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Saturday 17 December 2011

The Alan Jones Memorial Shield

Sport has always been a passion of mine. Whether it's Motorsport, Horse Racing, Football or other I'm there! I rank poker up there with one of the great 'Mind Sports' where mental focus and agility is key to success.

Success in Sport brings fortune and fame to the elite, but to the ordinary everyday Clubman, winning a trophy means everything. I'm delighted to introduce to the world of poker the 'Alan Jones Memorial Shield'.

Alan was born on the 21st November 2002 and passed away the same day. He was my first boy. At the time I was a huge fan of Motorsport and I still am. I always said that I would call my first boy Alan, after Alan Jones the racing driver. The only Jones to win the Formula One World Championship. So you see, to me my boys a champion, my No. 1!

The Tournament was open to all the members of pokerschoolonline.com It's in the format of a knock-out championship and 24 entered for the event. The prize on offer is to have your name inscribed on the inaugural Shield in memory of Alan, nothing more, nothing less.


The owner of my local poker club will kindly allow me to put the Shield on display in the club's trophy cabinet. I will keep this blog updated regularly with news of how the event is unfolding. Best of luck to all who are taking part, it's very much appreciated.


Raiser

And the winner is...........


Grade b


4/3/12 - The final was played out on March 4th between two very worthy finalists, Grade b and JWK24.
In the end it was Grade b who came out the eventual winner and will have his name inscribed on the trophy.
I'll post up a photo of it here when it's ready!


Tuesday 13 December 2011

101 Winning Moves for Tournament Poker


By Mitchell Cogert 
Taken from the Website apokerexpert.com

Do You Want to Win Your Next Poker Tournament?

It is a silly question but the fact is that you can win your next poker tournament. I won my local Sunday tournament and turned it into over $100,000 at the 2011 World Series of Poker Main Event!

What you are missing is the knowledge that the top poker pros know. For example, what is the best way to play pocket Jacks? When do you know when your opponent is weak? What is the best way to bluff an opponent off his hand?

Tournament Poker: 101 Winning Moves combines moves found in almost 20 years worth of poker materials with plays uncovered in heads-up battles against Daniel Negreanu, Erick Lindgren, David Pham and other top pros.

Tournament Poker: 101 Winning Moves has one hundred and one expert plays for no limit poker tournaments, tips on how to improve your hand reading ability, the truth about tells, and much more.

It's time to change your approach to no limit poker tournaments. Tournament Poker: 101 Winning Moves will show you a new way to think about poker that will turn you into a better player. A player who not only cashes more often, but will actually win.

Regards,

Mitchell Cogert



Testimony by TheRoyalRaiser

In the first week of getting my hands on a copy of Mitchell's book I've read it from cover to cover twice. Already it's made a big impact on game, most noticeably in my regular Friday night home game. I picked up some moves from the book that I decided to try out and they worked a treat. 

I think a few of the regular players were surprised to see me play a slightly different, more risky style of poker. Not a wild reckless kind of risk, but an educated risk when the time was right. I certainly enjoyed playing a more aggressive style of Poker. Remember Mitchell's Mantra 'Risk Is Good'.

royalraise85
(PSO Team Member)


Friday 9 December 2011

The December Micro Grind

Around the end of November my poker coach Chris Foster (19honu62) sent me a link to a blog he wrote a while back. In the blog he mentioned the S.M.A.R.T acronym which was devised by the highly inspiring motivational speaker Stephen Covey.


I came across this before in business studies but it was only when I read Cowboy's blog (aka Chris) that I realised that it makes perfect sense to apply this to bankroll building in Poker. The acronym stands for the following:


Specific

Measurable

Attainable

Reasonable

Time Sensitive


I set about at the beginning of December putting together a plan outlining what I hope to achieve during the month. So, what would I like to achieve? Well, for starters I'd like to build up by bankroll, that's always nice. I'd also like to improve my multi-table play ability. Could I achieve Silverstar status on Pokerstars? Let's throw it in the mix and see what happens, we are going to re-evaluate weekly.


For this challenge I'm going to set aside a starting balance of $20. While I always keep a record of my challenges using an Excel spreadsheet it should be easier this time as I've taken up the kind offer of a free trial of PokerPro poker tracker. One thing for certain, it will definitely be more detailed and I hope to be able to include a few nice graphs and photos in the updates.


So here it is, my cash challenge for December:


To increase a Starting Balance of $20 to $50 and achieve Silverstar status while improving my multi-table game.

