Poker Systems / Poker Psychology

(grrr, just had a long post 'eaten' by blogger... ah well, this is v2!)

A question: What makes you choose poker above alternative strategy games such as chess, bridge or video-games?

Now A Thought Experiment!

One day - while reading one or another of Mark's excellent websites (!) - you come across a secret and powerful super-tip that can win you a steady rate at the tables in fact it can increase your current hourly rate by 15% to $20 (or give you $10 an hour if you are not yet a winning player).

Sounds good right? We will say that you can average $5 more / hour and assume you are in Europe or North America (adjust as required for elsewhere in the world).

But there is a caveat.

This super-poker-tip is actually 'mechanical' it involves short-stacking (probably!) and you are not actually required to make any decisions, they are all laid out on a handy sheet showing you what to do in certain circumstances. You'll need to play 6 tables too - making doing other tasks somewhat difficult.

Would you do it for $10 an hour or $5 on top of your current hourly rate?

No?

Too dull right? That would be my answer at least, sat on your own clicking a mouse and not having to think.... yuk.

So, we gave an (albeit imaginary) fool-proof way of increasing your income, which is apparently the reason that the vast majority of us give for choosing to play poker - and immediately you turn it down?

What is going on? Is the money important?

To most of us yes, to my mind (unless you are a poker pro, which 99% of us are not!) then it is actually far less important than we tend to believe. The enjoyment of the game, interactions with fellow players both in person and online, the challenges involved in moving up to new levels or getting to a final table and the 'buzz' of winning a big pot that you patiently set up your opponent for over the course of a session are all key.

Here is my personal perspective: If we kid ourselves that it is all about the money, we lose the enjoyment of the many other aspects of the game and end up feeling unhappy when we play... playing when unhappy leads to bad decisions which start affecting the bankroll (and into the loop they go, eventually giving up poker (and sometimes blogging too!))

I personally love the game of poker, the people and the levels of thinking involved - as a recreational player I have focused too much on the cash, time to step back, take a deep breath and be honest about the aspects I enjoy.... $10 an hour? No thanks!

GL at the tables, Mark

Chances of Set Over Set... Whoooahh

Played in rebuy satellite to the Sunday million yesterday... we were down to 4 or 5 tables and I opened the others to keep an eye.... how about this for a super-suckout-resuck, the chips were all-in pre flop!

Sorry about the chips on the cards - had to react fast to capture the screenshot.

Now what, as they say, are the chances of that??*

*Rhetorical question...

GL at the tables, Mark

PS: Just noticed the chip count of Dennis-Demon... lol

Characters You'll Find In The Poker Affiliate Business....

... Time for a lighthearted look at the characters you'll find in the poker affiliate business.

After 9 or so months since I considered myself part of the business (started with the second version of SNG Planet which actually had the potential to convert, before this it was really just a bunch of my strategy articles on a website) I've come across many types, especially at http://www.pokeraffiliateprograms.com/ , the poker affiliate community that I'm proud to be a part of:

#1 - Mr Freeloader

Has stumbled upon the concept of being an affiliate for poker sites and is almost delerious with the possibilities of becoming an overnight millionaire... when faced with the investment of $9 in a domain and $10 a month for hosting Mr Freeloader simply laughs. Why spend all this money when I can put up my banner farm on a blog and spend my time watching the money roll in??

6-months later: Gone.


#2 - Mr Pokah Playa

Failed online poker pro, knows all the sites, all the poker terms and maybe even a small group of similar players. Assumes that this makes his opinion more valuable than those of veterans of the business for many years. Answers every post on every subject for a short period of time, regularly demonstrating not only a complete absence of 'business acumen', but often creating an image of an irritating failed-poker player while actually thinking that he makes a valued contribution.

6-months later: Well, he got a couple of mates to sign-up for rakeback deals but was too busy giving others his opinion to actually learn about the business... sells site for a fraction of the income he could have earned each month... gone.

#3 - Mr Incentives (also known as Mr Back-Of-An-Envelope)

Biro in hand and envelope on table this newbie to the business works out that if he offers $50 to players to earn enough points to earn him $100 and gives them half then repeats 100's of times he could be stinkkkkkkking-rich. Then one day a brainwave hits... why bother recruiting real players at all... then I get to keep the whole lot! Usually first appears to complain that he has not been paid by one affiliate program or another, receiving around about the same amount of sympathy as if he'd just sh*t in the public swimming pool.

6-Months Later: Well, we can usually measure the lifespan of the true fraudsters in days, the deluded incentive guy who wants to do a better version of poker source may last a couple of months longer.. maybe.

#4 Mr Back-In-My-Day

Here we come onto the veteran of the business, he was a poker affiliate using mainframe valve-run computers while you were still in nappies (diapers for my US readers). This affiliate finds newbies in this industry intensely irritating and feels that it is his duty to put them down at every opportunity. The google ranking mechanism which favours age (and age of inbound links) will keep the veterans decidedly mediochre website high in the rankings for a good while yet - enabling him to gloat over the heads of these pesky newcomers about what fantastic deals he was able to get with the poker rooms.

6-months later: No problems here, there will be plently of newcomers ready to stamp on by then!

#5 - Mr Spammer

Has read internet bulletin boards such as the Warrior Forum (a very good resource but with a decidely spammy undercurrent) and knows the keywords like 'upselling your ebook', 'bonus offers', and 'JVs'... decides that working with other affiliates will help 'leverage the power of the list, and 'mutually boost our link juice'. Decides to send out e-mails, then more e-mails, then forum private messages, then more e-mails to the point of driving the recipients insane. In fact, one week I did not get a mail from a known 'Mr Spammer' and actually called my host to check that the system was still working.... fails to realise that the effect is actually to become 'black-listed' by many legitimate affiliates - missing out on the future JVs with those who could actually make a difference to the business.

6-months later: e-mail arrives, dear {firstname_fix} I have seen your website...


Just a quick disclaimer... any implied reference to real people in this post is 100% deliberate... if you believe that it is you then, yep, it most probably is.

Maybe next time I'll give you my good natured and serene views on forum and blog spammers in the poker affiliate game.... hmmmm.

GL at the tables, Mark

Announcing My New Blog!

Happy to announce that my new blog is ready.

This will not replace Plan3t Gong (will be right back with more strategy including relating 'Kill Phil' to SNGs very shortly)... Melted Felt Blog is in fact a new idea - to cover poker news from a slightly different perspective...

Have plently more 'material' already written, will also be going out to those bloggers whose work I respect over the next couple of days to request link exchanges... if you have a blog and would like to do a blogroll ex then feel free get in touch.

GL at those tables, Mark

Absolute And Relative Poker Profits

Are you happy with the profits you make from the virtual poker tables?

Have been mulling how a fairly well known psychological phenominon could apply to poker. Can not recall the details of any particular study, however the gist is that our wealth relative to our peers is a better indicator of happiness than our absolute wealth.

For example, say we earn $50k in a year and our friends / relations / peers all earn $80k - this is a recepie for being unhappy - even though that $50k might leave us with money to spare and the lifestyle we are content with... conversely we earn the $80k and our friends the $50, this feels good for our self-esteem.

Not exactly rocket science to see how this works in day-to-day life with aspirations of bigger cars, houses and more exotic holidays (or just more!) than our neighbours. My question is how prevalent this is in the world of poker, and whether this has a negative effect on many players who really should be happy with the profits they are making?

Leader-boards, leagues and ratings are huge in the world of online poker - indicating that there is a big demand for comparative ratings. After all, poker is a competative sport so it makes sense to judge our performance against peers, right?

I think 'wrong'.

There will always be a small percentage of very successful players in any game, poker even includes some transitory 'big names' who run good for their first couple of years.... the danger is that those players who compete for liesure as well as profits end up judging themselves against the top players instead of the masses.

