What To Do When You Reach The Final Table

Even though tournaments tend to get “loose” once the money bubble bursts, things tend to tighten up again as players approach the final table.  A lot of the pros will say that you should consider the late stages of the tournament as a “new and smaller” tournament and adjust your play accordingly.

Just as making the money is overvalued by many players, so is reaching the final table.  This means that players will tend to tighten up their games and become more susceptible to pressure applied by more aggressive opponents.  The best time to really step up the pressure on your opponents is when the multi-tabled tournament reaches about 15 players.  This is when the final table is fast approaching and is so tantalizing close!  Think about it!  There are just six players left that have to be eliminated before the remaining players take center stage.  And even more importantly, with just 15 or fewer players left, the remaining tables are short-handed, and this can be important for two reasons.  First, when the play becomes short-handed, you will start to see the blinds come around much faster and you can’t afford to sit back and wait for premium hands.  You need to play a wider range of starting hands to maintain your stack. Secondly, it is a fact that many of your opponents will naturally be tightening up their game at this point, so you need to begin to re-establish your ‘maniac’ table image which will help you when you do actually reach the final table.

Once the final table bursts, be prepared to tighten up your game again.  Just as many players loosen up their game after making the money, those players whose goal it was to make the final table will start to gamble again, especially if they are short-stacked.  This means you are going to want stronger hands when you decide to get involved in a pot.  You also need to remember that once you reach the final table, you are no longer short-handed, and the blinds will be coming around at a much slower pace, so you can afford to sit back and wait for those stronger hands, or even the speculative hands, if you are in position.

Remember that the loose aggressive image that you developed during the time of short-handed play just before the final table, will be working in your favor once you are playing a tighter game.  Because you were playing so aggressive just a short time earlier, your opponents will tend to over-play weaker hands against you because they won’t give you credit for having a good hand.



Who is Updating the Money Lists?!

Recently Erik Seidel moved up to 3^rd from 11^th on the Poker All-Time Money List after taking down the $250,000 buy-in Super High Roller’s Event at Aussie Millions.  After that happened, a debate erupted in regards to the validity of today’s current list.  The #1 source for tracking the all-time  money winners is Hendon Mob’s website and they’ve recently added three new lists to help better determine who really is on top.

The three new lists essentially filter out particular results based on certain criteria.  One list counts only the open events, regardless of the buy-in amount.  Another list excludes the events that are greater than $50,000, but counts non-open events.  The third new list excludes both non-open events and any event over $50K.  An open event is defined as an event that has no restrictions on entry.  Events such as Poker After Dark, Women’s Events and made for TV events will fall under this category.

As most of you may know, Daniel Negreanu is in the top spot for the original All-Time Money list.  On the new lists however, Negreanu tops the list that includes all events under $50,000 and the list for all open events under $50,000.  On the all-time list that includes all open events regardless of buy-in, Erik Seidel has taken over the top spot with $13.53 million where Negreanu trails with a meager $13.34 million.

We understand that these lists only track the gross proceeds from tournaments and do not factor in buy-ins, bust-outs, etc.  Some people feel that in order to really see who is making the most money in tournament poker, all of these particulars should be tracked.  In an effort to keep attracting new players with the promise of huge payouts in tournaments, the likelihood of that happening is pretty slim.  For instance, poker tournament officials probably do not want people to realize facts such as Bill Edler winning $2.7 million in 2007, a big fat zero for 2008 and has won only $42K since.

But the lists just keep on coming and we keep on reading them.

Playing Poker Professionally

I’ve been reading so much about poker lately and finally had to ask myself, “Why would anyone want to become a professional poker player?  I know so many people that envy the life of the professional poker player, and why not?  Who wouldn’t want to set their own hours, play a game they love for a living, and if they want, travel around the world playing in high-stakes tournaments?

There is no Poker Pro College that poker players graduate from and even players who lose money playing poker will tell you that they have turned professional for one of two reasons:  they can make more money playing poker that they could at any other job, or they simply enjoy the poker lifestyle so much that they will take losing over winning just to be a part of it.  Only a small percentage of players will view poker-playing as a career for life.  I suppose you could get lucky and win enough at a tournament, something like the main event at the WSOP, but consider your odds and then consider buying a lottery ticket.  I’m talking about becoming the type of player that you can actually make a solid living at it and that is not so easy to do.

