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Achieving harmony in poker when multi-tabling

Poker is so wonderfully sophisticated that there is ample room to play creatively and there are many styles of play that work and make money. These days there are numerous rakeback schemes and sign up bonuses on offer that a player can make money on the back of this and nothing else. In fact this has given birth to what are called rakeback professionals. These are players who would be barely winning players on a technical level but who play numerous tables simply to either make rakeback or work off sign up bonuses.

However when you play multiple tables like this and by multiple then I am referring to ten tables or more then a completely different way of playing takes shape. You may for example do very well playing ten tables but you need to adjust how you play and when you do this then individual plays when seen in isolation can look very bad. Let us look at an example here to show you what I mean. It has been folded around to you on the cut-off with Ac-9d in NL100 full ring and you fold the hand.

Now notice how bad this play looks as A-9 is clearly strong enough to raise from that position and under normal circumstances it would be. If you placed this hand on a forum then expect to get lambasted for playing too tight and you will be criticised for this play. However looking at hands in a vacuum is a big mistake as it doesn?t always reveal the truth. What if the player who had passed this A-9 was playing ten tables and involved in two big pots at the same time?

If you can handle three big pots at the same time then fair enough but what if you can?t? It doesn?t make sense to split your attention to a third pot when the pot in the A-9 hand is still very tiny when there are two big pots that need far bigger decisions somewhere else. What if as a result of playing the A-9 the following situation cropped up. The big blind called and the flop came 9c-4s-2d and the big blind checked. You bet two thirds of the pot and the big blind check raised you. Suddenly you have something else to think about that is detracting from your attention in the other two big pots that are happening on other tables.

Can you see how your entire game is starting to become compromised? You need to remember that when you play ten tables or more that you are playing them as a unit and not individually. This is why folding A-9 on the cut-off can be a good move in certain circumstances but it requires a certain level of imagination to comprehend it as such. When you lose money as a result of getting ?lost? in hands then your entire game can start to crumble! This is far easier to do when you are multi-tabling because decisions are coming at you thick and fast.

I play my poker at https://www.bwin.com/texas-holdem-poker. See you there!

How high should you go in poker?

There is a tremendous amount of coverage these days and talk regarding high stakes poker. If you look at poker on television then they are either screening high stakes cash games or poker tournaments where the action is either during high blind play or on the final table. There is very little coverage on middle stakes or low stakes cash games. This often creates a subconscious thought process that high stakes poker is where you need to be. Well firstly you need to realise that many of these programs on high stakes poker are not what they appear to be.

Sometimes the players have been paid to be on those programs and paid substantial amounts of money. Don?t you ever stop to ask yourself why so many supposed world class payers would sit in the same game with each other? That simply doesn?t make sense and the only logical answer is that these players are making money on these games beyond the actual playing of the hands. I personally was once offered a million dollars by a leading poker site if I would advertise them?..there was only one snag and I had to reach the final table of the WSOP Texas Hold em main event.

However though this underlines how any sort of televised poker is worth an awful lot of money to poker sites in terms of advertising. So do not think that televised high stakes poker is always what it appears to be. You need to remember that when you play poker that you can only make money by your opponents making mistakes. However just how are world class opponents going to be making enough mistakes for you to make a living? All this of course is presuming that you can find hundreds of thousands of dollars or even several million dollars as a bankroll and can avoid the swings.

So never mind the hype of high stakes poker because this is all it is??hype! Very few players come through the journey from low stakes to high stakes poker alive and in one piece. Even if you do well then normal variance can tear you apart. If the thought of losing twenty buy ins terrifies you at NL100 with one hundred dollar buy ins then what about at $300-$600 where the buy in is $60,000? I tried myself some years ago to do this and I can speak from experience not just from my journey but also of the journey taken by many others that it simply isn?t worth it.

If you downgrade your goals so that you try and make poker a ?good career? rather than trying to be the best on the planet then not only would your chances escalate but your life can be altered for the better because of your goals being more down to earth. In my opinion high stakes poker should be reserved for nothing more than simple entertainment and it should be left at that.

