The Poker Blog

Full Tilt Poker are sponsoring Aussie Millions - the largest poker tournament in the Southern Hemisphere and YOU could be there, together with a friend in their $18,000 Prize Package!

The Aussie Millions Poker Championship is the premiere tournament series outside of North America.

Gaining popularity every year, the 2008 Aussie Millions Main Event promises to be the biggest yet. Be sure to check out how you can win an $18K prize package and the poker trip of a lifetime.

Register today and spend January with the pros in Australia.

Welcome to Australia
Travel in style with the pros

The $18K prize package includes round-trip airfare from Los Angeles to Melbourne with the pros for you and a friend. Once you’ve arrived, you will be taken via limo to the luxurious Crown Casino Resort. Situated in the heart of downtown Melbourne, this five-star resort offers breathtaking views of the city and easy access to Melbourne’s many amenities - including gourmet restaurants, world-class shopping, and a variety of exciting nightlife.

Hanging with the Pros

Spend time with your favorite members of Team Full Tilt as you and your guest explore the stunning city of Melbourne and its many attractions. Enjoy private golf outings at the Capital Golf Club - one of the most beautiful courses in Australia. Just make sure to watch out for kangaroos on the fairway!

Also on the schedule is a tour of Rochford Wines, one of Australia’s premium wineries, and an encounter with the native wildlife at the Melbourne Zoo. With so much fun on hand, we know this is an experience you’ll never forget.

Aussie After Dark

Take time away from the felt to hang with Team Full Tilt members as you go bowling, take a dinner cruise, and experience Melbourne’s dazzling nightlife. There will also be opening and closing receptions for the winners and their guests with all the pros. It’s time to party - Aussie style!

The full prize package is

• Aussie Millions Main Event entry worth AUD $10,500
• 10 nights stay at the luxurious Crown Casino Resort
• Round-trip airfare for the winner and a guest from Los Angeles to Melbourne
• $3,000 in spending money
• Winner & Pro golf outings, dinners, winery tours, seminars and a bounty tournament

By Tony Guerrera

Fullhanded poker games hands populated by loose players are pretty easy; pretty much, you sit around and wait for good hands. It’s quite possible to beat loose fullhanded games without being able to beat any other type of game.

What if such a game isn’t available? Or what if you’re looking for ways to make even more money? To thrive in tough games and extract more profits from easy games, you need to find betting patterns that will induce your opponents to fold when you don’t have a good hand.

Betting Pattern #1: Squeeze Out Preflop Limpers!

Many players who habitually limp preflop will fold to suitably sized preflop raises. If you still have a few players remaining to act behind you, making large raises with any two cards is suicidal. But if you’re on the button or in the blinds, you should think of making a large raise following a limp parade (large meaning slightly bigger than pot-sized).

Be cautious of tight, passive players because these players sometimes slowplay big hands, and don’t employ this raise every time. But use this play occasionally to take down some easy pots.

Betting Pattern #2: Abuse Postflop Checkers!

Players who flop good poker hands will sometimes check the flop, but they’ll rarely check both the flop and the turn. If you’re in late position, and your opponents check both the flop and the turn, consider betting with any two cards. Bet somewhere around 2/3 pot…a bet that they most likely won’t call with draws or speculative hands. (If your opponents will call even much larger bets with draws or speculative hands, then you should abandon this line of play).

This play is most successful from late position since you get information from the double check, but you can also run it from early position when a non-threatening card falls after everyone has checked the flop.

Betting Pattern #3: Takeaway From Straightforward Preflop Raisers

Some preflop raisers reliably check after missing the flop. Whenever such a player raises preflop, call with any two cards if you think you’ll be heads-up. If you’re out of position, check to him on the flop; if he checks behind, then bet the turn unless it’s a threatening-looking overcard. Meanwhile, if you’re in position, bet into him if he checks into you on the flop.
Summary

Many more stealing patterns exist, but what’s here will help you build a foundation for playing more insightful, creative poker. It’s tempting to abuse these lines of play, but if you use them too much, they will lose their effectiveness. The key, as always, is timing. When it comes to stealing pots, pretend you’re a snake in the grass. Lie in wait, and then strike. Then lie in wait some more before striking again.

Tony Guerrera is the author of Killer Poker By The Numbers. Visit him online at http://www.killerpokerbythenumbers.com

By Tony Guerrera

The bubble is that point in a tournament right before the money. In a large multitable tournament, the bubble might start 10-15 places before the money. In a small multitable tournament, the bubble might start somewhere around 5 places before the money. And in single table tournaments, the bubble is usually considered to be one place before the money, though bubble-like playing conditions typically begin when you’re two places away from the money.

Bubble-like playing conditions also occur at two other times: right before the final table of a multitable tournament and right before a big jump in payouts. The term “bubble-like playing conditions” is appropriate because play on the bubble is unique. By being aware of the unique playing dynamic, you’ll recognize prime opportunities to steal chips. And you’ll also recognize situations with normally playable cards and position where folding is best for your poker hands.

