Online Poker Blog - Plan3t Gong

Poker Acronyms – Sorting Those MTTs From SNGs from STTs

2012-01-30T15:02:00.002Z

Looking through a couple of my favorite boards over at 2+2 today, in my usual irregular look for ideas for new content for my network of sites. After all these years in the poker business I am used to all the acronyms used… what I started wondering is just how much of a barrier these are to players who are brand new to the games – after all, we should be encouraging them, not scaring them away by making poker seem complex and inaccessible.

Well, the poker acronyms are here to stay, so I thought I’d put together a quick post on some of the main ones which relate to tournaments and Sit N Goes… just the main ones for now, explaining every single one could easily be a 3-day long task!

MTT: This stands for multi-table tournament, there are 100’s of variations of size, buy-in level, game and betting structure for these. What the general definition includes is a fixed starting time and prize pool paid out to a percentage of the field based on your finishing position. You can read up on MTT strategy in 100’s of dedicated articles over at SNG Planet.

SNG: This stands for ‘Sit N Go’ and describes a tournament which starts as soon as the designated number of players enter. These can be any size, though the most common games are between 1 table and 5 tables (there are also 180 player games which are a big draw). To add to the confusion of new players, this term if often used by people to describe only the 1-table games.

STT: Here we have a dedicated acronym for ‘Single Table Tournaments’ this is for those 1-table SNGs specifically… unfortunately this one is not as commonly used as many others – shame as it is a little more specific.

+R: If you see this next to the buy-in amount for a poker tournament then this game is a ‘rebuy’, for example $10+R is a $10 entry game, with additional rebuys at $10 and a optional 1st break add-on for $10 too.

ICM: This one is usually used in the context of Sit and Goes… It stands for the ‘Independent Chip Model’ which is a mathematical formula which converts your chip stack into your average win in the game… all else being equal. This is important in making good decisions, especially at the bubble and can not be ignored by serious players.

Sunday Majors or just ‘Majors’: This references the biggest tournaments held at online poker sites, which are usually on Sunday afternoons / evenings. The biggest weekly game of all is the Sunday Million at Pokerstars – which has more than the advertised million in prizes each week. Other sites have big Sunday games with prize pools of between $100k and $300k. If you can not afford the buy-ins for these games, you can always qualify via online satellites.

Well, there are a few cleared up – if you want to learn more about online poker tournaments of all sizes then head on over to SNG Planet today!

GL at the tables, Mark

This Little Player Went To (Fish)Market

2012-01-23T15:56:00.002Z

Alright, a little contrived in the title – however I’m always in a happy mood when I find out that there is another ‘Fishmarket’ tournament scheduled.

This is a special which my favorite OnGame Network site – Red Kings Poker – run every few months. The concept is simple and brilliant at the same time… they created a tournament which is guaranteed to be soft (as in an easy to beat field) at the same time as guaranteed to pay out $10k in prizes…

And you know what, you can play in it for free – the next game is Feb 16th 2012.

New players at Red Kings get a free entry worth $11 in addition to a choice of 6 welcome (matched) bonuses and a cool $300 extra bonus the first time you are dealt two red kings… that’s a welcome package which other sites simply can not match – and with Red Kings one of the coolest sites on the huge OnGame network you will be in great hands too. Click this link to check out Red Kings and claim your triple-barreled bonus (token + matched bonus + $300 extra bonus) now!

Now, let me elaborate a little on the softness angle. You see by giving every new player a free entry they are guaranteeing that a large proportion of the field have little poker experience, or even none at all. This makes things lively at the tables, and does attract a lot of the smaller stakes players to the game – obviously they are attracted to the softness! This affects the other guarantee, that of a $10k prize pool… let me just say that this is usually smashed rather than just broken… you’ll be looking at a very big final table indeed.

That’s enough words, I’ll leave you to check out Red Kings for yourself – if you would like to see a (very) detailed review then my Red Kings Poker 2012 review over at SNG Planet is the place to see.

GL at the tables, Mark

8 Ways To Profit From 8-Game Mix Poker

2012-01-16T10:29:00.001Z

I have been playing a lot of 8-game at Pokerstars recently, usually after a long day of work to wind down in the hour or two before bed! While there are some nitty regulars in these games, they are a generally a big draw for recreational players. This keeps them profitable – if a little frustrating at times!

This posts covers 8 ways to profit from this game… I for each variant. I might put together a part 2 with 1 more mistake for each one at some point down the line.

If you have not yet discovered Pokerstars and 8-game, then you’ll get 3 welcome bonuses (100% matched, total = $600 max) with Pokerstars Marketing Code PSP3108 – click this link to check them out for yourself now!

Profit From 8-Game #1 – 2-7 Triple Draw

While you get the occasional player who simply does not know the rules (will draw to hit high hands), most players make smaller – yet still profitable – mistakes. Bad starting hand selection (3 mid cards 8 and under for example) dooms you to drawing dead in this game far too often, stay solid with the 2,7, x hands to start – preferably from position… and you’ll have an immediate edge!

Profit From 8-Game #2 – Limit Holdem

Too many hands, for too many bets from too many positions would sum this one up. For a more specific play look for players who jam their ace-rag hand s pre-flop… you’ll find this is most of them!

Profit From 8-Game #3 – Omaha-8

The fixed limit Omaha game is also loose. Sure, you will find a lot of mid-card hands and bare high pairs in the pot. Your profit will come from people jamming bad lows early, they are hoping to make their hand and get their money back.... hmmmm.

Profit From 8-Game #4 – Razz

While you should certainly steal in this game when folded to you vs the bring-in with a mid to high card, this is not the environment to be bluffing when several players enter the pot. Simply folding early and jamming when you have an edge will bring in the bets over time here – no need to get fancy.

Profit From 8-Game #5 Stud High

The extra betting round in stud games catches a lot of players out. You get trapped into a pot by the small size of the bets relative to the pot size, and may have been drawing dead from the start. Again solid play will bring its rewards, look out for opponents who raise with rags or always ‘represent’ with the high card showing…

Profit From 8-Game #6 – Stud Hi-Lo

Why so many players with lows re-raise to push out one of two high hands rather than let the pot build is often beyond me in this game. Chasing any low is the norm, and most high hands too. If you know the difference between situations where you should keep pots multi-way and those you should raise to thin the field then you are way ahead of your opponents here.

Profit From 8-Game #7 – No Limit Holdem

You will find the occasional player who knows how to play this game, however the 6x pre flop raises, multiple limpers and bad starting hands are the stuff that many no-limit players dream of. From a profit perspective, your implied odds and chances of being paid off are huge… laying down top pair is heroic in 8-game and folding an overpair as rare as rocking horse sh1t!

Profit From 8-Game #8 – Pot-Limit Omaha

Everyone in the pot chasing non-nut draws… aces which never fold, no matter what the flop texture and betting action. The pot limit Omaha round is a reason to play these games all on its own. Stick to connected hands and isolate the worst players from position… you’ll virtually be printing money.

Check out Pokerstars.com for yourself now – and start profiting from 8-game mix! (remember Pokerstars Marketing Code = PSP3108 for your 3x welcome bonuses!).

GL at the tables, Mark

2012 The Year Of Central And Eastern Europe?

2011-12-28T11:07:00.003Z

Well, as many of you will already know Germany won the WSOP this year, France legalized online poker and their players disappeared into ‘French Only’ sites – and Spain will soon follow. These are now mature poker playing nations – though hopefully all have some growing to do.

Russia and the Russian speaking nations like Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakstan are also common at the poker tables – particularly at the lower limits. There are many markets still left, with the East often heralded as a potential monster should they ever catch the poker playing bug and South America already seen in increasing numbers at the tables… however I think that there are a lot of nations in Central and Eastern Europe which will show promise this year – it would be great to see a Hungarian winner of the 2012 main event!

Sure, many of the nations we are talking about are relatively small. Hungary with 10 million, Czech with 10 more, Slovaks and Slovenians with just a few million each and so on… however there are some giants with Poland at 50 million and Romania with 20+. When you add the Baltics, Balkans and Bulgaria then all of a sudden you are talking about 100 million people+

This is why I will be focusing on some of these countries this year. Sure, a lot of these people will speak ‘Western’ languages (English and German mostly, though some countries prefer French!). What I’m going to do is provide a couple of different tiers of information and strategy content. Really making good on jobs I already started in a lot of cases. There are two different routes for this:

1) SNG Planet. This is already available in Russian, Hungarian and Romanian… the Polish version got out of date so this will be fixed up in the new year (along with the French). My priority is to get a system in place which allows these versions (they are all 100+ pages) to stay up to date… once this is done I will consider other languages (Dutch / Spanish / Portuguese are all possible!).

2) Bonus Club Network: I have 8 ‘Bonus Club’ sites, these have a lot of reviews and information on bonuses, they also have a lot of strategy and comparison content. Again they are out of date… well most of them… so 2012 will see me bring them up to speed. I have some which have not been touched for more than a year (Polish / Slovak / Bulgarian versions)

I also have other sites in different languages, Russian and Hungarian blogs in particular… this does need to fit in with my strategy of keeping a smaller number of sites and managing them more effectively – so I am not going to go crazy with the ‘support sites’ or blog creation just yet.
So, whether you are from these areas or not then make a note to review my prediction for the end of 2012. In the meantime here are some links for the latest 2012 bonus codes / marketing codes for those of you who (like me!) live in the awesome Central And Eastern Europe!

Online pókertermek bónuszkódjai 2012-re (Hungarian, though if you can not read it I guess it does not matter!!).

Бонус-коды на 2012 год (Russian!)

Codurile pentru bonusul de poker online pe 2012 (last but not least, some info in Romanian!)

Mark

US Poker Update, December 2011

2011-12-06T15:06:00.002Z

US Poker Site Options December 2011

Started the reviews of the year over on my satire blog, Melted Felt, already! However thought I should keep the tone a little more sober here on Plan3t Gong – covering the latest news on US sites and my recommendation for where my US friends and colleagues should head.

My main US Friendly Poker Sites page is over at SNG Planet and links out to all the reviews and the latest news, in addition to some other articles which are covering specific games.

US Poker Sites December 2011

My top rec is still Carbon Poker, on the excellent Merge Network. They get the hat-tip over Cake for being…. Well, just all round better! Their software is cool (check the animations you can trigger from the tables!), the game selection getting better each month for both cash and tournament fans – and the bonuses are better there too – starting with my exclusive 200% to $600 + $11 SNG token with bonus code SNGPLANET.

-- Click Here To Check Out The Awesome Carbon Poker For Yourself

Don’t get me wrong, Cake are OK – in fact if you are after some volume of tables to choose from then why not try both! It is just, well, Cake seem stuck in 2007 for me… just how I feel when I look at their tables, their promotions…

US Poker Site News December 2011

Bodog are the big news this month. With their new software making play anonymous. They have declared this part of their strategy to keep the grinders away, after already reducing rakeback and bonuses for winning players. The biggest effect is that people can not use software to easily determine the style of their opponents…

I can see the benefits, though I can also see how so many players are angry! For recreational players who do not want to ‘lose face’ this could be a nice touch, after the usual ‘you changed it!’ clamour dies down we will see what the effect on this site is.

Of course, Bodog have pre-announced that the brand will leave the US at the end of the year… so this is not really the best time for US players to be depositing. I expect the site to remain under a new brand name… so watch this space.

No particular news on legislation, Harry Reid’s name made the online press again this week. Though on examination that story looks more like a thin hope than anything of real substance! Nevada are going legal within their own state borders, which is some progress. Industry experts are flagging this as a chance to build some experience for their operators more than a serious attempt to re-instate online poker to its pre-UIGEA glory.

That’s all for one post – I’ll be back with a more general update of my poker network soon.

GL at the tables, Mark

General Planet Corp Update

2011-11-17T11:10:00.000Z

Time for another of my irregular updates on progress here at Plan3t Gong. I actually enjoy updating here, even though my main blogging and more details are over at the SNG Planet blog these days. This is because each time I come back the archives here remind me of where I came from as far as poker goes... those enthusiastic games where beating SNGs was not about the money, more for the sheer fun of it... Of course, poker is my business these days – so here are some highlights from around my network.

First up, my Omaha site Omaha Planet – which specializes in helping beginning and transitioning players at PLO, PLO8, O8 and Mixed Game money games and tournaments. This one got very out of date, so much so that Full Tilt, Absolute and Ultimate Bet were still included... this has now been fixed. I have been through every article on the site and updated it, and also added some brand new ones including some cool comparison articles. Anyway, check this site out today, I think you'll enjoy the content there!

Next SNG Planet, quite a few updates here too, including a nice revamp for the German pages and a brand new look for the pages focusing on US friendly sites. Still a bit to do with some of the other languages... however I have bigger and better projects to be focused on at this point in time and will reconsider these in the new year.

Rakeback-Planet is next on my list, I will start the revamp of this one next week... This was a solid little site at one point and I hope that with some diligent efforts I can bring it back to its former level. Funny that Rakeback does not seem such a focus item in online poker in general these days – Full Tilt gone + Carbon stopping theirs had some effect, though I also think that the improved VIP rewards offered by the 2nd tier sites has had an effect. To address this I plan a bigger focus on loyalty schemes in the new version of rakeback-planet... if you are reading this in late November this might already be done.

Several more projects in the pipeline, including the 5th part of my popular SNG blueprint course.... you can either keep an eye on the SNG Planet blog, or join my facebook group at www.facebook.com/sngplanet for regular updates.

GL at the tables, Mark

Timed Tournaments And Other Innovations Which Did Not Fly!

2011-10-21T14:11:00.002+01:00

Tried a couple of those timed tournaments at Pokerstars yesterday. Fun games for sure, and also fun thinking about how to adjust your approach to beat them... I'm going to put my thought into writing that these are not a long term winner in the poker world. A headline grabbing gimmick at worst and an entertaining distraction at best.

Innovation in online poker has a huge role to play, keeping the games fresh and the fish happy! Here are my thoughts on a few of the other innovations for the last couple of years... along with a virtual thumbs up or down.

Party Poker Double Holdem

This was almost exactly a year ago, I know this as I booked a couple of nice little domains with a view to becoming an authority if this game ever took off (just let them expire!). The game involved being dealt 3 cards and then making one of them your 'key card' after the flop... giving you 2 sets of 2 hole cards to play with. A great idea, though I never saw it gain the traction it deserved and not even sure if it still runs today.

Full Tilt Poker Rush

Rush was the biggest and best innovation to come out of online poker in many years. As soon as you fold one hand you are instantly in another with players from the same 'pool' as you. Have to admit that I was a bit of a Rush PLO addict and would fire up a couple of tables of this to 'relax'. If FTP do not make it back then whoever licenses this software will make a killing! There now one variation which works along the same lines – though the site is very small at the moment it is starting to pick up a little momentum, it is called 'Speed Poker' and you can find out more via my Terminal Poker Review page at SNG Planet.

Knockout Bounty Tournaments

These are available on so many sites and formats now that they have become part of the mainstream. Only a few years ago bounties were restricted to specific prizes for knocking out pros, not a cash for every player eliminated. Again it was Full Tilt who really made this format popular, though Pokerstars and most of the other major sites now have some form of this game. I love the psychology of hands where someone is all-in with only a few chips... an excellent and often overlooked innovation.

Hellkat SNGs

Timed SNG tournaments... hang on a minute, these games from Party Poker were based on stack sizes after a certain time – just goes to show that there is not much original after all.

Hyper Turbo

There might have been the occasional gambling game based around being all-in a lot before, however it is only really the last few years which have seen a huge amount of Hyper-Turbo activity. These games contain some skill, if push-fold charts and the ability to mass multi table are considered skill... the real winners are the rooms themselves and bonus / rakeback / points chasers who can get massive volume in!

Double-Up / Fifty50 Games

We only have to go back a few years and the double or nothing SNGs were not there at all, now there are all sorts of variations available. Again volume and ease of multi-tabling make these appealing to grinders... whether they really did anything positive for the world of online poker, meh, I don't think so!

Deep / Shallow / Min Buy-in Cash Games

Ending with a positive, the cash games have gotten better choices – particularly when it comes to avoiding short-stackers, which at one point looked like they were going to become a permanent menace to those trying to make the most of their skills. Not that I have anything against short-stackers, they are / were simply exploiting an open opportunity to make cash. We are now able to choose tables with 50bb or 100bb minimum buy-ins – or go shallow if this is preferred. The cap limit tables at the late FTP were different again, with the max you could bet on any single hand restricted to a single buy-in.

Probably loads more... will leave those for another post.

For lots of news on promos, new games and all that good stuff covering the main poker networks, you can check out my news site: The Poker Bonus Network

Updating My German Material

2011-10-10T09:30:00.000+01:00

One thing I have learned since closing the office and becoming a one-man-band kind of affiliate is that it is hard to keep up! I’m not just talking about having a large number of sites either, the complication is a large number of sites in different languages.

So, this week will be ‘project catch up’ for me and I already got a small headstart with the German version of SNG Planet yesterday… you can see the results from the homepage here” http://www.sitandgoplanet.com/de/ (I will not list all of the URLs, since you can find most of them from the homepage anyway)

Here are some of the key updates done, and a few to be done:

- Best Site for SNGs. The old version had too many choices and included Full Tilt in a few spots. Now only 3 categories to choose from (recreational, new and pros) and 2 choices for each. Hard to get away from Stars these days, with their huge volume… however there are a couple of nice alternatives.

- Poker Edge Review: Is this software fair? Well, some of the major networks are trying to ban it for sure – apparently without much success at the moment. The ‘crime’ this powerful HUD is committing is to pool player data – so you get huge samples of hands on opponents you have never played before…. You can check out the Poker Edge website for more.

- Best Beginners Tournaments: This was not just out of date, it was an embarrassment! Full Tilt is one thing – but Absolute Poker – UGH!! Anyway, most of the tournaments changed around to come up to date… with only the old favorite 180s and $3+R’s staying in the list.

- New To Satellites Guide: This was a translation from the English, It came about to fill a gap which ‘assumed’ all players knew about poker satellites and how they worked… Of course, new players do not know much about these – and need a straightforward article to explain the basics.

- 18 Player SNG Strategy, another translation from a pretty good English article… even if I do say so myself! 18-mans as they are know are getting more and more popular.

Still have several to go… including updates of some of the ‘mains’ and sub-main pages – like I said in the intro this week will focus on clearing the backlog of language articles to go up… Of course, while I am doing this I am sure to find many more which need to be re-written / added, ah well!

GL at the tables, Mark

Lots Of SNG P Updates (Newsletter)

2011-09-21T19:26:00.004+01:00

I send out a monthly newsletter to SNG Planet readers these days who have subscribed to one of my free courses (the $16 Per Hour SNG Blueprint being the latest). Instead of writing about updates here I will - for this month only - just copy and paste the newsletter I sent out for September 2011. Lots of updates included!

If you'd like future updates then get on over to SNG Planet and join the course today!

SNG Planet News September 2011

Hey

Just got back from a well earned vacation and realized I have loads to share in this month’s newsletter for both US and Non-US readers.

This includes a major update of my ‘US Sites’ reviews, info and pages, a great token offer at Titan Poker and news of a new poker game which anyone who misses Rush Poker will love!

Before I start all that a sneak preview exclusive to newsletter readers… I have started work on a 5^th part to the $16 per hour SNG Blueprint. This will be different from the first 4 and will go through individual hands and bubble situations – going through both the math and the situational factors… I expect this to be ready in about a month’s time, and will let you all know how you can get a copy!

Right, enough previews – here are some of the great updates over on the main site.

First up, a long overdue update of my ‘US friendly sites’ pages. I’ll admit to waiting for Merge (Carbon) to come back and will now have to update the site again when they do… oh well, all in a days work for a poker webmaster. Updates include a new main page with status updates, news and links + reviews for the main sites and game specific articles. If the new breed of subscription sites start looking good they will be included later.

Here is the main article: http://www.sitandgoplanet.com/rooms/roomreviews/Best_US-Friendly_Online_Poker_Sites.html

Next, for players outside of the US, a smaller site is offering a game called ‘Speed Poker’ which works on the same principles as Rush Poker – pooling players. This is small at the moment, I loved the game and have a feeling that it could take off... which is a great reason to get good at it now! Anyway, check out my review and then use bonus code SNGPLANET for your 200% welcome while you check it out!

http://www.sitandgoplanet.com/rooms/roomreviews/terminal-poker-review.html

Strategy-wise, I completely re-wrote my 45 player SNG strategy article this month. Was quite pleased with the result. In addition I added an article on Game Theory at the SNG bubble which analyzes how ‘schooling’ of several non ICM-savvy opponents might affect your returns.

Finally (and a little late to let you all know), another great token offer from Titan Poker between now and the end of the month. This is on top of the $20 cash and 200% match I already offer and is a $10+75c token for a SNG satellite for the $200k guaranteed Sunday Major there. Details via the link below – you’ll need to play the SNG in September though you can use any tokens you win later.

http://www.sitandgoplanet.com/blog/another-great-token-offer-at-titan-poker

That’s all for this month – hope to see you back at SNG Planet soon!

GL at the tables, Mark

Started Coverage Of 2 New Sites

2011-09-07T15:00:00.001+01:00

It has actually been a long while since I covered a new poker site. With the top 6 or 7 being a head-and-shoulders above the rest it always confused me a little as to why so many poker sites wasted perfectly good strategy content with an advert for some tiny site with 4 players which nobody had ever heard of.

Well, I actually found a small site with relatively few players and decided after just half an hour at the tables that I needed to promote them!

Why?? (I hear you all cry in unison!).

They have a game which is more or less the equivalent of Rush Poker, that’s why!The site is called Terminal Poker (I have a detailed Terminal Poker Review already up at SNG Planet, so will not repeat all the details here).

What they offer is called ‘Speed Poker’, this is a pooled player game where you move to a new table as soon as you fold one hand you are re-combined with players from your pool and start another one!

Cash games come in Holdem and PLO format, this is a new site so there are not yet huge numbers of players. Tournaments are currently free, with real money prizes and I am hoping to see some paid ones come in once there are a decent number of players at the tables.

Key here (back to my old blogging thought process again!) is that this site could actually become very popular indeed. Step back for a moment and think about how getting good at a game while it is new and then riding the wave of new players as the site takes off could do for you!! If you are thinking profits, then we are on the same wavelength.

You can claim a great 200% bonus to start you off with my bonus code SNGPLANET. Click this link to check out Terminal Poker – you’ll be glad you did!

New Site #2 – William Hill

I started covering a new site on the iPoker Network too in the form of William Hill. This decision was / is a little more complex, since I am actually quite happy to work with Titan Poker… unlike some affiliates I have a great relationship with them and am reasonably happy with their performance.

The reason is one of branding / advertising.I can and do push Titan on some sites, the games are soft and the promos decent. However, since they do not market their brand on the TV / Web much (other than through affiliates) this is a somewhat harder sell than a brand people already know… if you like I need to introduce the site, sell it, then get the player to join.

My thinking was that sites whose brand is already known are generally an easier proposition. Add to this the fact that I target a lot of beginner level players (deliberately as this side of the market is not as saturated as the ‘experts’ part which every affiliate and his dog have covered!) then I’d like to be able to offer a brand that they know already.

Anyway, I’m going to introduce them gently and will not give them ‘top spots’ until we see some results and can make an objective measurement against the other sites. Always good to have some competition in place though – maybe for when we get to haggle over rates next with the sites I’ll be in a stronger position!

Here is the link for more: William Hill Poker Detailed Review.(note, I also have a SNG Specific review, linked from the main one, and am about to get the same reviews up in Hungarian and Russian!)