Ray Felton

In 2005, after two too-big-to-pass-up-on big men were drafted one-two, three straight point guards were taken by rebuilding NBA teams. It didn?t take long for Chris Paul and Deron Williams to blossom into the point guards everybody thought they?d be, but for Raymond Felton the road has been a little bit longer and a lot more bumpier. For a while it looked like the Bobcats were the only ones to draw a losing Texas Holdem hand. It?s surprising given that Felton was the one of the three to win a National Championship. He hit big shots in the title game to beat Deron Williams and Illinois, and he also drove the Tar Heels that season to outperform Chris Paul?s Wake Forest in the ACC.
Felton showed speed, an ability to hit clutch shots, displayed leadership on a team of stars, and an ability to manage the game no matter the situation or opponent. He also managed the egos of teammates like Rashad McCants. You take all those qualities and blend them together and you should have an NBA all-star point guard. What more could you want? The New Orleans Hornets and the Utah Jazz thought otherwise.
With the third pick the Jazz selected Deron Williams who, only a short time after losing John Stockton, gave them an All NBA player at the position. With the fourth pick the New Orleans Hornets picked Paul, and he?s since become the face of the franchise, and the biggest non-New Orleans Saint sports celebrity in town. Meanwhile, Felton didn?t have to go far to begin his NBA career.
The Charlotte Bobcats selected him and hoped his Carolina fans would follow him there. At times during his rookie season he put up numbers that matched the players selected before him, but he was inconsistent at best, and pegged as inferior to his peers. While Williams and Paul improved and became centerpieces to their franchise, Felton lagged behind.
Granted the Bobcats gave ?Everybody Loves Raymond? less to work with but that wasn?t as obvious at first. What was obvious was Williams and Paul were shining fan favorites while even the UNC faithful soured on Felton as a pro. Nobody can deny the potential that was there, but his dominance of the college game wasn?t transferring over in the pros.
Rather the stigma became he got it done in college because of his teammates not by leading them. As those former team-mates, Rashad McCants, Sean May (also on the Bobcats for a spell), and even Marvin Williams struggled as pros, people begin to reassess just how good that college team was. Turns out the truth might have been, the problem was more about Felton?s pro teammates than his college colleagues.
This year, Felton moved to the New York Knicks and the more wide open system of Mike D?Antonio. With the style far more similar to the breakneck pace he played under Roy Williams, Felton has found himself again. Now, the 2005 class is discussed as three point guard class again, rather than two, and Felton is squarely in the mix of comparisons.
Deron Williams leads the trio in scoring with 23 points per game. Felton is next with just under 19, while Paul is just over 16. Williams and Paul are just a hair under ten assists but Felton isn?t far behind with the same fraction under 9. Paul leads the trio with 4.4 boards per game. Williams is averaging 4 and Felton 3.7.
There is very little to separate the three players now that Felton is running things at Madison Garden playing Robin to Amare Stoudemire?s Batman. Course, Felton has had hiccups of productivity before, so we should wait a full season before drawing any conclusions, but what no one can deny is he?s back in the discussion that started on draft day in 2005.

Early NBA Leaders

Increasingly, sports are getting younger and younger. The World Series of Poker just had the youngest final table ever with youngsters playing Texas Holdem poker to decide who would be the next 9 million dollar winner. In the NBA, where more than a little more athleticism is required the stats are starting to mirror that new youth culture that is pervasive everywhere.
Look at the leaders in three of the most important statistical categories and it?s a young player atop all three. Kevin Durant is the leading scorer in the league, a distinction he carried last year as a third year player. His numbers are actually a little down from 30.2 to 28.4. Some of that can be pinned on the increase in help he now receives.
Last year Durant was followed by some older guys, LeBron James, Carmelo Anthony, Kobe Bryant, and Dwayne Wade. Monta Ellis slipped in, right behind that grouping of super-stars in the prime years of their careers. This offseason most of them rested while Durant went to Turkey and led the USA to a gold medal in the World Championship. The rest didn?t do them much good.
This year, their numbers are down, while guys like Monta Ellis, Derrick Rose, Kevin Martin, and Russell Westbrook (part of that help in Oklahoma City for Durant and also in Turkey), are getting closer to the top of the leader board. James, who now has more options in Miami, is averaging almost as much, or more accurately as little as Paul Millsap. Luis Scola, Pau Gasol, and Eric Gordon are outscoring James this year.
Rebounding is a young man?s game too. His stats skewed by his incredible near 50 rebound 50 point outburst (okay, that?s an exaggeration but it felt like it), Minnesota?s Kevin Love is the top rebounder in the league. For a guy called the best outlet passer since Wes Unseld that?s got to mean the Timberwolves are picking up some easy transition buckets. