 minutes.

Event #69: Main Event — $215 Maximus Highroller – The big one! – This also has $200,000 guaranteed, but with the other events at a lower buy-in, this event may have less entries. This starts on Sunday (March 25th) at 6:00pm. Starting stack is 10,000 and there will be 20 minute blinds.

Event #70: Main Event — $11 Mini Main Event – This is the best option for players grinding small bankrolls, but I assume that it will be packed with entrants. – This tournament starts on Sunday (March 25th) at 3:00pm EST. $50,000 guaranteed for this one, but you only start with 5,000 in chips.

All this week, there will be satellites to get to all of these Main Events where you can spend a few dollars and with a nice satellite win, you can build up entries to these events. Good luck to all BluffAway members that plan to play in one or all of these events.

Make sure you post updates on the Online Poker Forum so we can all track your progress!

Bankrupt Epic Poker leaves a pile of debt behind.

George Wilewicz — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 13:48:49 +0000

Epic Poker, the league that quickly gained exposure and plenty of reviews and excitement filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy on February 28th, 2011. Epic Poker’s parent company is the Federated Sports and Gaming company, who’s executive chairman, Jeffery Pollack released a short statement on their website stating, “Out company needs a new start. This reorganization filing is an important first step in that direction.”

Since that statement and their bankruptcy, court filings have shown sizable debts being owed across the board by Epic Poker. So far, because of this, any reorganization plans that Epic Poker or the Federated Sports and Gaming company have proposed have been rejected by bankruptcy court. Since it’s start, Epic Poker ran three poker tournaments, but their downfall seems to be the padded prize-pools they offered.

In the Epic Poker tournaments, the league would add $400,000 to each prize pool. These padded tournament brought a bunch of attention to the league and gained interest from poker players across the board, from ameaturs to professional players. In addition to this, they also had to pay for their advertisements, website, staff, and their TV programming time slot. Both the 4th and 5th tournaments including a freeroll for $1,000,000 to league members, have been cancelled. All together, reports show that the league owes more than $5,000,000 to over 100 creditors. At the time of the bankruptcy filing, the league had $15,000 in cash.

Daniel Negreanu stated in a video blog: “The truth is, he’s (Pollack) been running a bluff on many in the poker community for a long time, He was booted from the WSOP but saw a day when legalized online poker was coming and thought he could get his hand in the cookie jar at the absolute right time. He thought, throw together and create a brand and hope to hit a big score. Under this strategy, you just don’t care about having a sustainable business plan.”

As more information becomes available to us, we will post new articles throughout the Epic Poker bankruptcy.

Remember to bookmark BluffAway to get the latest poker news and poker strategy articles.

Learning to Grind rather than Gamble in Cash Games

George Wilewicz — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 15:08:12 +0000

Over the past 10 years, i’ve played everything from a live $5 buy in $0.05/$0.10 NL cash game to a $25/$50 NL online cash game. Over the years, i’ve come to realize that most players don’t play within their means, and they seem to always play outside of their bankroll. This doesn’t apply to EVERY poker player, but most ameateurs seem to play way out of their bankroll, especially online. I had a few friends visit recently, and we played online poker, but while observing them play I saw the same crazy actions and plays that triggered this opinion article. I observed inexperienced players depositing $50 or $100 on Bovada, rolling that up to $250+ playing $0.25/$0.50 NL cash games, then proceeding to sit $1/$2 NL with their entire stack, and dump it with ridiculous hands calling them “bad beats”.

New players to the game seem to think that you can roll $20 to $1,000,000 in one session. What they don’t realize is that if they play $0.25/$0.50 NL cash games online, and then sit with a short stack (their entire bankroll) at a $1/$2 or even higher table, the chances are that without an extreme amount of luck, they are going to put themselves into a coin flip, or 60/40 position, at best. An example of this that I witnessed on both the smaller and higher stakes tables, was that people will over play on higher tables, just because (it seems) there is more money on the table.

The player I was watching had A8 in a $0.25/$0.50 game and folded immediately to a $1.50 raise. Then the player won $100+ in the same game by grinding and picking spots. The player then proceeded to take their entire bankroll of $150 to a short handed $1/2 table. Player had A8 off suit, again. Someone raised to $6, was called, and the player called out of position with A8. The flop came 844, and with a $15 bet, the player re-raised to $60, was shoved all-in, and he called. The other player flipped over 99 and nothing popped for A8. 99 takes down a $200+ pot.