GL at the tables, Mark

Started Coverage Of 2 New Sites

2011-09-07T14:48:00.001+01:00

My Complex Relationship With Poker

2011-08-26T09:57:00.000+01:00

Since this blog was retired from normal service a few years ago, I have been using it for the occasional update on what I’m doing projects-wise. Today I have a different post to make – almost a personal therapy through writing idea…

My relationship with online poker is actually very complex. My regular blog these days is the SNG Planet Blog, and it is not really the right audience for this kind of a post… I like to stay positive and factual there, introducing ideas, talking business and so on.

Here is the rub.

If it was not for my network of sites / writing I would have pretty much given up on poker back in 2007.

Being involved in the business for so long I can even map out my start to finish curve and see how typical it would have been. Donking around with money I could afford to lose and had no problem with losing to start… discovering that there was strategy to learn and that I could beat the games by using it… getting a huge rush of enthusiasm and learning as much as possible, grinding myself a bankroll… kind of getting tired of the grind and trying different forms of the game… only playing now and again… losing the passion to learn / improve… playing less… and less…. and less….

Yep, the whole thing would have taken me around 2 years – I would have quit long ago, well, maybe playing once or twice a month when I was bored!

Instead I started writing for others, discovered a skill in explaining things, set up the Planet Corp network of sites and have been tied into poker ever since.

You can not write honest articles about games you do not play – so I continued playing. Not massive volume, just enough to keep involved in the game. Players are sharper these days – they know if you do not know your subject!

My relationship with the game goes deeper than that.

People, poker players – how do I put this without sounding down on the whole thing… there is just so much damn HATE in the game these days, compared to the mid 2000’s for sure…

Wherever you look there is hate, posturing, ego and snide comments – you can not play online without seeing it, you can not read forums without swimming in it…

Don’t get me wrong, the majority of the people who play are fine people who enjoy the game in a range of contexts from pro through to strictly for fun. I’m also big and ugly enough to look after myself – I’ll have a row if you want one, though do not let individual acts of hate affect me… it’s the cumulative picture that is my problem.

The percentage of haters, is probably only 15% to 20% (pure guess), yet this is enough to make poker a thoroughly unpleasant experience. It is rarely even the successful players who are the main antagonists… kids who did not excel in sports finally have something to be big about, henpecked husbands releasing their anger on the online community, fools who get belittled by their bosses all day getting back at the world by belittling novice players at the tables… and so on.

Back to me.

I only play because I enjoy writing, I enjoy running my network of sites and enjoy the independence of working for myself (oh yeah, and the money!).

This acts as a magnifying glass for me – making the troubles of the game seem big and ugly. Whereas some people can ignore I often think to myself how pleasant life will be when I get to turn away from all that hate, all that ill-will. Guess because I feel tied in to a game I would not otherwise have much (if anything) to do with anymore the downside appears bigger than it should!

Then the rip-offs come into it.

I will not go into it here, you all know the AP / UB and Full Tilt problems by now – these are not the only ones… just the biggest. They have and continue to cost me a lot of money.

Players come and go, they have a ‘half-life’ of around 6-months in my experience, here, I’ll map it out based on 100 players who start today:

- 6 months time, 50 are still playing
- 12 months, 25
- 18 months 13 (I’ll round up to be generous!)
- 24 months 7 (I would have been here… the 7% who make enough to keep going, learn the game and then can not be bothered any more!)
- 30 months 4
- 36 months 2
- 42 months 1

Works for me… only 1% will still be playing in 3.5 years time… most go broke and lose interest… a few become rakeback grinders after year 2 then quick after a soul destroying year of grinding kills their passion for the game. Sure you will probably know a good few people who have been involved for longer – they are a self selecting group though, the players keen or successful enough to become known are rarely in the first 3 levels of drop out!

Anyway, enough said for one post. I respect the game in my own way, still enjoy those (very) occasional final tables, working out how to adjust to beat the different games… and I am also proud of my sites, which are aimed mostly at the ‘first 18 month’ players of course.

It is just, well, my relationship with poker is complex… I really should have quit the game and moved on 4 years ago! Note to self… get that network of sites sold, and within a year…

Thanks for listening – I feel better!

GL at the tables, Mark

Another Planet Revamp!

2011-08-01T12:25:00.004+01:00

Time for one of my occasional forays back here to the place where my poker network started. I am working hard at the moment... trying to absorb the hit that black friday, and then the closure of Full Tilt caused my business.

After keeping my patience for a month waiting to see if FTP would re-open I have now started to remove them from my site. This is easier said than done... how about 1300+ articles in 7 languages including a mix of mentions and full-on features!

Anyway, this actually turned into a postive in a lot of ways. There are a lot of articles which, rather than completely out of date, were getting a little tired. One I just did this morning (2 hours!) was the aritcle on the best beginners poker tournaments - a new top 10 required without Full Tilt and UB, and also many of the tournaments I had listed have changed over the time (for example there was no Titan Poker $5r in that slot any more). Also changed the tone a little bit. It seemed as if some of the tournaments would be better suited for 'Learners' yet complete beginners were the main audience... for this reason I included the lucky dollar games at Party which are only open to players in their first 7 days. Wondering how many more of my articles fall into this trap... do I incorrectly assume that everyone who lands on my poker satellites sub-main actually knows what a poker satellite is and how it works... maybe, going to have to think about that one.

It is not only the articles which are having a revamp at the moment, I am going through the main pages too. Again, there are all those languages to cover... the homepage is done, the SNG main page is done and the plan from here is to use the template from the SNG main to do the tournaments one... lots of traffic coming from Russia these days, so this will be next on the list.

Future plans, well this month could well be German month! With so many German players at the tables these days there is a big opportunity to get my site up to date in this language and see if I can drive a little more in the way of visitors... we will see.

I'm still plugging away on the Cool Casinos Club ( http://www.coolcasinosclub.com/ ) , adding new game reviews and tidying up pages... still not much in the way of traction there.

Anyway, this was supposed to be a quick update and I already waffled on - so for now it is my usual - Good Luck at the tables, Mark

Hows About A Course For LIVE Poker!

2011-06-24T10:28:00.003+01:00

Feels strange to be writing about my brand new course for Plan3t Gong, since this was the place I launched my very first course back in 2006! Back then ‘A Comedy Of Errors’ simple ‘tight early, understand the basics of prize pool equity and push late’ was enough for people to beat SNGs at a decent clip… but I digress! This post is supposed to fast forward us to 2011 and my first live poker course.

Live Poker Gold is released for sale today! The inspiration for this was my many US friends and colleagues – who had their hobbies / livelihoods taken away a couple of months back. The remaining US online options are risky (I would not want too much money on Cake etc myself at the moment) and with legislation a little way off there is a huge poker void which can only be filled with live games.

Here is the problem, directly translating your online skills to live play will help, though only to a certain extent… the fact that you are better at poker than your opponents will only make getting constantly out-drawn all the more agonizing for you!

This is where Live Poker Gold comes in.

It builds new foundations in recognizing different types of opponent and beating them. It shows you the huge errors live players make and how to encourage them (directly translating your online play will actually stop many of your opponents making these mistakes, so this part is important). It also goes through several online poker skills one-by-one and shows you how to adapt to the live games.

And that is just in part #1!!

There are actually 3 parts, the one I outlined is called ‘foundations’ and it gets the 3 step process for beating these games going… Identify Opponent Type – Then Wait For Their Mistakes – Then Adjust To Encourage And Profit From Them!

Part #2 is for the big profits, this builds on the first part and goes into more detail on beating each type of opponent. It covers pre-flop strategy, post flop bet sizing and orphaned pots. I also included a ‘mechanical strategy’ for hiding your own tells and emotions in this part of the course.

Finally Part #3 is for practical information, etiquette, tipping and rakes, chips and waiting lists and also a reference of rules and odds / outs for those who need them.

Well, I did have the $16 per hour formula in the middle… however this has to be my best effort yet. I feel the price is actually too generous for the work and content which is included. If this one is as popular as I expect then the next one will be a little more expensive!!

You can get your copy via the sales website at http://www.livepokergold.com

I look forward to receiving your feedback on this course… and will keep you updated here for any extras and future works.

GL at the tables, Mark

US Poker Temporatily Dead + Other Updates

2011-06-07T19:01:00.003+01:00

Time for another of my intermittent posts back here at Plan3t Gong. Since I am not doing my main day-to-day (well, few times a week) blogging over at the SNG Planet blog - this is more an occasional overview of the wider themes in the world of poker, specifically some of my current focus areas - and links to anything interesting enough to be linked to.

This month, the key theme is that the US is effectively shut out of online poker now... sure a couple of rooms still take players, however I am not going to recommend them any more - I would not feel safe having my money on Cake or Bodog at this time, and so I can not info on any websites which recommends readers do this. I'm sure that legislation is in the pipeline, what the result looks like is anyones guess, as well as when things get implemented.

So, I'm focusing globally at the moment, on European Poker Networks and on Russia too - where I am just in the process of starting a training site - hopefully the start of something which will be the Ru equivalent of PxF or Cardrunners a year or two down the line!

One thing that did happen after black friday was a big esclation in the competition between the non-US networks to portray themselves as the safe-haven for players... Party have a lot of history and a decent brand name to pull this one off... however I liked the aggressive way that Titan Poker went about this, offering a huge 200% to $1000 bonus and coming up with some cool new promos including their tournament sale, SNG Heat and $1 World Series 2011 satellites
too... not bad, I still rate Titan highly after all these years - see my main Titan Poker Review Titan Poker Review for a whole bunch of reasons why!

Other projects include a new course aimed at US players - called Live Poker Gold, this should be ready shortly - I'll do a separate post about this so as not to make this one too long and convoluted.

After that my Casino site is in line for a big revamp... it has actually been a source of frustration for me that this one is not doing better. Frustration on its own gets me nowhere of course - so I have a plan to get this one in order, including a more global focus, longer and more informative pages and a brush-up of some of the graphics too. You can find it at http://www.coolcasinosclub.com/

Thats all for the moment - best of luck at the tables and I'll be back to announce the live course at the start of next week.

Mark

Planet Corp Update Post "Black Friday'

2011-04-25T16:06:00.002+01:00

Big changes since the last update here, I am not going to describe the DoJ indictment of 16th April in this post, since everyone affected already has a million sources of news, views and opinions... instead I'm going to let you know where to find useful articles from around my network of sites. At this point in time there is no easy answer, the best we can hope for is that some kind of leglislation in the US will allow people to play again in the not too distant future. I share the anger and frustration of the many ordinary players affected, at the same time I need to get on with producing articles and quality information for my (growing!) global readership.

First up, I have put together two separate guides for SNG Planet, the first looks at 'Black Friday' from a US players perspective, outlining the choices of site which are still open. The second is from the non-US players perspective... since many people are rightly nervous about playing at Stars and Full Tilt Poker while there are questions about money. Here are the links:

http://www.sitandgoplanet.com/black-friday-special-us-sites-2011.html
http://www.sitandgoplanet.com/black-friday-fallout-for-non-US-players.html

Elsewhere at SNG Planet the big upcoming theme is this year's World Series Of Poker satellites, I expect a marked effect on number of participants in the 2011 Main event without US players being able to get involved in the qualifiers, however there should still be 1000's involved and millions ($5 million+??) for the winner... and yes, I do expect the satellite qualifiers at Full Tilt and Stars to be softer without the US players involvement (since the US were more skewed towards serious players and pros, as many casual players already thought that poker was illegal).

Anyway, here is the main WSOP page: WSOP 2011 Satellite Qualifiers

Elsewhere on the network we are working on videos for the Russian version of SNG P and have some new material at Omaha Planet. I am slowly getting through the list of sites with refreshes and updates, as you can imagine this is a long list and a lot of updates for each one. For example Rakeback-Planet (with the dash) was heavily promoting Full Tilt rakeback and now has to quickly switch to Carbon Poker!

On the casino side there are more plans than actions, I am going to be working on this side of things a little more this week in fact - after the first 10 days post-break were taken up entirely with bringing the poker sites up to date with the latest changes. I think it is time that the Cool Casinos Club had a redesign, something to give a better first impression, anyway here is the current version - ideas welcome!!

http://www.coolcasinosclub.com

Thats about it for the moment - I'm blogging more regularly at the SNG Planet blog these days, though I'll pop back here and give an update of the latest and greatest now and again!

Gl at the tables, Mark

Latest News From The Planet Corporation

2011-02-21T12:58:00.002Z

Progress with the network of Planet Corp sites has been a little disrupted lately, for a good reason. I only returned 10 days ago from a month enjoying many of the islands and beaches of Thailand. While I intended to work ‘on the road’ this did not work out in the end and I ended up taking a well deserved break.

Of course, now I am back in the office there is a new level of intensity – all of the main tasks to get the sites back up to date are now completed. Next job is to move forward with some new projects… this post will detail some of them.

First up a new Hungarian site, covering online blackjack. This is a relatively small one, though we have tried hard to make it good quality – covering blackjack strategy, reviews and tips. You can see the result here: http://www.onlineblackjack.hu/

Several changes in the structures of games available at the biggest sites happened while we were away. The main ones were Full Tilt’s Multi Entry Tournaments, Multi Entry Tournaments and the Fifty 50 SNG Fifty 50 SNG games at Pokerstars which are replacing the Double or nothing SNGs (these will be around until the 28th Feb and then closed). I put up articles covering not only how these games work, but some strategy ideas too at SNG Planet, we also have these in Russian, with Hungarian versions due early this week.

Ah yes, back to Hungarian, I have the $16 per hour SNG formula ready in for our Magyar readers… just a matter of getting the preview page done and the e-mails translated over now, will probably release that one in the Morning (Tues 22nd). You can see this over on the SNG Planet main page via the Hungarian flag in the top right corner.

Upcoming are the Mini-FTOPs and of course the WSOP 2011 Satellite Qualifiers will be on to us before we know it. Party Poker were the first this time with $14,000 packages and ultra-soft fields making this an attractive choice for non-US readers. I will resurrect the World Series page at SNG Planet, however my poker news type site will keep a regular track on the offers of all of the sites / networks. You can see this at: Best Poker Networks

This week we will be working on a few projects – top priority is an ugly old dog of a site which needs fixing… Poker Bonus Club Russia… which reminds me, I’d best get cracking.

Will be back for another Planet Corp update in a few weeks!

GL at the tables, Mark

Whats Happing Across The Planet Network??

2010-12-17T12:51:00.004Z

Well, most of you will already know that I now do my blogging over at SNG Planet. However, thanks to a huge backlog of poker strategy and other ramblings... Plan3t Gong does still get a number of visitors which would probably put owners of - shall we say 'thinner' - poker sites to shame! With that in mind I have come over for one of my irregular updates on the highlights from my poker site network... since it is snowing outside I'll get a little festive and name this as:

5 Poker Distractions From All That Xmas Shopping

Come on, we all know xmas eve is a fine time to do your shopping... plenty of time to play some online poker before then.

1) My first idea is that life would be great if you had a spare $50k to spend this holiday season... a new car, fantastic TV, latest games and music... the possibilities are endless. Well one way of getting the cash is to win 6 of the Jackpot Sit And Go Tournaments in a row over at Titan Poker... these games attract a lot of recreational players and are great for building a profit, with 4 levels of jackpot you never know when you'll be in for a big xmas boost.

2) Fine tune you play with some approved poker tools. There are now huge numbers of tools which can be used to improve your profits, some of these are considered to be cheating by the poker sites. Our latest revamped site - Fairest Poker Sites - contains a list of the approved tools, in addition to unique reviews focusing on the RNGs and banking fairness of the biggest online poker sites.

3) You could write for SNG Planet! Yes, we are currently on the look out for writers for an irregular 'view from the tables' column. All the details over on the SNG Planet blog.

4) Satellite into one of the biggest Sunday Poker Tournaments, we just put up a great new section listing some tournament schedules for small stakes and higher stakes players, going through the Sunday majors for US and European players and even focusing on smaller stakes big prize tournaments. Whether it is the Sunday Million or a $3rebuy - you have to be in it to win it (or something equally as corny)

5) Grab $8 Completely Free at 888.com Poker... this one runs until the end of December, sign-up and you will get a free $8 to play with... non-US / over-18 are the only restrictions, though you need to play through 20 times to withdraw... not that hard in poker. One tournament win and your freebee could easily turn into a decent poker bankroll.

Ah well, enjoyed this format - I'll come back over in early Jan and do 5 more for the new year!

Gl at the tables, Mark

Quick Update Time!

2010-10-22T08:45:00.002+01:00

Time for a quick update on what I have been up to, since this ol' blog still gets some eyeballs to the pages I'll pop back every month or so to let you know how the network of poker websites which is known (by me) as the Planet Corp empire is coming along... my regular blog is now at SNG Planet - http://www.sitandgoplanet.com/blog

For the last couple of months we have put new projects on ice and focused on improving / brushing up the existing network. This included a couple of sites which were good ideas at the time and poorly made. So the main news for this post is that both are updated and ready for the general public!

- First up is my Poker Network News site, this will focus on changes and updates for the main networks (and include some news on the stand alone sites too if this is interesting). We totally scrapped the old design and moved the site to Wordpress, still some fine tuning of the navigation and a number of pages which somehow got left out of the transition to add - however I'm actually quite pleased with the result.... now just got to get into the habit of blogging the news there every day! You can see it here: http://thepokerbonusnetwork.com/

- Next we have a scratchcard site, this is a .co.uk and aimed at bingo playing Brits. I like the design and colours, however the way the site had to be strutured via the WP theme turned out to be a hassle... we got it sorted in the end, and this was a lesson learned about how it is more than just the looks alone which go into choosing your wordpress theme. We feature 3 sites, and the many online scratchcards and games like deal or no deal etc too... you can see the results here: http://www.scratchcardplanet.co.uk/

Thats all that are completed, tons of work ongoing with my main Casino site being the big focus for the next week and next in the queue Omaha Planet then Rakeback Planet... its all go!

GL at the tables, Mark

Latest Interesting Articles Across My Network Of Sites

2010-09-10T09:43:00.002+01:00

Quite a few updates to tell you about - I do announce these in my new blog at SNG Planet as they are completed... since the interweb is such a big place I am also doing occasional summary posts here, after all, the more people who find the articles useful the better.

First up is actually the very latest - Carbon Poker have released a new version of their software for final beta testing... I reviewed it and gave info on a very special sign-up bonus offers for testers over at my SNG P blog - you can read it here: Carbon Poker New Software

Next a couple of changes at Omaha Planet, I have the e-book about transitioning from Holdem to Omaha a good brush up, we also put an advert box in your face for first time visitors... this is an experiment to see how many people sign-up for the eBook compared with how many hit the back button, so far so good. The book is called 'Tune In, Bet Pot, Cash Out' and is aimed at beginner+ players making the switch... you can read it at http://www.omahaplanet.com

Finally, another guide - this time to the 90 player Knockout SNGs at Full Tilt Poker, this is a detailed eBook format... I'm not giving it freely though - this will go to those players who have completed the $16 Per Hour SNG Blueprint as a 'special'. You can get on the Blueprint course - which takes beginner to intermediate players to the $16 per hour profit level within 4 weeks, over at http://www.sitandgoplanet.com

Thats all the updates for now - I'm working on an 'Ultimate Guide' at the moment, you'll need to keep an eye on SNG Planet to find out what it is!!

GL at the tables, Mark

$16 Per Hour SNG Blueprint... Now Ready

2010-07-24T11:38:00.003+01:00

Hey, my new course is ready!

Called this the '$16 Per Hour SNG Blueprint' and as the name suggests the idea is to take novice poker players and empower them to earn at least $16 each hour from the tables.

This course lasts 30 days and is in 4 parts, each building on the one before. We start with 'The Blueprint' which outlines the basic strategy stage-by-stage. Next I teach bubble play in terms of prize pool equity (ICM etc), before the 3rd part gets readers up to speed multi-tabling. Finally I bring it all together with the 'profit booster' which contains some killer tips on improving returns from SNGs... and gets you over the 'hump' and into the bigger winnings!

Click Here For The Preview And Join Page At SNG Planet

Would be great to see as many readers as possible join me on the course... and of course, your feedback is valued and always welcome.

GL at the tables, Mark

New SNG Course Almost Completed!

2010-07-09T14:12:00.002+01:00

Quick Planet Corp Update here today... I'm a good 80% through completing a fantastic (in my opinion!) new course, this is called the $16 / Hour SNG blueprint and is actually in 4 parts, going from the basics to bubble play then multi-tabling and finally bringing it all together with some killer strategy tips.

The thing is, having worked in the poker industry for a good few years now, I'm paranoid that the scummy low life out there will re-publish the course, which is currently in pdf format. So, I'm making sure that Google etc know that the work is already published before we go live (aiming for next Thursday) by offering parts of the book for republication - as long as a notice of 'express permission' is given with it that plugs my site... if you have a blog or website and would like to have some high quality material for your readers then let me know.

For now here is my preview page and the 'where we will be in 30 days from now' page - just to give readers a little taster!

********

Chapter #1 – 30 Days From Now – Where Will You Be After Completing This Course.

With the skills and knowledge to earn an average of $16 per hour (or more!) from the tables your bankroll could be starting to grow very fat indeed after completing this course. Let us be more specific, by way of introducing the main concepts.

I expect that the average player will be logging on to their chosen poker site, firing up 6 to 8+ turbo SNG tournaments, following our guidelines to avoid having too many multi-tabling opponents. They will be making fairly ‘automatic’ decisions in most cases, based on a clearly defined strategy specifically designed to reduce difficult spots without leaving too much ‘value’ on the table.

Our player will be cashing and winning at a rate which sees their bankroll move up and up and up with more games played. Busting out will not be a problem, you’ll simply fire up more games – waiting for the bubble where you now have the skills and knowledge to take advantage of your opponents again and again.

In 30 days you will have the tools to grow your poker bankroll at will. Whether your objective is to move to the high-stakes tournaments, transition to cash games or even just to generate some useful extra money for non-poker uses – you’ll always have the ability to come back for more.

We have broken the skills into 4 separate focus areas:

Part #1 – The SNG Blueprint: This part of the course will give you the ‘big view’, showing you how SNGs can mean big profits and giving you a new perspective which will quickly boost your profits, along with strategy and profit-making advice and insights which we will build on as the course progresses.

Part #2 - Becoming A Bubble Ninja: This part will arrive in 1 week, it will break down the bubble of a 1-table SNG tournament like you have never seen before. By the end of this section you will know exactly what mistakes your opponents are making at the bubble, and possess an effective counter-strategy for each one.

Part #3 – Turn Up The Volume: Next we will teach you how to gradually increase the number of games you are playing – while maintaining that profitable edge. You will be amazed how quickly playing 6 or more games can become as simple a routine as playing just 2!

Part #4 – SNG Profit Booster: In many ways this is the most important part of the course, arriving a week after Part #3. While we would love to share the insights and advanced strategy tips with you earlier – they become even more valuable after you have a solid grasp of the principles from the earlier sections.

If you are prepared to put in effort to learn the key concepts then read on, mastering SNG tournaments is easier than many people think!

You will find the course over at http://www.sitandgoplanet.com of course (English only from Thursday, though we will have it translated into DE, RU and HU shortly!)

Time For A Graceful Retirement!

2010-07-01T10:58:00.000+01:00

*** Another Update *** Bringing this blog back to life... not so much covering my own games anymore (see link below)... providing industry insights, links to interesting articles and highlighting any interesting blogs out there instead... ***

*** Quick Update: I started a new blog - it is part of my main site Sit N Go Planet, and continues right where Plan3t Gong left off.... check out the Sit N Go Planet Blog now! ***

An announcement - I have decided the time has come to let Plan3t Gong gracefully retire.

Over the last few years it has been a pleasure, no - an honour, to have provided 100's of posts with the theme of 'making you think' about poker in all its wonderful forms. However, life moves on, and rather than allow my passion for this blog to dwindle into nothingness or simply abandoning posting altogether I would prefer to draw a definite line, say a 'big thanks' to the readers who made the whole thing possible and then move on...