Bubble Dynamics

The driving force behind the bubble’s unique playing dynamic is that nobody wants to be eliminated on the bubble. For players with really short stacks, this makes a lot of sense. If a player is two or more double-ups away from being an average stack, his chances of taking a top pay spot are slim, meaning that it’s usually best simply to sneak into the money and take whatever payout he can. If a player is within two double-ups of having an average stack, accumulating chips should generally be a priority; however, players in this position also tend to avoid confrontations that will send them to the rail during bubble play.

The bottom line: players avoid skirmishes on the bubble. To take advantage: steal! At this point in the tournament, players’ stacks are such that raising to somewhere around 2.5 big blinds is usually sufficient enough to take pots uncontested preflop. Whenever short or medium stacks are the only players remaining behind you, raise provided that you have more chips than them (you need more chips since fear of elimination is where your increased fold equity comes from).

Don’t Invite Opponents to Resteal

You won’t be the only player aware of this changed dynamic. If you raise, and a very large stack is behind you, the large stack may reraise because he assumes that you’re most likely stealing and that you won’t want to risk being eliminated on the bubble. Medium stacks not concerned with simply sneaking into the money can pose this same problem.

In short, you should be looking to add chips to your stack on the bubble. However, if you’re not careful, it’s possible to squander valuable chips. In short: know the default bubble dynamic, know that your deeply stacked opponents know the default bubble dynamic, and look for short and medium stacks who deviate from the default dynamic.

Tony Guerrera is the author of Killer Poker By The Numbers. Visit him online at http://www.killerpokerbythenumbers.com

Europe’s largest poker tournament grows even bigger in 2008.

With an increased capacity, buy-in and guarantee, The Irish Open 2008 will be the greatest festival of poker on the planet!

• €3 Million Guaranteed Prize Pool
• €4,200 Buy-in + €300 Registration Fee
• 1,000 player capacity
• Dublin
• April 2008

Demand for tickets will be huge so book your seat early. Buy directly into the Main Event on our register page, or qualify online on paddypowerpoker.com.

Poker’s royalty turned out for the 2007 event including World Series of Poker Champions Dan Harrington and Carlos Mortensen, but in the end it was popular Northern Irish man Marty Smyth who reigned supreme.

Marty lifted the Terry Rogers trophy, taking home €650,000, after an epic heads up battle with Roland De Wolfe. Marty defeated a record breaking field of 708 players which also included Mike Sexton, Dave ‘Devilfish’ Ulliott, Andy Black, Padraig Parkinson, Scott Gray, Ram Vaswani, David Plastik, Eddie Scharf, Dave Masters, Surinder Sunar, Frank Cruess Callaghan, Ian Frazer, and both G.I. and Vegas versions of Elvis!

Get full details of The Irish Open 2008 at Paddy Power .

By Tony Guerrera

The Situation

A player I coach was recently involved in an instructional hand at the $1,000 buy-in ladies’ event at the The Bicycle Casino’s 2007 Legends of Poker. Her table had seven or eight players. UTG, an aggressive chip leader, raised to 4 big blinds. Action folded to my player, who held JJ in late position. When talking about this hand, my player mentioned to me that the raise to 4 big blinds was odd…whenever UTG raised, it was always to 5 big blinds. I won’t dismiss the possibility that UTG bet 4 big blinds accidentally; however, players who consistently raise to the same amount preflop tend to be very ritualistic. Something significant is happening when such a player raises to a different amount in his poker hands.

A fundamental law of reading players is the following: people tend to do things differently when they have big hands (to extract value) or when they are stone-cold bluffing (to minimize risk). UTG had a history of raising with a wide range of hands, meaning that she probably didn’t care about minimizing risk. Additionally, even generally aggressive players tend to raise with narrower distributions in early position. These two considerations alone mean that UTG had a monster hand. I would have put UTG on KK-AA (tossing QQ in the distribution would be debatable). UTG may as well have been playing her hand face up.

The Mistake

My player keenly noticed the different action…something most other players would miss. Furthermore, she’s a player who’s very capable of making a KK+ read and mucking hands like QQ and AK. In fact, she lost a very minimal amount of money when she had QQ vs. AA earlier in the tournament. Unfortunately, after many hours of play, my player was feeling fatigued.

After noting to herself that something fishy was amiss, she somehow rationalized to herself that the lower bet size was a sign of weakness instead of strength. She took her 15 big blind stack and shoved all-in with her JJ. Action folded to the UTG raiser who quickly called with her AA. My player didn’t win her 19 percenter, and she was sent to the rail in 22nd place in a tournament that paid the top 18 players.

The Lessons

1.) Consider your poker reads and your cards separately. Don’t tweak your reads to rationalize playing a pretty looking hand in a bad spot.

2.) If you’re a tournament player, you need endurance…your physical well-being is directly linked to your mental well-being. Make exercising regularly a habit, and make sure you bring sufficient amounts of food and fluids to the tables.

Tony Guerrera is the author of Killer Poker By The Numbers. Visit him online at http://www.killerpokerbythenumbers.com