Poker Bankroll Building Strategy - Cash Games or Tournaments?
March 28, 2008
By Marty Smith
Are you in the bankroll building stage of your online poker career? If you don’t even know the answer to that, then you need a lot of luck if you are going to avoid a reload. However, if you do know that you are in a building and learning stage where you want your $50 or $100 to last as long as it can while you are learning the game then you may have a critical decision to make. That is, should you be playing in the NL cash games or sit and go and multi-table tournaments?
If you follow Chris Ferguson’s exploits at Full Tilt Poker, while building his bankroll he mainly sticks to the tournament circuit keeping his buys in check, and playing straight-up solid poker. (Yes, the same Chris Ferguson who won the 2000 WSOP!) In fact, on his quest to go from $0 to $10,000 at Full Tilt in a bankroll management challenge, he made his first big leap in a $1 Multi-table tournament where he finished 2nd of 683 entries and earned a whopping $104.
Now this is a guy you can take advice from.
However, we should look at those action-packed No-Limit cash games as well, because a bankroll can grow rather quickly with just a few good hands, not the months it took Chris Ferguson to get out of the penny ranks. Even with limits at .25 and .50 you should probably not sit down at these tables with less than $20, so if you’re starting bankroll is only $50 or $100, well you have made your first bankroll mistake already.
The lure of these tables are really based on quick, almost exponential growth of your bankroll where a turn of a card can send your draw into poker lore, while 3 other players in the pot watch in amazement as you suck out on each of them.
That kind of hand happens more than you think, but with you on the losing end facing a reload and/or re-buy to exact your full revenge and let your opponents know how resilient you are. Hey listen, you may actually get out of those tables with a profit, even with your limited experience, but it would have surely been based on luck and happenstance that you did. If you do profit, that is actually the beginning of a problem, not a successful bankroll, because you did it in a way that couldn’t have possibly built your skills at the game or money management.
That is what building a bankroll is all about: Getting in your playing time, learning from other players, adopting and perfecting strategies, and seeing real hand to hand combat. The best way to do that is in tournament where you can limit your losses to your entry fee and stretch out your playing dollar to the maximum benefit for learning. Take it from Chris Ferguson. If you do that, and still have to reload, there isn’t anything wrong. That’s when you know you can try again and again by doing it right and skill building along the way.
Marty Smith has a poker tournament strategy video series that is free just for signing up. He also has video reviews of all the online poker calculators so you can see them being used before you decide which one is right for you.
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Odds & Probabilities
November 5, 2007
One often quoted poker statistic goes as follows…
* 2,2 will beat A,K 53% of the time,
* but 10,Js will beat 2,2 over 50% of the time.
So 10,J is a better hand then A,K ? Of course not,
* A,K is a 63% favourite against 10,J.
The above statistics are very interesting, and can certainly convince your opponents that you a complete bore, but are they of any use? How can you take advantage of this information? The easy answer is you can’t. In this case, I will quite happily commit my whole stack with A,K before the flop in NLH tournaments, but would have to be under extreme pressure to do it with 2,2 or 10,J. The reasons for this are simple. If you should get called, and you have to win the hand to stay in the tournament, what might your opponent have?
- If you have 2,2, then you are never going to be a big favourite against any possible hand unless it has a 2 in it. (You are very lucky if your opponent has A,2, and then you are only 1/2 favourite). If he has any two over cards, you are in some sort of coin flip. If he has an over pair, you are a 4/1 underdog.
- If you have 10,J , then you are probably in almost as much trouble. You will not have been called by any hand that you are a significant favourite against. If you have been called by a big pair, or A,J, A,10, then you need a miracle. The best you can hope for, is a coin flip against a lower pair.
- With A,K there are only two possible dominators : You will need a miracle against American Airlines, and you are a 2/1 dog against K,K. All the other pairs are coin flips. With this hand though, there is an upside. If you are an aggressive player, or you are playing against some loose callers, you may get called by many hands that you dominate: A,Q, A,J, A,10, K,Q.
Remember though, when moving your chip stack in with any of these three hands, the best result is that your opponents fold. Then you win 100% of the time!
One often published poker statistic is that:
- It is 16-1 that you will be dealt a poker pair (go to the back of the classroom if you assumed it was 12-1), and
- It is 220-1 that you will be dealt any specific pair, such as Aces. (I know it can often feel like it is a lot longer odds than that!)
So when you are holding any indiscriminate hand (such as Kings, or 7,2) it is 220-1 that any one of your opponents has Aces. Heads up, it is 220-1. In a six handed WPT final in Paris, it is 220-1 divided by 5 opponents: 44-1. Not an unlucky coup at all! Again, although this probability may be interesting for those of us with dull lives, its usefulness is debatable. It will be a rainy day on the moon before I pass kings pre-flop. (Super-satellites excepted of course!)
