Blog - January 2007
New Poker Book Reviews from PTP
January 28th, 2007
New additions to the review section this week on PartTimePoker - Sit and Go Pro and zen and The Art of Poker.
First off, Kef gives Sit and Go Pro the almost-thumbs-up in his review:
Sit & Go Pro [http://www.sitngopro.com/] includes a 41-page general handbook, a one-page hand selection chart, a 15-minute MP3, and three videos (divided further into parts) that total about an hour and 22 minutes long. There are also some extras available. As the name suggests, the package focuses on no-limit hold’em sit & gos, with no coverage at all of other forms of poker. Both longhanded and shorthanded games are discussed, but the videos concentrate on the shorthanded tournaments.
The book
The book is a PDF file, which is a decent format, though HTML would be better for on-screen viewing. All things considered, the book is really short. The advice is pretty basic up until about halfway through the book, with a lot of well-known advice on observing your opponents and on starting hand selection. The rest of the book contains more basics, but some of the advice seems more interesting to me. As one might expect, there are few hand examples, although that will be more than made up for by the videos
Read it!
Next, get the scoop on Larry Phillip’s popular book zen and the Art of Poker. Review excerpt:
To be honest, I had never heard of the author Larry W Phillips, but since I was recommended his book I thought I’ll give it a chance, and to my joy it was great reading. Larry W Phillips claims to be “a longtime poker player” but the only tournament result shown for Mr. Phillips in the book was a second place finish in the 1997 Wisconsin State Poker Tournament. Not much I admit but nevertheless, good advice and useful knowledge can be found in his book. He has also written a book about TAO OF POKER, which I’m looking forward to reading.
Overview
————
This is probably the most unusual poker book that I have ever read. What Mr. Phillips has attempted to do is to apply general zen philosophy and wisdom to poker (note that zen is spelled lower-case, because in zen there is no room for ego.) But how is this possible I ask myself? Zen is about achieving enlightenment by focusing your consciousness.
Whole thing here.
That’s it for us this week - hope you enjoy and we’ll see you around.
New Poker Strategy Articles at Part Time Poker
January 21st, 2007
Two new additions this week.
First, file under Poker Psychology - I posted a new article entitled Poker and Your Significant Other. It’s about exactly what it sounds like it’s about. Taste:
Hobbies are great for killing two things: time and relationships. No matter how innocuous a hobby might seem at first, you can be sure that somewhere within those instructions for constructing a ship-in-a-bottle lurks a potential pitfall for you and your significant other. Some hobbies present more of a threat than others: golf, for example, has certainly unanchored more than a few relationships that otherwise might have worked out just fine, but if you find yourself screaming yourself hoarse over your girlfriend’s crocheting obsession, it’s likely that you all were just waiting for any reason to call it quits. Unfortunately for those of you reading this article, our shared hobby - poker - has a lot more in common with the former than the latter.
What is it about poker that makes it such a real threat to the stability of an otherwise healthy relationship? Answering that question is a task that might be better completed by a small book than a single paragraph, but here’s a summary of the major issues in play. First, poker for many people occupies a strange middle ground between job and hobby. Since you can make (and lose) money playing poker, it can’t quite be treated as a regular hobby, but it also doesn’t have the schedule and guaranteed income typical of most forms of employment. This fact makes conversations about poker potentially difficult, as you and your significant other can have wildly different estimates of the importance of playing poker. The volatile nature of poker further complicates the role it plays in your relationship. All hobbies have the potential to impact you emotionally, but the variance inherent to poker makes it generally more stressful for you (and your partner) than, say, woodworking. Last, but certainly not least, there’s the lingering social stigma attached to poker that can create a completely new pressure on your relationship, both from internal and external sources.
Whole thing!
Second, a handy bit for newer players - a clear primer on Value Betting in No Limit Holdem. A sip:
What is a Value Bet?
A value bet is a bet that you make when you believe you have the best hand and would like to be called. Although occasionally players like to overbet with a strong hand in order that their play be perceived as a bluff, there are many cases where the best way to extract chips is to make a bet small enough that the opponent feels compelled to call, due to the size of the pot relative to the amount of the bet and the likelihood that the bet is a bluff or representing a weaker hand.
Value Betting in No Limit Holdem vs. Limit Holdem
In many types of poker betting, the no limit Texas Holdem player has an advantage in that they have complete control over the size of the bet. Value betting is an exception. Value bets in limit holdem are very hard for opponents not to pay off. The size of the bet is fixed, so it could represent anything, and opponents are almost always getting the correct odds to call on the off chance you may be bluffing. In no limit holdem, part of your skill will be deciding how much you can get away with betting for value. If you bet too much, you may lose your opponent, which will cost you money. Similarly, if you don’t bet enough, you are costing yourself chips that you should have won, which is just as bad as losing chips that you should not lose.
Read it!
