Online Poker-Money, Money, Money

If you read enough about poker you’ll see a common phrase: Don’t be results oriented. New players have a difficult time taking this advice as it’s so difficult to keep the right frame of mind when losing more of your online poker money, even when you’re playing your best. But downswings happen to everyone; your ability to keep your composure is what will keep you from losing even more.

The worst thing many players do when in a downswing is make major adjustments to their game. Making major adjustments should only be done when you know for sure that you’re playing sub-optimally. There are a few different ways to check on your play.

The first is to review your hands yourself. Look at the hands you’re playing and when you’re playing them. My favorite way to review hands is to use the replay hand feature in Poker Tracker. It’s a nice feature to the program that allows you to watch the hand play out. It’s a lot easier than reading a hand history, and it gives you a feel for the play. While you’re reviewing your hands look at your starting hand, position, and the actions of players before and after you. As the hand plays out make sure that you keep an eye on pot odds and implied odds, and the decisions you made with regard to those calculations. Take note of any mistakes that you may have made, and what you could do in the future to keep yourself from making those mistakes again.

Another great way to evaluate your play is to have others look over your hands. There are many great forums online where you can post your hands and have other players give advice on your play. This is one of the best ways to improve your play as you will get impartial analysis of your game. You can participate in discussions, learn more about the game, and become a better player.

Your online poker money is at risk if you start making negative adjustments to your game when on a downswing. Look carefully at your game, get advice from others, ride out the downswing and get back to playing winning poker.

*****
Want to learn one of the newest poker structures that has fewer downswings? Check out the Double or Nothing Strategy Guide

Topics: Learning the Game | No Comments »

Practice Hand: Pocket Aces

Q: You are in a $5.20 DoN tournament with 6 players remaining and blinds at 150-300 and a 30 chip ante. You are in MP with 1400 chips. There are two other players with fewer chips than you: The SB with 1220 chips and the BB with 800 chips. You are dealt pocket aces. UTG folds. What do you do?

A: Though you’re sitting in pretty good position, you are far from guaranteed to make the money. If the short stack doubles up then you are barely hanging on to fifth place. This is a very good opportunity for you to add to your stack, or even, end the tournament if the SB or BB call. You should shove.

Topics: Double or Nothing, Hand Quiz, Strategy | No Comments »

Practice Hand: Late in the Tournament

Q: You are in a $5 DoN with 6 players remaining and blinds at 200/400. You are in the big blind with 1300 chips and are dealt pocket nines. Two players have fewer chips than you: the button has 560 chips and the small blind has 850 chips. UTG has 7800 chips and has raised each of the last 7 hands. True to form he raises to 2000 and everyone folds to you. What do you do?

A: This is a similar situation to when you have AA or KK and don’t want to risk your tournament when there is a short stack close to being out of the tournament. Your pocket pair is almost definitely in the lead right now, but there is no reason to take a chance this late in the tournament when there are two shorter stacked players who are going to need to make a move soon or get blinded out. It can be hard not to call in these situations when you know you’re up against a weaker starting hand, but there is no need to waste your tournament on a hand that is vulnerable to so many flops.

Topics: Double or Nothing, Hand Quiz | 2 Comments »

Double or Nothing Sit & Go Strategy to Crush the Competition

The holiday season is nearing it’s end, but this last week of the year is always hectic for me. My birthday is in a few days and my sister’s birthday is a couple of days after that. Add to that my new brother-in-law’s birthday is the day between ours, and my sister is pregnant and could burst at any time. I don’t even know what to think about new year’s celebrations…

Luckily, though, I have a minute to write. And I’m very excited to announce the release* of my first poker ebook, Double or Nothing Sit and Go Strategy Guide. As I’ve mentioned multiple times here, I believe turbo Double or Nothing SNGs are the easiest and best way for new and low limit poker players to quickly build their bankroll. And there are many reasons why this is true:

I designed the book to be a quick read with easy to understand strategy advice. In most instances, players will only need to make a few adjustments to their game to achieve a high rate of success in DoNs. In addition to the strategy advice, I included practice hands to reinforce what you learned in the strategy sections and make you aware of some of the situations you will be in when playing DoNs.