Generally speaking a player would have to log in over 500 hours of poker to come up with some type of measure to consider their hourly rate.  There are plenty of websites out there with tools that will help you figure out what you are actually making when you are playing.  A solid poker professional will be able to figure out how to use poker to maximize their income, and poker pros understand and accept that their bread and butter is based on skill, the size of their bankroll, guts and luck.

It’s not always fun and games though. If you are playing online at home, there is no human interaction and poker can become very monotonous very quickly.  Since a poker professional is primarily interested in making money, he will probably concentrate on the one game that provides his highest hourly rate.  This can become very boring, very fast.  Also, and this is probably the most important thing to consider, poker can have a highly variable income.  Based on my own data, my standard deviation per hour is 6 times my hourly rate.  What this basically means is that if I made a $100 an hour, there is about a 68% chance that in any one hour I’d make between $500 and $700.  And if the odds change and the luck drifts out the window, I could make much less than that, but I have to be able to cover myself.
What a true professional worries about is not the luck of the cards but the changes in the poker market. Professionals need to play against poor players, the fishes. If a pro is playing against a bunch of pros, then very little money might be made.  But luckily, (no pun intended) there are more online sites offering brilliant bonuses and the virtual casino is so lifelike, that you really feel as if you are in a real brick and mortar casino.

It is probably a good thing for poker professionals that being a full-time poker player is not too appealing of a job. If many people became pros, then the competition would be too tough to make much money at poker!

Some Great Online Poker Tips from Nigel Goldman

I’ve read quite a few books about online poker and one of my favorites is Nigel Goldman’s “Make a Million from Online Poker”.  Just a short little hand guide really, but it helped me learn the basics of playing online poker in a very short amount of time.  In the book Mr. Goldman list’s his top 15 tips for playing great online poker and I thought I would post them for you, the player who wants to play like a champion!

1. Only risk 10% of your bankroll in any one game.

2. Never play when drunk or tired. (Why do you think Vegas casinos serve free drinks to their punters?)

3. Insure you are always comfortable by investing in a decent size monitor and wireless technology.

4. Consider a bogus identity.

5. Create false alliances with other players.

6. Play two or more games at once; the bulk of your hands in any game will be poor, so this gives you more action and a better chance of hitting decent cards.

7. Watch out for instant action from other players – it probably indicates that they are using pre-select buttons.

8. Most online players [especially in low-stakes games] are bad players, so there is no need to play too fancy.

9. Don’t let other players bully you into playing or making decision faster than you need to.  Ignore “zzzzzzz” comments in the chatbox if you are legitimately thinking through a hand.

10. Look out for value satellite competitions – many large prizes are won by online qualifiers.

11. Ensure that any credit card you have logged on with to play is up to date.

12. Enroll with an online financial service agency such as NetTeller to help you process big wins.

13. Take a break, especially after a big win or heavy loss.  Don’t be shy about sitting out for a few minutes.

14. Remember, good players do most of their gambling on the flop.

15. Most of your profit will come from making the most obvious correct moves.

An ‘All In’ Strategy and a Short Stack

If you ever play tournament poker, you are more than likely to find yourself short-stacked at some point or another.  That is, unless you win every tournament you play, or have a habit of busting out when you still have a lot of chips.  So, if that’s you, please move along to another article.  For the 99.9% of you who will play short-stacked at some point or another, here is just one ‘all-in’ strategy on wielding a short stack in a No-Limit Hold’em tournament.

When I first started playing tournaments, I had a very basic short-stack strategy—when I had less than ten times the big blind, I only had one move: all-in when I was the first one in the pot.  The idea here is to try to steal the blinds.  Depending on how short-stacked you are, you can be more or less selective with the types of hands that you try to steal with.  For example, with 8 times the big blind, you might wait for any ace or pair (or even KQ), but with 4 times the big blind, you might want to go all-in on your first chance to be the first one in the pot, with any cards.

In general, the more chips you have, the more you want to play your cards and the shorter your stack, the more you want to look for the right opportunities to go all-in.  Of course, if you have a premium hand (AK or pocket Jacks or better), then you may want to go all-in even if someone has come in before you, but if there is significant action before the action gets to you, then you may still want to stay out of trouble. This is a good strategy for the newbie tournament player, but for more advanced play, I wouldn’t recommend restricting yourself to this one play unless you have less than six times the big blind.

Of course, everyone has their own strategy for going all-in, and this is just one of them!