Compare your profits with the top of the leaderboards on a number of sites (pocket 5's / stars / sharkscope / pXf to name but a few) and you'll feel small in comparison. Compare your success with the online poker population as a whole and you may well have every right to feel damn proud....

Lets start with a small fact - if you are a profitable poker player you are already ahead of 75% of all your peers. Furthermore, if you beat the rake on a consistent basis each month, even for a small amount or with some 'bad months' in-between then you are already better than 85%!

So, it is your absolute poker profits that are the king - make sure you compare yourself to the masses and not just the top few percent.

GL at the tables, Mark

Pacific | 888.com World Series Package Give Away

Commercial post today - but an unusual one in that there is a bit of a last minute frenzy over at Pacific Poker (888.com Poker) to publicise the final table of their $3 million World Poker Crown - and to do this they are giving away 4 * $17,000 WSOP packages over the next few days. Unfortunately Pacific are not US-Friendly at the current time.... non-US players read on:

The final table of the WPC is taking place in Spain on Thursday - by registering on the WPC site and voting for who you think will win you'll get entry to 3 tournaments with prizes of the packages.... here is how it works.

In order to qualify for the World Poker Crown WSOP Give Away at Pacific Poker you need to vote for who you think will win the WPC at this website (you'll need your Pacific user name to do this!)

Here are the links you need details of the freerolls below:

For existing Pacific Poker Players - World Poker Crown Final Table Site (register and vote)

To Register Your User Name - Visit Pacific Poker Now (you'll need a user name to do so!)

For those who do not know Pacific here is a Detailed Pacific Poker Room Review

(disclosure: these are my affiliate links)


Pacific Poker WSOP World Poker Crown Give-Away #1.

$1 Entry Tournament at 20:00 GMT for all who register and vote with a $17,000 Pacific Poker WSOP Package up for grabs

Pacific Poker WSOP World Poker Crown Give-Away #2

8 * $525 Supersatellite tickets are up for grabs in 8 separate freerolls held from 08:30 on Friday the 9th May. The requirement for this is that you join the 888.com forum and make a post on the dedicated World Poker Crown page...

Pacific Poker WSOP World Poker Crown Give-Away #1.

Finally an additional freeroll with 3 Pacific Poker WSOP packages up for grabs - this is open to all who end up 'voting' for the winner of the World Poker Crown (nope, I have never heard of any of the field either!). This one will be held on Saturday at 20:00 - thats a pretty big prize package just for registering your name and making the correct guess as to the winner!

Well, I'm going to vote - no need to look a gift $17k in the mouth.

Gl at the tables, Mark

Found A Leak!

Thinking about your own play and finding leaks to plug is known to be a profitable way of improving your game. I'm certainly no exception and managed to spot a new leak which may even open the door to a psychological breakdown of my play (and thus further improvements later).

Will show you a scenario... holding a pair say 10's (can be any mid to high pair). I raise in middle position and am called by 1 opponent who has position on me.

Flop comes something like 2-8-Q or 4-4-J (no obvious draws and just one overcard). Here I frequently get in trouble, since these flops are so 'dry' and the chances my opponent has the specific overcard paired are low I fire away 'not believing' the signs that should make the warning bells start to ring...

Of course, it can be argued that these flops are so good for continuation bets that my opponent does not believe me!

If I were a high level player there could be something in this... however, at the lower to middle limits there is little point assuming that your opponent is thinking on any level than "wow I started with Jack-Queen off and hit the best possible pair - think I will slowplay it to show the table how great I am at poker!!"

What to do about this leak is another matter entirely, giving up too early seems a bit passive / weak... believing turn check-raises would be a good starting point. Have a feeling that this kind of situation falls all the way back to one of the oldest poker sayings of all:

Don't Go Broke In An Unraised Pot!

Gl at those tables, Mark