Poker Web Watch / Dave Allan / 28 January 2009 /

I don't often write about poker on here. I'm not very good at poker and marginally worse at writing.

"If you are at all semi-serious about your poker then give him a read. Even a donk like me can be improved."

However I'll give it a go today as I've just had my biggest tournament pay day and I owe it most of it (not the money) to the writers on this site.

So, rather than this being a brag post (woooot $156 baby...shiiiiiipiiiit), I thought I'd point out some of the articles that have helped my poker progress and explain why.

My usual game is small ($5 or $10) buy-in freezeout tournaments on Betfair. The slow structure suits me as I can generally catch up on some work during the first hour of play - generally staying out of trouble and nursing my stack along. This technique works well and was something I picked up from the Marcus Bateman article about early stage MTT strategy - the article is relevant to both live and online play and is worth a read. One key change I made was being wary of playing AK early in tournaments and not overvaluing it, while a read of Surviving to the Antes certainly helped focus my attention and make me realise that it is nearly always a big mistake to ever be busting early to anything but bad beats and coolers early in a tournament.

Apart from the occasional bad play on my part or the inevitable coolers and bad beats, I'm pretty confident of reaching the closing stages of most of these Betfair tournaments but it is in the latter stages that my game has really improved.

One of the most important tactics I learned recently was from an article on this site about the re-steal. Previously, I had thought this was a tactic only to be used by players such as Sorel Mizzi, John Tabatabai and Annette Obrestad. It was fascinating identifying players 'on the rob' and re-raising with nothing but only a marginal holding.

One concept Marcus Bateman seems keen on/keeps on banging on about is being aggressive around the bubble and this is addressed in his pieces about laddering at mtt final tables as well as his piece about bubble play. Neither of these pieces are particularly ground-breaking but are well written, thoughtful, concise and very readable. If you are at all semi-serious about your poker then give him a read. Even a donk like me can be improved.

As a relative poker noob, there always seem to be concepts talked about that I never understand. Thankfully, the excellent Matthew Pitt has come to my rescue. Better known for his Pud's Poker blog, Matthew also writes some common sense articles which not only educate but also inform. Without his imput, I would be none the wiser about reducing variance, the importance of taking notes on players and lack any understanding about pot odds and why they are not as scary as they might seem.

However, the most important lesson I have learned from this site is about tilt and that advice came from Annette Obrestad in this seemingly innocuous blog post and with the important bit reproduced below.

"The variance can be devestating at times. I know a lot of players have big expecations when they for example win a satellite to play in the bigger buy in tourneys. But the odds of actually making the final table in those or even getting close are sooooooooo slim that your chances sucks no matter how good you are. You have to run like a god and play well to get there and it's a tough combination, because we can't control the cards, only what we do with them.

"Luck is involved and we all know it. Yet it ruins lives. Bad beats, bad calls, bluffs that won't work, resteals that go wrong, continuation bets constantly getting check raised when you miss are all parts of being on the wrong side of variance. Not just having the best hand hold up. Many fail to realize just this and end up just saying 'fuck it' and start making bad decisions because they think they have to get lucky sooner or later like everyone else seems to be doing.

If you are having problems with tilt I suggest taking a small break until you calm down or go to study your own game. Go through hands you think you misplayed. Could you have done something differently or were you just unlucky? Keeping your cool through the bad runs is what separates the good from the great players and I really cant stress it enough.. So next time ur having a bad day. Stop. And think. Before making your decisions!"

'.$sign_up['title'].'

'; } } ?>

:

:

:

?

: