Small update

Not all that much to report, here. I am back at home/work, and will probably work now until nearly Christmas without more than some weekend breaks, but I don't normally work on Saturdays or Tuesdays. Poker continues: I am playing almost entirely $16-entry "turbo" ("fast"-moving) single-table 9-player sit 'n' go's at PokerStars. They take typically about 45-50 minutes each. The prize-money is: first place $67.50; second place $40.50; third place $27.00.

I can play two at a time, by starting a new one each time the most recently entered one is reduced from nine to five or six players. That said, I have once been knocked out first, in 9th place, when I went all-in with KK and lost to a player with AJ who flopped an Ace, as can easily happen. I'm actually slightly surprised this sort of thing has not happened more often, but I do play very, very few hands until three people have been knocked out and the blinds have gone up two or three times.

At the moment, I'm getting into the prize-money 48% of the time, so my account-level is gradually increasing. If that figure stays steady, then over a series of about 600 events, mathematically there "should" be only a 5% risk of my losing 11 consecutive times, and less than a 5% risk of my hitting a longer losing patch equivalent financially to 17 consecutive losing events.

I'm hoping not to play as many as 600 of them, though. If I keep going steadily enough, I'll move up to the $27-entry events at some point, and am wondering to what extent the overall standard of play is higher in those. My guess is that whereas there's no discernible difference between the $11 events and the $16 ones, the $27 ones may be a rather different proposition.

Coming up soon: brief reviews of Collin Moshman's book, and the SAGE system!

A slight change of plan ...

Greetings from Greece!

A valued and respected online friend of mine who plays this game professionally and very successfully has very kindly been giving me a lot of advice over the last couple of days.

My original $340 deposit has gradually crept up to just over $500 now, from bits of profit in low-stake NL games (I am fairly regularly turning a $10 table-stake into $15 against weak opponents but not really learning anything much from it) and quite a few low-stake sit 'n' go wins and second places (I do enjoy those). But sometimes friends tell you what you need to hear, which in this instance was that I should be learning the game by playing in $1/$2 ($200 buy-in) 6-max NL games (6 players at the table instead of 9/10 - slightly more aggressive games, and more educational). My own limited experience of watching had suggested that this is the way to learn the game, anyway. So, for the moment, my sit 'n' go plans may go on the back burner, much though I enjoy them, because you should not do too many different things at once. I will deposit another $1,500 to have ten buy-ins available for the $1/$2 NL games (yes, I know you should really have more like 20-30 buy-ins in your account, but I can attend to that later if needed, and to be honest I don't mind paying to learn anyway, and can afford to).

Also to be attended to: re-read one of Sklansky's books and (at least) the first volume of "Harrington on Cash Games".

I have read the SAGE system mentioned down below, and will write about it shortly, but probably postpone the rest of my study of Collin Moshman's sit 'n' go book for the moment. I need to learn this game properly. But not necessarily this week, because I'm on holiday anyway. Further updates follow ...

Poker Tip of the Day ...

In the early, low-blind stages of a sit 'n' go (typically the first three levels), to fold some hands you should play is, overall, a very small mistake; but to play some hands you should fold is, overall, a huge mistake and certainly the difference between being an overall winner and an overall loser. I have learned this from some websites, from the "2 + 2 Forum" and from Collin Moshman's book.

Play continues. I am still in profit (slightly) ...

At PokerStars, they also have 180-player (20 tables) multi-table sit 'n' go's, available at 4$ (+$0.40) and $10 (+$1) entry-fees, with prizes down to 18th place (last two tables), and with over 100,000 players online there, they fill up pretty quickly, too. Whether or not they're worth playing in I have no idea, but they look like great fun. To be investigated!

Selections ...

It's all about selectivity, one way and another, isn't it? Selecting the hands with which you'll call before the flop; selecting what sort of game you want to play; selecting your table; and, for me at the moment, selecting at which online poker room(s) to play. I think there are people who lose consistently who might win equally consistently in different games, and I certainly want to avoid becoming one of them.

From the general consensus of opinion among reviewers and players, it seems that Bodog Poker and Pacific Poker both have plenty of fairly loose games of a not-particularly-high standard in which it's not too difficult to win some money. As against that, at least two people who have withdrawn money from Bodog recently by cheque (why would you want to withdraw by cheque?) have apparently reported that the cheques didn't clear, which is about as potentially alarming a thing as you can hear, to me. And I've also read a couple of pretty hair-raising stories casting some real aspersions about the integrity of the support staff and/or management of Pacific Poker. Pacific is owned by a casino company, and I think these poker rooms, perhaps partly because of the way they promote themselves online, probably attract more than their share of gamblers, which might make them easier places for a patient, disciplined player to win some money?

I have been offered an almost unbelievably complicated rakeback/incentive deal at Betfred Poker by one of its affiliates (rakeback deals come through affiliates, not through the sites themselves). I'm really struggling to predict its longer-term significance, but my guess is that for a very serious player it might work out at about 45% rakeback and in my case it might work out at about 25% - 30%. But I think it will still be available next month or the month after anyway, so I'm not feeling like jumping at it.

I'm going to try Poker Stars, I've decided. It's the biggest poker site in the world, clearly one of the best, the availability of games is second to none, and the software is really very nice. The only negatives about it that I've managed to discover (and I've done a lot of research) are (i) that they don't give rakeback and their sign-up bonus is pretty small (in the long run, the size of the sign-up bonus is irrelevant, though rakeback certainly isn't) and (ii) that it's not the easiest place to win money, because the standard's a little bit higher than most (but in a way, that might not be such a bad thing, really, because I need decent experience too, and at the stakes I'll be playing I hope that won't really be too significant anyway). So I'm going to pay my few hundred Lati in there, and we'll see what happens over the next month or two.

I'm also reading the SAGE system, by Lee H. Jones and Collin Moshman's sit 'n' go book (more about these soon), both of which I think will save me a lot of money in the long run ...