Betting a made flush is one of the most satisfying feelings a poker player can experience. It doesn’t matter if it is live or online poker. Either way it is likely that your opponent will not give you much credit for the hand. Most times I prefer to play my [As][Xs] hands in position for cheap hoping to hit the flop big. The reasons are two fold. First, if I only hit two flush cards I have position on my opponents and it gives me an opportunity to raise them off their hand. Second, I can control the size of the pot barring getting hit with an all-in re-raise.

However, on those rare occasions when you flop the nut flush you can often get players to overreact. Typically, this will happen in tournament settings but I have also seen it happen at live tables as well. Overreacting means that your opponent makes a huge bet trying to push you off of a hand you are not going to fold. Often this gives you an opportunity to flat call and pray that the board does not pair. Usually,on the turn your opponent will get the rest of their chips in or simply check and fold to your bet. Either way you have pretty much maximized the value of the hand against an aggressive player. On the other hand if another flush card hits the board and your opponent bets you are likely to get all of the chips in the middle for a nice double up.

Another way to play when you flop the nut flush is to make a small bet as if you are trying to get there. Again, this can be interpreted as weak by your opponent and they may choose to make a significant raise if the flop hit them at all. Again, another situation after the flop where the flat call is a savvy and sneaky move. If the turn is a blank I like to check here as if to say, “I missed it” which allows my opponent to take what he believes to be the lead in the hand. This kind of play varies for obvious reasons and knowing your opponents will ultimately dictate what poker strategy to employ in playing out the hand.

I think you guys know I am a stickler for statistics. Seeing as I have not played a large tournament in 3 weeks now I was going through my hand histories. After I imported them into my trusty poker tracker something stuck out big time. I noticed that when I make final tables or run deep in poker tournaments my Hands Played percentage is up around 23% or higher during the first hour. This means that I am very involved and seeing more than my share of flops. I even had a few tourneys where my percentage of hands played was up to 37% the first hour as I had doubled up twice and had a ridiculous chip lead at that time.

I believe the more flops you see the more opportunity you get to be “lucky.” If you don’t open up your hand selection at a passive table you are doing yourself a disservice. This is particularly true if you have doubled up within the first three levels or so. Clearly you will see fewer hands as the tournament gets closer to the Final Table and chip preservation becomes important but you must take advantage of passive players when the opportunity presents itself.

I was logged on last night at Full Tilt and just happened to be listening to a conversation between a couple of players at the 6-handed No Limit table. It was a full table cash game and the stakes were .25/.50

I noticed that one of the players seemed to be obsessed with Gus Hansen and admitted to changing his game to mimic the Full Tilt Pro. As far as I know this could have all been idle banter but I started wondering after he showed down a couple of losing hands on the river that made no sense. Before leaving the table this player had lost $80 bucks in a failed attempt to imitate one of pokers most skilled players.

The lesson in that is that we all admire certain players for whatever reasons. That is quite normal in any game. However, poker players tend to naturally play to their personalities. When you move outside of that box and begin trying to be something you are not you are on thin ice. We can all learn from and take small pieces from just about any good player but totally changing who you are lacks insight and reeks of poor judgment. What works for one player consistently does not necessarily mean it will work for you.

Be smart and play your game.

Lately, I have been scouting the .50/$1 No Limit Hold’em tables on both Pokerstars and Full Tilt. This process has been going on for about 1 week now. Basically I have decided that I am going to cool it on the tournaments for a while and focus on my cash game for the next few months. I will jump back into the tournament scene when the Spring Championship of Online Poker starts in April.

Why?

Well, I am getting a bit frustrated at my breaking even playing in multi-table tournaments and decided that the best way to continue building my bankroll is to play cash games. We can all point to a few tournaments that we got bad beat out of on the bubble or while making a big run and you didn’t quite get there. Playing cash games removes that variance over the long term provided you play well consistently. Ultimately, it was time for me to make this move on a more permanent basis and leave the tournament play behind except on occasion. I am looking forward to it and I have plenty of bankroll to keep me in action. It is likely I will be playing both on Full Tilt and Pokerstars. I will be tracking my sessions and will report regularly as the week progresses win or lose. I also encourage each of our readers to document your successes and failures in your cash games and share them with us as you see fit. You never know who you may be helping.