You’ll learn:

I’m really proud of the ebook and truly believe it’s a great first step for new and low limit poker players to build their bankroll so they can play at limits where the rake is not as difficult to overcome. Click here to learn more about and purchase The Double or Nothing Strategy Guideat a great introductory price.

*The book has actually been available for a couple of weeks, but today is the official release.

Topics: Check it out, Double or Nothing, Poker bankroll | No Comments »

Firing the Second Barrel, Double or Nothing Style

We’ve all been in the same situation. You sit and wait in a Double or Nothing SNG for a good starting hand, hoping for any type of love from the dealer. Finally, you get AKo and you get that little flutter in your stomach. “This is the hand,” you think. “I’m going to double up.” You raise 3x the BB and wait to see if anyone has the guts to call. The button and the big blind decide to play and you chuckle, imagining the AJ or small pair they’re playing. “Suckers.” You hover the mouse pointer near the bet amount slider, trying to figure out what size bet would extract the most value. And then the flop comes: 3s6hTd.

Now what?

This situation happens most often in the early stages of a Double or Nothing SNG, as in the later rounds you should be in push/fold mode (unless you’re sitting on a nice stack). You’re left with a tough decision. Do you continue to push the action, or do you check and hope for a free card.

This decision is never easy, especially in turbo DoNs when your chips are so valuable. The blinds go up very fast, and any extra hit on your stack could severely limit your chances later in the tournament. On the other hand, you are very aware that DoN players are generally pretty tight, and might not chase the way regular SNG or cash players would.

So what do you do? Your first consideration should be the number of people in the pot. The more players who see the flop, the better the chance that one of them hit something. Taking a stab at a pot in this situation will probably result in a call, and another difficult decision for you on the turn.

If there are only one or two players in the pot then you have to look at a few aspects of the hand. Start by taking the flop into consideration. Is there anything on the board that looks like it would fit a random DoN players’ starting hand (especially one they would call a raise with)? If not there is a better chance that a continuation bet could take down the pot. Another situation where a continuation bet works well is when the board pairs, especially if it’s a lower pair. If the board is coordinated and is in your opponents’ hand range then it is probably better to check it through.

Next you have to take your reads on your opponents into consideration. This can be more difficult in DoNs since you will most likely be playing many at once. But if you have reads on your opponents (such as if they’re particularly prone to chasing draws, or if they fold regularly to any show of strength), then you should act accordingly on those reads.

It should be understood that if someone is betting into you, then you should shut it down. Players do bluff in DoNs, but it happens far less than in many poker structures. You will have better situations to go to war with a hand.

And, most importantly, make sure you don’t make the exact same moves every time you’re in this situation. As with all forms of poker, you don’t want to become too predictable.

*****

Learn the secrets of building your bankroll with Double or Nothing SNGs in Double or Nothing Sit and Go Strategy Guide

Topics: Double or Nothing, Strategy | No Comments »

I Thought Badugi Would Be the Answer…

When I jumped back into poker with my short bankroll I had read that PokerStars would soon be spreading money badugi tables. I had never played badugi before, but I thought it would be the best opportunity to build my bankroll, since new poker variants are often a goldmine when first introduced on a site. I learned some basic strategy and tried it out on the play money tables, and realized the game has high variance. I didn’t think my bankroll would be able to handle any swings, even if the chances were good I would be up against terrible competition.

Then I stumbled across Double or Nothing SNGs, and, even though they had been around for a few months, found that the play was still very bad. Better yet, the game has much lower variance than badugi (and many other games). My bankroll shot up quickly. And the games are still excellent for bankroll building.

So always keep your eyes open for when sites introduce new poker variants to their sites. If you can quickly develop a strategy to beat those new games you will often be able to add to your bankroll when the games are first introduced. And if you’re really lucky, you’ll find a game like Double or Nothing SNGs where the players keep playing but they don’t get much better.

Topics: Poker bankroll | No Comments »

New Article on Pokerbankrollblog.com

When you get a second be sure to check out a new article I wrote for pokerbankrollblog.com. And while you’re there take a look through the article archive. There is a ton of good advice and strategy that will help you with all facets of your game.