Good news - I'll continue to blog, Melted Felt is my poker news satire blog and that will be updated regularly. Also considering a more personal non-business blog too (we will see). I'll also continue to write tons of poker strategy articles... these now go on my 'Planet' network (see adverts on the right --> )

Finally, it seemed a shame to waste so many strategy / thought provoking pieces... so I have make a 'super sticky' with links to as many as possible (sticky also linked on right). Updates will continue below when I have a new business venture to announce.

Thanks very much to everyone, as I say it has been a genuine honour to have been read (and hopefully enjoyed!) by so many of you...

GL at the tables, Mark

Quick PS: I'm still passing on any interesting poker links / news and blog posts via Twitter.... will follow you back if you don't tweet junk! You can find me at www.twitter.com/PlanetMark

Planet Network Expands Again (Not Strategy)

2009-08-10T10:52:00.003+01:00

Just a quick post to inform the search engines that my network continues to grow, the latest additions are:

- http://www.prorakeback.hu a Hungarian rakeback-focused site providing reviews, a beginners rakeback guide and our SNG rakeback calc (along with a Texas Holdem one), this site also features some VIP loyalty deals which are too good to be called 'Rakeback' !!

- http://www.rakebackbonus.ru this one is Russian, again the rakeback side is the focus, and agfain the best articles are available along with reviews and widgets. My focus here is that it is more important to get people on the right deal (for the long term), than just a big percentage. Hopefully this is reflected in the quality of the sites.

- http://www.omahaplanet.com not a new site, but has had a complete renovation, looks 100% better IMO and we also added a bunch of new articles and simplified the navigation. In fact we were so pleased with the results of this one that it kicked off a desire to completely renovate SNG Planet next (Sept by the time we finish that one... big job!).

Oh, just a FYI - we are having SNG Planet translated into both French and German at the moment (can not wait!!)

Mark

Rakeback-Planet Revamp Completed

2009-06-17T08:38:00.002+01:00

Well, it took a while longer than planned... but we finally got the new version of rakeback-planet up last night. Still a couple of minor updates to do but have to say I really think this is the best effort yet - Check it out at:

Rakeback Deals

We have all the leading deals from Tilt, Cake, Carbon, Absolute etc + some special 'VIP' offers including 40% to 55% iPoker Rakeback equivalent and a Bodog Loyalty scheme. The angle we are going for is VIP service + best deals... PG readers have my personal pledge that if anything goes awry or you get into a dispute with the room I'll step in and help get it resolved.

Can't say fairer than that.

Extra busy today, will be updating the 'super-sticky' below this post each day for the next week or so - then an announcement will follow!

Gl at those tables

The PG Online Poker Strategy Super Jump-Off Page

2009-06-16T09:13:00.002+01:00

OK - As will shortly be explained in a sticky post at the top of Plan3t Gong this is the Online Poker Strategy super jump-off! This will contain links to many of the articles posted here over the last 3 years - and many of the links to good outside resources too.

This will take a little while to fully update, and will work in categories. If anyone would like to see my current writing on SNG, MTT, Omaha, Satellite and Rakeback (and more) then check the square adverts towards the top right.

We can start with posts which were deliberately put into series - with their own jump-off pages:

Series #1) 10 Post Series On How To Increase Your Profits By 63% By Making Incremental Small Improvements..... Improve Your Poker Profits Idea was that just a 5% improvement in 10 different areas + the wonder of compounding + the wonder of rakeback = $$$$

Series #2) Articles Covering Annette_15... all quiet on that front at the time of writing, but I'm sure we have not heard the last. Updated versions of these articles are available at SNG Planet, but here is a small sticky with the originals: Annette_15 Strategy Annette_15 Strategy

Series #3) PLO Strategy... well, not so much a series as a collection: This smaller collection were my initial musings on PLO, which eventually morphed into the biggest and best Omaha resource online in the shape of Omaha Planet... I'm sure there are more than this, will look for them and add them to this sticky: PLO Strategy

Series #4) The Big One - SNG Strategy: While I played poker regularly the majority of this was SNGs - when PG started it was 'just another poker blog from a SNG fan' until I accidentially found that I enjoyed writing about the strategy.... anyway, this sticky is incomplete too - will make an effort to grab the URLs of all of the SNG posts soon: SNG Strategy Sticky

Going to publish this post now before completion - Double or Nothings, Draw Poker, Psychology, and External Links to be added as separate stickies, followed by a '20 posts which have stood the test of time' (which will take me a little while to pick from the 600+ posts here, but hey!)

See you soon!

Mark

Classic PG #1 - Reasons For Checking In Sit n Goes!

2009-06-10T09:48:00.002+01:00

First in a few posts from the archives today... noted earlier that strategy posts go into our commercial sites these days.... meaning that I somehow do not feel like posting them here at Plan3t Gong any more. So, develed into 2007 and found one that is the opposite of the 'conventional wisdom' that you should always be raising and betting while playing poker.... entitled Reasons for Checking in SNGs.... enjoy

************

Any SNG player (well poker players in general) knows there are a whole number of reasons for raising, most - if not all - poker books and strategy guides cover this subject. Well Plan3t Gong is the blog that likes to make you think... so today we can turn our thoughts to a slightly obscure area of Sit N Go Strategy - reasons for 'checking'.

(in no particular order!)

1) Pot Size Control. Sometimes you'll have a hand you are happy to play a big pot with... other times not - a top pair with kicker for example is often very vulnerable. If you do not want to build a big pot then you'll need to check at some point during the hand. This is especially useful when you have a big stack and are in a pot with another biggy - no point going to war when you can pick on the medium / small stacks instead!

2) To Take A Free Card. With position you can check to take a free card to make your draw. Works especially nicely if you bet the flop and missed your draw on the turn, now if you miss you have invested the minumum and if you hit (especially with a straight) you may find your opponent betting into you on the river.

3) To Induce A Bluff. So your opponent is known to usually call a flop bet... now checking on the turn might induce a nice bluff on the river from hands that might have folded if you continued to bet at the pot.

4) To Check-Raise / Slowplay.You know your opponent is aggressive and will keep firing at the pot, you check-called the flop when first to act... against the right opponent a check-raise on the turn can get more money into the pot. Make sure you pick the right players though... you do not want your opponent to check behind and take that free card when there are draws out there...

5) Co-operation Plays. When a short stack is all in and there is no side pot... checking down a hand can be mathematically beneficial to you. The increase in your equity from maximising the chances of knocking out an opponent are greater than the potential to win more chips. Make sure you know the math here though... there are many situations (when the bubble is not yet here) when a bet might be the better option.

6) To Prevent Yourself Becoming Easy To Read. Less common, especially at the low stakes, but if you always lead with strong hands and check weak ones you'll become exploitable by observant opponents. Mix up that play enough to put some doubt in their minds by occasionally checking when you would have bet and vice versa.Any more? drop a comment to let me know!

In the meantime... GL at the tables, Mark

Poker Basics - Introducing Poker Hand 'Ranges

2009-06-07T13:14:00.006+01:00

Get searches in Google et al from players at many different stages of poker knowledge and experience.... so to keep things balanced I'm starting a mini-series on a poker basics topic today - one that is a bit of a buzzword recently, but has been around as long as the game itself - the subject of Poker Hand Ranges in Texas Holdem games.

Todays idea will be to explain what we mean by ranges and point out come common situations in which they can be used. Later we can look at more detail of how your opponents ranges will affect your pre-flop decisions... whether we get post flop will depend on reader feedback for the first posts!

Going to assume that readers have a tool called PokerStove... if not then grab it now, it is free and invaluable for players at all experience levels to compare hands with other hands and hands with ranges of possible hands too... get it from http://www.pokerstove.com/ or search google (there are no strings etc).

Right, with all that preamble out of the way, let us look at poker hand ranges.

Imagine a situation at the end of a SNG tournament (to keep it simple, we will adjust for cash / tournament play later). You are wondering whether it would be a good idea to shove all-in into a single opponent and would like to know whether this is a profitable move in the long-run.

(just as an aside we are ignoring ICM here, this example is to explain the concept of ranges only)

If your opponent folds you will win the blinds, a nice addition to your stack. If he calls then you will bust x% of the time and double-up y% of the time (the x and y depending on the hands you both reveal). We will start at the beginning, how often will you actually be called.

Lets look at 2 opponents, a tight player who will 'only' call with pairs 8-8 and better, and Ace-King or A-Queen - suited or unsuited. And a Loose player who loves to call wide and will play any pair 44 and up, any suited ace and unsuited ace-seven and up, K5suited + and J-9 off + lots of 'any 2 high card' and suited / unsuited connectors 8-10 or better....

Before we make any decisions we should learn the 'how often' side of the equation for these players (and those in-between). For this you click on the 'player 1' (top left) of the PokerStove main screen, and then the 'pre-flop' tab on the next window. You are then presented with a matrix of possible hands like the ones at the bottom of this post:

By selecting the hands that you judge each opponent will call with based on their previous play, you can get a percentage figure which is the proportion of hands they will call with compared with the hands that they will fold.

For the examples we gave these numbers are:

Tight Player: Will have a 'calling hand' only 5.6% of the time (yes, if someone is this tight they are folding more than 94% of the time... change your play at all??)

Crazy Player: Will call you 30% of the time, that is a lot but even someone this loose will fold 70% of the time to your shove.

Next we look at how your hand will fare those times you are called.

Say you have 7-7 and want to know how you will do against the 2 ranges we identified those times you are called. Lets use some really simple numbers to illustrate the point here. After posting a small blind of 50 and big blind of 100 you each have exactly 1000 chips left, we then use information from PokerStove and run the hand 100 times to see what the average loss / gain is:

100 Hands Against Tighty:

94 Times we win the blinds +150 chips * 94 = 14100
6 times we are called.... using Pokerstove we select 6% for player 1 and choose 7-7 for ourselves (as player 2) once ok'd we click the large 'evaluate' button to get the equity of each hand. Here we have a clear 66/33 result (so a ratio of 4 losses and 2 wins from our 6 hands)
- 4 times we lose 1000 chips = (4000)
- 2 times we win 1150 chips = +2250

When we add these up we end up with a gain of 12350 chips over 100 hands or 123.5 chips per attempt... this is huge and clearly shows that shoving tight players has a positive outcome, mostly based on the fact that you steal the blinds to often.

100 Hands Against Loosy:

70 Times we steal the blinds +150 chips * 70 = +10500
30 times we are called, again we need PokerStove to show us how much equity we have against the 30% range, next to player 1 on the main screen type 30%, then choose 77 for player 2 and click the 'evaluate button' ... as you can see we are a small favorite when called, so:
- 16 times we win 1150 chips = + 18400
- 14 times we lose 1000 chips = (14,000)

When the dust settles, our balance is +14900 or +149 chips per attempt, even better than the push against the tighty, albeit with some significantly increased short-term volatility.

Anyway, the examples are just to give you an idea of the thought process (raising / seeing a flop / something else may be optimal depending on stack sizes and situations). To start working with ranges:

- First we estimate all of the hands an opponent would play in a given situation.
- Next we memorize the basics of particular hands against these ranges
- Finally we combine this information to make a decision with a positive outcome over time.

Well, hope someone finds this 40 minutes of my Sunday afternoon useful!

GL at the tables, Mark

Start Of Month Business Update - Plans Plans Plans!

2009-06-04T08:59:00.003+01:00

After the previous more thoughful post here is a more normal one - about my plans for the month ahead for Planet Corp and the ever growing list of sites in our portfolio. As usual I'll go through site-by-site, not going to link out from the article to any of these... but if you are interested there are adverts on the top of the right hand side-bar.

Sit And Go Planet: Well, the Polish version is basically complete, the Romanian is undergoing a nice revamp and we will continue to add some great content (have some top stuff ready on my computer but will ration it through the month). Going to pause a little in June to make sure we are maximising visitors experience (less bounces, more pageviews, more return visitors etc) as well as catching and converting those fleeting visitors looking for specifics. We are planning to take June off from new translations - will start looking for a German translator here in Budapest in the 2nd half of the month with the aim of getting this up by September.

Omaha Planet: My favorite bugbear, growing visitors + revenues... until now was never sure of what to do with this site. Now a plan at last - we are going to focus it on rakeback - as well as a major revamp during June. The thought process is this: People looking for Omaha info are already somewhat experienced (on average at least), experienced poker players are not likely to be signing up without rakeback - especially those who play reasonable volume / value. Makes sense right! This will be a big job and ties into the one below... again some great content to add, and the long-promised e-book (about transitioning from NLHE to PLO) is now in outline form.

Rakeback-Planet: (with the dash!). Redesign actually underway while I type, the big announcement is a move of back-end, hopefully by the start of next week. Previous provider was ok but their CS seemed more interested in closing tickets as fast as humanly possible, rather than thinking about actually helping the customers or adding any value - and PAS (who we are moving to) have a great reputation for service. The back end of the previous provider was my other concern, my 'deals' page still showed offers that were closed months ago... anyway, this should be a real boost and I will tie it in with more content too. Even better we already have Hungarian and Russian versions translated - so as soon as the English one is up we will create these (on their own domains) before transitioning Omaha Planet to this provider last.

Melted-Felt: Really enjoying this one - I'll keep writing those pieces as long as visitors keep coming to read them.

Durrrr Challenge Blog: Bored with this one, oh well, will keep it up now I have started. Might have to start paying its way with the odd link to my other sites though.

PB Klubs: We now have 4 separate bonus portals, in Hungarian, Russian, Polish and Romanian, growing now, with 35ish pages each. We will add some more content and tidy up the reviews on all of these this month... no major plans though (mind you, thinking about it maybe I should get another one done - Slovakian or Slovenian would fit the bill!), oh and increasing visibility for would be good too.

Killer-Holdem: No big plans, needs a tidy up (couple of out of date reviews etc), since we do not have an English 'PB Klub' we use any content created for that network on this site - so could potentially get bigger.

Plan3t Gong: Will continue with its stay of execution, when I get the time and motivation I will 'retire' this blog and start a business / personal one instead. There is a ton of strategy buried here, what I was thinking was to dig some up (well, after all statistcally speaking 85% of those who read it 2 years ago will have moved on from poker by now!). In fact the next post will be the first in a 'Classic Plan3t Gong' series!

***
Well, thats the plans ahead, we are hoping to make the next interim milestone in terms of players this month. Have a ton of ideas just waiting for the money to invest in them, and will want to be hiring a German speaker for the office here by the end of August to bring the total up to 5 - we will see!

Gl at the tables, Mark

Start Of Month Planet Corp Business - Thoughts

2009-06-02T11:04:00.002+01:00

New record for sign-ups and revenue last month and steaming ahead with some great plans for June. Always start each week with 'its going to be busy' and June is once again no exception.

Had a thoughful and welcome comment from a reader last week noting that my sites have become 'spammier' of late. This is both correct and part of a premeditated plan (though I still firmly believe we have a far better balance between content and adverts than at least 90% of the competition!). This comment was worthy of a reply - so let me explain:

I had always been a bit of a 'quality content snob', write the best content and the world will be your lobster school of thinking... and you know what - it sort of worked. I managed to create some sites that had top quality articles, very few adverts and that a small minority of readers would think were pretty cool.

Now that was all well and good - but at the end of the month having a site that was kind or amateur but interesting, that tried to get people to think about their game without preaching and deliberately did not 'over-advertise' for fear of being considered too commercial - did not pay the bills, and the reason was simple...

The type of person that the type of site I created already had everything sorted as far as rooms / tools and rakeback deals was concerned. The best I could hope for was someone getting curious enough to check a new room or download SNG Wiz. I had aimed my websites at people who would only ever 'appreciate them' and not at the people I needed to.

Of course I enjoyed the self-invented 'SNG / poker thought coach' role, but even appreciation from that was an illusion of sorts- the kind words in mails and comments were not from people who knew me as an individual, however well meaning (and greatly appreciated) they were. Being cool yet anonymous among a few was nice, but this also failed to pay many bills.

what happened next?

Simple, I profiled my visitors. Figured that there are certain types of players at certain stages in their poker development who want different things from a SNG / MTT / Satellites site. Slowly but surely we have been adjusting the sites to cater for these people (in 3 main groups as it happens!). Yes the quality content continues, but appealing to experienced. established players is no longer our main focus and has not been since around October last year. But identifying visitors and tailoring to those with the most profit potential is not all:

We are now asking those visitors to click things - so simple, but so effective.

Whereas once it would have been fine to give a room review with a nice banner down the side, now we end with a sentence that says 'Visit XYZ Poker Now to See Those crazy games for yourself' with a link - yes, the site is focusing on conversions - something I am personally very irritated with myself about not focusing on earlier (must be my British reserve or something).

This is an ongoing process or course... but while there is tons more to do I am going to ensure that we keep a balance between quality and adverts in a better proportion than our main competitors. Though as long as my income keeps growing I'll never feel shy or embarassed about asking a visitor to click something ever again!

Well, a long post - guess we could boil it down to 'If You Can't Please All Of The People All Of The Time, Them Make Sure You Please Those You Can Most Effectively Monetise' or something like that!

Of course, some of my other sites have a completely different focus and were never designed to be strategy sites at all (but that is another story for another day).

Gl at those tables, Mark

Opening Bets Late In MTTs

2009-05-31T12:44:00.002+01:00

Always regret it, but decided to play in one of the small buy-in rebuys yesterday, along with almost 6000 others (!). Anyway, long story short for the background... won some, lost some, got lucky, got unlucky, stole pots, had pots stolen from me and eventually busted in a classic AK vs Pair situation in 195th (or something similar) place.

As a quick aside it was a friendly table for a long while, not overly chatty, but pleasant and good natured - something that is becoming increasingly rare these days.

Onto bet sizing late - my 'thing to think about' for this post is that the size of bets in the later stages can be used to anticipate calling ranges. Might be a little basic for experienced readers.

During the early stages of an MTT the 3 times raise is the 'standard' with 4 times or bigger on occasion. In the later stages with big antes smaller raises - ranging from 2.25 to 2.75 the big blind - actually accomplish exactly the same goals (building a pot for value or getting the blinds to fold). Experienced players know this and save those chips those times they are behind or want to play pot-control post flop by making the opening raise a little smaller.

This is not to say that everyone who opens for 2.5 times the blind late is a strategy expert... yet on the whole we can make the assumption that this player is familiar with MTT strategy and (importantly) has taken the time to think about the effect of different raise sizes.

So, it follows that to use this information to our advantage at the tables we need to ask the question of what other assumptions / approaches to the game someone who is familiar with bet sizing strategy might take... not going to provide a whole list but here are some ideas to start you off thinking:

- The gap concept, specifically the risks involved in calling with easily dominated hands.
- Moves such as the squeeze, stop-n-go and floating.
- The power of position and fact that you can raise a whole range of hands from here.

Note that we can not necessarily do this the other way around, just because someone sticks to 3 times raises late in the tournament we can not assume that they do not know about strategy... the key to this post is to spot a clue that your opponent has at least thought about different aspects of the game!

Gl at those tables, Mark

PS: Got a nice little pickup on the business-side, will do a roundup and look ahead to an interesting June next post.

The Psychology Of 4/1

2009-05-29T11:35:00.002+01:00

Friday used to be my favorite day... now I'm always baffled by how fast the week went and looking forward to planning for next week - must be in the right business for me!

Anyway - a good old fashioned 'something to think about' post today. This one was triggered by a comment over at Melted Felt, it was on a post about Carbon Poker being rigged not to pay out the bad beat jackpot... and was from a reader who posted his evidence that Carbon was rigged in all seriousness - this evidence was... wait for it - you'll never guess (!). It was a hand history from a $2 SNG in which his aces were cracked by queens all-in pre flop.

Well well, obviously not played much poker sir (probably the kindest thing I can say!)

Anyway, it got my old mind whirling about those odds 80% to 20%, and how the perception of most people - even those who know the percentages - is that those pair-over-pair situations are much bigger favorites than the mere odds suggest.

4/1 is not that big a deal in many situations.

You have 5 eggs left in your box and one turns out to be bad.

You order 5 scotches over the course of an evening and they add diet coke to one of them.

For every 4 times you catch the metro, once you arrive just as the train closes its doors.

I mean, when you put those same odds into every day situations it seems like each is almost waiting to happen. So then, why do people get so upset / surprised / amazed / conspirational when they lose a pair over pair situation?

Baffles me!

Gl at the tables, Mark

Poker Links Week At Planet Corp!

2009-05-25T08:58:00.003+01:00

Starting 'Poker Links Week' today with some late-spring cleaning here at Plan3t Gong... and no less than 2 offers, one for for fellow poker bloggers to join my blogroll and the other for poker webmasters (or bloggers) that I'll supply some unique and high quality content.

First the blogroll here at Plan3t Gong... well, blogs come and blogs go as people's circumstances change - so we end up with a bunch of out of date blogs listed. So, today I'm going to remove any that have not been updated for 6 weeks (will keep a note and check back in a months time for updates!).

This will free up some space which I'd like to use to exchange with genuine bloggers out there - if you have a real blog (not just adverts / banners / reviews please, though I do understand bloggers deserve a little monetisation for their efforts!) then give me a shout, I'll be happy to link you up here and might even add a shout in a post too.

Secondly, content. This week I will be writing a bunch of additional content for my own sites - and also for other peoples! While I no longer write for money I'll be happy to do it in exchange for a link back to one of my quality sites. If you have a poker blog or site and would like strategy / reviews / bios or any other type of content then drop me a comment here ( all are manually verified and I will not publish contents which contain contact information).

Thats that for now... going to do the same at Melted Felt with the blogroll, though I prefer funny blogs to link to over there - may well update more about 'links week' as we go forward.

GL at the tables, Mark

General Update - Psychobabble On Business And Playing!

2009-05-24T13:22:00.004+01:00

Frustrated at the moment... the thing is I know that I should not be.

Business first, I measure my results in $$ and sign-ups of new players. There we go trundling happily along at xyz new players a day and *boom* we fall off the proverbial cliff for 5 days now, with xyz daily tops... aaaarrrggghhh (edited out the numbers, you don't really need to know ;O) )

Here is the rub, in my heart I know that short-term fluctuations are just part of the game, that in a couple of days time the sign-ups will bounce back. Yet the frustration stays, results in my constantly checking the sites (something that was a big time-waster early on until that bahaviour was 'unlearned'), in worrying whether something has happened that will doom us to failure... actually more irritated with myself for being irritated than anything else. Chill Mark, it is just a few days!

Actually played some poker this weekend for the first time in a while, those Multi-table tournaments are as brutal as ever! Going to have to be honest with myself and admit that my mindset is probably not right for MTT play, I know the drill with 'keep making the right decisions and the $$ will follow'.... but it just feels too brutal for me to really - no bad beat stories allowed here, but when you actually read someones hand so well that you know they are bluffing the turn - and they still get there, it becomes dis-heartening.

Hey, becoming a morose post - the thing is I actually won money overall, if only a little, with a 5th in a 20 / 180 - so it was not all bad, just mentally not for me.

Being honest with yourself is important in life and poker alike - I'll be keeping those MTTs to a mimimum from now on and mini-raising in PLO instead... as far as the business goes it is time to fight a good fight rather than let any short-term fluctuations get me down. Going to spend some time this afternoon on an article idea which will compare SNG leader-boards at the main sites, and tomorrow - well that is the start of what I have termed 'links week'.... tune in tomorrow for details!

GL at the tables, Mark

Online Poker Accounts Hacked... PokerStars Again Show Leadership

2009-05-22T10:00:00.003+01:00

You are never far from a 'my online poker account was hacked and all money stolen' story on forums these days. Lets face it, to a hacker there is a ton of money to be made - even more than normal bank accounts in a lot of cases. What is more, poker players are often to stoned / careless to take security seriously until too late! logging on in internet cafes... public wifi spots... downloading from torrents while playing... you are probably gambling in more ways that you think,

Anyway - this is supposed to be a useful post as well as a thought-provoking one.

Going to state the obvious first. You should treat your online poker account security as strictly as you would your online banking. No public machines please, that poker can wait!

Second, Poker Stars have again shown some leadership with a very neat idea - anyone who takes security of their online account should check out their 'pin' system, which moves the numbers around each time on the keypad to prevent key / screen loggers... basically a 6 digit pin in addition to your password.

Here is a link to the instructions... if keying in a 6 digit pin when you log on is too much hassle for you then please do not come crying to me if your account gets hacked!

Poker Stars Security Pin

For those who want to go to the next level Stars are also offering an RSA security system via their VIP store... (6000 points I think) this is linked to your account and displays a 6 digit pin which changes every minute, you simply type it in when you log on.

Me? Well I do have some FPPs hanging around... but will stick with the standard pin from here.

GL at the tables, Mark

Mimicry - Using Your Opponents Betting Tendencies Against Them...

2009-05-21T08:56:00.002+01:00

Actually watched 2 Poker X Factor videos last week... have been a member since Nov 2006 and used to really enjoy the new series as they appeared. To be fair the offerings now are even better than when I first joined, with new instructors and some big-name online pros.

What changed was me - poker is now business rather than liesure - and so time spent watching PxF vids feels like 'work' and has to hold its own in the 100's of other competing tasks on a day-to-day basis!

Anyway, Bax is still great at narrating the vids and something he said in a recent series triggered the idea for this post - on mimicry.

Bax was dealt a big pair and saw a limp ahead, previously the limper had raised 6x with kings (they were v deep at the start of a tourney) and Bax said he was not going to make a bigger than standard raise - so as not to alert this player that he had a big hand... this was almost just a passing comment and easily missed, but to me it was something significant - in Plan3t Gong style it was something 'worthy of thinking about' a little further.

In essence this player had made a big raise with a big starting hand and thus would be likely (conciously or otherwise) to put an opponent on a big hand if they made a similar raise themselves. What I wanted to do was to expand this idea into common situations we might enounter at the tables. My thought is even opponents who are not yet at the level of thinking required to 'put you on a hand' will react to strong and weak signals - and that those signals are often based on what they perceive the 'correct' play to be in various situations.

*** Quick disclaimer, going to put a few examples below - these are pretty simplified to illustrate my point and trigger thinking... so no need to send me mails if you do not agree with the exact examples (though more examples / scenarios in the comments could make this post more useful still!). ****

Lets take a tricky trappy opponent (BTW thats most lower level players right? they would rather feel 'smart' by fooling you than maximize ev in many cases). They hit a set and check-call the flop, looking to check-raise the turn... they also implicitly assume that an opponent who spikes a set would almost always do the same. Mimicry can help us in a couple of ways here - leading right out with a set works, since this opponent would rarely consider this line, eliminating most sets / strong hands from this guys range when he does lead of course helps us too. But how about we mimic his c-c / c-r line on occasion when weak, since this is exactly how he plays a monster then we could do this to represent one... (or course check-raising the turn often screams strength, but hey - its just an example!!)

Another common example is that lower level players make small 3-bets with monsters and bigger ones with more vulnerable hands. These players do not want to 'scare away the opposition' when they have that 'invincible' premium pair. Lets mimic them too... but not when we have the goods of course. Small bets are great post flop too... if you know that an indivual makes smaller bets when very strong you can make your bluffs small as a proportion of the pot - maximizing your value for the money invested. And bigger bets against this opponent (! I'm sure you get the picture). Imagine in PLO an opponent who value bets small with the mortal nuts on the river each time... how profitable would bluffing a scare card become here!!?!

One more applies to draws, some players will play these aggressively and others passively... in position some players will raise the flop and check behind on the turn if they fail to hit. Spot one of these and checking the turn becomes a great option when you are strong... you 'appear' to be on a draw so strongly to someone who will regularly play this way that your huge re-raise when they bet the river into you will 'scream' that you missed to them. Of course against the worst opponents more straightforward pot-building plays may be good too.

Anyway, these are just examples - be great to hear your real-life experiences of when and where you have used an oppnents specific betting patterns against them!

Gl at the tables, Mark

Welcome Break Over...

2009-05-19T10:08:00.002+01:00

Had a fantastic long weekend with my Mother over to visit, was a good pychological break too with no thinking about poker and only a little thinking about the poker business. Caught the sun, 31 degrees C here in the city... oh and drank - a lot.

So, looking down the barrel of another hectic week and looking forward to getting stuck in. Have a couple of posts on poker psychology in mind for this blog. One concerns mimicry and using an opponent's observed betting patterns to shape their perception of your hand. The second is to do with 'cognitive bias' which is the phenominon by which we re-invent our own pasts to 'gel' with our self-image, belief structures and attitidues.

On the work front we are going to get the ball rolling on moving rakeback provider, start our 'tournament spotlight' theme, redesign a couple of front pages, put some new material for both OnGame and iPoker sites and generally create some world-class content which we can be proud of hosting on our network (ads at the top of the right hand column if you are a first time reader here!).

Best get on with it, not used to 4 days away from business and will have to tune back in!

GL at the tables, Mark

The Online Poker Chat Debate... Great Idea!

2009-05-14T09:16:00.000+01:00

Browsing the hate-filled forum that is Pocket5's yesterday and came across an interesting thread with an excellent idea from mod Adam in it... the subject is the debate about chatting while playing online poker.

Pretty sure I have discussed my own thoughts on this before - basically that any chat is bad for your profits, whatever convoluted reasoning you come up with for it being positive. The linked thread actually suggests actively getting banned from chat as a good solution for those who can not stop themselves breating the fish....

But Adam came up with an even better idea, one that could actually be fun - especially after time has passed and you have moved on / up / away from your current game.

Here it is:

Just keep a Notepad window open and type all your rants there. Or if you want a good laugh at the end of the day, type it all into an email window and then send it all to yourself after you're done playing.

Genius huh? How much fun would it be to collect these together for a year and then go back through them.

Me? I'll just carry on saying nothing at all.

Here is the link:

http://www.pocketfives.com/poker-forums/7/how-do-you-avoid-spazzing-out-in-the-chatbox-4255515

GL at the tables, Mark

SNG Planet Polish Is Here!

2009-05-12T09:17:00.003+01:00

Always makes me jump out of bed early in the morning when we have a new site up (i know i know)... anyway - happy to be announcing the latest version of SNG Planet today, well 70% of it at least. We have gone live with:

PL Poker Tournaments

In one fell swoop the biggest collection of SNG articles in Polish... + tons of beginners MTT articles, reviews and comparisons - there are more on the way, we plan on completing the Satellites section by the end of the month too... should be 110 pages soon (bigger than a lot of people's entire sites!).

There are flags at the top of the screen for English, Russian, Hungarian and Romanian as well as the new Polish version... next plan is German, though we are going to pause for a little while first to consolidate and create some other sites. Will let you know here at Plan3t Gong first.

Gl at the tables, Mark

Hectic Week Ahead!

2009-05-11T08:58:00.002+01:00

World record time... the number of consecutive Monday monrning posts here at Plan3t Gong which start 'going to be a busy week' (or something along those lines!). Well it is, both for our poker business and personally!

Personal first - I am receiving a royal visit starting Thursday night when my Mother and latest Step-dad arrive from the UK. Should be fun, we are already planning a trip down south to see Erika's family (not that they speak any English - but that is a minor issue).

Working wise we will be launching the latest translation of SNG Planet when the Polish Edition goes live. Once again this is pretty big news for me... we do not fuck around with these translations, talking 100 pages of quality strategy here - actually bigger than many people's entire sites.

Tons of other things to fit into a 4-day working week too including a SEO revamp of the Hungarian sites, some fairly large updates for Killer Holdem, a rakeback planet update and the usual ongoing activities with the other sites too... this week will also see us finalising plans made with the operators we met at the Conference in Amsterdam, this should involve some changes to the mix of rooms we are promoting but nothing that the casual visitor would particularly be aware of.

Not had too much time for poker at all this month, occasionally donking around for 30 minutes on the 8-game tables. Was momentarily tempted by the 'earn 7500, get 80k free' Poker Stars FPPs offer - and then remembered that I actually hate poker when playing for anything other than entertainment and the grind would have made me miserable very fast. Nope, knowing yourself is key in this kind of situation... and I know that fun (and the occasional profits!) has to be a big part of the game for me.

GL at the tables, Mark

PS: Follow me on Twitter for all the Planet Gong, Melted Felt and Planet Sites updates...

http://www.twitter.com/PlanetMark

Thought Provoking Article On Hand Reading

2009-05-06T09:43:00.003+01:00

You know that feeling... the one when you get to the end of a 12 hour working day, sit back and assess - and then realise that your list of things to do is actually longer than it was at the start?? If you are involved in the poker business I'm sure it is a yes!

Anyway, to keep things fast I'll link to an excellent article on hand reading from the 2+2 monthly magazine today... this is seriously thought provoking, for those of us who find exact hands a bit of a challenge to read the 'catergories' approach could be a great starting point. My one disclaimer is that you need to be more cautious at the lowest limits - just because you are right about the weakness of an opponents hands does not mean that they will not call you with it anyway!

Hand Reading Made Simple

Gl at the tables, Mark

Back In Budapest - Amsterdam Affiliate Conference Recap #1

2009-05-05T09:01:00.003+01:00

Each time I go away it is with good intentions of blogging on the go.... and each time I return the first thing is to announce it here and apologise for no updates! Ah, well - let me make it up to you with part #1 of my re-cap of an excellent trip to Amsterdam for my first poker business conference.

Will post a more personal version of the trip report here - going to do a business one over at www.pokeraffiliatelistings.com - the greatest commumity of poker affiliates

Fortunately, the annual 'Queens Day' celebration coincided with the conference, meaning we were able to don orange hats and join in the biggest party of the year in the Netherlands... would recommend this to anyone, literally the whole city was out in Amsterdam with people from all walks of life enjoying the day / night together. Did make getting to our hotel a little arduous, but hey.

Ah, the hotel. We stayed in the Krasnapolsky on Dam square... have been to the Netherlands many times and stayed in many hotels - but this one was a let-down. The building / staff and location were all excellent... but the room! Dated, small and tatty, bah. Back to the Barbizon next time (which has the added benefit of being next to my favorite breakfast place - the 'Prince Hendrik Sandwich Bar')

A definite advantage of staying at the Kras was the proximity of the sponsored bar - the 'Players Bar' - which was literally 2 minutes walk away. Went to the networking events both Thursday and Friday there to sup the free beer. The first day felt a little odd really, not knowing anyone at all, while everyone else seemed to know each other. Did chat with some affiliates and operators, however now recognise that the cold 'Hi, I'm Mark!' networking routine is not my thing, much easier when you have a starting point to meet people from... which was demonstrated Friday where we knew a few faces and felt much more comfortable.

Meeting with Greg Powell and Jeremy Enke was high on my priority list before leaving. These gentlemen are some of the pillars of the poker affiliate community and turned out to be really great guys too - looking forward to sharing many more beers with both at future conferences.

Staying in the centre of the city we had to work out how the Amsterdam tram system worked to get to the conference centre (the RAI). Brilliant way to see the city for just a couple of Euros... if anyone is wondering you buy a long ticket with 15 spaces - when you get on the tram the driver or ticket guy will stamp 2 or 3 depending on how far you go, simple.

The conference centre was huge and it actually took a while to locate the right conference. Several of the operators had laid on nice set-ups, a 'Party Poker' Bar, Boylesports Guiness / Darts, Cake had a giant kitchen setup, SmartLive a real roulette table and so on... many of the providers also used the age-old tactic of using pretty ladies to hand out leaflets / get you to the booth / or swap gifts for business cards... will give my top rating to BetUS (oops, I mean, I was not looking, erm, did not notice, eyes are only for you Erika!).

Some operators were more aggressive in getting attention than others, and to be honest 1 or 2 well known ones were a little too aggressive for our tastes. Going to keep the post positive, so will not mention any names.

Well, my list of things to do is massive.... so will continue this post tomorrow with some more of the business side of the trip.

Gl at the tables, Mark

Pot Limit Omaha Ramblings, Erm, I Mean Strategy

2009-04-29T09:40:00.002+01:00

Been a while since any Pot Limit Omaha featured on Plan3t Gong... some small ammends today.

Still love this game, as frustrating as it can be.... wrote an article on playing top 2 the other day which will go up next week on Omaha Planet. Basic premise is that this hand is dangerous, especially on drawy boards - yet can be really very profitable against an opponent that you know is overplaying aces (and if you play PLO for a while these opponents become very easy to spot (and stack!!)).

All good - except the poker gods decided it would be funny to take 3 buy-ins from me in exactly the aces vs 2-pair hands over the last week.... admittedly one of them had a nut flush draw to go with his aces so not exactly a suckout. To balance this 80% of the money went in on the turn in the last one! No bad beat stories here... just laughing at the irony of completing the article only to have it come back and bite you!

When I am very tired at the end of a day there it can be enjoyable to become my alter-alter-ego 'The Phantom Min-Raiser of Old London Town' at the Omaha Tables. While min-raising every hand pre-flop and min-betting every flop is primarily for fun only, it actually does have an educational aspect too (yes, really! Read on!)

This occurs in two ways.... firstly peoples reactions are interesting. You can quickly judge who is adjusting and who is not, you'll get 1 (or 2) 'table captains' who will try and show you who is boss - the question is are they reraising you from position? With premium hands? does the size of their reraise tell you about their hand?

More passive opponents and tricky fools (no need to be tricky in PLO... you can disguise your hands perfectly well by raising lots of combos and betting lots of flops!) will try and check-raise you for sure, but what with? Especially when you have 95 big blinds behind you what is a 10BB check-raise from out of position hoping to achieve...

Sure, min-raising is not really poker - but adjusting to your opponents is, and you'll be suprised how much fun it can be to react... and as a special bonus nobody will believe you when you flop that monster hand / draw - those times you double your stack more than make up for the mini-bet / fold routine.

Anyway, not advokating this as a strategy... just some educational fun!

Gl at the tables, Mark

Preparing For My First Poker Conference

2009-04-27T09:05:00.001+01:00

Going to be a busy week, not only the day-to-day of running the global corporate monster that is Planet Corp Kft - but on Thursday Erika and I will fly out to Amsterdam for the 'Amsterdam Affiliate Conference'... our first industry event. Thats not all - today we are expecting to welcome Corina to the team and start training for our upcoming foray into the Romanian poker market!

Judging by the conference agenda and feeback from previous meet-ups we are in for a fantastic few days - and as a bonus it is the Netherlands biggest party of the year on Thursday too - the 'Queens Day' public holiday / dress in orange and have a good time day!

There will, of course, be a serious side to all this, want to meet with some affiliate managers and as many fellow affiliates / industry leaders as possible... since we plan on being a big player within the next year or two this is a great opportunity to lay the groundwork for the future by meeting the current movers and shakers... and hopefully meet with some really great people, raise some glasses and have a good time.

So, any affiliates reading this Erika and I will be in the 'Hub Pub' (the Player's Bar in 'Dam square) this Thursday (early, the sponsorship ends at 8) and on Friday too... drop me a mail or comment and we can share a frosty beer and say hello.

The next conference is planned for September and will be right here in Budapest - great!

Gl at the tables, Mark

PS: Follow me and the Planet Poker sites over on Twitter at http://twitter.com/PlanetMark

Poker Bankroll Management For The Recreational Player

2009-04-26T13:23:00.004+01:00

Time to carry on my theme about poker strategy not really gelling with the perspective of the majority of poker players... the idea is that a recreational player looks at an article on Bankroll Management (for todays example) and can not fathom how it applies to them. So, instead of thinking about the subject they just assume that this is something for the pros (or geeks or whatever) and miss out on valuable adjustments to their play.

Lets be honest here, a player who works hard and enjoys a game of poker now and again putting $200 into their favorite poker site is not going to think... 'Hmmm, due to the effects of variance on this game of skill I'd better stick to an average MTT buy-in of $2...'

Of course not, they want to play, take a shot at some big prizes, have a little fun.

Cash is the same, someone parting with $100 on a Friday night is not thinking to themselves.... "so, I'll play 20,000 hands of 2c / 5c no limit to ensure I'm a winner and then move up to 5c / 10c after that.." - of course they are not, they want to have a good time, not set-mine the micros!

So, having established the background I'm going to ask the question of what a bankroll management article which would be useful to recreational players might look like?

It is not as easy as you'd think.

Make it to strict and the counter will be 'does not apply to me, governor' - make it too loose and it will not really have any value as far as our objective is concerned (to provide thought-provoking information on preventing yourself going broke for those who would prefer not to lose all their money - if someone does not actually care then all of this is irrelevant anyway!)

Here is what I'd suggest:

SNGs: Start at 10 buy-ins, move down a level at 5 and up a level when you have 20 buy-ins for the next level up. When you win 5 more buy-ins (same as your original roll), put this aside as a reserve for those times variance bites. From here you should try and build a nice buffer before moving up too much further.

So, with $55 , you can start at the $5.50s (on Stars in this example), if you lose $25 then you go down to the $3.30cs if you get to $220 then you can move up to the $11's... from here you build to $275 before putting $55 aside as your 'fall back' and enjoying the rest...

Cash: Starting with 6 buy-ins, move down when you get to 3 and up when you get to 8 for the next level. After moving up you should aim to keep the 8 + grind enough to put an amount equal to your original deposit to one side... after this you try and get 12 to 15 buy-ins for the next level before moving up again - going back down any time you get < 8.

So, starting with $150 you have 6 buy-ins for NL25, if you go down to $75 then move down to NL10 to regroup. If you manage to get to $400 then it is time to go up to the NL50, with the idea that the next $150 won gets put aside for a backup. You are then aiming to get that $400 up to $1200 before hitting the NL 100... any slips back to $150 then move back to NL25.

My guess is that 'seasoned pros' will be tearing their hair out at the thought of such 'dangerous' bankroll management. I'm going to suggest that even the guidelines above will seem 'very strict' to many recreational players reasonably new to the game... that having a guideline which gells with the reality of the common man (or woman!) player there is a bigger chance that the subject being raised will at least be considered.

Well, long post - hopefully one that has fullfilled the Plan3t Gong objective of giving readers something to think about though.

Will continue this theme intermittently... maybe Table Selection for the common man next!?!?

Gl at the tables, Mark

In Search Of Pokerius Averagus

2009-04-23T11:55:00.004+01:00

Been thinking about all that Poker Strategy Stuff... actually, since I spend so much time writing about it for my network of sites I probably think about it too much (ah well). Anyway, bankroll management, variance, long term profits, site and table selection, hand ranges and so on - sure we can find great information on all of these... the thing is does it really apply to your average poker player??

Well, let us start by thinking about what an average poker player might look like!

The internet is not a very good place to find evidence of pokerius averagus - because this creature does not post on forums or blogs or websites or social networking groups (though they may read some of them)... those people are part of another species pokerius serious - and we can subdivide this species too (another post for another day!).

To my mind Pokerius Averagus is not the kind of person who sees poker as a source of income, though winning cash is always nice. They are not the kind of person who cares whether a blocking bet or a check-call will extract the most value on the river... bluffing is much more fun anyway. They are not the kind of person who will only play with 1/20th of their bankroll at the table at any one time to avoid the effects of variance - since going broke is kind of expected and there is always a bunch more cash comining in next months pay. They do not get excited about the WCOOP, FTOPS and so on either, nor care about whether they have rakeback or just VIP points... nope, to my mind Pokerius Averagus is a normal person with a job, a social life and a nicely balanced life who plays (and mostly loses) at online poker because it is fun.

Now back to the strategy stuff - the internet is full of strategy, ranging from hand rankings through to maximizing your ev against light 4-bettors and so on... but pretty much all of it is aimed at Pokerius Serious - those of us who have decided to forsake the fun of poker (though many will not realize it yet) in pursuit of the money.

So what would a strategy article aimed at Pokerius Averagus look like? What would this fun player want to know about poker while avoiding all the dry and serious stuff aimed at others...

Well I have a bunch of ideas - but you'll have to tune in next time to start reading them... will start with 'Bankroll Management for Pokerious Averagus' which aims to bridge the gap between all the boring pro-level bankroll management articles and the perspective of the most prevalent group of players of all... the common man (or woman!).

GL at the tables, Mark

WSOP Step #6 Structure Questioned

2009-04-21T09:51:00.003+01:00

Well, Stars have finally started their WSOP qualifiers... a month or so after their main rivals due to waiting for the SCOOP to finish first.

Already there are some big concerns over the Steps qualifiers, mostly the ones at the very top. Unlike last year these are 6-max, with either 1 table / 1 package or 2 /2 on offer. The concern is that the total entry fees add up to the $12.5k package for one player - meaning that there are no 'try again' step tickets or smaller cash payouts for the runners-up.

Secondly, there is concern that the ability to win multiple seats means that those same old 'high stakes grinders' of previous years will sit waiting in the step 6's for unwitting qualifiers to fleece... will save this for another post though!

My view is that the players have a great point - imagine someone with a limited bankroll who worked their ass off to get to step 6... and now can end up empty handed. A 9-handed game could give a couple of step 6 try again tickets and a step 5 for 4th place too - a huge improvement in the eyes of the 'average' recreational player who fancies a shot.

There is an exit-point in the steps - you can use a step 4 ticket ($215) for the double shootout qualifiers directly (same tickets work for any $215 buy-in event, such as the Sunday Million). Also, the idea of making the Step 5 tickets useable for the $650 direct qualifiers has been floated - an idea which I also support.

So Stars, listen to your customers please... and get those 9 player Step 6's organised!

GL at the tables, Mark

First Polish Poker Site Hits The Interweb!

2009-04-20T18:59:00.002+01:00

2nd post in one day... must be something in the spring air.

Just pleased thats all, pleased to be announcing that we have another site to add to the growing collection... this one is part of what we are referring to as the 'Poker Bonus Club' brand, and joins a Hungarian, Russian and Romanian version... this time in Polish!

What is more we already started the mammoth task of creating a 100+ page version of SNG Planet in Polish too... what is even more more this is Anna's first site from scratch, with everything from organising the translation to creation of the template to breaking the matricies in firefox all her own work.

The address? Well, only useful if you happen to speak Polish, but here it is: Poker Bonuses

Gl at those tables, Mark

Monday Morning Has Changed...

2009-04-20T08:49:00.002+01:00

Hectic weekend searching for a car (no joy yet, some close but nothing ideal!) and visiting the in-laws... but this post concerns Monday Mornings.

Used to hate them.

Sleeping in on Saturday and Sunday always meant a being awake late on Sunday evening - which in turn lead to the alarm seeming to be just a couple of hours too early on Monday. No choices back then, up shave, suited and off to work for the corporation... actually enjoyed my job, but the end of the weekend was always a depressing moment!

How things are different now.

Now I work for myself, on the poker websites (if you have not seen them then there are some adverts top right)... Mondays have changed completely. I actually wake up super-motivated on a Monday, looking forward to getting into the office and driving things forward... my mind racing about which projects to start and which will be completed, new ideas fight with improvements and virtual lists of possible new content.

Sure, running your own business is hard work - but that feeling of drive on a Monday morning sure is a good sign that I chose the right path.

Plan on posting several times this week, after all, Plan3t Gong has a role to make its 1000's of readers think!

Gl at the tables, Mark

Catching Up With The Times - You Can Now Follow Me On Twitter

2009-04-15T10:25:00.004+01:00

Well, if even I noticed that it exists it is no longer the 'latest thing' (thats something else which the cool kids are using)... yes, finally got around to creating a Twitter account yesterday.

You can follow me here

http://twitter.com/PlanetMark

Will use it for various business and blog related tweets (though not this one, obv), and will be happy to follow you all back!