As soon as I have all the particulars I will post them for you.

Take care!

If you are anything like me you like to keep track of what your bankroll looks like from session to session. Fortunately, I have found a site that allows you to track all of your bankroll exploits for absolutely FREE. With Poker Dominator you can input all of your session earnings and get an accurate picture of just how your bankroll is being affected from session to session.

All you have to do is register on their site and begin entering your data each session. Here are some of the key features:

• Track online play, brick and mortar play, or home game play
• Bankroll Management
• Advanced, customizable charts
• Session Templates for speedier session entry
• Detailed Tournament Stats
• Import Sessions from PokerTracker^®, PokerCharts^® or by using PokerDominator.com’s Excel import template
• Export sessions in .csv format
• Advanced session filtering system
• Collection of reports ranging from overall stats to daily breakdowns
• Foreign currency support

There are other products available for free and for a minimal fee but they are not as robust as this particular product in my opinion. You can easily use Poker Dominator session tracker to export files to an Excel spreadsheet which comes in handy. You can check out Poker Dominator at the link below:

Poker Dominator Session Tracker

You can download your Pokerstars Spring Championship of Online Poker schedule by clicking the link below:

Download here!

(Excel Format only)

Pokerstars has done it again! This time Pokerstars is rolling out the new Spring Championship of Online Poker. This series will include 22 events with low, medium, and high buy-ins from $5 dollars all the way up to $10,300 dollars. The idea is to make the tournaments available to any bankroll level. Of course you will also have the opportunity to win your way in via satellites as usual.

There will be a 2 day Main Event with a $5 Million dollar guarantee to close out the Championship. The events include: Texas Hold’em, Omaha, Seven Card Stud, Five Card Draw, HORSE, Triple Draw, Razz, and an Eight Game Mix.

Qualify for the WSOP at PokerStars.com. Sign up now!

The biggest online heads-up challenge has begun. Both Patrick Antonious and Tom Dwan have played their first session on Full Tilt poker for a little over 1,500 hands. So far Dwan is up $135k. Antonious is currently out of the country and there is no set schedule for when these two will play. Needless to say that at the current rate of play it will take them several months before this thing can be settled one way or the other.

Both players have agreed that they can simply pay off the bet on either side if things go worse than planned although Antonious has made it clear he is not a quitter. Dwan is not likely to back down win or lose so this ought to be a very interesting match.

Just yesterday Phil Ivey walked away from the Full Tilt $1000/$500 PLO table with $682,000 of Tom “Durrr” Dwans money making it a cool $1 Million in his last two extended sessions against Dwan. None of these sessions is related to the “Challenge” but it certainly should be causing all kinds of alarms to go off in most peoples heads as a clear indicator that Tom Dwan clearly is not quite the same caliber player as Phil Ivey is.

Sure, some would attribute it to running good but this is becoming a recurring theme and Durrr would be well advised to steer clear of any challenges and save face while he still has a bankroll left. Again, Dwan is down over $3 Million dollars and showing no signs of recovery any time soon.

I suspect before Dwan and Ivey actually sit down for the “challenge” the terms will be changed yet again to compensate for Dwans miscalculated skill rating of the Pros – in particular Phil Ivey. That is if the match takes place at all.

“A fool and his money will soon be parted”

Hmmm…I wonder who’s who?

Pokerstars players Neonfrost and Tupapi777 both took down a cool $100,000 dollars at a $2/$1 Omaha Hi/Lo table. The hand came at a six-handed table and paid the rest of the table $33,000 each. Not a bad pay day at all. Congratulations to all the players!

Apparently preliminary matches continue to take place between Tom “Durrr” Dwan and some of his potential challengers. 4 tables have already been setup by Full Tilt for Patrick Antonious and Dwan to finally play the challenge. No date has been set but clearly this much anticipated heads-up match will be played soon.

In the mean time Dwan sat down at two of Phil Ivey’s tables for a little Pot Limit Omaha and Mixed poker for 80 hands or so. According to reports Ivey started off with $83k and Dwan had $478k in his bankkroll. By the time the session was over Ivey had $386k and Durrr was down to $174k.

