Invasion of the Poker Bots?

online poker has been around since 1997. We have seen so many online poker rooms come and go over that period of time while some have been able to maintain their clientele and truly prosper during the poker boom. Certainly poker players are some of the most intelligent people I have spent time around but their are also those that consider themselves to be “clever” and smarter than everyone else. Those are the kinds of players that concern me when the talk turns to poker bots.

Poker bots or “bots” are illegal software programs that will play the optimum poker strategy in a hand and will do so until such time that the buy-in is gone or the game is over. In other words bots can sometimes give a poker player an un-fair advantage because of their rote response to all situations. Unlike humans they will not make mathematical mistakes. Bots are outlawed for those reasons alone. If you are caught using a bot on your poker account all of your earnings could be subject to confiscation. That is an awfully hefty price to pay for a “maybe.”

So if you happen upon a site that advertises these kinds of programs and “guarantees” you that it will increase your bankroll - DON’T BELIEVE IT!

Bots are bad and there are serious legal repercussions for using them. Learn the game and play it well when you do and you will be rewarded accordingly.

Annete Obrestad Wins $1,100 Aussie Millions Tournament

Annette Obrestad has won Event 4 of the Aussie Millions Poker Tournament - the $1,100 Buy-In pot limit Omaha tournament.

The Norwegian poker pro has amassed career winnings of nearly $3,000,00, and went home with a prize of $40,000 for this tournament, after defeating an initial field of 160 players.

During the early part of the tournament it looked as though Obrestad was going to go home early.  She lost a huge pot when she had two pairs and her opponent at the time hit a flush.  She was reduced to just 1,000 chips at one point, but increased her stack to 8,000 in short order, and from there her stack continued to increase until she earned her way up to 35,000 by eliminating Con Angelakis to put herself in the money.

She started the final table with a stack of 157,000 chips - not quite the chip leader, but still strong.  She quickly eliminated Tony Bloom, and took the lead in the tournament.  From there she continued to look strong.

The final hand saw her heads-up against Billy Seri.  Her pair of jacks was enough to take the win.  Seri took home $22,000 for second place.

Aussie Millions 2010 Final Table

It’s been a long week for the players at the Aussie Millions, and there’s still many hands to be played.  After besting more than seven hundred other players, Sorel Mizzi, Stephen Shelley, Annette Obrestad, Tyron Krost, Frederik Jensen, Kosta Varoxis, Peter Jetten and Steven Friedlander are all ready for the final table.  One of these players will be heading home with $2 million in proze money.

At the start of play today, there were eighteen players still in contention for the title, but the field was quickly narrowed down.  Noteable elimitinations included Dan Shak - winner of the $100K Challenge earlier in the tournament.  Shak busted out in 12th place after a strong run, taking home $100K for his performance in the main event.

Sorel Mizzi starts the table as chip leader, against a strong field of opponents, including Frederik Jensen and Tyron Krost, who qualified for the tournament through Party Poker, but are not strangers to live event play.

We’ll keep you updated as the final table goes on.  Congratulations to the players who made the table.  We’re sure that whatever position they finish in, they can be proud of their performance, and happy with their prize!

Aussie Millions Day 1 Tournaments Conclude

The final starting day for the Aussie Millions Main Event has concluded.  More than 270 players attended, competing for  the biggest prize in the Southern Hemisphere.  In total, 746 players took part in one of the day one events - an increase on last year’s entry figures, but still down on the 2008 record of 780 players.

The field was narrowed pretty quickly, with some big name eliminations including John Myung, Clonie Gowen, elly Kim, and Chris Moorman.

The chip leader at the end of the day was Pierre Aoukar, who left the table with 178,500 chips.  Aoukar stands ahead of Joe Hackem, Tony G, Mark Vos, Benny Spindler, and Rayan Nathan.  Other Day 2 players, from previous Day 1s, include Tom Dwan, Barry Greenstein, Jeffrey Lisandro, Annette Obrestad, Sorel Mizzi, Van Marcus, Leo Margets, and James Akenhead.

The prize pool stands at AUD7.46 Million, and out of the impressive field of poker pros, seventy two players will finish in the money.  The winner will take home $2 million Australian dollars - $1.8 million in US currency.

We’ll keep you updated on the Aussie Millions as the tournaments progress.

Behind The Scenes - New 888 Site

888Poker conducted a celebrity press converence at the Aussie Millions tournament.  Team 888Poker members Shane Warne, Leo Margets, Jeff Fenech, and the latest recruit - English Cricketer, Dimitri Mascarenhas.  The conference was held at the start of Day 1b of the Aussie Millions Main Event; to announce that 888Poker is heading in a new direction, with a new look, and a new all access website - 888BehindTheScenes.