Cheers, Mark

Quality Omaha Poker Website For Sale

2009-04-14T09:44:00.003+01:00

Decided the time has come to part with my Omaha-focused site http://www.omahaplanet.com/ - broad outline of what is on offer below - the reason for the sale is to fund an ever more aggressive international expansion of my wider network. Sale is via an 'offers over' auction, full support during and after the transfer and use of Escrow are a 100% non-negotiable (so, any scammers reading this, dont waste your time and mine!)

Overview:

With over 100 pages of indexed Omaha strategy articles covering all the main variations I believe that Omaha Planet is the largest single quality Omaha strategy resource out there. The articles are all written by me in my usual straight-forward + easy to read style... Omaha specific room reviews and comparisons also included.

The site was created in Dreamweaver and is simple to update, can offer practical support to get the buyer going with the template as part of the sale. Currently the main pages are PR2 and many inners PR1, have not really focused on the internal linking strategy - so tons of potential in this area. Domain is 16 or so months old and registered at 1&1.

Traffic:

Growing consistantly, last 30 days showing 3876 visits with 14,386 pageviews (a very respectable average of 3.71 pages per visit with 4:59 mins on the site, reflecting the quality!) 70% of visits are unique. Half of the visits from the US and UK, with the other half spread through Europe, Russia and the world.

Google + Yahoo supply the vast majority of visitors - with 80% coming via search engines. This is hardly surprising when you consider some excellent SERPS terms... big G highlights include:

Pot Limit Omaha - 5th
PLO Poker - 2nd
PLO Strategy - 3rd
Omaha Poker - 10th
Omaha Strategy - 9th
Omaha Poker Strategy - 7th
8-Game Poker - 4th

Yahoo is actually even better, with a slightly different mix of the same terms.

There are tons more on the first page and 2nd pages, and while a site should not be sold on potential alone I have not actually focused on the SERPS too hard with this site... anyone making a small effort to build links should be able to quickly take these up a level!

Conversions:

No 100% clear numbers to share here, more down to my poor tracking of where my signups are coming from than anything else. Will do my best to put some figures based on the percentage of visits in my network, while I will answer any questions pre-sale as fully and openly as possible I will not be providing earnings screenshots to anyone... since we can not separate this site alone and my income is nobodys business but my own!

So, my best estimate based on traffic is 6 to 10 RMPs a month to Titan, Stars and Tilt mostly with a couple to UB and the odd one to the other sites we feature. The sites where I do have code visibility seem to back this up, with around 10% to 15% of revenue coming from my Omaha sign-ups (the accounts themselves are not for sale, since these are all mixed up with my other accounts).

Looking through the site now as I prepare for this offer I feel that the 'sales level' is actually set too low, there is again a ton of potential (that word again!) with more calls to action and more links / banners etc to improve on this level (which may even be a conservative estimate to start with!).

The Sales Process:

Going to try an informal type of auction starting any bids at $7,000... while I do not have a BIN (don't ask... your offers first please!) a nice high offer could well convince me to close the bidding immediately. Will keep this open for a week after posting and update the latest offers as and when they come in... if we keep all bids via PM at Poker Affiliate Listings --> Via This Thread <-- then we can end with screen-shots to ensure that increments are honest etc (with names smudged over of course and happy to verify with a mod if required!).

I do have a 'reserve' in mind and reserve the right to change my mind if only low bids are received (!)... after all, there is a ton of potential - and other than wanting to re-invest I will not be starving without the money!!

So, any questions let me know... late here now so will answer in the morning.

Just remembered, this one is listed in DMOZ too.

GL at those tables, Mark

Working Weekend Update

2009-04-13T12:55:00.002+01:00

Random update today... no plan, just going to blog!

Cars are on my mind at the moment - not actually had a car since I handed back the keys to my lovely big black Saab turbo go-faster monster when leaving IBM back at the start of '06... handing back the laptop / badge etc was a pleasure - the car still brings the odd sentimental sigh.

Anyway, not had one since, borrowed when visiting the UK, hired them on holiday and all that, but not owned one - especially since we live smack in the city centre here in Budapest where there is really not the need day-to-day. But alas, I have succumed to arguments that we can get away for more weekends, more often and enjoy this region better - and go to fvcking Ikea tons no doubt. So, going to be the reluctant owner of a car next weekend. Something along the lines of a 2005 / 2006 Polo or Punto by the sound of it... hey, I'm just the one spending the money - what has the choice of model / age got to do with me??

Not played too much (busy adding the Polish version of SNG Planet into Dreamweaver!) but did manage to bag a Step 4 ticket on Stars, these can be used for any of the $215 tournaments - plan is to save it for when I'm in the mood for a shot at the warm-up / million... or maybe a WSOP qualifier.

Speaking of WSOP qualifier I mailed Stars about this and they said the schedule would be up by the end of the 13th... thats today. With the SCOOP over the forum buzz should be World Series seat focused now.

Finally some good news, the latest recruitment project was a success and Planet Corp will soon be back to its full quota of 4.

GL at the tables - will be back with a less rambling post real soon!

Mark

63% More Profit Project - #10 - The Final Installment

2009-04-09T11:40:00.003+01:00

Time to wrap up the series on improving poker profits 5% at a time today. For new readers this is the last of 10 posts on ways in which you can incrementally improve your earn from the beautiful game - which add up tp a 63% gain overall due to the wonders of compounding.

Only one problem with number #10... there are several ideas as to what this could be... in fact I have enough to make this a 15 part series (but will not do this). So here are the ideas that did not (quite) make the cut for 5% idea number 10.

- Leave Your Ego Out Of Decisions (yes, you!)
- Stop calling junk in the blinds because you have 'good odds'
- Take better notes, individuals work in patterns, note them!
- Add Another Table... just one... repeat.

But number 10 that I'll suggest today is in fact: Focus on one format at a time.

Well, never said any of these 5% ideas would be difficult did I??

Anyway, how many times have you started a few MTTs, busted out of some and started a SNG, become short-stacked and decided to fill that gap to the right of your screen with a cash game, or heads-up... can't win at Holdem tonight? why not pull up an Omaha table alongside to see if your fortune changes...

I've been there, sometimes not that intensely - sometimes over the course of a week flitting between DON sngs, turbos and PLO cash games, not really studying any of them... not really improving in any of them.

Now, poker need not become a drag, after all variety is the spice of life - but surely focusing on a single game and working on your edges, your opponents weaknesses and your strategy for combating common situations can give you that extra 5%... once you have built that SNG bankroll then is the time to move over to cash and relearn from the ground up - trying to do a bit of everything is hurting many players bankrolls.

Something to think about!

Anyway, going to do a little cut-n-paste for you all now, get all 10 posts linked from the one 'kick off' which I will then pop into the side menu under 'List Of Plan3t Gong Strategy Articles' (towards the top).

GL at the tables, Mark

Start Of Second Quarter - Poker Business Update

2009-04-07T09:15:00.002+01:00

Well, the first thing to mention is that the separate business blog is still on the big list of things to do - will probably be a few more business updates here at Plan3t Gong before that one gets going. Has been another hectic month during March and April sees lots of projects on the boil and a conference at the end... will start with a recap of March

- Poker Bonus Clubs for Romania and Russia completed and Rakeback-Planet revamped
- Lanuched the 'Comedy of Errors' eBook in Russian.
- Finally Got our Limited Company running here in Hungary (what a task that was, hmmmm!), we are now 'officially' trading as Planet Corporation Kft
- Significant increases in traffic and more quality content across the network
- Player sign-ups holding up nicely and a surprise boost from software tools
- Tons more material translated... to be put to use this month.

Plans for April are actually quite varied... here are just the main highlights...

- SNG Planet: Should have the Polish version done, at least the SNG section which we plan on launching with (50-odd pages so no small task here). Also hoping to (finally) get a large number of the articles archived... they will still be available, it is just the list is so long that I have a feeling people do not know where to start. If there is time we will also revamp a couple of the main sections and do a better job of letting visitors know about the translations by interlinking key articles. Oh, more content too... in all of the languages!

- Omaha Planet: No significant plans here, just add some more articles to keep it fresh.

- Killer Holdem: Just written a couple more for this site, really not fulfilling it's potential at the moment but happy just to keep it ticking over for now.

- Rakeback-Planet: Just had a big revamp, need to add some more content here too... will write some this week in fact. Going to move forward with getting this one translated into Russian next... will involve finding a new partner to manage the back-end.

- Poker Bonus Clubs: New Polish version will be completed this month, at the moment we are working on revamping the 3 current sites in this group to make them more 'immediate' for visitors. Idea is that we use the Russian one as a template then cascade the changes through HU, RO and eventually Polish. Again more content on the way for this little network, will also decide on the next language and kick this off... maybe Slovak this time!

- Melted Felt: Hopefully my old brain keeps coming up with twists on the poker news - guest contributions welcome as long as they are funny!

- Durrrr Challenge Blog: Quietly pleased with how this one started, going to have a custom header made too.

- Plan3t Gong: Custom header in plan... if these look good we might start offering them to others.

Thats all for now... lots of things under consideration, just a matter of managing time properly, we might be looking to start our first casino site this month, but then again I have been saying that for at least 2 months now. At the end of April Erika and I will travel to Amsterdam to our first poker affiliate conference - really looking forward to this one and will post more about preparations closer to the time. Finally I am slowly (but surely) getting my head around all the new fangled Web 2.0 stuff and hope to have a page up on the portal and an annoucement soon!

As usual I am happy to answer any business related questions / comments (either publicly or privately... just say).

GL at those tables, Mark

63% More Profit Project - Idea #9 - A Tilt Contingency Plan

2009-04-06T11:34:00.002+01:00

Almost there now, this being idea number 9 of 10 in my series on ways to increase your poker profits by 5% each time... with the wonder of compound interest these could see your weekly or monthly take go up by a healthy 63% if you implement them all!

So, todays tip is all about the enemy of all poker players - Tilt.

I have written at length on Tilt here before (and at SNG Planet too), with the many and often subtle forms this can take and potential damage to your bankroll. Here we will just use a simple definition of getting angry after a bad beat / cold deck or long losing run.

5% improvement in profits should be relatively easy here right, we don't need anything too special - just to have thought about the subject and created a simple plan for what we can do next time that Tilt rears it's ugly head.

This could take several forms depending on the game you play and your individual style. Stopping play completely is often difficult, especially for tournament and SNG players, yet taking even a short break can save you a lot of ev over time. If you really really feel anger then why not load up a play money or penny poker table and vent there - losing $2 rather than $200 could make a big difference... having a different screen name could help separate things even more.

Really the key to grabbing 5% from Tilt really stems from awareness, since this is at its most dangerous when you are suffering the effects and yet not aware of them. Depersonalising any anger towards an individual who bad beat you can be as simple as switching off the chat. Have a think about what you plan on doing now, and next time you feel tilt coming along you can feel good about implementing your plan... and adding yet another 5% to your profits!

Gl at the tables, Mark

63% More Poker Profit Project - 5% idea #8 - Hand vs Ranges

2009-04-04T11:04:00.001+01:00

Onwards with the 8th idea which could improve your poker profits by 5% today, the idea being to implement 10 of them, giving us a compound 63% improvement in poker profits... today back to something a little dry, but actually very important.

Beginning poker players learn about hand matchups fairly early, after what-beats-what, bet sizes and position. After this comes the hand vs draw combinations with 2 and 1 card to come. Next we get to ranges. Now this is not a lecture on how to define and play against different opponent ranges. In fact most of us could grab the 5% required here a lot faster than the work it would take to do this just by making and memorising a chart on how each hand fares against 3 possible opponent ranges... I'll even help you out by naming the 3 you need.

Loose, Average and Tight.

There, easy. Now answer me this, you have a pair of sevens, how does this do against a loose range for an opponent in your particular game at your buy-in level??

Again most of us will have an idea here... but here is the key: Those players who have a much better idea than you have the potential to win a little more here and lose a little less there. In other words they have the edge which you are looking for...

Some good news: there is a free tool which will help you to compile such a chart in no time at all, and doing this (including defining ranges for your main game) will help you a lot more than simply reading a chart which someone else has made. It is called Poker Stove and you can find it via this link: http://www.pokerstove.com/

This is as easy a 5% as you'll find, and one that is freely available.

Number #9 coming up soon - so don't forget to bookmark Plan3t Gong today.

Gl at the tables, Mark

63% More Poker Profit Project - 5% Idea #7 - Drunk, Tired Or Ugly

2009-04-02T11:15:00.000+01:00

We reach number #7 today in what seems to have been an epic number of posts on how to improve your poker results by 5% each time...

For those reading Plan3t Gong for the first time, this is a series of 10 posts on how to improve your profits by 5%, which (due to the fantastic thing which is compounding) will give you a healthy 63% improvement in your profit over time.

Today we cover something which many of us are guilty of... playing poker when drunk, tired or 'ugly' (by which I mean pissed off / depressed / worried about something unrelated and so on). Now, you really do not need me to tell you that this is minus ev, sure we all have stories about how we won a big pot (not proud of it but I have made a final table after half a bottle of JD before now!)... but hey, time to be honest with ourselves - this costs money over time. Possibly a lot of money.

This tip could be difficult to stop for the same reason as the 'concentration' one before - that part of the fun of playing poker is that it is there whenever you want it to be... however, we can all improve our profits by 5% with this, by stopping when tired once in a while, by doing something else when feeling down once in a while, or by resticting ourselves to freerolls or penny games after coming back home drunk... and hey, it can be fun in those games!

Well, if you implemented all seven ideas you could easily be at a 40% improvement in profits by now... but stay with me #8, #9 and #10 are just around the corner.

Gl at those tables, Mark

63% More Poker Profit Project - 5% Idea #6 - Tool Up Your Game

2009-04-01T10:23:00.002+01:00

The 6th in this series of 10 improvements which add 5% to your game involves poker software tools, some are free and others cost you money (or at least a sign-up and points-collect). The idea here is that each 5% improvement compounds, adding up to a 63% rise in your profits overall, and the key to this post is a shift in your thinking.

In business we can divide money that leaves our bank accounts into two broad categories, expenses and investments. Expenses are a cost, this is necessary to run the business, but itself provides no return. An investment is money spent today to bring in more money tomorrow, to grow your business or improve your profit margins on those existing projects...

People look at the price tag of poker tools (most are in the $80 to $100 range) and think, 'well my poker bankroll is only a couple of hundred, I can not justify this expense'.

Well, I look at this differently - choose the right tools (not difficult with the amount of information available on forums / blogs / sites today) and you are making an investment, not meeting an expense. If you are a SNG player then buying Wizz (and using it!) will add many more percentage points to your profits than the 5% we are claiming here. If you are a cash game player not keeping a hands database with something like Poker Tracker and using a heads-up stats display then you are almost flushing money down the drain in this day and age.

Some people claim 'purity' of the game is compromised here. My view is that the sites have strict rules as to what is fair and what is not, and serious opponents are using these against you - time to level the playing field folks - the key here is investment and not expense!

For those who would like to test the waters with poker software then Poker Stove is a must have (calculates equity against ranges). Other possibilities include SNG Wiz, Poker Office or Texas Calculatum (calculates odds for cash games and is actually the World's best selling tool). I will not include any affiliate links here - if anybody would like to find out more then we have a section at SNG Planet called Best Poker Tools which reviews many of the leading ones.

Tool yourself up soon and reclaim a lot more than 5%.

Tomorrow I'll continue with another meta-game tip to move even closer to that magic 63% profit.

Gl at the tables, Mark

63% More Poker Profit Project - 5% Idea #5 - Profile Your Opponents

2009-03-30T09:53:00.002+01:00

Half way through the Plan3t Gong list of 10 ways to improve your poker profits by a mere 5% each time - so as to get a compound 63% improvement in profits that anybody with a little motivation should be able to achieve.

Todays thought involves doing a little more thinking about your opponents. From my experience it is one of those things that seems banal - until you try it for yourself!

Now, whatever game you play and at whatever stakes you will encounter certain broad categories of opponents at the table. If you are like me then you may well give them notes (will come to that later in the series!) and adjust to the behaviours you see them exibit. Thats great, but with a little planning, a little work specific to your game you will find that many of those you are up against fall into broad categories of play.

To grab this 5% improvement in our profits we do not need to have prefect information on the tendencies of each of the 'crazy' the 'recreational loose passive' or 'multi-table rock / pushbot' players we are up against... what we need is a plan.

This plan can start with the 'average' opponent in your game, and should include what they are most likely to do with strong hands, monsters, draws and weak hands, when they try to bluff, their bet sizes in different scenarios and their starting hand selections. Once you have a rough idea of this kind of information you will start to see clearly how and when to adjust... in fact you'll feel so much more comfortable at the tables that 5% will probably be too small a difference.
Once you have done this for the average player you are free to move on to the minorities at the extremes.

Remember, some of your opponents will have thought about this, some will have a rough idea of your tendencies and be adjusting to expoit them. Retake this easy to grab 5% and you'll be half way to a 63% improvement in your profits.

GL at the tables, Mark

Misc Ramblings On Poker And Life

2009-03-29T14:39:00.002+01:00

Since I am doing the 63% series at the moment a slightly fuzzy headed Sunday afternoon seems like the time to lighten things up a little... with a more free form post (ie, started writing but no plan!).

Lets get the 'Earth Hour' done first. Yesterday at 8:30PM in your timezone the lights went out for an hour - millions joined in including your humble host. The lights alone will not change or rectify the damage we are collectively doing to our planet. What this event does is to get people to think about the topic on a more personal level... not going to rant about it here, but thinking about what you can do to help is much more constructive than blaming 'them' IMO.

Saw Slumdog Millionaire this weekend to (i know, behind the times as always)... very good film indeed.

On the poker front I've not played much of late, had a small SNG rush a week or so ago, thinking it was time to build a bankroll - worked for a while, $$ went upwards then I got so sick of them that the idea was abandonded... it was this and a specific cash game hand which really showed me that improving my own game (at least on a detail leved) is not going to happen for a while...

Now, this might seem contradictory to readers following my 'how to improve our profits' series, but to me it is not. This blog only ever had one goal, to provoke thinking in those who read - my own position is clear, poker is for liesure and profit... if either the fun or the $ go then I don't play!

Here was the hand... just a vauge outline since the principle is the focus, not the details.

I have q-10 suited in a big blind and a predicatable but aggressive opponent opens 4x from the button... small blind calls (he seems to call about 60%!!) and I complete - aware that button is raising a huge range here.

Flop comes raggy and check-check- 2/3rds of pot bet from button, small blind folds and I raise the pot - expecting a fold a good enough percentage of the time... and get one.

Boring huh?? Well, not quite... sure it was a standard combination of observing my opponents bet sizes and flop texture that lead me to make the decisions I did. Also having only overcards meant I was not giving up that much equity if he then comes over the top...

However it got me thinking that a better player than me, someone who was more dedicated to improving their game and win-rate would not have looked at this as 'based on what I have seen, there is a good chance he folds to a flop check-raise here'. Instead they would have assessed his opening range in terms of hands not just the word 'wide', they would have compared that range to the flop, they would have assesed his post-flop aggression to see how often this was a bluff, they would have an idea of how often this player would go to showdown when he missed and so on... the flop check-raise would have been based on math and expectation... not some vauge feeling (even if it turned out to be correct).

Back to me... I have decided to dedicate my time to growing my business and to focus recreation away from poker (to an extent at least). I'm not going to put in the time to fine tune the details in ways as described.

The thing is there are a lot of people out there who are convinced that somehow they are going to be the next poker success without putting in the work on the situational / detail level... my question is are they being realistic?

Longer post than expected... back to the 63% project series tomorrow!

GL at the tables, Mark

63% More Poker Profit Project - 5% Idea #4 - General Concentration

2009-03-27T09:21:00.001Z

Are you reading Plan3t Gong while playing poker?? If so we'll have a chuckle together by the end of this post!

This is idea #4 of 10 in my series on improving your poker profits. The idea is that we could all use some extra cash, and just 10 easy to implement steps which each add just 5% to your profit will (thanks to the wonder of compound interest!) make you 63% better off if you implement them all... sticky with all the ideas together will follow.

Now for some low-hanging fruit, I'd be willing to bet that most of us (yep, me included) could improve in the area of concentrating on our games... surfing, IMing, watching TV, phones (or texting), checking stats or even railing your friends - all of these things reduce our edge, in the worst case making us into 'level zero thinkers' who are simply reacting to cards and not playing against other people at all.

It should be very easy to see how we could reclaim 5% here.

Now, when I listed this one in the trusty Plan3t Gong notepad I realised that there was a compromise here. People like surfing / IMing / TVing etc etc and playing poker at the same time is bundled together in the category of 'having fun'... so, to set the record straight, I am not advocating that you sit in a lead-lined room focusing only on the tables with no other human or computer connection for as long as you are playing!

Instead I'd like to get readers to have a think about concentration, to stop playing when their focus goes, to switch off 1 (or 2) distractions... and to reclaim the easy 5% improvement in profits which will come with this.

If you have followed all 4 tips then we should be up to a 21.5% improvement already... come back soon for number #5 (though reserving the right to post something else for a break this coming weekend!!)

GL at the tables, Mark

63% More Poker Profit Project - 5% Idea #3 - Learn Those All-In Percentages

2009-03-26T09:54:00.001Z

Here is the 3rd or 10 simple ideas which together could improve your poker winnings by a cool 63%, for new readers this is a series of posts each with one idea to improve your take by a mere 5%... together that equals 63% thanks to the wonders of compound interest.

Lets take a trip back in time to the late 1950's and The Cincinnati Kid... before he met with 'The Man' to play 5 card stud Steve McQueen was seen memorising a table of the percent equity for different hands - and he was supposedly the 2nd best player in the country!

My 5% question / idea today is those hand matchups, those draws vs made hand combos, those all-in precentages (both ICM and Sklansky-Chubakov types) are the building blocks of the game of poker.

Now, be honest with yourselves once again, you 'sort of know' right? have a pretty good idea, if I asked you to write them down you'd be within a few percent most of the time... yet the people who really know this stuff have an edge on you - they are taking +ev situations and avoiding -ev situations, they are taking a little % here and a little % there from you with each confrontation.

The great thing about this material is that it is freely available on many websites (recommend the wikipedia as a good starting point) and books.

No excuses here folks, I know that mathematical reading material is a little dull, but this is an easily attainable 5% without a doubt... you do want to improve those profits by 63% right??

Number #4 follows tomorrow (so don't forget to bookmark Plan3t Gong today!)

Gl at the tables, Mark

63% More Poker Profit Project - 5% Idea #2 - Never Ever Give Up

2009-03-25T07:09:00.001Z

Idea number #2 in my 63% series today (10 incremental ways of improving your poker profits by 5% which together can make you 63% richer!).

Again this will seem obvious. Again I will ask you to be honest with yourself about whether you actually do this... not honest with me, I'm not your coach (!) honest with your self.

So, you take a beat in a tournament and get down to 1.5BBs in the mid-stages and just call (or even bet) junk the next hand since you are 'dead' anyway (same could apply to a SNG). You lose a big hand in a cash game and decide to call it a night... your last 4 blinds go into the pot next time you see a picture card or an ace regardless of the situation.... we have all been there right??

Now, if you were to committ right now never to give up in these situations I'd be willing to bet that your overall profits could improve by 5%, the number of times I have come back in SNGs, even making a final table once in an MTT when I carefully nursed 2 blinds for a few hands after being on the wrong end of an all in... in cash games too.

Giving up is a form of tilt and is bad for your bankroll - write it on your monitor now, and remember to write to me next time you win a SNG or cash in an MTT that you could have given up on, this is an easy 5% and not one to be sniffed at either!

Tune in again tomorrow for number #3

Gl at the tables, Mark

63% More Poker Profit Project - 5% Idea #1 - Actively Avoid Winners

2009-03-24T09:18:00.003Z

As promised, here is the first of 10 easy improvements which together will make you 63% more profit. For those who missed the start-off post the idea is simple... 10 * 5% improvements which anybody should be able to implement can see your profit jump, for every $100 you were earning from the tables I think you should be making $163!