Players online, especially new players, need to realize that poker is a grind, not an overnight million dollar winning lottery ticket. If you do well in $0.25/$0.50 NL cash games, STICK TO THOSE GAMES! Keep your bankroll in mind, because no-one likes to reload, and you shouldn’t have to, if you play within your bankroll. New players seem to over-value hands in bigger games, and the main reason is that the player is not accustomed to playing the larger games. If you’re making money and consistantly doing well at $0.25/$0.50 NL, stay there. Grind your way to a larger bankroll, without risking your bankroll.

Remember, just because you won a $100 pot, doesn’t mean you should immediately jump into higher stakes for some vegas pipe dream. Grind your stack, and stay comfortable at levels you are used to playing and that are profitable for you. The same goes for going down in stakes as well.

If you’re consistantly doing badly at $0.25/$0.50 NL and keep re-loading to maintain a bankroll online, move down in stakes. Try $0.10/$0.25 NL. You may feel like there is less money, but the player quality dramatically differs in stakes, and you should find yourself profiting more, and you can work up and build up your bankroll and skills, before moving back up to higher stakes.

Good luck on the felt.

Poker Tattoos steadily gaining in popularity.

George Wilewicz — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 02:47:34 +0000

Over the years, i’ve seen every poker tattoo imaginable. Everything from “lady luck” pin-up girls holding pocket aces, to a full arm sleeve of every single card in playing card deck wrapped around poker chips. Poker as a game is progressing and becoming more mainstream, and poker tattoos have surged in popularity. Just by visiting almost any tattoo portfolio from any well known artist, or visiting any number of popular tattoo forums online, and you’ll see new poker or gambling tattoos added almost daily. Recently, i’ve been exploring tattoo options, and i’ve looked at poker tattoos, and have come across a wide variety of playing card, poker, or gambling tattoos I figured i’d share with BluffAway readers.

Be sure to comment below, let us know what your favorite is and why.. Also, if you find any poker tattoos, post links in the comment section below. I’d love to see more unique poker tattoo designs.

ALL IN, a Poker Movie, in select theaters March 23rd

George Wilewicz — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 13:53:20 +0000

Have you heard about the new poker movie called “All In”? You probably haven’t. All In is a poker documentary/movie that is coming out on March 23rd, the problem is, no one seems to know about it.

According to the movie website, “ALL IN — THE POKER MOVIE tells the exciting story of poker’s renaissance in the first decade of the new millennium, from a game once played only by grandparents and teenagers unable to get a date on Friday night to a nationally televised sport played by millions, and watched by millions more. An activity so hip that even Matt Damon, George Clooney, and Leonardo DiCaprio have a regular game. Played in casinos, basements, on line, in college dorms or at charity events, poker is everywhere. The films explains the “tipping story” to the events and people that came together to make poker so popular that you could see it being played on twelve television networks a week.

This documentary weaves the quest for the American Dream, the ability to take risks, and the celebration of entrepreneurship with a game that began with conmen on riverboats and ended up being played by presidents. Poker has become a metaphor for making it big quick, and though millions play it, poker seems unable to escape it’s cinematic image of something done by people on the outside of society.”

The problem is that the movie is going to be played in limited theaters in limited places across the country. For a complete listing of where and when you can see All In, the new poker movie, visit the movie’s website at: http://allinthepokermovie.com/

Some notable cast members in the new poker movie include Matt Damon, Phil Hellmuth, Annie Duke, Chris Moneymaker, Mike Sexton, Daniel Negreanu, and even Kenny Rogers.

Check out the All In Poker Movie Trailer:

Will you be seeing this movie in theaters? Or waiting for the DVD release?

This Week’s “How Do You Play It?” Discussion

George Wilewicz — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 18:49:17 +0000

Each week Bluffaway will post a new “How Do You Play It?” Discussion article. These articles will ask you how you would play a specific hand, in a particular situation. This week, we’ll be taking a look at a cash game.

The game is a local home game, filled with “donkeys”. Most pots are raised to $20 before it even gets to you, and you’re sitting with $100 (average stack). No reads, you just sat down, played 3-4 hands before picking a spot to play.

You’re Dealt:

You’re the dealer, everyone limps for $2, and the last to act bets $20. You smooth call to induce action. Folds around, and 2nd to last raises to $75.

The play is on you, for $55 more.

Without going any further into the hand, what do you do here? Is this an automatic call? Auto-shove? Or are you letting QQ go here, without any reads from the game thus far?

Comment below and let us know what you’d generally do in this spot..