888BehindTheScenes will offer a backstage look at the site and tournaments, at the click of a button, presented by the site’s official Behind The Scenes interviewer - model and television presenter Annette Melton.  There are also lots of new articles explaining how to win tournament packages, and lots of other poker goodies.

At the conference, Shane Warne made a friendly wager with a celebrity member of the Aussie Millions 888Poker team, Andy Lee (of Hamish and Andy fame).  The exact terms of the bet are still to be decided, but we’ll let you know how it turns out!

Be Smart with Poker Winnings

Over the past 5 years we have seen an infusion of younger poker players like never before. We have players that play both live and online poker tournament taking down huge amounts of money. The real question is how are they handling that money once it hits their bank account. I know that sometimes youth and money can be a very bad combination. Twenty somethings always seem to think there is no tomorrow. But ask some of the veteran poker players and almost to a man they will tell you to save your money when you score big and manage your bankroll.

Far too often I read and hear about unnecessary spending and lavish lifestyles after a big win when in reality $1 million dollars is not that much money after taxes. You certainly cannot retire on that kind of money. Living for the moment may sound fun while you are running good and young but you don’t want to run bad for a couple of years and wonder where your entire bankroll went either.

The best way to avoid being in that situation is to find investments outside of poker. Preferably long-term investments like stocks, treasury bills, CD’s. You also can look into real-estate which will pay you back for owning it. Property is a nice way to garner income while you play. If you can learn to invest half of your winnings when you have a big score you will find life is a lot easier for you down the line when you may not be running as good.

Do you Play Turbo Tournaments?

For years I have been up and down about playing turbo poker tournament. I have played and won a few but they just never had a big appeal to me. On the other hand, my poker friends all seem to gravitate to online turbos. They like the fact that you can enter and finish the tournament in a matter of an hour or so. I suppose there is some merit to their thinking and turbos do require strategy albeit there is very little room for error.

Many of the more popular satellites are turbos and you can use them to win your way into a big tournament on the same day. That certainly is a good use of the time if you are in a hurry. The strategy is pretty straight forward. You want to get your chips in the middle, hopefully with the best hand, and double or triple up as early as possible. If it’s a re-buy turbo then you will need to try and build your stack with almost any pair, suited connectors or flush draw pre-flop. Turbos can be a lot of fun and very rewarding. Give it a shot. You never know until you try!

Play in smaller Poker Tournaments

One of the things that I am proud of is that I tend to cash and make more final tables than most of my poker friends. Not because the margin of skill is any different but because I tend to play tournaments with smaller fields. The reason for this is fairly simple. By playing poker tournaments with smaller fields the better players are able to exploit that edge even more.

Don’t get me wrong. This does not insure that you are going to make a final table in every event you buy into anymore than it means you are going to cash. However, it does significantly increase the percentages of your doing so.

online poker rooms can have thousands of players in tournaments, especially the weekly tournaments. The payoff can be great if you can get lucky enough to dodge bullet after bullet. But playing in fields with 500 or fewer players you will see your tournament cashes increase significantly as well as your final tables over the long run.

So be smart and choose your poker tournaments wisely before you buy in.

Aussie Millions Event #1 - Day 2

Day two of Event #1 at the 2010 Aussie Millions saw 193 players sit down with a goal of winning the championship, and taking home a prize of more than $200,000.

The tournament, a $1,100 buy-in no-limit hold’em event, saw 919 unique entries (or 1,143 if you count the rebuys), making it the largest tournament field to have taken place in Australia.

The final table at day 2 was decided after Tony Hachem was eliminated in 11th place - taking home $9,000 for his efforts.  Next out was Sam Vakili, who earned $11,430 for his performance.

Aaron Wilt was the next to go home (earning $13,716), and then Jim Mastorakos, whose prize was $22,860 for eighth place.

Anthony Kingston’s two tens were no match for Trung Tran’s two aces, so he collected $34,290 and went home.  Brad Rawiller was next out in sixth place, as Tran eliminated another player.  Rawiller took home $45,720.

Tran was on a role, as he went on to eliminate Glenn Croft - sending Croft away with $57,150.

Tran’s streak was ended when Matthew Ephraums sent him home in fourth place, with $74,295.

With just three players left at the table, play slowed down for a while.  By the time the third place player, Brent Thomas, was eliminated, the game had been in progress for almost 15 hours.  Thomas earned $97,155 for his efforts.

