Another day, another dollar

Hope everyone had a good weekend. I played a fair amount of poker over the weekend. I used up most of my Full Tilt $26 tokens, with little reward for my efforts. I run so bad in tournaments. I get my money in with the best hand, but that suckout is always only one river card away. Also played a lot of NL100 on Pokerstars. The tables were fairly soft over the weekend and I ended up a fairly decent winner.

Can't wait to start playing the NL200 tables, but since I'm heading off to New Zealand tomorrow for 3 weeks, I'll probably won't make a serious attempt at it until the beginning of October. In the meantime I think that I will play 3 tables of NL200 along the top of the screen and 6 tables of NL100 underneath, just to get me used to the NL200 tables. From my datamining the softest NL200 site I have found with a decent amount of tables running is Ipoker. I don't have a big enough bankroll sitting on Ipoker to play NL200 at the moment, and since they don't accept Epassporte I will have to play NL200 on Pokerstars for the time being.

Todays Topics: Satellite poker tournament strategy.

I've found that satellite play can be extremely profitable and is one of online pokers "hidden treasures", especially if you are on a smaller bankroll. I have started playing the multi table satellites to all the major sites big Sunday tournaments. I plan on making Sunday, Tournament day, and play in any of the big Sunday ones that I have won a satellite seat to during the week. So far I have won a seat in both the Pokerstars and Full Tilt Sunday games for little investment.

The most profitable satellites I have found are the ones where 10% or more of the players win a seat. The really cheap satellites where only the top one or two players win a seat become too time consuming to be profitable.

First thing you need to do is to see how many chips are in play, and how many you need to reach your goal. This is usually not the total chips/places paying, but less. That's because there will be some players with above average chips at the end.

In the first period it's like in any other MTT. There are weak players, and you want to get their chips. Remember though, that you can't bluff a weak player. You have to be patient and wait for the good cards. After a few blind stages the crazy all-iners are reducing, so you can play your normal style.

After an hour you should be a little above average. If you are less than 10BB, you have to try to double up, if you make it great, if you don't you've saved time, and didn't wait till the blinds eat you up. You shouldn't sit back in the middle of the tournament, even if you have more than average chips. You have to keep working, and take risks sometimes.

If you are near the end, you don't need to take risks. You have to watch for short stacks that don't defend their chips, raise them, and get little wins wherever possible. You don't need to risk half of your chips or more, because the goal is to be in the top X, no matter which place. Raising all-in when you are not short-stacked is a big mistake here. Even if you have KK, just raise 3-5BB, and if there's an ace on the flop fold and think about the chips you saved.
If you are out of the playing places, then you have to double up or try to steal the blinds that are not willing to play. Even the chipleader can fold to your raise, because he can feel that he's almost there. You will see who these people are.
You need to be really patient at the end. Someone WILL lose their head. You have to think before acting. The position, the players, is it worth taking this risk? You will reach your goal if you keep focused.

Today's Link:

I can't think of many links today. This one is a little bit weak but sorta funny. It's a picture of a guy who had been playing a cash game 48 hours straight at a US casino, and has build a huge chip stack. Link here.

Satellite king

Had a bit of a downswing on the cash table's yesterday morning. Didn't feel like playing cash games last night so fired up some of the super soft $26 token satellites on Full Tilt. They cost $8 each and the top 5 of 18 win a $26 token. I can play 4 at once while doing other things, only playing premium hands. Doing this I won 6 tokens from 8 satellites in about 2 hours. I used 4 of my $26 tokens to play the $75 satellites (same structure) and won 2 $75 tokens. So in 3 hours I ended up with 2 $75 tokens and 2 $26 tokens for a $70 investment.

Using the tokens to play in tourneys I haven't found a big difference in the skill level between the $26 and $75 tourneys. Unfortunatel, while I consider myself fairly competent at both cash games and sit n go's, tourneys are my weak point. When I have a medium stack half way into a tourney I play way too tight. I can't quite get the adjustment right; when I try to change I get overly aggressive and end up pushing with average hands. At least with winning the tokens cheaply it gives me a good chance to improve my game without much expense.

Today's Topic: Moving up limits

Over the next couple of weeks I hope to be making a move to NL200, so I thought I would list my criteria for moving up a level.

• Have a sufficient bankroll: First and foremost have a minimum of 2o buy-in's for the level you are looking to play at. So if you are looking to play NL100 have a minimum of $2000. If you fall below the 20 buy-in minimum drop back to the lower level until you have over the 20 buy-in threshold again.
  
• Ensure you are a winning player at your current level: I like to win a minimum of 2bb/100 over 100,000 hands before I consider moving up a level. This is very conservative, but I would recommend that you are a winner over at least 20,000 hands before moving up a limit. Some peoples reason for moving up a level is that there are too many lucky donkeys at their current level to enable them to win. The logic is that if they move up to a higher level with better players, the lucky donkeys won't suck out of them constantly. Let me say that there are lucky donkeys at every level, and if you can't win at your current level, your chances of winning at a higher level are even less.
  
• Don't multiable as many tables when first moving up: It takes a while to get use to playing the new betting structures at a higher level. I recommend if you usually play 9 tables, drop back to 6 when you first move up. If you usually play 6 move back to 4 until you get use to things.
  
• If uncomfortable with the higher blinds, buy in short: When you first move up it can be a good idea to buy if for half the maximum until you feel comfortable at the new level. It will certainly make all-in decisions a lot easier, and lower your initial variance.
  

Today's Link:

Coverage of this year's WSOP main event starts tomorrow (Tue) on ESPN (US) at 8pm and 9pm EST. You can view it online via one of the free global live TV services such as TVU Player.