A more useful statistic is that K,K is only a 2-1 favourite against A,K. The warning signs are there. An even much more useful statistic is an Ace will flop 23% of the time.
So, if you get cute with pre-flop Kings, the flop will kill your action almost a quarter of the time. The major dangers of slow playing Kings though, are:
- An opponent with a pocket pair is about 15/2 to flop a set (or quads.)
- Fortunately an opponent with two odd cards is almost 40-1 to flop 2 pair. They may also have straight and/or flush possibilities though.
If your opponent flops a set on a low broken flop, he may well bust you! Early in NLH tournaments especially, you can make a little from pocket Kings, but quiet easily lose your whole stack.
The biggest crime though, is pocket Queens. I often see top players smooth call a pre-flop raise with this hand. I don’t know if they are trying to outplay their opponents on the flop, or are just scared of pocket Kings or Aces. Personally, I think this is suicidal or at least a criminal waste of a good hand. I will always re-raise and try and get my whole stack in the middle before the flop.
As discussed earlier, the odds on pocket Kings or Aces being out there are variable depending on the number of dealt hands. The odds will be at least 12-1 on a full table though.
Again this article has already outlined the dangers of a small pair out-flopping you.
More importantly though, the probabilities that an Ace or a King will flop is 43% of the time.
An Ace or a King on the flop obviously kills your action, prevents you from winning a much bigger pot, and often leads to you losing a medium sized one.
It’s often best to keep the game simple. Just stick the whole stack in, and cross your fingers…
How freeroll poker tournaments work
November 3, 2007
A Freeroll is an online poker tournament, which does not cost you anything to play, but more often than not a heavy prize pool is associated with it. The room that hosts poker is also responsible for sponsoring the Freeroll and putting real money, gifts or merchandise into the prize pool. They are a very useful tool for promoting online poker sites. Many poker rooms host several small Freerolls, while others host only few but with big prizes.
Many sites offer them for new players – in the first month of them joining the site – and also many sites also offer them to players who play regularly at their site – qualification and eligibility is most often through the player accumulating enough poker points (William Hill and Cryptologic rooms do this via their MPP scheme, and Mansion have recently started offering this as well).
Poker players of all abilities have a good chance of winning some serious money through Freeroll tournaments. All you have to do is play the game you love! A lot of effort and time goes into arranging the Freeroll. In case not many players join, the remaining part of the guaranteed prize pool is left with the organizer as ‘cover’. When many players join in, the organizer has strong chances of becoming a winner as well as a loser. Poorly subscribed freeroll tournaments can be a very expensive affair!!!!
Clearly players are the biggest winners of poker freerolls. There is hardly anything to lose in poker freerolls and in order to take advantage each player just needs to register and then try their luck in the tournament, in most cases they are operated as a MTT (Multi Table Tournament) meaning their could be a field of more than 10 players playing – as the tournament is played then players are automatically moved around the tables at certain points as other players are beaten and drop out - until finally all that remains are the players at the final table.
Some rooms are now using them as a major promotional tool using newspapers to promote them – William Hill have done this very successfully to encourage new players to join with passwords being printed in the newspapers in order to enable players to register.
The main question that arises is-how to approach a Freeroll and what are the strategies required for success? Anything can be expected in the initial stages of a tournament. The best thing is to sit back and play, to get a feel of your table. Never hesitate in pushing in your chips with big hands (but be careful as always). Since you are into this without any cost, don’t be afraid in showing aggression of the good sort, but make sure it is selective aggression and not blind betting. When the money position approaches, many players get scared to play all but premium hands. As a player you can advantage of this situation, steal blinds and build up your stack. If you are able to do this well, you will get a lot of chips once money is easy to reach and also stand a good chance to win the main prize.
The most important thing is to enjoy yourself – there are plenty of them out there – so why not check out some of our site reviews and see for yourself – all of the rooms we review offer a good range of freeroll options!
Steal The Blinds - Great Post
September 25, 2007
So your playing poker and you manage to steal the pot with no showdown, inevitably people ask the question so what did you have???
Steal the Blinds have done a great post on his response to such a question - superb and worth trying!
Interesting Post on Moving Limits
September 25, 2007
All In poker blog have just posted a really interesting and useful article on moving limits up or down. This is a great post and something I would encourage you to read.
Basically these guys cover the fact that knowledge of limits is a must if you’re looking to play poker the right way.
So get on over there and read it!!!
Till next time