The final two were Brendan Edmonds and Matthew Ephraums.  Edmond’s Jack and Ten of Diamons were no match for Ephraum’s Ace and Ten of Clubs.  Ephraums took home $142,875 for his performance, while Edmonds took the title, the championship win, and $200,025.

How to win online poker tournaments

One thing I hear many people wondering about is how to win online poker tournaments.  It’s natural, after having won a few low stakes games, for your confidence to grow, and tournaments are a natural step up.

The thing that you need to remember is that there can only be one winner.  In your early days, you should probably focus on cashing. Your odds of cashing are much better than your odds of winning.  Why go for all or nothing?

You may find that the playstyle of tournament players is a nasty surprise for people who are new to them.  Especially if you are coming from a low stakes or freeroll background.  Many professional poker players have pointed out that “People care twice as much about $10 as they do about $5″.  That means that when you’re down to some of the later tables, where you’re up against more serious players, and there’s something more than pride at stake, you’ll find players being more cautious.

Think carefully about the hands that you’re playing.  Don’t underestimate the value of mid-level pairs, and don’t overestimate the value of low pairs.

You should consider your position carefully.  If you’re early, play tight, and if you’re later, play aggressively.

Ring players may struggle with the different pace of poker tournaments.  You need to accrue chips more quickly, and under increasing blinds.  This means you may need to adjust the way you play, but it will come with practice.

Don’t bluff Bad Poker Players

In all of my journeys in and out of poker rooms it still baffles me that players try to bluff bad poker players. These bad players are either incapable of piecing things together or lack the logic to play the game well over the long term. That means they are easy prey for those that have a solid grasp of the games most fundamental concepts.

So why can’t you bluff bad poker players?

You cannot bluff a bad poker player because they are not smart enough to understand what you are doing to them. In other words they are incapable of analyzing a hand along with the community cards and understanding the poker strategy being invoked in the hand. This means that they will call when they are not supposed to and occasionally even hit their hand in the process.

How do you play against this kind of player?

You make sure that you have a made hand FIRST. Again, these kinds of players will call when they are not supposed to. That means pot odds, outs and probability all go out the window. When you have a made hand they will continue to respond the same as if you didn’t which makes them easy prey for your set of threes when they have a big pair and decide that you all-in push is simply a bluff at the pot.

Be smart! Don’t try to bluff bad poker players.

Fallen Earth: Poker Survived the Apocalypse

Good news - poker will survive the apocalypse! At least that’s how it goes in one vision of it.  The massively multiplayer online game Fallen Earth.

Fallen Earth is a mature MMORPG which is set a couple of hundred years in the future.  A virus causes havoc on earth, and the resulting finger pointing and political paranoia causes a nuclear war, which only a tiny percentage of humanity survices.  The survivors are clustered around the area of the Hoover Dam and the Grand Canyon.

Most of the survivors were people who fled from Las Vegas - brining their poker chips with them.  So, poker chips are now the de-facto currency.  Fancy a fast horse to get around on (vehicles do exist, but gasoline is rather rare)?  That’ll be 16 Blue Chips!

The non-player-characters (NPCs for short), can often be heard talking about blackjack and poker.  The games have been passed down by word of mouth, and it sounds like they may have evolved a little - certainly, some of the characters are rather confused and think they’re playing UNO instead, but that’s good news, right?  After all, if they’re not sure what they’re doing, it could be a nice soft crowd for a shark to exploit.

The game has lots of cultural references - everything from a tip of the hat to classic movies, such as a “Soylent Green” reference, to the names of the NPCs.  During a quick walk around one of the game’s towns I bumped into a character with the surname Nguyen. Is he the fictional great-great-great grandson of a certain famous poker pro?

The emphasis in Fallen Earth is on combat, and on equipping yourself for combat.  That said, there are social elements.  You can play on Blackjack machines and slot machines.  I tried the blackjack, and didn’t quite manage to beat the house, although that probably says more about the caffeine-deprived state I was in during my attempts at the game, rather than the odds offered by the blackjack machine.

If you’re interested in seeing a take on post-apocalyptic America (you have to take a break from freerolls sometimes, right?), there’s a ten day free trial running at FallenEarth.com.  If you’re a first person shooter fan, or someone who likes the idea of MMOs but thinks that games such as World of Warcraft are too cute or kiddy, then Fallen Earth may well suit you.  I’m certainly enjoying playing “spot the poker pro”, and laughing at the other cultural references.

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