Million Dollar Challenge on PokerStars!

For US and Canada players only!
You have a chance to win $1.000.000 on PokerStars for free. Register in one of the tournaments that are running to win an entry to the big pot.
Tournaments can be found under ‘Tourney’, ‘Regional’ button. Look for “FOX-PS Million Dollar Challenge”.
Top 10 finishers will be asked to submit an audition movie where 21 auditions will be selected to compete in the next stage.

A series of heads-up matches to win $25.000 against team PokerStars pro’s and celebrity poker players. Daniel Negreanu will be there to coach you and help you beating them all.
After this you can take home the $25k or go for a guaranteed $100.000 and a shot to the $1.000.000 main prize if you beat Daniel Negreanu.

Don’t have the PokerStars software installed? No problem, you can download it right here.

Good luck!!!

Playing sattelites

Since a couple of weeks PokerStars you can play some satellites for a regional championship here in Belgium, called ‘Pokerkampioen van Vlaanderen’ or ‘Pokerchamp of Flanders’ translated to English.

The first 20 in each day’s sattelite tournament will qualify to Sunday’s final, another satellite to the grand final held in October.
Yesterday was the 5th time I played in these daily satellites, but the first time I took the tournament serious like a real cash game. No more joking around and calling with crazy cards.

The first 5 or 6 hands I got were complete rubbish. I was folding them all. Then a few decent hands came by, like 10 J, 88, QK, 10 A. I only managed to win one pot with them, the pocket eight’s gave me trips on the turn.

With some minor hands after that, I actually won a few more pots, because the flop was always into my advantage. Within 4 hands time I won 2 pretty high pots. Once with 7 8 clubs, that made me a flush on the flop (J 2 K). I went all-in for about 1900 chips and got called by one guy, who hit two pair with his K J. So if no other King or Jack finds its way to the table, I was safe. It didn’t so I won the pot.
The second time with A8 off-suit I got a Full House on the flop (8 8 A) and slow played it. Another advantage I had in this hand was that I was on the small blind, so I could easily check and see what other players would do. In a 6-handed game and an Ace on the table, at least one player should make a bet. The 4th player in the game made a small bet, probably to see what others would do or letting us know he could have an ace. Then the button player made a re-raise. On my turn, I hesitated a bit and made the call. The players next to me all folded quickly and the initial raiser made the call also.
So what hands would they have? I was pretty sure one of them had the Ace (I’m guessing the first raiser) and one of them could have made trips with an 8, maybe the button-player? If that was the case, I was still way ahead. Only if a higher pocket pair than the 8’s on the table made trips, I would lose. Else the least I could have was a split pot with the last ace on the turn or the river.
The turn was a 4, nothing for me to get worried about, so checked again. Next player checked also and the button player didn’t wait to see the river and went all-in. So I was pretty sure he had the last 8 and was playing trips. But to do better than my Full House with the aces, I doubt it
Again I hesitated to call him, not giving away I have the possible best hand. For a second I thought about going all-in, but to get as much as possible out of the pot I just made the call, hoping the next player would call also.
Instead of calling, he went all-in. Could he have AA? That would beat my Full House. Or does he have the last 8? In my head, I played over his play again to be sure I wasn’t missing anything. In my eyes he couldn’t have pocket aces, so I made the call. It certainly would be very difficult to fold this one otherwise.
So my Full House AA 888, against A88 85 for the player next to me and A88 AK for the player on the button. Chances that I would lose are nil, only a split pot was still possible if the last ace hit’s the table. It didn’t and I tripled my chips, pushing me to the 18th place.

Then for the next hour, I kept on playing around the first 40the places with a minor setback after a bad call I made with AJ in my hands. I thought my pair of aces would be enough, but it could stand up against 2 pair. I lost 1/3 of my chips.
But with some good play and some bluffing every now and then, I always came back to the top 20.
Then player countdown started. 40 players left, 39, 38, … At the time only 8 players had to get busted I was playing on the 25th spot.

With big blinds, 35% of my pot and being the 2nd smallest stack at the table I had to be very careful what hands to play. No good hands came by and I folded everything. Then on the big blind I got K5 off-suit. 4 players called, 1 player went all-in. Of course I made the call as it would only cost me an extra 148 chips. Luckily I did. Flop made me trips with 55 J.
I went all-in instantly and got called by one guy who played for the flush, but also could spare some chips.
I showed my trips. With a Queen on the turn, a 2 on the river and none of them spades, I won the pot. Pushing me away from the last places.
The next hands I folded all, not wanting to take the risk and becoming the last player to drop out.
5 minutes later the sattelite tournament was over, I did manage to win one hand with my pocket Queens, but most importantly I qualified for Sunday’s weekly sattelite tournament final.

Now let’s see if I can get in the top 5 spot there and October’s final is very close then.

Final table strategy

The final table is what every poker player that enters a tournament wants to reach.
It’s hard work to get there, so whenever you do, you definitely don’t want to go out first. Especially if you know that the real money is in the top 3 places.

So whenever you’re at that precious final table, make sure you play your best poker of the whole tournament.

Depending on what stack you’re having, you’ll have to change your strategy, because you can’t just play anything with a low stack and high blinds. So when your low stacked, it’s probably best to go all in preflop whenever you have cards like AA, KK, QQ, JJ, 1010 and even 99. Also suited AK, AQ, AJ or non suited AK can be played like this. If you get called, you probably have the highest chance to win the pot. And if you do lose, well to bad, cards are unpredictable. But if you do win, you’ll double up and you’ll have another chance to play some more cards and finish higher. So key play here is very tight!

If you’re mid stacked, you can play a bit more hands than if your stack is low, but you’ll have to be careful whenever you play a hand. Especially against a player with a high stack. They tend to try and scare other players with making big bets, even if they don’t hold anything. So only call those bets if you’re more than 80% sure you can win it. Otherwise it isn’t worth the risk, you can start to play the low stack strategy again before you knew it.
On the other hand, if you’re playing a low stack, you can make some small bets to see how far he’ll follows. Mostly they fold after the flop if they don’t have the highest or 2nd pair. If they didn’t fold on the flop, try again on the turn, but make your bet a bit higher, make sure he won’t get the river card for free. If he still call’s this bet, he’ll probably have a better hand than you, so check on the river if you can as it could cost you more if you don’t.  Only make a bet here if you’re pretty sure you’re holding the best hand.

If you’re high stacked, I feel it’s probably best to first observe how your opponents are playing. Only play top hands at first and let them think you’re playing very tight. An advantage of observing is that some impatience players will go all in after a few hands and hopefully loose, making sure you’ll end up higher than the 9th place. Another strategy is to play against the low stacks. Make big bets, almost pushing them all in preflop. They only call with big hands. And if they don’t call, the blinds will shrink their stack play by play.
After you observed your opponents, you probably recognized their playing style and you can adjust yours to beat them. What I try to do is always stay in the top 3 stacks at the table. Don’t take too much risk, but do call a hand sometimes (if it doesn’t cost too much) even if you know you’re losing, just to know what they’re playing. You can use this info later in the game.
If you came to the river against a low stack, always go all in if you think you’ll have a 60% of winning. If they call and you win, it’s a player less to worry about. If they win, too bad, but it didn’t cost you much. If they don’t call, congratulations, you won another pot.
Playing against mid stack players after the river can be played like this also, but here you’ll probably be 90 to 95% sure you’ll win. This will cost you half your stack if you lose, and we don’t want that.

Before you’ll know it you’ll be playing heads up.

What about you, do you change your strategy once you’re at the final table?

Back in business

Yesterday I played my first online poker game since I’m back from Italy. That’s almost 3 weeks without playing poker.
It was a $1000 freeroll tournament on PokerStars. About 3500 players signed up, with 360 places paid.

At first I had some bad luck with the flops, holding KK and an Ace flopped. The guy who called my raise made a small bet. The player in front of me re-raised, so I had to throw my pocket Kings away as one of them was holding an ace. The showdown proved me right, both had aces and one of them 2 pair actually.