Idea number #1 is, like all the ideas to follow, going to sound blindingly obvious.

I challenge readers here to be honest - not with me - with yourselves... sure you'll recognise these ideas (at least if you have taken some time to think about your game!) but have you actually acted upon them?? really?

So, avoiding other winners, those regulars who are decent for the level they play in whatever game you are playing. Even if you can beat them they are taking money from the other losing players. Even if you can then extract the money from them you are winning less than you would if all of your opponents were mostly losing players.

In SNGs and cash games this is easy simply observe and check stats - then avoid tables with multiple winners already registered / seated, in tournaments you might need to try a little harder - actively searching for a better MTT on a different site for example (and if you play exclusively on Tilt and / or Stars you'll be amazed at the difference elsewhere!), or getting up earlier to catch the late night crowd on whichever side of the pond you come from.

The thing about this is that anyone can see how a little effort could improve your profits - but so few do anything about it. Taking notes, looking up stats and creating an 'avoid' list could make you more than 5% extra over time.

Here you have it, idea number #1 of 10.

Tune in again tomorrow for number #2!

GL at the tables, Mark

New Series - Looking After The Poker Profit Percentages

2009-03-22T22:23:00.005Z

Not had a linked series of posts here for a while... yeah, I know, I promise to keep them all together and make a sticky link in the side, and then somehow forget. Oh well, hopefully each post will stand on its own - and just maybe I'll go through this blog and sort it all out one day.

(Looking for the links to the 10 posts?? Scroll Down!)

Anyway - this is supposed to be a motivational series as well as a thought-provoking one. The idea is simple... lets find as many ways as possible to improve profits by a small percentage... here is what I mean, imagine you make $100 per week playing the beautiful game - and can add ways to improve that profit over time - now lets imagine that each mini-idea adds just 5% to your take and look at what is possible after 10 small ideas.

Idea #1 - easy, we add something small and our profit is $105
Idea #2 - Now we are adding 5% to $105m so $110.25
Idea #3 - And so on... next $115.76
#4 $121.55 (hang in there, the wonders of compounding start to show now!)
#5 $127.63
#6 $134
#7 $140.71
#8 $147.74 (see what I mean - only 8 and almost 50% up!!)
#9 $155.13
#10 - Our final mini improvement brings us to $162.89c... a nice 63% improvement in cash in the hand (allowing for varience of course!) each and every week.

You think that finding 10 small ideas which could add 5% to your profits over time is all that hard?? Of course not, and to prove it this series of posts will be all about ways in which your profits can be improved - whatever the poker variation or stakes you play at.

Going to start tomorrow - and will have 1 each day this week.... so don't forget to bookmark Plan3t Gong today! In the meantime have a think about how you might improve your profits incrementally...

Idea #1 Actively Avoid Winning Players

Idea #2 Never Ever Give Up

Idea #3 Learn Those All-In Percentages

Idea #4 Concentrate On Concentration

Idea #5 Profile Your Opponents

Idea #6 Tool Up Your Game

Idea #7 Drunk, Tired or Ugly?

Idea #8 Hands vs Ranges

Idea #9 Tilt Contingency Plan

Idea #10 One Format At A Time

Ok, hopefully this did the trick... of course there is still some money on the tables for many readers. Those of you playing without rakeback really need to stop what ever you are doing for just a moment and draw a deep, long breath... you fight like a dog over a $10 pot, yet leave $1000's per year in the hands of the poker sites, why!!?!? The trusted Planet Brand has the solution... and the Best Rakeback Deals available, if you do one thing to improve your profits today - take action to liberate some of your hard-won cash from the greedy poker sites at the very least!!

Gl at the tables, Mark

Poker Chat Box Psychology - A Vaugely Recalled 2-7 TD Hand

2009-03-22T11:00:00.002Z

Going to post about a hand today... astute readers may recall that this blog moved away from such trivialities as my own poker play some months back - however, I thought that this one was thought-provoking enough to make the cut.

Here is the background... short (4) handed in a Stars 8-game MTT in the late stages (i donked out before the money btw!!). Folded to me in the small blind and seeing 4 to a rough 8... thats 4 cards 8 and below, but not the best ones (smooth would be babies with an 8).

Now, the hand before the player who is now in the BB got upset... very upset.

In fact as I was acting he was still berating an opponent, the theme was 'u call a raise pre and draw 2, IMAO you f donkey' and stuff like that (standard these days, though poker was once actually quite friendly believe it or not!!).

I'm raising any 4-card 8 BVB anyway but here is the interesting part... even with junk I had an easy steal here. Since our 'angry professor' could not call my raise and draw 2 cards without 'losing face'.

He calls and draws 1 - in fact we both do.

I feel this is unlikely to represent a real low, my main logic was that 4 card lows are hard to come by before the first draw and (importantly) you would raise 80% of them - especially blind vs blind. I just felt the chances were that he drew 1 when he would really liked to have drawn 2 (or even 3).

So, I pair (doh - pairs ruin a 2-7 triple draw hand) but bet anyway. He raises, I call and draw 1 - hitting a 9 low. My opponent stands Pat.

Following the logic above this makes no sense at all, what hand could he have not raised pre-draw, drawn 1 and then re-raised with?? Back to the chat, he was representing strength by re-raising when he really wanted to draw 2 initially... therefore he was now highly unlikely to have a strong hand.

I check after the 2nd draw with my 9. He raises - now I can find out if my logic is correct... and put in the check-raise for an extra couple of big bets. He pauses, calls and then starts typing obsenties in the chat box again (which shows me I was right). I stand pat for the last draw and he breaks, drawing one.

Bet - call on the end and my 9 holds up to beat.... a worse 9 (phew). The message: be careful how you berate people - it might come back to haunt you!

Anyway, finally busted in a 7 stud high round when an opponent called all the way to the river with split 3's when I paired my ace door card, yes he could see he was beaten all the way to the end but called anyway!! No worries though I welcome this and wish more opponents would do it.

GL at the tables, Mark

Poker Affiliate Business - Quick Update + International Reflections

2009-03-20T12:16:00.003Z

Still working like the proverbial dog on the poker affiliate business.... sign-ups and tools sales holding up just fine, and more projects on the way.

Really is excellent to be breaking into new geos - and doing it in such a way as to make quality content the driver for doing this, and hiring language speakers here at Planet HQ to ensure we do things properly - ad for the next person coming out in the press next week!

Relecting on the competition the other day and I really do have a huge advantage here... not talking about the auto-translating crowd (written about those types before, they are no better than chinese forum spammers, yet they often delude themselves that they are 'proper' business people), really those who are paying though the nose to have their bonus pages translated - and thinking that this is an 'investment'.

Here is are my Friday thoughts on the subject, going to sound a little harsh, but not meant nastily in any way - only to provoke the maximum amount of thinking / reflection:

- Translations: You are being ripped off by translation agencies, paying 22c a word (or whatever) to someone who is paying no more than 7c to 10c... they might tell you differently, but with a tiny bit of effort you can find local pro agencies CHEAPER than this. My thought is that it is only laziness getting you ripped off - wake up and dump the smooth talking translation snake-oil salesmen!

- Updates: What, may I ask, is the plan for all of these reviews and bonus page translations when the sites change their software, add new games or do their bonuses differently?? Will you have the whole thing re-translated? Any affiliate will know that this is a significant task even in your native language - so whats the plan??

- Links: Great news, links are actually easier to come by from many countries - where the cultural generosity outweighs the financial selfishness... but guess what? Nobody is going to link to your out of date bonus page - it adds no value to them or anyone else. What is lacking is not bonus pages but quality content in the newer geos. Again, what is the plan?? Almost every method of getting your site known is open, and in many cases easier... how are you going to unlock this fantastic potential??

- Sites: Why are you pushing sites which do not have software in the language you translated into? Do you think people will not see adverts, not speak to each other, not visit forums and find out for themselves which countries cater for them? Did you know there are small local outfits in many geos... they do not appear on the radar of 'top 20' sites but they are busy exploiting their local niche.

The list could go on, a funny example being that translating SNGs into cyrillic (Russian) letters will see you compete with government type websites as this is the well known acronym for the 'Council of Independant States' (and at least one 22c a word agency has this wrong!!). Local heros vs US poker pros is another area of note.

I welcome competition and wish every affiliate well (they are mostly a great bunch of people!), there is enough pie out there for us all... however, if you are having your bonus pages translated in the hope of 'bringing in the foreign cash' then you are only making the translation agency con-artists rich and yourself poorer... think it through first.

Back to blogging from a players perspective next time.

Gl at the tables, Mark

Poker Business Latest + (Almost) iPoker Rakeback

2009-03-17T10:05:00.004Z

Things moving along fast here at the Planet Corp, with more projects underway than you could viably shake a stick at. Read on, there are a couple of excellent offers which I'd like to offer the loyal readers of Plan3t Gong first...

While delays are frustrating us in some projects (PB Club Romania stuck with a horribly slow Hungarian registrar for example) others are moving fast indeed - we even have a press ad coming out for a new employee to join us here at Planet HQ.

Happy to announce the re-vamped Rakeback-Planet (with the dash!) has been uploaded, some final tweaks required along with a graphical pros / cons box etc but the fundamentals are all there.

Here are a couple of offers which seem very good indeed to me, if I was not working 12 hours a day on my mini-empire I'd certainly grab the iPoker one for myself!!

- The Best iPoker Rakeback Deal in the world, ever! Except it is not rakeback, instead an infinite bonus with special bonus clearing percentage cash award and daily rake-race which pays a lot of spots.... add this deal (which is definitely not rakeback of course) together and we are talking 40%-odd for an average recreational player and up to 55% for a cash-game grinder... to my mind that is as good as it gets - and as soon as your bonus runs out you just ask for a new one.

- For my many US-readers I am able to offer some juicy deals too... firstly a deal so nice that I am prohibited by the Ts and Cs from mentioning the 'r-word' at the same time. Instead there is a 30% Bodog loyalty VIP bonus available, re-occuring, cash-out any time, on top of the 110% to $500 bonus... its basically r**** (oops, not allowed to say it). I can also offer the highest rates for all of the usual US-friendly rooms 33% at Cake, 27% at Full Tilt, 30% at UB etc etc along with races and freerolls (it is a partnership with one of the biggest providers - ensuring that my readers get entry into the profitable promos).

- Finally we have a good few pages of information (which will expand over time - like to keep those sites 'alive') including a rakeback FAQ and a page on Existing Account Rakeback Offers for those tricky situations.

Anyway, bit of a commercial post really - but hey, only do this once a month or so. If you would like to hear more on rakeback then drop me a comment, I will not publish it if it contains an e-mail address. Will do a more detailed business update post soon.

GL at the tables, Mark

5 Ways In Which The Pareto Principle Affects Online Poker

2009-03-16T09:37:00.003Z

I'm feeling refreshed after a couple of days of deliberately avoiding the poker business (not that I stopped having ideas of course!). Back to the trusty Plan3t Gong notepad for a few potentially thought provoking posts this week...

5 ways in which the Pareto Principle affects online poker...

The Pareto Principle, popularly known as the 80 / 20 rule, has a huge effect on many aspects of our lives. In short this states that 80% of the results come from 20% of the efforts - though it is commonly also used to show results (80% of the wealth is owned by 20% of the population). Once you become familiar with the Pareto principle you will see it again and again in all manner of life situations - the ratio might not always be exactly 80% / 20%, but you will be surprised how often it is close!

Poker And The Pareto Principle #1

80% of the profit is won by 20% of the players... this is actually pretty close, when we surveyed the results of 2 million SNG tournaments on Stars back in late 2007 it was something like 76% / 24% here (banner on the top left for SNG Planet if you want to look at the survey results).

Poker And The Pareto Principle #2

Of the 80% profit that is won by 20% of the players... 80% of that is won my 20% of the profitable players. So, the top 4% (ish) of players are actually sharing around 60% of the total profits.... here we could easily drill down twice or even 3 times more, eventually reaching the tiny percentage of elite winners who are taking the millions.

Poker And The Pareto Principle #3

In a poker tournament we can also drill down using an approximate 80/20 through the prize structure... so 20% win 80% of the money, of the winning players in an individual tournament 80% of the prizes go to the best 20%... and so on. Not exact, but I am sure that you can see the pattern!

Poker And The Pareto Principle #4

You will win 80% of your pots with the top 20% of starting hands. Seems kind of obvious right when it comes to pots... what about total money here though? Personally I think starting hands to cash will be more like 90% comes from 10% - could be huge individual differences here though, a LAG and a Nit having very different results.

Poker And The Pareto Principle #5

Knowledge is my final idea... that 80% of the strategy knowledge you use to win at those tables comes from 20% of what you read. This is partially caused by the fact that there is a lot of poorly written strategy content out there (!). Mostly because, on any individual players learning curve there are some basic building blocks which plug big leaks or spark big profits... and then lots of smaller ideas which just add the slim percentage here and there.

So, anyone have any more ways in which the 80% / 20% rule applies to poker??

Don't forget to bookmark Plan3t Gong, this is the blog that never claims to be right - but loves to make readers think!!

GL at the tables, Mark

SNG Training Videos At The Full Tilt Academy + First Thoughts

2009-03-11T12:23:00.005Z

Figured that Plan3t Gong would be the ideal place for an honest review of the new-fangled 'Full Tilt Poker Academy'...

For those not aware here is an overview of what it is:

- In essence a free poker training site featuring lots of 15ish minute videos from the ever growing stable of Full Tilt pros.
- There are also quizes which are timed, the top answerers get freeroll entries.
- Plus 'Pro challenges' where you put your skills to real use at the Full Tilt tables, you get points for these which can then be spent in a special store...

Lets be honest for a moment, Full Tilt are a savvy business and have created this for a reason. Pure publicity is one of course... as you can see, people are blogging about it! 2nd is that it keeps beginners interested enough to become regular players, and even offers a value-add to intermediate level players too, all designed to funnel more action to the tables.

My first impressions are actually very positive - which is a bit annoying, much easier to write about something when you do not like it!!

Watched Aaron Bartley + Lederers SNG vids and did a quick quiz, and you know what - they were nicely produced from an educational as well as technical perspective. Someone has obviously thought through how to make them step-by-step and invented examples of each concept... can we expect to see people folding A-J off in EP at level 1 of a SNG soon?? Not so sure, though the explanation of why was excellent!! Aaron explained some nice concepts for the middle limits, the problem with many of these for the lower limits is that you are less likely to get a fold to a 3-bet - so remember to adjust accordingly.

The quiz I took was basic but will re-enforce the learning, after deliberately choosing the 'stupid answer' to see what would happen we get a patient and patronising explanation of what the real answer was... then again I am experienced enough to spot the 'stupid answer' whereas a beginner might not!

Pro challenges are cool too, the spend 2% of your bankroll in a SNG as one of the SNG Challenged is great IMO... since 90% of beginners do not think that bankroll management applies to them until they go broke (then blame the RMG of course!). Actually making people do this could wake a couple of players out of their denial (maybe!).

So, great first impression - Since I will be adding this to Full Tilt reviews throughout my network the rest of the vids are on my 'to-do' list, will report back to this blog in around a week once I have seen enough to warrant another post.

In the meantime you can check them out for yourself over at Full Tilt Poker use bonus code SNG600 to claim your 100% bonus while you are at it!

Gl at the tables, Mark

Poker Knowledge vs Poker Discipline

2009-03-08T15:10:00.002Z

A Potentially interesting debate started over at 2+2 with a poster asking what the respective roles of knowledge and discipline were in ensuring profitable poker play. There were a few thoughtful replies before the inevitable 'Its both so why discuss it, retard' type post appeared.

Well, I for one think debates like this are interesting, While it is obvious from the start that the end answer is 'both', it is the inter-relationships which are the key... imagine the debate on nature vs nurture being prematurely ended by some spotty little oik saying 'its both moron' !!

Consistantly beating online poker games requires many skills - at the highest level we can group skills such as bankroll management, game selection, tilt avoidance and the motivation to analyse your hand histories after playing as 'discipline' based skills. Knowledge can be thought of as approaching the play of a hand (or group of hands --> whole tournament) based on hand-reading, spotting situations, exploiting weaknesses of opponents and so on... Knowledge is what use in-game while discipline is the meta-game.

We can start by saying that knowledge has to be the starting point, right? After all, if you do not have the basic skills to win chips then all discipline will do is stop you from losing them so quickly.

For me this is where the debate starts to get interesting....

I honestly believe that the 'knowledge' to beat the game of poker could be attained in a couple of days in both theory and practice. Not talking about the ability to crush the games here, instead the ability to play ABC poker and pick up enough cash to beat the rake and make your bankroll grow.

What is more, I expect 95% of Plan3t Gong readers will already have this knowledge... and the vast majority of players online to at least have the potential to gain this knowledge very quickly indeed...

Yet we know that the vast majority of players loose money online rather than win it!

Discipline is where it all falls apart, most people assume bankroll management is something rather dull which does not apply to them... table selection means clicking the very first available seat and that moving up levels is a great way to recover from a bad beat. To my mind the poker economy is feuled by players with adequate knowledge - but terrible discipline....

This works for the lower levels quite well... however once we get to a certain level in the game - say $1 / $2 at the sites with a lot of grinders or $2 / $4 to $3 / $6 at the fishier sites we see knowledge regaining some ground. Anyone successfull over an extended period of time at these levels would need to have developed discipline in their game... or they would not have survived! Now that discipline is universal the thing that separates the winners and losers is knowledge...

Long post but an interesting conclusion... that it is only when everyone is playing with discipline that knowledge really starts to become important!

Your thoughts welcome.

GL at those tables, Mark

SNG Strategy - March Newsletter From SNG Planet

2009-03-05T11:56:00.002Z

Since I went to all the trouble of writing a SNG strategy article for my SNG Planet subscribers.... we might as well share it with the good readers of Plan3t Gong too.

If anyone is wondering SNG Planet is the biggest and best site dedicated to SNGs, MTTs and Satellites around and I do a monthly newsletter for readers there - you can subscribe, and get hold of the acclaimed SNG strategy e-book 'A Comedy of Errors' at the same time over at the site... millions of links in the newsletter below!

The Great SNG Debate - Play To Win or Play To Cash??

All,

As per the requests of many regular readers we have a more strategy
focused newsletter this month - addressing an age old debate in the
world of 1-table SNG tournaments...

** Should You Play For 1st Or Play To Cash? **

Before we get to this some more snippets of news in the world of
poker tournaments, SNGs and satellites...

- Poker Stars have improved their VIP Club further, reducing the
gaps between levels and increasing the weekly tournament prizes,
and with the 'SCOOP' a month away you have a great opportunity to
become a Poker Stars VIP while you qualify!

- Party have introduced a monthly $1 Million tournament, with many
satellites from just a few dollars

- SNG Planet have started coverage of 2-table SNGs with a general
strategy article for this popular format, with many more to follow!

Check out our news blog + articles over at the usual address:

http://www.sitandgoplanet.com

**

Onto the big debate - Play to win or play to cash - we will start
by looking at the arguments put forward by proponents of each side,
and then give you an alternative view of the same question. We should
note that these arguments are specific to the 1-table 9 or 10 player
SNG tournaments.

Play To Cash View: This is based on the fact that the jump from 4th
to 3rd is 20% of the prize pool - which is equal to the jump from 2nd
to 1st!! Those who favor this argument say that locking up the 20%
brings the best returns over time and so the correct strategy is to
cash first and then go for the top!

Play To Win View: This view is based on the argument that your long
term ROI depends on the number of wins more than the number of cashes.
With 50% of the prize pool for 1st place, the 'folding into 3rd' will
never make up for taking a chance at the bubble and going for 1st every
time.

I think both views are wrong, here is why!

In the late stages of SNG tournaments mathematics - together with the
accuracy with which you assign ranges of hands to opponents - can be
used to work our the correct plays in terms of your equity in the prize
pool.

Taking this as a starting point we can treat every situation as an
individual event. Every hand starts with chip stacks, blinds and your
positions in a certain configuration. Add to this your cards and the
calling / pushing ranges of opponents and the 'optimal' decision can
be calculated using the Indendent Chip Model.

So, let us have a look at how making good decisions based on known
facts ties in with the 2 'arguments' we started with.

1) Play To Cash, are you turning down situations in which you will gain
prize pool equity over time in order to cash? If so then your decisions
are costing you money - real money.

2) Play To Win, Are you taking negative expectation decisions at the
bubble in the hope that you can make up for these with a giant chip
stack? Well, your decisions are costing you real hard cash each time
that you make them. While it is certainly possible that your big stack
will create future profitable situations this is by no means certain,
after all opponents will loosen up considerably once the bubble has
burst.

I'd like to suggest that you forget about both of these common SNG
approches... and take on board a 3rd and more profitable approach:

"Play to make as many 'mathematically correct' decisions as possible,
and let the results look after themselves"

Once you reach 'expert' level then the meta-game will become important,
for most of us starting with an assumption like 'play to win' will
lead to spewing equity at the bubble.

Want to know more? There are 3 articles to look at, all can be found
in the SNG section over at http://www.sitandgoplanet.com

- Why All In? Understanding Push-Fold SNG Strategy.

- Introduction To The Independant Chip Model

- Best ICM Calculator (shows you how to quickly profit from ICM +
links to free trial of SNG Wiz).

Good Luck At The Tables, Mark
www.sitandgoplanet.com

PS: Romanian Readers Alert - We have now released a 100 pages of SNG
planet in Romanian!! Check it out at www.sitandgoplanet.com/ro/

Poker SEO - Excellent New Site

2009-03-04T09:41:00.002Z

Mentioned a couple of small things concerning 'Search Engine Optimisation' here in the past but today will hand you over to a real expert. For those not aware SEO is the combined art / science of optimising your search engine rankings... this is a diverse topic with many approaches / opinions (my personal approach has been to kill 'em all with quality content!)

Anyway - I recommend bloggers and webmasters alike check out Randy Ray's Poker SEO site... a great starting point is his '20 questions' post.

GL at the tables, Mark

New Poker Blog Up - The Durrrr Challenge

2009-03-03T09:55:00.002Z

Quick announcement and call for bloggers today - have a new blog up and running which will be following the Tom Dwan Durrrr Challenge. Have put some effort into the pics, layout and content over the last couple of days - and will be posting updates every day + youtube videos / links / news / gossip as things happen.

If you have a blog (a proper blog that is, with content and not spam) then I would be happy to add you to the Durrrr Challenge blogroll... you can leave me a comment either here or there.

Also open to any suggestions - the whole idea of this blog is to get everything in one place - so if there is anything on the Durrrr / Dwan challenge you'd like to see then please feel free to let me know.

The address again = http://durrrrchallenge.blogspot.com

GL at the tables, Mark

Too Much Poker? Too Much TV? Or Maybe Too Much Hypocrisy?

2009-03-02T09:49:00.002Z

A combo-post today - hopefully something to think about! This was triggered by a seemingly large uptick in the number of "My friends / family have abandoned me" whinging poker player posts popping up all over the web... and some long-standing personal thoughts about the utter pervasiveness of TV in the lives of so many people.

So, those posts.

The kind of people who write them have just turned their first profits at the poker tables and are (say 4 to 6 months in) now obsessing about the possibilities, learning skills at a rapid rate and have probably just started to multi-table.

They give up social lives, girl / boyfriends, college, friends, family, sport, health and a balanced lifestyle in the pursuit of poker stardom. When people who genuinely care ask questions whether their poker 'career' is the right choice then they are usually demonised and assumed to be stupid / not understanding that poker is a game of skill / some loser who works for others* etc etc

Of course this picture is an extreme - yet plenty of people exactly like this exist out there - mostly in a somewhat less severe form... but with the damage to their lives occuring none the less.

If you are spending all of your time either playing, reading or thinking about poker to the detriment of real relationships and balanced fun life then stop and think now. If you have fallen out with one person due to poker then it is already having a negative impact on your life - let me say it again your life.

The usual counter is that it will all be worth it 'when I become a big name pro who is simply swimming in cash'.

Haha, good luck to you - and I genuinely mean it.

Facts suggest that for every success there are 10,000 who fail - maybe not completely, many will make small but liveable money 'grinding' for a couple of years before getting sick of it and moving on. The set back in life that their poker obsession gave them may linger for many years... though many get will back on track.

Is this you? Plan3t Gong never preaches - only asks questions to provoke thinking... step back, take a look at how poker balances with life and correct that balance... 2 to 3 evenings a week should be enough for even the most dedicated poker fan right??

Too Much TV??

Ah yes, the methodone metronome sucking the lives away from 100's of millions every day and every night. I have always had an issue with TVs, unfortunately there have not been many times in life when I lived alone to exist without one (though most of those times when I did live alone mostly proudly dispensed of them!).

Now the thing that gets me most about TV is not that it goes on as soon as the house is occupied, not that someone can plan to watch something and then flick for the 'least bad' alternative once it is over, it is not the fact that those who watch TV actually feel that they are doing something when actually they are just sitting there staring at moving pictures, it is not the (generally mid-IQ but socially inept) who proclaim that 'documentaries are the best' and provide great education, it is not the masses who believe every statistic, news story and 'report' without questioning the sources.... nope it is.... wait for it:

The fact that you are seen as somehow 'unreasonable' or even 'odd' if you ask (just once) for the TV to be switched off.

I mean, what kind of wierdo asks for the TV to go off? What kind of social freak does not understand that it is everyones right to stare open mouthed at yet another advert break?

You would like to talk instead??!?!

WHAT ABOUT?

You get the picture by now...

Too Much Hypocrisy??

So, time to bring these two themes together.

Those very people who proclaim that poker is a 'problem' are the ones glued to their TV sets. Its not fair huh? You can not critisize their passtime but they get to critisize yours all they like? If you ask them to turn off the TV you are being 'difficult for no reason', if they ask you to play less poker they are ' trying to help you overcome your terrible addiction'.

Well I have set my stall out, I am (very much) pro poker and (very very much) anti-TV (though I will watch films these days!). Yet I actually think that the poker players who lose friends / family relationships / their health etc are the ones with the problem here.

At the end of the day what is socially acceptable to the masses becomes what we can loosely call 'societies rules'... if we want to step outside of those rules then it is up to us as poker players to make enough allowances, enough adjustments to our interactions with significant others and enough balance in life as a whole to show people that our game is recreation (yeah, and profit) and not some terrible affliction.

While there are those forum posters who fall out with everyone over poker, get fat and drop out of college the image of poker will be that of a destructive force... now would it not be great if having a game of poker online became just as mild and harmless as turning on the TV!!

GL at the tables, Mark

Poker Affiliate Business Update

2009-02-25T09:45:00.002Z

Since starting my new business blog is a mere entry on my (very long) 'to do list' at the moment, I thought it was time for an update on the poker business.

One thing to note is that there is more movement towards regulation in the US than before, to my mind there is some momentum forming on various fronts. Barney Frank and (yet another) new bill, a couple of 'skill game' rulings in individual states, California taking briefings on their own and a more widespread understanding that there are tax dollars out there waiting to be collected... will 2009 be the year? Who knows, not basing any business decisions on it yet but becoming more hopeful as the year progresses.

Talking of years progressing (we were?)... The Planet Corporation is off to a great start, and I mean really great!

Our limited liability company is now in formation... by the end of the month we will be known as 'Planet Corporation Kft' (Kft being the Hungarian version of LLC in the US, LTD in the UK etc etc). Wanted a 'big' name and one that was not restricted to poker - since we have many many plans outside of that sphere.

Anna and Vera are settling into their roles and we are trying to transfer as many of Erika's website building / SEO skills over as possible. This will free up Erika to do some of the higher value-add tasks such as improving geo-targeting, analytics work and even better SEO! We are planning to take on one more person in a month or two who speaks Romanian and Hungarian to create even more sites in this area!

So, here is a site-by-site summary as in previous months (some links top right to see them!)

Sit And Go Planet: We just launched the Romanian version.... 100 pages all at once, making it (as far as we can tell) the single biggest SNG / MTT strategy collection in that language! Always feels great to launch a new section, then kind of flat while Google catches up with the indexing / ranking, oh well. We are working hard on new content, seo (particularly for the Russian version) and now have a Polish translation underway too... this will continue to be our main site and we will be working hard to improve as we go - now over 1000 visitors per day which is a nice psychological milestone.

Omaha Planet: Another one which we have added content to, visitors are rising nicely as are some of the rankings... was thinking of selling this at one point but seeing more potential now. Still intend to write an ebook for this one at some point... not a highest priority at the moment though. Considering translations too.

Poker Bonusz Klub: This started life as our Hungarian bonus portal... nothing too fancy just 40 pages of reviews and bonus comparisons (with 10 or so decent strategy articles too). Visitors up (low numbers but very targeted)... the big news here is that we should have the Russian version completed this week - and the Romanian version the week after. Again the new ones will take a while to get ranked etc (link building required) so more jam for tomorrow.

Rakeback-Planet (with the dash!): Revamp has slipped a little, should get it done over the next week or two. Really want to have this in a decent state so we can get it translated...

Killer Holdem: No idea what to do next with this one... except point some of the pages at Rakeback-Planet when the latter is revamped.

Melted Felt: Was doing great but dropped by Google yet again at the moment.... whenever this happens the visits drop massively and so does my motivation to post there. Still the last 2 drops (yep, 3rd f ing time) only lasted a few weeks!

Plan3t Gong: Still planning on changing this blog to be more 'outward looking' rather than writing about myself too much!

New Projects In The Pipeline:

Durrrr Challenge - Managed to pick up 2 totally targetted blogger blogs for this (one with 3 r's and one with 4!) and will be sorting out the content over the next week or so for these, the biggest buzz around deserves a quality tracking service.

PBN: An acronym at the moment for our new project which should start to see the light of day in April(ish). We will be targeting bonus type keywords but with a slightly different twist!

CC: Another acronym, this time for our casino site - determined to get a start in this huge market and will be creating at least one 'mini-site' next month, we will then aggressively translate into Central EU / Russian languages and add from there. Want to grow a casino portal eventually but aware that we could lose the focus on poker if we go too fast here... need for balance.

Well, thats the state of the Planet Corp for the moment - always happy to speak with anyone interested in the poker business... the benefits of working together with supposed competitors usually beat the costs!

Gl at the tables, Mark

SNG Grinders Who Became Poker 'Names'?

2009-02-24T15:17:00.002Z

More of a question than anything else today. I wanted to write a piece on players who started of with SNGs... then went on to become poker names.

Chris Moneymaker had his own 'SNG strategy' at some point*... but I can not recall him being a grinder (or even regular player) at any point - same for Chris "Jesus' Ferguson.

* Would not recommend it now, horribly out of date!

The people who spring to mind are:

- RainKahn (Jared whats-his-name-Kahn) who famously did the 24 table video at the time when 6 tables was considered a lot!
- John 'PearlJammer' Turner used to grind the $16's if I recall correctly... doing pretty well for himself these days... but not really a 'name' quite yet imo.
- Eric 'Sheets' Haber is a SNG expert without a doubt.... but was he a grinder at any point? Not so sure.

Anyway - I'm stuck - think that a nice list of 10 or so would name a fantastic (and possibly motivational!) article.... anyone help me out with a few more suggestions here??

GL at the tables, Mark

Motivation On A Monday Morning... For Poker / Business / Life

2009-02-23T09:31:00.002Z

Probably mentioned before that I have a love / hate view of a website known as the Warrior Forum. It is an internet marketers board (or rather the internet marketers board), in which making $$$ is the main topic of discussion.

It is full of spammers, scammers, hopefulls, newbies and fools with the occasional successful business owners - who hang out mainly to sell 'how to make money' ideas / ebooks / coaching to those mentioned above!

So Mark - Why Read It??? (I hear you all ask!)

Well, occasionally there is a nugget there, a piece of info, a link to a site a seemingly unrelated idea - something that I can bring into my own business and will contribute to my success.

Today I found a post which was so good I found myself nodding along, it concerns our mindset and the trap of thinking too small. It concerns the fact that if our goals are too narrow (or shallow) then our actions focused on reaching those goals will also be limited. It concerns how to break out of this cycle and get the success you really deserve.

Whether you play poker for a living, run an online (or any other) business or just have aspirations to break out of your current limited life I suggest you read the post. If your goal is to move up to $2 / $4 by the end of the year then why not aim for $5 / $10 instead, if you want your poker affiliate business to reach $10k then why not aim (and truly aim) for $50k instead?

Anyway - here is that link.

http://www.warriorforum.com/main-internet-marketing-discussion-forum/32589-quick-way-50k-month.html

Gl at the tables, Mark

SNG Strategy - Regulars And ROI

2009-02-19T10:01:00.004Z

Interesting thread over at 2+2 today... a poster making a great effort to quantify the effect of winning 'regulars' in SNG tournaments.

Alert Plan3t Gong regulars will spot that this is an old favourite area for me, and in fact I have been banging my head on the brick wall of saying that good table selection has become necessary (at least at Stars and Tilt) for some time now. We even did a SNG Planet article on the subject some time back.

Here is the link: http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/36/stt-strategy/lc-500th-post-game-selection-how-much-regs-hurt-your-roi-411194/

Gl at those tables, Mark

Best Poker Bad Beat Story Could Win You $1000!

2009-02-17T10:40:00.003Z

First up on the new 'outward looking' Plan3t Gong an opportunity to trade your best poker bad beat story for a cool grand.

This is being run by established affiliate Roger - owner of Compatible Poker - and is not only great fun but great linkbait too!

You will find the details at the Compatible blog: http://www.compatiblepoker.com/poker-rumors/bad-beat-stories/1271

Not sure that having those aces cracked alone will win the prize... if you can come up with a good 'human angle' in there then who knows?!? Alas I have a personal 'no bad beat story' policy - so will not be entering myself!

GL at the tables, Mark

New Direction For PG Poker!

2009-02-16T12:18:00.003Z

Unusual eh? No posts here for a week!

Well, there was a good reason for this - even though it lead to a bit of 'bloggers anxiety' (that feeling of mild guilt that I had not posted!). It is time for a brand new direction for Plan3t Gong, and I wanted to give myself some space to think it through.

Here is the bottom line: Poker is now my 'work' and not my hobby. Running and growing a poker business is a 12 hour a day endeavour for me... I am growing a business that will run without me in the medium-term. Those who play / coach / write professionally I admire your spirit and skills, yet when you stop working your income also stops - 10 years in a blue-chip taught me to avoid this trap and everything I now do is focused on creating a passive income in 2 to 3 years time. When you spend this much time involved in poker what is the last thing you want to do with your liesure time? You guessed it!

Some Good News! My work means spending time involved in poker news, views and strategy... and I plan on passing the fruits of this labour to readers here. This will involve linking out to more articles which are not my own. In the spirit in which Plan3t Gong was created these will be the kind of articles that make people think (oh, will also include those with the potential for increasing my readers profits of course!).

More Good News! Personal and business updates will move to a new blog, in plan for creation at some point next month... this will be a broad business blog and focus on poker and other areas which we are looking at + a little humor and stuff on my new hobby ('creative' photography!). Stay tuned for an announcement here.

Even More Good News! Announcements of new strategy articles / information on my growing network of sites will still feature here... we are aggressively pushing into new markets at the moment and expect 2 new sites, a revamp of our rakeback site and the Romanian Version of SNG Planet all to come out in the next few weeks.

For any Romanian readers here is a preview (the final proof-read / checking + validation this week so not quite perfect yet.) http://www.sitandgoplanet.com/ro/

So, plan is to try and get the new direction going as soon as possible - so watch out for more posts this week!

PS: 1 year smoke free... ship it!

Gl at the tables, Mark

Which Bluff Came First - Absolute Beginners

2009-02-07T12:06:00.005Z

An interesting situation came up in the Plan3t office yesterday. As regular readers will know we recently took on two very bright employees with language skills to help with aggressive expansion plans into Central / Eastern Europe and Russia.

Since it was Friday, and neither of the ladies had played poker before we broke out for a quick 'beginners lesson', kind of an introduction to how to play no-limit Texas Holdem starting from zero...

It was both fun and a challenge...

Where do you start? With the poker hand rankings? With the starting hand selection? With the mechanics of who acts when? Explaining what the 'blinds' are and how you can make people fold? Actually it is not as easy as it sounds... most of what you will find on the web assumes you at can at least follow a hand - and this was speaking with people who had never played a hand in their lives of any form of the game.

So, the Titan 1c / 2c blind game was our venue and I explained how the winning hand was constructed and how to bet / fold etc. The ladies then took turns and managed (by luck more than judgement) to turn our initial $2 buy-in into a hefty $3.01c before we finished.

An interesting - and thought provoking - situation occoured, we had played q8 off from early position (hehe) and missed the flop against a single caller. I reccommended a bluff bet on the flop representing something or other... and it worked, fine. One of the ladies then asked - What does it mean to bluff? Is a bluff in poker the same as a bluff in real-life?

Of course the answer is yes, the meaning is indeed the same.

What I thought was that this term actually came from poker into the world - rather than the other way around. It was interesting to see that poker terminology has become so pervasive in society that someone who knows nothing at all about the game can use it without realising its origin. This lady is extremely intelligent BTW, it is not that something was 'missed' here - more a refreshing perspective of someone whose life had not (yet!) been touched by poker.

Plenty of other terms out there too!

GL at the tables, Mark

Affiliate Business - Poker Spam - A Different Perspective

2009-02-05T09:52:00.003Z

Post concerned with the poker business today - triggered by various discussions and viewpoints over the past months on some of the larger poker affiliate forums. Hopefully this at least provides some 'food for thought' in that direction... if you are a player / blog reader and not interested in the ethics of international spamming then the post below this one 'are the games getting tougher' may be of more interest!

Anyway... here is an example adapted (+link removed!!) from a spam blog comment received yesterday, nothing special about it - just wanted to set the scene a little.

Online Poker Game offer you virtual way of enjoy poker game through the Internet. Though a bit difficulty, this game can be masterful in due course. Online players can number of times until they feeling they have mastered the game.

Horrible huh?

I am sure that anyone would agree the huge number of 'respun' articles, auto translated Chinese websites filling up the long tail of the SERPS and spam forum posts and comments in this horrific broken language are a scourge on our industry!!

Now, maybe then someone can explain this....

Many otherwise reputable poker webmasters, folks from my own home country (England), the US and Canada (to name the 3 largest), people who produce quality information and interesting value-added websites, people who would never think of themselves as spammers are exactly that - spammers.

Here is why, they are taking their content, making new directories and using automated tools to translate this, creating - in multiple languages - exactly the kind of rubbish / spam which I gave you an example of above.

Yet, in the eyes of many this is perfectly acceptable behaviour.... why is this?

- Some have a perspective that they are 'helping out' those countries who have little strategy / bonus code knowledge by auto translating.

- Some have the perspective that it is somehow different to spam a 'foreign' country than it is to spam the US / UK / wherever.... that this somehow 'does not count'.

- Some have the perspective that it is a 'no-lose' since any resident of the county spammed who takes offense and refuses to visit your 'brand' again does not matter.

My perspective is the logic which leads otherwise reputable webmasters to become blatant spammers is twisted, shallow and - well to be honest on exactly the same class level as the Chinese (not picking on that country specifically, just an example) who attempt to black-hat their way up the search-engines with their broken English.

Fellow affiliates, I call on you to stop spamming.

Gl at the tables, Mark

Are SNGs Getting Tougher?

2009-02-03T16:04:00.003Z

Just sent out a rather long newsletter to SNG Planet readers... the subject is whether SNGs are getting tougher (sounds familiar eh, well people have been saying it since I started playing!).

Anyway - will not publish all the newsletters here (you can sign-up over at SNG Planet and get the 'Comedy Of Errors' Version 2 at the same time!), but thought this might be worthy of some discussion.

Note: Lost the original formatting when I pasted into blogger - bah!

***********************************************************

Forums, blogs and articles all over the internet are coming up at the moment with the same theory - that the SNGs are getting harder.

In this newsletter I'd like to examine this in a little more depth, first looking at the possible reasons for this perception and then making some suggestions as to how we might profitably adapt. After all, poker is one of those games where standing still for too long can damage your wealth!

Just took a quick look at Poker Stars SNGs lobby. This shows that for the $6.50s there are 5 tables each with 4 players, for the $16s there are more tables with the following pattern 7, 5, 5, 4, 4, 2,2, 1, 1, 1, 1. The $27s and $60s similar.

This shows something significant.

It shows that the tables are already full with players who like to play several tables. Recreational players will join the 'fullest' table available - yet even at the smaller buy-ins there are several people at each table waiting to be filled.

While it does not always follow that these are winning opponents you should work on the assumption that they are at least somewhat able.

The profits of the past used to be split between 1 or 2 reasonable players. Now people appear to be fighting for scraps, with 5 or 6 grinders after the ev that 3 or 4 new players will spew - and we all know that variance can make this a long wait.

Reliable sources have suggested that the $50+ levels are even worse, often with 6 to 8 regulars on each table. This is repeated at Full Tilt, that other home of high-volume SNG Play.

The question is what has happened here?

After all the dynamics of the poker economy usually mean that the grinders leave if the games drop below a certain profitability level.

In my opinion we have a mixture of reasons. Training sites is one, and of course strategy sites such as http://www.sitandgoplanet.com/ are partially to blame! ICM used to be a niche and is now mainstream, the pushbot game is standard and the early spew of chips now comes from a smaller percentage of opponents.

What has happened is that the highest games have got tougher, which has lead the former $60 level players to move down - at the same time as the training material available has given the masses the ability and confidence to multi-table the lower levels. What you are seeing is a SNG squeeze - from the bottom as well as the top.

All very nice to have theories Mark, but how about some solutions? (I hear you all say!)

Well, let us break down the options. To my mind there are 3 possible ways to bigger profits here, all of them require a little effort, but all should pay you handsomely in the long run.

Beating Tougher Games #1 - Get Better Than Other Winners!

I know, I know, you are already a winner, sharkscope graph and all, that is great but think about this: What are you doing over-and-above the opposition? What are you doing to get a real edge over those players who already know about push / fold poker, who do not play easily dominated hands out of position early? Who are trying to put YOU on a range?

Here are some suggestions:

- If you do not already know it ICM has become a basic, even if you do not plan on using it yourself (and I recommend you do!) it is very important to understand what your opponents are doing - or how canyou adjust your own strategy to beat them?

Start Here: Poker ICM Introduction

- Following on from this 'Default Ranges' are no longer enough above the very lowest levels. If you are not analyzing ALL of your push / fold decisions after a session then you are going to get left behind. I still recommend SNG WIZ as the premier tool for this - you can get a 30 day free trial via the link below:

30 Day Free Trial Of SNG WIZ

- Next Level Thinking: Equilibrium in your ranges is becoming more and more important. Your opponents are adjusting to what they perceive as your pushing range... that is to say they are putting you on a range and adapting their play (just as you are). The next level is to adjust your range to the NEW calling range of your opponents -if they know you are doing this they will re-adjust and so on. Get SNG Wiz and run through this scenario - if nothing else it will open your eyes (and game!) to how dynamically the push / fold game can change against aware opponents.

30 Day Free Trial Of SNG WIZ

**Whew - long newsletter - stick with me though, the best is yet to come!**

Beating Tougher Games #2 - Better Table Selection

Time to be honest with yourself, how much profit does playing against other winners really cost you?

Most players would say a couple of percent, if that. They would be wrong. It can cost you a lot of real hard currency over even a small sample of games. Want to know more? Then check out the article where we worked it all out...

ROI vs Winning Regulars

Now, you can avoid these winners quite easily right? By waiting 10 minutes to start your set when there are 4 or 5 people registered for all of your preferred games.

Why then do so few people suggest, or for that matter ACT on this info?

Baffles me!

Beating Tougher Games #3 - Other Sites!

I have never understood the 'stickiness' of some poker players. Stars is the best poker site in my opinion too... yet playing there exclusively would be a very BAD decision for my poker profits, and yours. The same goes for Full Tilt, UB and anywhere else you play at as a matter of habit or familiarity.

Step back and ask yourself whether seeing your bankroll shoot up would compensate YOU for the minor hassles of changing sites and moving that money around now and again to grab the latest offers.

For me it is a no-brainer, here are some suggestions:

For US Readers:

1) Bodog - SNGs So Soft You'll Be Shocked!
Review:Bodog Poker Review

2) Cake Poker - Ban On Datamining And Stats Software Keeps the Grinders Away!
Review:Cake Poker Review

For Non-US Readers:

1) Red Kings Poker - OnGame Network, Home Of The Recreational Masses! (really, this one is a must see in 2009!)

Review:Red Kings Poker Review

2) Titan Poker - iPoker Get Our Vote As The World's Fishiest PokerGames!

Review:Titan Poker Review

My message should be clear, the games go through phases of being tough and weak. At the moment there is a double-squeeze going on, making them tougher than normal. The good news is that you have it in your power to change things around fast... all it takes is action,not tomorrow - now!

Your feedback is always welcome at: Support (at sign) sngplanet.com

Until next time GL at those tables,Mark
http://www.sitandgoplanet.com/

PS: Not tomorrow - Now!

Defeated By A Poker Book + Romanian Full Steam Ahead!

2009-02-02T09:57:00.003Z

Well, for the first time ever I have puffed out those cheeks, sighed, and put down a poker book before getting anywhere near the end.

Yes - 'The Mathematics Of Poker' has defeated me 2-0 in the final minute to keep it's title hopes alive, and is destined for the 'what the f was all that about then' pile. Maths has never been my strongest point. Can do mental arithmetic pretty fast etc but anything which involves a formula just causes me to blank.

Ah well, plently more books in the sea, or something.

Another busy week ahead (going to stop writing this every week - it can become one of those silent assumptions a bit like the 'Of course you are 100% right and I am wrong' silent proviso which comes in front of everything I say to the better half!). This week will see the final pages of the Romanian SNG Planet completed... then just a matter of having the final checks done next week before we can go live.

Keen to get this one up and running since there is quite a backlog of new projects building up including some more poker bonus club versions and a revamp of rakeback-planet (with the dash!) + multi-language versions of that one too.

Anyway, with all this work to do I'd best get on!

Gl at the tables, Mark

Tournaments, Supernovas and Che Guevara

2009-02-01T13:06:00.003Z

General update today, got to Silver Star for the first time in a while, used to be a regular Silver / Gold so shows how little time I have dedicated to the game lately.

In fact made it just in time to join the $20k weekly Silverstar freeroll along with 6000 odd others (finished 300ish for a whopping $18!!), similar finish in the $3 rebuy, yeah yeah, said I would not play it again but could not resist the fun in the first hour - min raising pre every hand, donk betting 50 into a pot of 1000 etc etc. Got my money in good on both exit hands even while steadily drinking as the tourneys went on... so no complaints there.

Anyway one observation and one rant...

Played a mix of $16 and $6.50 SNGs to accumulate those FPPs... surprising amount of people with supernova displayed on their icons, even at the $6.50 level. Do not quite get this, how many of these mind-numbing one table tournaments would they need to have played??? (also why display and give away the info - but that is for another post).

My rant concerns seeing a couple of Stars pics with Che Guevara displayed on them... this is something I just do not comprehend at all. Maybe someone can tell me what a political icon who stood up for South America's poor and against the establishment, promoted Marxism (yes, Marxism for fucks sake!) and was not afraid to use weapons to further his cause has to do with online poker???

I mean, c'mon.

