Hi, my name is Mark and I’m the owner and one of the writ­ers of Poker Bankroll Blog. The peo­ple behind Why Do I play Poker have very kindly given me the oppor­tu­nity to write a guest post for their site.

Before I start on the main topic for this arti­cle, I want to give a short intro­duc­tion to my blog. My aim for Poker Bankroll Blog is for it to become the best online arti­cle data­base cov­er­ing top­ics like poker bankroll man­age­ment , poker math­e­mat­ics, poker strat­egy and much more.

I have 6 years of online poker expe­ri­ence so there are plenty of top­ics to write about. But as it’s usu­ally the case with hobby blogs, the chal­lenge is to find the nec­es­sary time. I’ve real­ized that I don’t have time to write every­thing myself, and as a result, I have opened up my blog to fel­low poker writ­ers in order to build my arti­cle data­base and get dif­fer­ent point of views on the many aspects of poker.

All poker play­ers have bad beat sto­ries to tell. That’s because poker is essen­tially a game of prob­a­bil­i­ties (some crit­ics claim it’s a game of luck but that’s because they don’t know bet­ter). Even if you’re ahead of your oppo­nent with a pair of kings on a K85 rain­bow flop, there’s always the pos­si­bil­ity she catches a J and Q on the turn and river for a straight. This ele­ment of chance is the source of all vari­ance in poker.

Vari­ance in com­bi­na­tion with your poker skills at the tables is what makes your stack swing from hand to hand, and your bankroll vary on a daily, weekly, monthly and yearly basis. If you’re a poker begin­ner, your bankroll will most likely decrease due to lack of expe­ri­ence, but even poker pros have bad runs. Solid bankroll man­age­ment is the best weapon against vari­ance and the related risk of ruin.

Obvi­ously you’re much more likely to lose a 100$ bankroll play­ing two 50$ SNGs com­pared to play­ing 2$ tour­na­ments. With solid bankroll man­age­ment you will always have enough SNG and tour­na­ment buyins in your bankroll to out­last bad runs. Most experts rec­om­mend a bankroll around 50 SNG or tour­na­ment buyins on the level you’re play­ing to min­i­mize the risk of going broke in the long run. Serious/pro poker player usu­ally have around 100 buyins in their roll. Before mak­ing your first deposit, make sure you are aware of the con­se­quences of your bankroll man­age­ment choice.

If you’re deposit­ing look­ing for quick thrills and the chance of build­ing a bankroll with light­ning speed, by all means go ahead and risk your entire bankroll on one tour­na­ment. Just be aware that your chances of suc­cess are quite low. If you’re look­ing to sus­tain your bankroll over a long period of time then stick to the 50 buyin rule of thumb. How­ever, fol­low­ing this plan means that you will be grind­ing it out in small buyin tour­na­ments and SNGs for a long time in order to increase your bankroll enough to move up to the next level.

If you’re a poker novice your bankroll will ben­e­fit a great deal from learn­ing all the poker rules. I’ve writ­ten a series of arti­cles describ­ing every­thing you’ll need to start play­ing poker. It might also be of inter­est to you to join the High Pulse Poker site where they have freerolls to increase your bankroll every 15 minutes.

SNGs used to be the rea­son for the lion’s share of my poker win­nings.  Then I got busy and didn’t play for a cou­ple of years.  When I came back I found myself a loser.  I went from crush­ing $50SNGs to los­ing at $16’s. WTF?  Turns out, in my absence, every­one got bet­ter but me.  I had a good game for 2005.  Not good enough for 2010.

What am I going to do about it?  I’m hit­ting the books. Start­ing with one in particular, Sit ‘n Go Strat­egy by Collin Mosh­man.  It’s a good book. You should buy it. Any­way, here is quick glimpse of what I’ve learned. It will prob­a­bly take four posts to go through the whole book.

Lets get started.

Low Blind Strategy.

For this sec­tion you should assume 8–10 play­ers with low blinds and no antes.

1. Start think­ing in terms of Tour­na­ment Equity.  This is a vari­a­tion on Expected Value.  Basi­cally to uses the Author;s words is your “fair share of the prize money.

2.Play super tight.  But when you do play, be aggressive. Play your pre­mium hands and some coor­di­nated, spec­u­la­tive hands. Now is not the time to make any tricky moves. This is not the time to gam­ble.  That comes later.

3. Label your oppo­nents.  This is key and some­thing I would never do because online I thought I would never see them again and I was wrong.  Truth­fully, it doesn’t mat­ter if you see them again, size them up.  It will get you more involved in the game and play­ing on a deeper level

4. Don’t check mon­sters, bet them.

5. When peo­ple bet into a mon­ster flop they usu­ally don’t have it.

6. Three bet­ting means some­thing.  Usu­ally aces or kings.

7. Aggression Prici­ple.  Sim­i­lar to Gap Concept. Being the bet­tor raiser is bet­ter than being the caller. This is because bet­ting and rais­ing allow the pos­si­bil­ity of win­ning the pot imme­di­ately since every­one may fold.  You can never win imme­di­ately by calling.

8. Hands to play early posi­tion. Pretty obvi­ous but here goes. AA, KK, QQ, AK You should always be will­ing to go all in with a big pair pre flop.  This is one of the only times you want to do this in low blind play.

9. Hands to play in mid­dle late posi­tion. Pre­mium hands plus  spec­u­la­tive hands like suited con­nec­tors and suited aces with the fol­low­ing caveats. Must be in  mid­dle or late posi­tion. It’s an unraised pot and your hand could turn into some­thing that would break your opponent.

10. Late Posi­tion Steal/Value hands cri­te­ria. Play all the hands as in early and mid posi­tion plus

1. You have a decent hand in late position
2. Every­one has folded to you.
3. You think a raise will win the pot right there.

Next time,  we’ll look at mid blind play.  Also, you should get the book.  I skipped a lot.  Any­way, I hope this helps.  Get ready to loosen up for mid and high blind play.

I think some­times I’m too nice.  I like to think of myself as a hard-nosed player.  But I’m not.  Some­times It hits me that I want peo­ple to like me almost as much as I like chips.  Espe­cially at home games.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to be the dick who begrudg­ingly gets an invite when the game is short.  But I’m not giv­ing away infor­ma­tion any­more in the hopes of being liked.

Here’s my pledge.

1. No more show­ing my ace to make my oppo­nent feel­ing good about his fold.
2. No more show­ing my suc­cess­ful bluffs even though it prob­a­bly is the most sat­is­fy­ing activ­ity in existence.
3. No more show­ing my aces in the big blind when every­one folds in hopes of some sympathy.

Truth­fully, I don’t even think show­ing hands gives away that much infor­ma­tion.  It just wreaks of coop­er­a­tion and that has no place  at the poker table.

If there’s still some part of my per­son­al­ity that needs to be liked I will com­pen­sate by bring­ing more snacks, bet­ter beer.  But I will not show my cards.

I used to play poker to make friends.  As of today, I play to win.

Why do you play? Let me know at stories@whydoiplaypoker.net