Sometime later I got QJ suited with QJA on the flop. On my turn I made a bet, about the size of half the pot, hoping someone has an Ace, but no K 10 or 9 10. Two players called. On the turn (5s) I made a pot size bet and my opponents folded gave up their chance to win a nice pot.

I was now playing in the 700 first places with about 2000 players left. I still had to be careful not to lose everything as there were plenty of big stacks at my table.
I then started folding poor hands one by one, the hands I played I usually won, so I was playing very tight. I had to, because the blinds where killing my stack. With the paid places in sight and in early position I folded QQ just to make sure I reached the 360. Again a wise decision, 3 people in the pot, AK suited, 77 and J10. Flop JJ3. Turn a K and on the river a 7 which made the pocket 7 guy a Full House.

In the meanwhile I saw that the player in play with the least amount of chips was 0, so I made it to the 360 paid spots. In my first tournament in 3 weeks time, immediately winning some cash, nice!

Just after that I finished on the 340th place, winning me 70 cents.
I could end up much higher if my pocket Queens (got them 2 times in a row, imagine that), but this time I went all-in, for about 2 times the big blind in total. 3 players called, one holding J9 suited. He won with two pair.

Today I played a $100 freeroll and again ended up in the money. 2300 Players in the tournament, me ending on the 135th place, earning me 13 cents. Not that much, but something

My $100 goal is coming closer and closer now.

Bankroll management

One of the important things you need to do is make sure you create your own bankroll management scheme and FOLLOW it!!!

After earning some cash in the freeroll tournaments I searched for some tips about how to control your bankroll without going broke.
Time after time I ended up with the tips from Chris Ferguson, a Poker Pro from Full Tilt who made $10.000 out of $0.

His rules are pretty simple:

1. Never buy into a cash game or SnG with more than 5% of your bankroll.

So if your bankroll is $50, your max buy-in is $2,5. If you loose 10 times, you still have $25 left.

2. Never buy into a multi table tournament with more than 2% of your bankroll.

Tournaments are tricky and you should be very careful with them. The problem is that the most money is in the Top 3 to 5 places. Finishing in the money isn’t an option as it will only earn you back the money you’ve put into it.
So a top 5 finish every 4 to 5 times you play a tournament is needed to stay playing tournaments.

That’s why you better don’t join tournaments that have a buy in more than 2% of your bankroll. ($50 bankroll = $1 buy-in)

3. If at any time in a no-limit or pot-limit game the money on the table represents more than 10% of your bankroll, leave the game when the blinds come to you.

Another thing on how to protect your bankroll is leave when you’re up. If at any given time your money on the table is more than 10% of your bankroll, LEAVE the table and collect your winnings.

Which cash games to play?
Some pro players say that you should be able to at least bet x-times the big blind before moving up a level.

This is something you have to decide for yourself.

When you’re playing the micro tables, 500 big blinds is enough to use as a multiplier.

Level 1: $0,01/$0,02 > Minimum bankroll needed = $10 ($0,02 x 500)
Level 2: $0,02/$0,05 > Minimum bankroll needed = $25
Level 3: $0,05/$0,10 > Minimum bankroll needed = $50
Level 4: $0,10/$0,25 > Minimum bankroll needed = $125

At the low tables, you can increase this number to play a bit more safer and allowing you to play more hands.
For example 600

Level 5: $0,25/$0,5 > Minimum bankroll needed =  $300
Level 6: $0,5/$1 > Minimum bankroll needed = $600

Medium tables
Level 7: $1/$2 > Minimum bankroll needed = $1200
Level 8: $2/$4 > Minimum bankroll needed = $2400

...

Currently I’m playing in Level 2 at the moment and I am just a bit more than $1 away from starting in Level 3.

Whenever your bankroll goes under the minimum amount needed you have to GO BACK to a level lower an build up your bankroll again.

Following these rules will guarantee you could become the next Chris Ferguson.