Starting Balance - $20

Specific - Yes, target is $50 plus 750 VPP's.

Measurable - Yes, I'll use Excel & PokerPro to record my profit/loss and the Cashier to keep tabs on my vpp's.

Attainable - Yes, I plan to put in some solid hours of multi-table play.

Reasonable - Yes, I attained 150+ vpp's easily in November.

Time Sensitive - Yes, I hope achieve this by December 31st

I'll be moving up the stakes in levels as follows:

$20 - $30 - 1/2c
$30 - $40 - 2/5c
$40 - $50 - 5/10c

Wish me Luck!

Update #1

Well, I didn't get off to the blinding start that I had hoped for. The first few days were solid and I made a small incline. Basically I played very tight poker but unfortunately too passive. What happened next was that I tried to make up ground too fast and played poor starting hands out of position. This is something that's not in my character or ability to do and it showed on the results. I took a downward hit on the bankroll.


Click to Enlarge


The last few days I've began to make progress again and I'm confident that by the end of the month I will make a profit. So, lets evaluate!

Starting Balance - $20 
Current Balance - $12.57 (-7.43)


Click to Enlarge


Can I hit $50 by the end of the month? Yes, I still believe this achievable.


Have I improved by multi-table play? Yes, I'm comfortable on 4 tables and hope to increase this to six by next week.


Will I reach Silverstar status on Pokerstars by December 31st? No, at the time of writing this I have a total of 38.96 VPP's. That's an average of 4.75 VPP's per day and at that rate I'd only accumulate 147.75 points for the month. Not near the 750 required for Silverstar, I'll leave that challenge for a later date!


I'm going to keep grinding, it's a fun ride! I'll update again in a week!



Update #2

Well, the month of December has come to an end and I've fallen way short here.

I finished the month with a closing balance of $25.52 with is up $5.52 from my Starting Balance of $20. It is however, no where near the $50 target I was hoping to achieve.

The highlight of the challenge however is that I quickiy adapted to multi-table play and i'm now quite comfortable playing 4-6 tables at a time.

I hope to continue with a similar challenge which you can follow in the January Micro Grind blog coming soon. I'll be taking on the NLHE course at PSO while doing this. In the first section they talk about good bankroll management! Watch this space!



Read more: The December Micro Grind (royalraise85) – Poker School Online: Learn Poker Strategy, Odds and Tells http://www.pokerschoolonline.com/blogs/post/?id=20878&preview=true#ixzz1icO00fRD


Raiser!

Tuesday 6 December 2011

Pre-Release - Unleash Your Hidden Poker Memory





Unleash Your Hidden Poker Memory
How to Win at Texas Hold-em by Turning your Brain into a Poker Tracking Machine


Preview by Bennet Onika


                Every so often a poker book gets written that completely changes the way we play the game.  Like Super System, The Theory of Poker, and Harrington on Hold-em, Unleash Your Hidden Poker Memory will change the live game of poker.


               Although the book does have some strategy, the main focus is on unlocking your brain’s existing ability to recall information on your players. Phil Hellmuth Jr. has said that the way you win tournaments is not by getting great hands and being paid off, although that helps. Where you get the most chips in tournaments is on the tough decisions where you know you are ahead or behind by a marginal amount. Unleash Your Hidden Poker Memory gives you the tools to train your brain to remember a vastly superior amount of information when compared to a player who is untrained. Even the big name professional poker players if untrained are at a major disadvantage to you if you are trained and know the game of poker. Hence if you are in the trenches for chips and if you can remember just one extra piece of information to make you fold or call, it makes the difference in the long run for a tournament and will put you in a position to win.


               Unleash Your Hidden Poker Memory uses common memory techniques that have been written about by memory experts such as Harry Lorayne in the real world, and combines them with the poker tracking statistical analysis of the online world. The result was the creation of the world’s first most powerful and revolutionary poker memory system ever created. Harry Lorayne has proven time and time again that people with admitted average memories can improve their recall by an incredible amount. 


                Poker tracking software was invented not long after the first poker website was created. Initially used for multi-table players, poker tracking software kept track of VPIP, Cbet % just about any statistic you wanted to keep track of. Until today, no one thought you could use VPIP outside of the online world. The average memory retains 7 different pieces of information for 30 seconds making live tracking impossible for the average untrained memory. The systems in this book allow you to train yourself to be able to be a human poker tracking machine.
              

 In the book you will learn how to memorize:

-         All 169 starting hole cards in hold-em in order of rank for a full table and Heads up


-         A system to derive your exact mathematical win rate within 2% of your 2 cards vs any 2 random hole cards



-         a shuffled deck in sequence



-         which cards have been played in other games such as bridge gin rummy and stud



-         and accurately keep track of a full table of players’ VPIP



-         and keep track of CBet % of all players



-         and keep track of a list of players exposed hole cards in the position they played them in



-         and easily get VPIP %



-         hand ranges IE 30% VPIP = Top 51 hands = AA-66, Any suited ace, Any suited 8 or higher from king to 9, and any unsuited 10 or higher



-         any bluffs or other information from any other text you want to remember for a live game



You can follow me on Twitter and Facebook under Bennett Onika. I will try to answer all questions my readers have once the book is released. Until then I will be putting hints as to how I use some of the systems over Twitter.



The edge a player would have if properly trained to do even 3 of the above items would be enormous. The book is scheduled to be released in April 2012, and is available for pre-order. Give yourself the ultimate edge in poker and in other areas of your life, give yourself the power of an awakened powerful recall and order today.

- Bennett










Pokerstars Cowboys Challenge December



Challenge Completed!

Starting Balance - $6.25
Closing Balance - $11.24
Profit - $4.99

I didn't manage to double my starting balance so I've failed the December Challenge. I did manage to make a profit though so overall I'm happy with the results. Roll on the January Challenge!

Raiser.


Here I'm going to keep track of my pokerschoolonline.com Cowboy Challenge results for the month of December.

The idea is to play a total of one-hundred $0.25c 45-man Sit n' Goes and double my starting balance at the end.

Starting balance is set at 25 buy-ins or in other words $6.25 USD.

Target $12.50 plus. 

Here is a quick graph of my results so far.


