A lot of people often ask me which poker site I recommend. My answer is nearly always the same – Pokerstars!
The reasons are as follows:
1)Huge choice of all poker variants at all levels
2) Huge user base
3) Great software and frequent player points and bonuses
4)Fantastic support.
I have tried lots of poker sites since 2004 and Pokerstars is by far the best of the field.
Categories: Poker
Just finished a long (for me!) session 2-tabling $10NL and finished up slightly down. It could have been worse though – At one point, I was down about $12 and managed to win a load back to finish just slightly down. Although not very satisfied with my play early in the session, I was very pleased with how I handled it in my head. I didn’t tilt at all, despite winning a few big pots and getting raised off my other big hands.
I just reloaded, and played my game.
Here are a few key hands:
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1366658
Bad play for me on the turn. I was making a semi-bluff to try and get him to fold and I also had my flush and straight draw to fall back on. What I didn’t take into account is that you shouldn’t semi-bluff if you are pretty sure he won’t fold immediately, and judging by his strong bet, he wasn’t going anywhere. I certainly should have folded to his reraise. Well played villain !
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1366684
I just don’t see how I can get away from this!! There’s no way I put him on AT and with me hitting my set on the turn, villain must have thought it was Christmas! Oh well cooler…
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1366701
OMG, villain is so bad. I can’t believe he called me down with a weak Ace here. I checked the turn to try and keep the pot smallish. I regret not putting him all-in now, but I Was a bit paranoid he called me with JQ and was trapping me.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1366710
villains stats were 25/8.5/0.76 for 60 hands so his pf raising range is much wider than just premium pairs, which is why I reraised him. When he 4-bet me, maybe I could have got away from this. Damn 
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1366731
I love small pocket pairs 
I called this raise pre-flop because of the villains large stack, and I knew teh player to my left would also call so I had excellent implied odds. The flop couldn’t have been better as I was sure he had AK !! He went on serious tilt after this and donked off most of his stack !!
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1366745
I don’t really like my pf play on this hand in hindsight, but to be fair the table had been pretty passive and when anyone raised it was always a min-raise. Anyway, when that short-stack bet out from the button, I raised to put him-all in and got a fright when the other villain called ! Good result but my preflop play wasn’t great here tbh.
I also ordered a new monitor from amazon.fr today. It’s a Samsung flat-screen 20″ 1600 x 1200 resolution so I will be able to play up to 4 tables with no overlap and without straining my eyes
Session stats (stars):
Number of hands: 600
Net profit / loss: -$1.30
Winrate: -1.08 ptBB/100
Bankroll: $354.60
Categories: Poker
Just a quick post as I don’t have a lot of time.
Since my last report, I have played a few sessions on my Pokerstars account and have been running prett good IMO. I’m really concentrating on getting the pot big with my big hands and small with my smaller hands. I’m also trying to not get “married” to my hand when up against resistance, and looking for a better spot. It seems to be working.
Here are a few hands:
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1362158
KK UTG – tricky. I try to mix it up and decided to play it hard. Got a caller from a TAG on the button, so I don’t think he had AA or he would have repopped it. When he timidly bet out and called my raise on the flop, I just knew he had AQ and then just had to size my bets to get him all-in on the river.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1362188
Yuck ! Total spew. I had just sat down and posted the blind and thought I’d make a move immediately since it folded around to me. Big mistake. WTF @ villain calling with J8o but I should have just given it up on the flop …
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1362216
A lot of mind games going on in this hand. The villain was tight and I knew he knew I had been playing tight too. When he called I knew he had a marginal hand, and that he thought I was defending my blinds. So when the 10 hit on that non-scary flop, he would think I was just bluffing to defend my blind. I was right !! He berated me after the hand calling me a donkey. Maybe he was right with my pre-flop play but, if I I hadn’t hit that 10 on the flop I would have just checked behind…
All the session stats since last post: (Stars)
Number of hands: 692
Net profit / loss: +$27.35
ptBB / 100: 19.76
Pokerstars BR: $355.90
I also played a few hands on my other account:
Number of hands: 39
Net profit / loss: -$1.21
ptBB / 100: – 15.51
BR: $234.80
Categories: Poker
Following some advice from a fellow poker blogger ( http://pokerlife.wordpress.com/ ), I decided I really need to start multi-tabling $10NL, if I want to build my bankroll and move up to $25NL any time soon. I feel, that I am pretty confident I am a winning player at these stakes, so it is time to grind out the hands and move up asap. The other reason I haven’t multi-tabled much up until now is that I only have crappy 15″ CRT screen and tiling the tables is pretty bad on the eyes, and cascading them gets me all confused having to flip between them but at least the table fills the screen. So as a compromise, what I did was 2-table in tile-mode preflop and when I got a hand I wanted to play on one of the tables, I flipped it into full-screen mode to be able to concentrate better and then flip back to tile mode at the end of the hand.
