Betfair Official Blog

My welcome to poker on Betfair

Although I am not obliged to, I have put my full bankroll onto the Betfair Poker site. There are two reasons for this. Firstly, it is easier for me to do a full write up of the games I play. The wider travelled readers amongst you will have known exactly where and what I was playing when I described an MTT as a 'small buy-in with 180 runners' and as Betfair are kind enough to let me blog here, I can hardly advertise tournaments on other sites, even by stealth!

The second reason is that although I have had a Betfair account for a while now, I have never really played on there. I mainly used my account for freerolls in magazines and to watch some of the high stakes action now and again. Also, being able to talk to a few people who work for Betfair, I like the direction Betfair is heading in and the plans they have.

So my withdrawal from another site came through and I deposited on Betfair with no problems and promptly sat at two NL10 6max games. The first thing that struck me is how quick the games are now. I think we were playing around 70-80 hands and hour which is a big improvement from the last time I played anything on here.

I also like how I can change the colours of the felt for different games so I know at a glance if I am in an MTT, SnG or ring game. Very handy for me as I like to play cash games and have an MTT running too.

Being able to centre the table view is convenient too, especially to someone like me who plays multiple tables at once, as you always know where you are placed on the screen. All the little things add up.

Oh and the standard of play is horrific! I do not think I saw anybody put in a raise other than all-in or a min-raise and they fold as soon as any draws come in. The players seemed very transparent, passive and calling stations that should make it very profitable if I adjust correctly.

One major gripe I have, and one I have forwarded to the support team is the fact you cannot reload during or at the end of a hand, you have to wait until the start of a new hand to do so then it reloads at the end of that one. This may seem trivial to some but I always like to be at least 100BB deep and I reload as soon as my stack is under that. It is not a problem if you have just paid the blinds as I will be sat with $9.85 but if I give up my hand after some action I could be sat with $6 and the next hand get AA and I cannot get the full value from my hand. Annoying.

Another thing is I think support should have flipped my boomswitch with me writing here! Within five hands, I flopped a set of twos and got my stack in against a shorty and he rivered a flush! I also played a $5.50 $800 guaranteed turbo with 198 runners. Third hand in I get Queens and raise it up from the SB. Flop comes T98r I c-bet and the villain calls. Turn is a three and I should check but fire again and once more villain flat calls. River is a seven, I give up and check, and villain checks behind with Th6h for a rivered straight! LMFAO! That put me on 735 chips and I never recovered, jamming Ac4c into AK and KK to bust in 135th. Great start!

Overall, I ended around a BI down from 200 hands but not to worry. I will not be keeping overly accurate records until the start of August as I want to get used to the software and players properly and I need to learn to multi-table without any software helping me. I forgot to mention, the in-game sounds are terrible. I wonder if I can replace the files with sounds from another site, does anyone know if that is possible?

So far so good. The positives far outweigh the negatives and I am looking forward to my Betfair career, LOL! If you see YorkyPuds at the table say hi, just do not take my chips or suck out on me or I will slag you off on here!

As always, thanks for reading and best of luck at the tables!

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