Undoutedly displayed by some dope smoking self centred greasy kid sitting in his bedroom at his moms house (or in a college dorm paid for by parents)... thinking this is somehow a symbol of their own struggle against a society which 'does not understand'. Shallow. Misguided. Sad.

Anyway, just deleted the next paragraph... at the end of the day I'd prefer to let readers form their own inferences. Funny, you never see pics on Stars of Warren Buffett, George Soros or Donald Trump.... hmmmmm.

GL at those tables, Mark

The Poker Rise Of Europe!

2009-01-30T13:21:00.002Z

Do not usually start blog posts with a small disclaimer - but this post will be an exception. Going to put down some observations on the rise of Europe in the poker world... but did not want to be seen as against any of my US / Canadian / Antipodean readers... if you are intelligent and articulate then I have never cared what country you are from.

So, the rise of Europe.

2008 was a good year for the old continent... Peter Eastgate winning the main event for those (crazy) Danes... Annette Obrestad moving from a fat internet pro to a fat internationally known live and internet poker pro... Elky rising in prominence after some high profile wins and so on, the rise of Russian pros too.

As we reach 2009 we see a UK player at the top of the P5s rankings (Moorman1), a Hungarian in 3rd (Breeth) (great country BTW, invented the rubix cube, biros and nuclear weapons you know!) and yet more on the outskirts of the 'big time'.

My prediction is that 2009 will be the year that the playing field between North America and Europe is considered level...

Lets face it for a moment, when it comes to poker Europe lags by 5 or 6 years at least. While the first 'internet pros' were sprining up in the US, we were just discovering that a game called Texas Holdem existed. While the US players were dominating the internet leaderboards, most Europeans were donking around in $20 games on Party Poker.

In some ways we need to include the UIGEA into the picture, I think this sped things up as far as leveling the playing field goes. Not by a huge amount, after all anyone 'serious' about poker can still play... its only the average joes who used to regularly lose money who are gone. Maybe we could argue that the leveling off of talent was brought forward by a year or so.

Personally I love reading some small stakes goon on the forum talk about the 'Eurodonks'. Why? because it shows me just how many players Europe is producing at the moment. The huge pool of potential talent... sure there are lots of donks - in 2005 they were US citizens relaxing with $100 at the end of a hard week at work... now they are average EU guys (and gals!)... most will lose and give up, but some will succeed and out of those a small percentage will hit the big time... relieving those small stakes ego's of their hard-ground bankrolls readily.

Yes, I'm happy for the Eurodonks and the level playing field of 09... because in 2010 and beyond it is the Europeans / Russians who will be laughing at the US players they brush aside along the way.

Remember - I'm not anti US (in fact the only prejudice I have is against low intelligence 'animals in human bodies - which just happen to make up 98% of the world's population!!). Just painting a picture on the record of the future... if I'm wrong then let me know in mid-2010!

GL at the tables, Mark

Personal Poker Content Challenge!

2009-01-28T09:35:00.002Z

Rainy January days can somehow drain the motivation, so time to perk myself up with a mini-challenge - focused on the longer term growth of my poker website business.

I will create 120 quality poker content pieces in the next 10 working days. 12 a day is pretty heavy going but definitely achieveable with the right mindset / focus.

Acceptable pieces of work will include:

- Quality blog posts (not the mini-update type ones)
- Strategy Pieces for my own network of sites
- Reviews / Bonus type pages for some of the sites in plan
- Articles for other poker webmasters to exchange for links (traffic - if you want some quality writing give me a shout)
- Extensive re-writes of existing pages (for example I'll be completely redoing my rakeback site pretty soon, not just minor tweaks though, has to be a complete rewrite).

Looked at Stars last night and noticed I needed just 430ish more FPPs to get to silver-star too... so we will throw this into the mix to get there before the end of the month (well, the alternative on Saturday would probably only involve shopping anyway!).

Right, best start writing!

GL at the tables, Mark

Monday Round-Up Time (Again)

2009-01-26T09:01:00.002Z

Seem to come around quick these Mondays... would love to give you a fascinating, nail-biting tournament run-down from the weekend - only, well, I only really donked around on the PLO tables for a few hours! Successfully sure, but not notable enough to blog about (though I do have a new 'sport' when particularly bored - min raising every time in PLO, the idea is to spot the player who objects the most to this behavour... then take his stack when he finally 'makes a stand'... maybe i'll do a guide!).

My weeks are always busy, this one no exception - with our second new recruit starting this morning... really pleased that we are moving forward faster than ever, even if it does take many hours to explain / train.

Anyway, just a shorty today - will get my trusty notebook out and make an effort with some longer pieces during this week.

Gl at the tables, Mark

Stars Little Stroke Of Genuis That Made Them The Biggest

2009-01-23T09:27:00.003Z

Not a commercial post, although I will focus on Poker Stars today. As most of you will know, Stars are the behemoth of the online poker scene - with peaks equalling the entire traffic of their closest 3 rivals* and growing all the time.

* thats Full Tilt, iPoker and Party, even more of an achievement if you consider that 95% of poker is played at the top 15 sites.

Anyway, there are several reasons cited as to why Stars continues to dominate, even setting aside the smart way in which they took over the US traffic from Party. My 'food for poker thought' today is that there is an overlooked element when people consider Stars' success... but first, the usual reasons:

- Stars is biggest because they have the best software? Well, its great, I mean one of the best, fast and smooth and easy and all that good stuff - but special? exceptional? that much better than Tilt etc that it could explain almost 3 times as many players?? Nope.

- Stars VIP Club is often cited as 'industry leading', and yes it is very good - especially for those mid-limit or multi-table grinder types... the more recent cash bonuses match some rakeback deals too. But wait a second, your average lower level recreational players do not really benefit that much... I mean no more than a decent rakeback % at Cake or points for cash at Pacific (to pick some random examples!)... this helps because it attracts the grinders which give the games liquidity, but only at the margins compared with other sites.

- Game Selection and number of tournaments... same answer, both are excellent but not different or exceptional enough to explain the huge disparity between their player base and that of other sites.

- Lack of decent competition... could be a factor!

Now, I have a different theory and the clue, as the saying goes, was in the title!

Stars offer a very small bonus compared to some other sites, it is a 100% match on first deposits up to $50, and to me this is the key to all of their success.

Think about it for a moment. New players do not sit at their computer one evening and think: "Hmmmm, I heard that online poker is fun, I'll deposit $1,100 (or even $500) and have a try".

Nope, they are looking for a small initial outlay to 'test the waters', we have all been there - back in the day when I first played (at Party) I'd deposit $100 at a time, lose it, do something else for a month and then find the software on my PC and maybe deposit another $50... yep, I was a regular losing joe who worked hard and blew off money for fun, as most players are even to this day.

So, when you see a $500 bonus and a $50 in those circumstances it is natural to go for the lower one, right? I mean you sub-consciously reason that you'll tackle the $500 one just as soon as you win a few games with your initial $50 right... and once you have a Stars account then everything is in that 'Goldilocks Zone' of 'just right'... so you stay there!

Anyway, the truth - as always - is somewhere in the middle. Stars success is due to a combination of doing everything very well indeed rather than leadership in any one area... my thought is that the small bonus has made a big difference though!

Gl at the tables, Mark

Rights, Expectations, Responsibilities And.... Poker

2009-01-21T11:20:00.005Z

It appears to me that a shift in society over the last 20-odd years has seen an increase in the general awareness of something we call our 'rights'. These take many forms ranging from human rights to freedom of speech rights through privacy and - notably - the new 'right to own things'... graduated recently? Then you have some magical 'right' to a well paid job and house,... Work hard this week? then you have a right to a better car, bigger TV and holiday (just add it to the credit card....).

Anyway, veered off right at the start... my other perception is that society as a whole has become more likely to point a finger of blame to the mysterious 'them'.... 'they should have stopped it', 'it is all their fault' etc - you can see it with the current economic turmoil - everyone wants to blame bankers / governments / hedge funds / property speculators and whoever else.... on a micro level falling over because you were on the phone and not looking where you were walking is now the fault of the local authority for not maintaining the pavement, rather than your own carelessness.

I'm not arguing that institutions and governments did not have a role to play here, just observing that society as a whole appears more likely to point the finger of blame than to accept individual or collective responsibility... that at a macro and micro level the sense of responsibility is lower than ever - at the same time as peoples sense of 'rights' and ' entitlement' is higher than before.

Now, this blog post was triggered by reading about yet another case of CPA fraud over at the poker affiliate programs forums.

It started as they do, with an affiliate complaining that poker site XYZ had not paid them money owed - that this poker site was a sham and fraud etc. Anyway, the director of affiliates (nice made up title by the way!!) at this top 5 site investigated, found that most of the players had deposited but never played, most were from India (where this chap was located) and almost half of them registered from the same computer (!)... basically this guy was a cheat, a parasite on the poker affiliate business - in my own opinion rather naive in thinking he could get away with it in the first place.

So, he has a collection of sites linked in his signiature - pretty standard bonus info that seems to fill the web every hour of every day. Here is the rub - many other affiliate programs are involved, some big names and some smaller outfits.

If this guy is scamming one site for the CPAs (1-off payments for each player) then it is pretty clear to me that the chances all the players sent to the other sites being 100% legitimate are very low indeed.

Now we can tie things together. I considered contacting the affiliate programs involved, pointing out that a case of fraud had been uncovered and implicitly suggesting that they might want to look a little closer at the accounts of this affiliate... after all, the alternative is to sit and think 'well, its not my duty to do such a thing, they should have checks and controls in place which catch this kind of cheat' (actually they do, and will catch him eventually).

While the programs catch up he will probably take $1000's out of the poker economy. You might say that this is fine, since it comes from the 'fat cat' poker sites pockets - but that just does not rub with me... the collective fraudsters (and there are many forms) are a leak of money that could benefit all participants from players through to genuine affiliates.

Long post... will get there shortly.

So, my 'right' is to be protected from such scum as the guy outlined above, but what is my responsibility? Can I, a small affiliate, really be expected to contact a bunch of affiliate programs to let them know? Is it my job to do this?

Been thinking about this question overnight, and however I bend the logic and run the argument the answer has to be 'yes it is'. Its like failing to vote and then complaining about your government. If I want to operate in an honest field as possible then I have to take my responsibilities along with my 'rights'... and spend 30 minutes putting together a few mails.

Finally - only a small percentage of my readers will be in the poker business, what I wanted to finish with is that this relates to players too... if you see something that looks like cheating, hear of multi-accounters or are invited to collude then it is your responsibility to let the poker sites know... assuming you wish to exercise your rights to fair play.

One more, of course this applies to life outside of poker in a million ways. Hopefully this post will get a couple of people thinking about this subject - whether you agree with me or not, my self-imposed role is to get you thinking - so it is job done!

GL at the tables, Mark

Quicky Update - 9 mails sent - one place with no easy contact details out of 10. Only took 40 minutes of so... now I can leave things to 'them' for a month of two!

General Updates - Poker + Poker Business

2009-01-19T12:17:00.003Z

Very little poker this past weekend... entered a couple of tournaments Friday evening, but kind of expected to lose coin flips and even dreaded the AK vs KK type pots - not the right frame of mind to play a good game at all. Pleased to say that I was able to read the situation well enough to abort the mission before committing too much money - ended up playing the international version of Monopoly in Hungarian (which I can not read)... would 'get out more' only its too bloody cold!

My business is really the focus of poker efforts at the moment, even spent a couple of lazy hours on Sunday writing some reviews to exchange for links. Last week saw our part- time Russian speaker start with us, training in progress at the moment, but a very bright lady so should be up to speed soon enough. Actually have an interview this afternoon with a Polish speaker, we will see how it goes... definitely would like at least one more part-timer, just a matter of when.

Got a huge list of projects to work on at the moment.... here is a flavour of what is coming next!

- SNG Planet Deposit Options: Completed this last week with something like 12 new pieces (counting new versions which basically replace some of the existing articles). Also did a new layout and new visual matrix for this section. Erika is working away at this one right now and we hope to have it up in the next day or two.

- SNG Planet Romanian: This is now getting created, the new lady is doing is under E's supervision... going to be 3 weeks or so (unless I get impatient and decide to step in and do it myself!!).

- SNG Planet Satellites: This weeks big task for me is to completely update the satellites section of SNG Planet, got a ton of great content in plan and a new way of organising it too... will also work on some links for this one as we are on page 1 of the big G for some great terms but not in the top 3 places for very many. Expect the results next week.

- Translations: Loads going on, just started SNG Planet Polish, PB Klub is now underway in Romanian and Russian... more to follow too!

Next in the queue will be the revamp of my rakeback site... feeling motivated (as usual really) anf ready to make a big difference this week!

GL at those tables, Mark

Well Well Well

2009-01-15T11:41:00.003Z

It appears to be the latest thing at the moment to do a 'Well'. For those not familiar this is basically where a 'known' / successful player open themselves up for any / all questions in a forum post... these have been around for a while, but to my mind appear to be escalating in number.

Some are interesting, some not - reflecting the diverse people behind those screen-names. In true Plan3t Gong service style I'll list a couple of the better ones found recently...

- First up is Annette_15 Obrestad's Well post over on Poker-Road

http://www.pokerroad.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3028

- Next Pocket 5's for SCTrojan's Well (would have listed Assasinato's instead, but can not seem to find it - but this one is also quite insightful)

http://www.pocketfives.com/poker-forums/7/The-Well_3A00_-SCTrojans-3743510

- Finally one for the Omaha fans - the Well of Ben Grundy aka theMilkybarkid, nosebleed stakes may not be everyones cup of tea but this guy owns when it comes to PLO! His well is at 2+2

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/38/omaha-high/ben-milkybarkid-grundy-well-341480/

Any more to add to the list? I would be happy to add a bunch more if anyone out there would like to suggest them.

GL at the tables, Mark

A Day Of New!

2009-01-13T10:03:00.002Z

Notice anything different about this post? A certain newness in the spaces between the words? Something about the sentence structure that says 'clean out of the box'?

No?

Oh well... I have a new laptop, it has a gazillion gigs of stuff and a long list of electronic components with numbers next to them. The thing is I hate having a new computer... always have. While others might be excited to have the latest technology I actually kind of dread it, after all there was nothing wrong with my old one really... mind you, taking this logic to the extreme I would still have my Amstrad word processor with WordPerfect (or even m BBC.... a model B no less!!)

Anyway, life goes on and this laptop will be like an old friend in no time, no poker sites on it for the moment... another job for another day!

There is actually a great reason for having a new machine. Today we start our first employee at the Plan3t Corp, part time in the afternoons to help us grow the Russian side of the business. Yesterday we sorted out desk + chair etc and wiped my old laptop... today we start some training.. and tomorrow the world. Interviews are still ongoing for other languages too, interesting times ahead!!

Some interesting outbound links for you soon.

GL at the tables, Mark

Ever Made A Poker Bet Purely On Principal?

2009-01-12T11:43:00.002Z

Usually have several books 'on the go' at any one time, with 3 currently open by my bedside... among them 'The Poker Mindset' which I'm enjoying a second (slower) reading of very much.

Something stood out yesterday in the section on 'Woolly Thinking'... it concerned acting on principal - that is to say making a bet or call because it is about time someone did for XYZ reason (the example given is to look up an overly aggressive player). After a think about this I realised that there are several areas where I act on principal alone, including:

- In limit games (rarely play Limit Holdem so talking HORSE / 8-Game)... if I continuation bet, another player raises and someone cold calls 2 bets while the betting is not closed I almost always re-raise - out of principle that there are so few situations in which it is correct to call 2 bets cold that this player needs to be shown how stupid this action is. Of course, at the lower levels they will just call 2 extra bets when the other guy caps, creating a big pot which gives perfect odds to stick around come the turn... doh!

- In no limit games my 'on principal' behaviour usually manifests in Blind vs Blind situations. I do not believe the small blind (or button) on principal... and often overplay hands when really they could have been mucked pre flop.

- In SNG tournaments... (cringing to write this one, but it is true so here goes)... I have a decent understanding of ICM and push / fold ranges - yet will often call regulars far to light 'on principal', the erronous point being to show them that I know they are pushing any-2, sure there are weak arguments about meta-game (or even future walks in the same game). However, on the whole this is just principals gone awry... just because I can spew my equity and theirs does not mean this is profitable in the long run!

Anyway - idea was to get readers thinking about whether there are any situations in which you act on principal rather than making the 'best possible' decision based on the current situation. If you can think of any examples then feel free to let me know!

Gl at the tables, Mark

Mixed Feelings On Titan Poker's VIP Club

2009-01-09T11:27:00.004Z

Titan Poker have actually been overdue a VIP club... yet now they have announced what looks like a pretty generous scheme I'm left with a bitter taste in my mouth. Why? Well, they took away almost 100,000 points which I'd accumulated over the last few years.

Strangely, it should not matter, but it does.

These points were not quite useless - but fairly close to it. Being useful only for tournament entries with smallish prize pools and the occasional satellite.. the thing is that there was no warning that the new VIP club would set them to zero. My feeling of irritation is that they should have let players know a couple of months in advance, that way at least there is the choice to join in some of the freerolls etc

Anyway, enough grumbling - more a point of principal for me. There are a couple of pieces of good news here. Firstly that it opens a door for a whole bunch of 'treating VIP members badly' jokes for Melted Felt (gonna write that in just a minute - should be fun!). Secondly, Titan (and iPoker) have grown significantly to be the 3rd largest online poker site without a VIP club of any note - and with one they should be even better postitioned for a huge 2009... so the affiliate side of me is happy that the terms are generous at least!

Titan are unfortunately not US-friendly at the moment, if any non-US players are interested, Titan Poker are actually one of the fishiest sites you will find anywhere - I would personally argue that they beat Party in this respect!. My bonus code SNGPLANET gets a bigger 100% to $500 bonus and $20 in free cash (placed automatically into your account within 48 hrs)... just click the link below to check out those profitable tables for yourself!

Check Out Titan's New VIP Club!

GL at those tables, Mark

Things Move Fast + Personal 'Chat Ban'

2009-01-07T11:27:00.003Z

Feeling good after a 6km run this morning... on the treadmill, it is minus 6c or something horrible like that outside... also feeling good about movement with the business!

Have agreed with a Polish gentleman that we start the next translation of 100 pages of SNG Planet (now sorting the details / checks, but all seems legit so far). The Romanian translation is almost done too... just the small matter of creating the web pages now (gulp!)

Also have our first interview this week for a part time assistant to help us with the Eastern expansion into Russia and Central Europe. Not too late for applications (actually I may even take more than one person if the skills / languages fit well!) if any Hungarian readers know someone looking for part-time work in Budapest then let me know - advert link below!

http://www.caboodle.hu/nc/marketplace/single/office_assistant_flexible_part_time_hours/?cHash=f953130fb4

Back to the playing side of poker... I have made a late addition to my new years resolutions, it really concerns working on my game and primarily the emotional detachment required to be successful. This manifests itself in a constant reminder to myself - to 'make decisions for the right reasons' but one small side effect is a personal ban from reacting in the chat box.

Now, to be honest I am not very chatty anyway, and the usual 'worst' comment you would find from me after a hideous beat would be 'sigh' or maybe 'donked'.... (except on a couple of occasions where I blew up at the odd egotistical 'professor' in a low limit game to keep them in their place (never works BTW - like arguing with traffic cone)).

Still these were reactions which tended to personalise things, both on the table and in my mind... and in 2009 they have gone... for my own good reasons the 'if you cant think of anything nice to say then say nothing at all' rule will be applied. Hopefully this will help me focus harder on making the best decisions possible. We will see.

GL at the tables, Mark

Loving The Poker Business

2009-01-05T09:27:00.003Z

On a day where millions the world over will return to their desks in various corporations I am taking a moment to consider myself fortunate... the xmas and new year disruption to normal life is finally out of the way and it is time to get fully back to work - and it feels great!!

More business posts to follow as the month goes on. First an update from some new years pokering...

A mild disappointment on my first final table of the year in a 600-odd runner $5 donkament on Titan... came in 6th (or was it 7th?) playing a big pot against an over-aggressive but bad player in the big blind... raised up kings before the flop, and managed to act weak enough at the same time as building a big pot that we were both pot committed on a dry flop. Was one of those reads combined with pot control situations in position which worked out perfectly - until he spiked the river for a horror 2 -pair... no bad beat whining here on Plan3t Gong (it was self-banned a long time ago), did everything right which was all that I could do, the rest is down to chance!

Over on Stars I took advantage of their world record reload bonus and played a bunch of $6+50c SNGs, 9-tables at a time... sure, this is a step down from my previous levels, but based on my bankroll on this site that was what I should be playing (practice what you preach etc!!). Success so far, both in profits and clearing the bonus and now have 65-odd buy-ins for the $16s (next weekend though - too busy to play for a few days).

Next couple of days will be focusing on writing some great content and organising the initial steps for some new projects for '09... can not wait!!

GL at the tables, Mark

Poker Writing Comp - $1000 + 10 * $100 Up For Grabs

2009-01-03T12:19:00.002Z

Ummmed and Ahhhed about posting this, but since there are many talented bloggers / writers out there who pop over to Plan3t Gong now and again here it is... a decent sized prize for a strategy article competition.

This is run by Randy Ray, as reputable an affiliate as they come and owner of several highly respected and well known websites - you will have seen them, trust me!

With $1000 for first prize and 10 * $100 runner-up spots + 5 categories to choose from there is bound to be significant buzz around this comp, which closes at the end of Jan. Here are the categories - will link to the forum thread at Poker Affiliate Programs which announces this below:

- General Poker Strategy
- Texas Holdem Poker Strategy
- Omaha Hi Lo Poker Strategy
- Razz Poker Strategy
- Seven Card Stud Poker Strategy

Article Writing Competition

GL at those tables, Mark

Poker New Years Resolutions

2008-12-30T10:58:00.003Z

Everybody else is doing it - so now my turn, hey can't write something to provoke thoughts every day.

These will focus on my approach to the game and overall goal of enjoying poker, rather than stating any monetary aim (those are all tied up with my affiliate business anyway). Breaks will be initiated any time poker becomes a grind or a chore in 09!

1) Drop Down When Tired: Often find myself playing at the end of a day spent writing when 'winding down'. This play is usually half-assed to be honest, at best on auto-pilot and at worst as an 'aside' while surfing etc. Problem with saying 'don't do it' here is that I actually enjoy these periods... my relaxation (especially since I never watch TV!). So instead of denying myself something enjoyable... I'll resolve to drop down... maybe $6.50 SNGs or $10 cash games, where losing a couple of buy-ins would not make me grumpy just before bed!

2) Cash / SNGs >> MTTs: Enjoy larger tournaments but find them frustrating too... thing is my 'expectation' is much bigger in SNGs and lower level cash game tables. Cardrunners has already given me some great cash-game insights into lines and ranges that I am looking forward to putting to good use... SNGs are as soft as they ever were once you move away from the sites / hours where the grinders swarm! Going to play MTTs but this will be my liesure outlet, maybe one evening per week for them will be good... though see below.

3) Playing == Improving: In order to move up stakes / make $$$ I resolve to balance playing and studying the game in at least equal portions... PxF / Cardrunners are one thing but I really should spend some more time reviewing my hand histories too.

4) Qualify For Stuff! Yeah, would be great to play the occasional FTOPs / ECOOP event or just a Sunday Million... who knows, with a bit of effort I might even qualify for an outside event - going to take an occasional shot at this as time permits, actually believe I'm fairly +ev in satellite tournaments so this could be profitable as well as enjoyable as long as I take the T$ now and again to re-invest.

5) Enjoy Poker: Sure, the resolutions above all concern this but for me this is the most important of all - and so deserves a spot of its own... if I stop enjoying the game I'll stop playing for a couple of weeks... I see so many people start playing because they love poker, get seduced by the profit aspect - and then forget why they loved poker in the first place... I will not be one of those people.

Happy new year to all - and GL at the tables for 2009!

Mark