This worked pretty well and I’ll do this from now on til I move up to $25NL I still feel I’m missing out on some reads and the table dynamics by multi-tabling, but I can live with giving up possible marginal situations if it means my hourly rate goes up. Any comments ?
Anyway, I played 188 hands in about 2h30, with no major wins or losses, just a grind really. Here are a few key hands:
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1352137
Pair of Aces and then a set on the flop. As you can see, I didn’t slow play this with 2 callers to my reraise preflop, I was hoping one of them hit that flop and didn’t want anyone drawing to their flush. I was quite happy to take this down on the flop
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1352199
Similar situation here with QQ. I would have probably called a reraise all-in on the flop here, but luckily that wasn’t necessary.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1352218
QQ again, different villain. This was quite a tricky player, and I’d reraised him off a couple of hands before this one (with premium hands) and he was getting a bit pissed off I think, so he was definitely out to trap me if he could. His check min-raise just screamed strength to me and I’m sure he flopped a set here and I wasn’t prepared to get stacked off with my single overpair, so I folded and decided to wait for a better spot. Thoughts ? Too weak ?
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1352258
This hand is just spew, and I hate my line here, especially the turn raise. This is a leak I think – overplaying marginal hands from the blinds which I would otherwise have folded preflop.
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1352272
Same story spew. Talk about getting my money in when behind. I should have either raised flop or check folded turn…. Terrible play, although UTG’s play wasn’t much better limping with AKo
Session stats (pokerstars):
Number of hands: 188
Net profit/loss: +$2.25
Winrate: 5.98 ptBB / 100
Bankroll (stars): $328.60
Bankroll (“other site”): $236
Quick post!
Had a good session on my stars account and finished up 1 buy-in. I only got a few good hands, but they all held up and I think I managed to minimize the losses on the others.
One of my leaks I think is that I call / raise way too quickly on my big hands without really thinking about what the villain has. Tonight, I have been forcing myself to take my hand off the mouse while thinking about my decision carefully. Sounds daft doesn’t it?! But I think it could save me some money and it certainly won’t do me any harm
A couple of hands:
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1348344
I thought initially I had played this perfectly. But thinking about it, and listening to others, I really should have bet the river for value. My thoughts were that only a flush would call, but by checking, I really left myself open to a bluff, which is what I think happened. Any comments ?
http://www.pokerhand.org/?1348336
This hand just played itself! It was almost a textbook example of why you should play speculative hands like suited connectors for cheap in position. Being second to act allowed me to control the pot-size and see how the hand developed. I was a bit worried about him having a flush on the turn, but on the river, I was praying he did have a flush ! 
Stars Stats:
Hands played: 196
Winnings: $10.60
Winrate: 27 ptBB/100
Stars Bankroll: $326.60
“Other site” bankroll: $236 (I had won more than I thought in previous post!)
Categories: Poker
It’s been a while since my last post. I haven’t lost interest – I’ve been on holiday with my better half! We went camping in the Landes area of France and met up with my sister and nephew who were also on holiday in the area and I haven’t seen for ages. I really needed this holiday and break from work. Apart from one small row with my gf, we had a really good time together.
I got back on Saturday and have played quite a bit of poker since then (I really missed the game while away!)
I signed up at a new poker site. – Up until now, I have been playing at Pokerstars (my username is a secret btw ) Pokerstars is a fantastic site in terms of their choice of games, quality of their software and customer service. However on the downside, they have no rakeback and the games are pretty tight / tough to beat. In a way, this is a good thing, because it makes you a better player playing good players, but hey I’m trying to build a bankroll! So anyway I signed up at another site and credited my account with $220. I won’t be disclosing the name of the site on this blog – You’ll all have to find your own fish, but I will refer to it as the “Other site” when I give my stats. Anyway, I played a few hands there already and am up at least 1 buy-in. The play is very loose and sometimes very aggressive too. I think the winrate is going to be pretty high but so will the variance due to the increased chances of getting sucked out on. But I’m properly bankrolled for $10NL so that’s not a problem….
I have still kept my account at Stars and will continue to play there. – It will be good training to adapt to different styles of play. Since getting back from holiday, I’ve played quite a few sessions and saw my bankroll go up and back down again. I reviewed my sessions, and the main reasons were basically:
1)Getting no decent cards
2)Couple of bad beats
3)Set over set
4)A very bad call by me vs a maniac who actually had a good hand for once
I basically stacked off ~$13 with TPTK on a monotone flop. He flopped the nut flush (me TPTK) and he slowplayed it. I bet out $2 on the river for value and he reraised all-in. I thought he was making a move, so I called…… :( I think this is a big leak for me. Stacking off with TPTK, particularly vs donkeys as I just think they’re bluffing. What I need to remember is that even donkeys can get good hands and 1 pair isn’t worth risking your stack over…
Bankroll stars: $316
Bankroll “Other site”: ~$230