Click To Enlarge


Greens are cashes.
#1
02/12/11
477536183
17/45
0.25
0
6
#2
02/12/11
477537579
19/45
0.25
0
5.75
#3
02/12/11
477528851
40/45
0.25
0
5.50
#4
02/12/11
477515169
16/45
0.25
0
5.25
#5
04/12/11
478550286
1/45
0.25
3.23
8.23
#6
04/12/11
478552283
24/45
0.25
0
7.98
#7
06/12/11
479528523
1/45
0.25
3.23
10.96
#8
06/12/11
479505323
4/45
0.25
1.29
12.00
#9
06/12/11
479504217
32/45
0.25
0
11.75
#10
07/12/11
480465472
22/45
0.25
0
11.50
#11
07/12/11
480443749
14/45
0.25
0
11.25
#12
07/12/11
480442734
14/45
0.25
0
11.00
#13
07/12/11
480441976
19/45
0.25
0
10.75
#14
08/12/11
480683923
4/45
0.25
1.29
11.79
#15
08/12/11
480686259
11/45
0.25
0
11.54
#16
08/12/11
480685384
12/45
0.25
0
11.29
#17
09/12/11
480984383
19/45
0.25
0
11.04
#18
09/12/11
480983102
32/45
0.25
0
10.79
#19
09/12/11
480985296
39/45
0.25
0
10.54
#20
11/12/11
482294449
5/45
0.25
0.93
11.22
#21
11/12/11
482296321
4/45
0.25
1.29
12.26
#22
11/12/11
482297162
19/45
0.25
0
12.01
#23
11/12/11
482295713
18/45
0.25
0
11.76
#24
12/12/11
482683116
5/45
0.25
0.93
12.44
#25
12/12/11
482685921
5/45
0.25
0.93
13.12
#26
12/12/11
482682265
19/45
0.25
0
12.87
#27
12/12/11
482688080
25/45
0.25
0
12.62
#28
12/12/11
482686816
28/45
0.25
0
12.37
#29
12/12/11
482685041
34/45
0.25
0
12.12
#30
12/12/11
482683996
41/45
0.25
0
11.87
#31
14/12/11
483558692
12/45
0.25
0
11.62
#32
14/12/11
483555789
8/45
0.25
0
11.37
#33
14/12/11
483559508
14/45
0.25
0
11.12
#34
14/12/11
483543992
4/45
0.25
1.29
12.16
#35
14/12/11
483529835
4/45
0.25
1.29
13.20
#36
14/12/11
483525600
5/45
0.25
0.93
13.88
#37
14/12/11
483526590
7/45
0.25
0.36
13.99
#38
14/12/11
483524476
9/45
0.25
0
13.74
#39
14/12/11
483541020
29/45
0.25
0
13.49
#40
14/12/11
483522948
15/45
0.25
0
13.24
#41
14/12/11
483537094
36/45
0.25
0
12.99
#42
14/12/11
483527790
35/45
0.25
0
12.74
#43
15/12/11
4844462444
2/45
0.25
2.22
14.71
#44
15/12/11
484453547
10/45
0.25
0
14.46
#45
15/12/11
484423531
3/45
0.25
1.70
15.91
#46
15/12/11
484451069
19/45
0.25
0
15.66
#47
15/12/11
484460026
24/45
0.25
0
15.41
#48
15/12/11
484412872
9/45
0.25
0
15.16
#49
15/12/11
484451833
35/45
0.25
0
14.91
#50
15/12/11
484454491
43/45
0.25
0
14.66
#51
15/12/11
484414615
34/45
0.25
0
14.41
#52
15/12/11
484411994
30/45
0.25
0
14.16
#53
17/12/11
485443519
7/45
0.25
0.36
14.27
#54
17/12/11
485444187
10/45
0.25
0
14.02
#55
17/12/11
485441740
12/45
0.25
0
13.77
#56
17/12/11
485442698
17/45
0.25
0
13.52
#57
17/12/11
485440339
20/45
0.25
0
13.27
#58
17/12/11
485444881
35/45
0.25
0
13.02
#59
22/12/11
487724266
5/45
0.25
0.93
13.70
#60
22/12/11
487723162
5/45
0.25
0.93
14.38
#61
22/12/11
487724947
11/45
0.25
0
14.13
#62
22/12/11
487726167
25/45
0.25
0
13.88
#63
22/12/11
487685079
2/45
0.25
2.22
15.85
#64
22/12/11
487687441
15/45
0.25
0
15.60
#65
22/12/11
487686268
15/45
0.25
0
15.35
#66
22/12/11
487688170
20/45
0.25
0
15.10
#67
28/12/11
490733954
8/45
0.25
0
14.85
#68
28/12/11
490735971
7/45
0.25
0.36
14.96
#69
28/12/11
490734950
15/45
0.25
0
14.71
#70
28/12/11
490733095
13/45
0.25
0
14.46
#71
28/12/11
490767621
4/45
0.25
1.29
15.50
#72
28/12/11
490773204
21/45
0.25
0
15.25
#73
28/12/11
490750370
7/45
0.25
0.36
15.36
#74
28/12/11
490756208
11/45
0.25
0
15.11
#75
28/12/11
490950263
19/45
0.25
0
14.86
#76
28/12/11
490951885
25/45
0.25
0
14.61
#77
28/12/11
490950981
31/45
0.25
0
14.36
#78
28/12/11
490948400
32/45
0.25
0
14.11
#79
28/12/11
490949440
4/45
0.25
1.29
15.15
#80
28/12/11
490952341
10/45
0.25
0
14.90
#81
31/12/11
492501480
16/45
0.25
0
14.65
#82
31/12/11
492499489
16/45
0.25
0
14.40
#83
31/12/11
492503050
28/45
0.25
0
14.15
#84
31/12/11
492505674
41/45
0.25
0
13.90
#85
31/12/11
492502314
7/45
0.25
0.36
14.01
#86
31/12/11
492500413
11/45
0.25
0
13.76
#87
31/12/11
492498741
13/45
0.25
0
13.51
#88
31/12/11
492498064
17/45
0.25
0
13.26
#89
31/12/11
492516712
7/45
0.25
0.36
13.37
#90
31/12/11
492517470
7/45
0.25
0.36
13.48
#91
31/12/11
492514597
7/45
0.25
0.36
13.59
#92
31/12/11
492527315
17/45
0.25
0
13.34
#93
31/12/11
492526742
22/45
0.25
0
13.09
#94
31/12/11
492627434
13/45
0.25
0
12.84
#95
31/12/11
492629620
14/45
0.25
0
12.59
#96
31/12/11
492622878
5/45
0.25
0
12.34
#97
31/12/11
492623981
24/45
0.25
0
12.09
#98
31/12/11
492626370
31/45
0.25
0
11.84
#99
31/12/11
492624970
13/45
0.25
0
11.59
#100
31/12/11
492628494
11/45
0.25
0
11.24