Have a good one
Chris
January 14th - What’s new on PTP
New this week - an article from John and a review of HighStakesReport.com
First, the review of High Stakes Report. HSR is a poker blog that covers the big money games on Full Tilt. Here’s an excerpt:
You get to-the-point, info-laden write ups of the biggest games running online - games that regularly feature Phil Ivey, Matusow, and a host of other Full Tilt pros. There’s no editorializing or over-analysis of the play, just a nice, clean report of what went on, who won what, and what the big hands of the night were. It’s a great way to get a quick peek into a part of the poker world most of us will never visit.
Read it!
Heeeeeeeeeeeeeere’s Johnny! Mr. Darr is back with another dispatch from the world of a full time middle stakes poker pro, entitled When the River is a Formality:
Sitting on the rail, some no limit games appear to be gold mines. Six or more people see every flop. A lot of preflop raises that build massive pots. Handfuls of cold callers, over callers and over bets. Ridiculous stacks, marginal hands and so many suck outs it would make the Las Vegas Porn Convention blush. (Writer’s note: that convention, shortly after New Years and lasting less than one week, assures a player great action both on the tables as well as off ; )
These games can make a great night a good month. But little do most players know, the chip-slinging free-for-alls can be deadly to even a properly rolled professional (proper roll being a minimum of 20 buy-ins in a no limit game).
How’s that? It seems contradictory that a game with large pots and loose action could be bad for your roll. Consider these two points:
1) These games are rare and your roll is based on a less aggressive, less crazy game.
2) If you’re 75% to win a hand on the flop, you’re going to lose 25% of the time.
The second point is the one to consider first. If the game is as good as described above, you’re probably getting a lot of money in against one or two opponents and you’re often very right to do so. Frequently, you’ll be all-in or close to it and hopefully a favorite. However, your roll requirements are based on a smaller-pot style of game but that’s NOT what you’re playing. Typically, when you flop a set or some monster, you’re going to invest a decent amount of your money, but rarely your whole stack. Your hourly rate goes up in games like this, but so does your variance…
The whole shebang
Like rakeback? Deals on Full Tilt Rakeback, Prima Rakeback, Ongame Rakeback.
Chris
Part Time Poker, January 7th 2007
January 6th, 2007
With our first official update of the new year, we’re happy to present two solid additions to team PTP. First a shortee and then a not-so-shortee.
I lied. First a plug, then a shortee, and then a not-so-shortee.
Plug: Check out our Poker Quiz page at www.DailyHandQuiz.com. New quiz ever weekday.
Shortee: The Freeroll King is back, and you get just what you’d expect from a guy who coined the term ‘the super nuts.’ This time he’s offering more of his unique style of poker in the form of vocabulary - check out our newest humor article ‘Speakin’ the King’s English: The Freeroll King’s Guide to Poker Lingo‘. A bit:
Speakin’ the King’s English doesn’t mean calling people “thee” and shit. It’s like, this whole new language I made up, and when you speak it, people instantly respect it. I don’t know if this will work the same way for you, because you might be a “poser” [that’s KING for faker] and people like everything that comes out of my mouth anyway, so I could be all like “Donut likes Purple” or some gibberish and everyone listens up. Anyhow, don’t get your hopes up, but here’s a little pocket guide to speakin’ like a KING.
Poser - A faker, like I said up there. If you didn’t remember that, you’re a poser.
Fuck Yeah - KING slang for when something goes right. Like if you have 99 vs AA and you get all all in and river a 9, you say “Fuck Yeah” instead of saying “Hey, I hit a set which gives me the best hand, so I win the pot, which makes me happy.”
The Super Nuts - This is when you have a hand that is better than the nuts. So, if the board is 6 7 8 10 A, someone with 5 9 has the nuts and someone with 9 J has the “super nuts”
That crazy meathead.
The not-so-shortee: A fairly long-form article on Dealing with the Emotional Impacts of Bad Runs. The title pretty much says it, but here’s an excerpt just to be safe:
Bad runs are sort of like the in-laws of your poker experience. You know they’re inevitably going to show up, even if you aren’t always sure when or why, you know that no matter how hard you try, there’s nothing you can really do to make the experience any better, and, worst of all, once they’re around, there’s absolutely no telling when they’re going to leave.
I’m not going to pretend that I can improve your relationship with your actual in-laws, but I can provide a few words of wisdom for dealing with their poker equivalent. Bad runs are a fact of life for every poker player, and the good news is that they’re an equal-opportunity offender. Put simply: everyone gets the same luck. The bad news is that while we all experience the same amount of bad runs (in a purely objective sense), the choices you make about dealing with those stretches of misfortune play a huge role in determining the impact bad luck has on your attitude, your game, and - inevitably - your bottom line.
So where does that leave us? Well, if we know that bad runs are inevitable, and if we also know that there are choices you can make about how you deal with bad runs, it stands to reason that handling bad runs properly is a skill that not only can be developed, but must be developed if you’re to be a successful poker player. Finally, we can assume that since bad runs have the potential to inflict a strong, focused emotional impact on you as a player, our development of a coping strategy would be best built upon a foundation of rationality and long-term perspective.
Whole thing here
Over and out