Topics: Check it out | No Comments »

Thinking About Your Hand Preflop

For most players in Double or Nothing SNGs, playing tighter preflop is their primary strategy to win the tournaments. As I’ve mentioned many times, this is a good first step, but it is not enough to have consistent success at these tournaments. Your overall strategy must take into account various factors in order to be successful. But playing tighter is an important first step.

Unfortunately, even when these players tighten up their preflop game they still don’t play as tight as they should. Or, they find a hand that they think is strong enough to play with but in reality is probably a huge underdog. For example: You’re middle position in the second level of a turbo Double or Nothing SNG with 1450 chips. All ten players remain and you are dealt AcQs. UTG raises to 100 and everyone folds to you. What do you do in this situation?

If you say call, what do you hope to flop?

If you say raise, what do you do if UTG goes all in?

I know all of these questions are difficult to answer because I’m not giving you any information on what type of player UTG is. What I’m trying to illustrate is that there are many hands like AQo that appear to be strong, but in reality are very vulnerable. At this early stage of the tournament, there is no need to take chances when there will be better situations for you to get your chips in the pot.

Topics: Double or Nothing, Strategy | No Comments »

Double or Nothing SNGs: About Volume

Do you remember the WSOP broadcast that showed Hevad Khan multitabling over 20 sit & gos? It seemed like such a ridiculous amount to play at one time, and I know that I thought I’d never be able to play that many. SNGs require too much concentration for me when it gets down to 3 and 4 handed. I’m not able to make the reads that I would need to be successful. But with Double or Nothing SNGs, I’ve had no problem playing 20 tables at once. And I would bet that most players could do the same.

And it’s a good thing because Double or Nothing SNGs present a great opportunity to make a nice hourly rate, which quickly adds to your bankroll. One of the biggest complaints about Double or Nothing tournaments is that they are boring. My first reaction to that sentiment is “You’re probably not playing them right.” I have a hard time believing anyone thinks easy money is boring. My second reaction is the player probably isn’t playing enough tables at once. If you have enough time to be bored then you should open up a few more tables and increase your hourly rate.

Playing a high volume of Double or Nothing SNGs also has other benefits. Tilt control is made much easier if you have many tables going on at once. In most situations, if you are victim of a bad beat, you won’t even be aware of it as you’ve moved on to another table. And if you aren’t aware of the bad beats you suffer it won’t affect your play on other tables. In addition, you will get past any downswings or break even stretches much quicker if you massively multitable these tournaments.

But in the end, the greatest benefit of Double or Nothing SNGs is the speed that you can build your bankroll. And even if you do think it’s boring (again, I’ll never understand how making easy money is boring) you’ll be able to return to your favorite poker variant in no time.

*****
Want to know the secrets of Double or Nothing SNGs? Wondering if you’d be bored making easy money? Grab your copy of Double or Nothing Sit and Go Strategy Guide today!

Topics: Double or Nothing, Poker bankroll, Strategy | 1 Comment »

On Playing Tight

When new players discover Double or Nothing Sit & Go tournaments, their natural reaction is “if I don’t play many hands I’ll win every time.” This thought process quickly changes when they see that most of the other players are thinking the same thing. And this is where new players make the wrong strategy adjustments and start playing hands that seem strong, but are actually very vulnerable. You can easily beat these types of players.

Playing tighter than normal is a good first step in crushing Double or Nothing Sit & Go tournaments, but it is not the only step you need to win. Each stage of the tournament requires a specific strategy in order for you to make it to the end. You will be able to build a solid bankroll if you look carefully at your chip stack, your opponents’ chip stacks, the amount of players remaining and, finally, your cards. There will be situations when you will fold pocket aces. And there will be situations when you shove with 72o. Both of these situations happen regularly, and smart players will know when to use each move, and many others, effectively.

*****
Want to know the secret to crushing Double or Nothing Sit & Go tournaments? Pick up a copy of Double or Nothing Sit and Go Strategy Guide today and start building your bankroll.

Topics: Double or Nothing, Poker bankroll, Strategy | No Comments »

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