Lets take a look at one of the big hands:

I have compiled a list of approved tools and services for use with Pokerstars and put it into a Microsoft Word document. This will serve as a way for players to know if their particular tool of choice is in compliance with Pokerstars poker room.

Click here to download!

We read about it all the time and it is mind boggling to hear some of the tales. From Hevad Kahn to Phil Ivey to Tom Dwan multi-tabling is here to stay. The question is whether multi-tabling is for you. Simply put for online cash game players multi-tabling means that you are playing 2 or more tables at one time in order to maximize your profits. Multi-tabling is not for everyone and should not be tried without first having a good handle on your cash game. You are the only one that can be the judge of that. Here are some of the pros and cons of multi-tabling:

Pros:

• Maximize profits
• Win more money faster
• Reduces variance
• Minimizes boredom
• You can pick your competition and number of players (short-handed or full ring)
• Favors strong short-handed players

Cons

• Weak players will be eaten alive
• You must have a large enough bankroll to handle swings
• Fatigue can become a factor if you are not disciplined
• Buying in short dramatically decreases your profitability

Personally, I prefer to play cash games live. It’s just my preference. I am far from the typical hyper personality of many online players and exhibit the same patience as I do in tournaments even in cash games. I believe that is what makes me a strong player and have learned how to use my image to my advantage. However, that is not to say that multi-tabling is a bad idea as there are several very successful online players that swear by it.  Nothing says you have to play 5 tables at a time. Maybe 4 tables is optimum for you and your bankroll. Ultimately, you must do what works best for you.

Qualify for the WSOP at PokerStars.com. Sign up now!

HR3954 was originally introduced in 2007 by Gov. Deval Patrick to funnel money towards the casinos projects in his own state, Massachusetts, and enable the local resort projects to compete with the likes of Foxwoods and the Mohegan Sun casinos in Connecticut and Atlantic City respectively.

The problem with the bill is that Governor Patrick included wording in HR3954 that would have penalized online poker players with up to 2 years in jail and fines as high as $25,000 just for playing online poker. That makes absolutely no sense whatsoever unless you are getting paid money by lobbyist or receiving some part of the proceeds of such a ridiculous deal under the table. Why on earth would anyone care what you do in the privacy of your own home and then penalize you for it for no reason?

The good news is that HR3954 looks like it is going to be amended so that it no longer criminalizes online poker as other Senators have rallied against the bills hidden mantra against online poker players. This is yet another great example of the PPA being on top of its game and getting the information into the hands of legislators that can do something about it. Governor Deval Patrick should be ashamed of himself.

Recommended Resources

Qualify for the WSOP at PokerStars.com. Sign up now!

You may have noticed that I tend to play satellites quite a bit. They happen to be a very good way for savvy players to earn entries into larger buy-in tournaments. Whether you are playing online satellites or live satellites you are still employing the same basic strategy.

First, I like to play tight aggressive early on and let other players give me their chips. From my experience there are plenty of players that love the idea of racing off their chips in the early levels of these tournaments on coin flips with small and middle pairs. You can easily spot them and simply wait for a premium hand to call with. The early stages are when you can pick up a rather nice stack because once you have doubled up you can play many more un-raised pots to continue to build your stack.

Second, assuming you have done a good job of building a nice stack before the first break you are ready to get some battling chips for a run. By this I mean that typically satellites do not have super large fields. This means that the more skilled players are going to make it to the promised land a lot more often than most. However, getting there without having a stack to fight with does you no good. This is when I am looking for a confrontation with another big stack like myself to double up. That means I am going to likely gamble with flush draws and sometimes even open ended straight draws in attempts to get a monster stack. If I bust out it’s not a big deal to me. However, if I am sitting on a monster stack with 18 players to go then I have all options available in terms of how I want to play and I can afford to be selective.

Lastly, if you are lucky enough your monster stack may be just enough to coast into the seat without playing another hand. Obviously this is the preferred method of winning a satellite. But even if you have an average chip stack, depending on how may seats are to be won, you may be able to wait it out. It all depends but you have to play these kinds of poker tournaments to accumulate chips and lots of them as fast as possible. Pay attention to the player board along with the players at your table as usual to get an idea of where you stand and how aggressive you need to be. If you can do these few things you will have a great deal of satellite success which may ultimately put a truck load of money in your pocket in the big tournament.

It’s worked well for me.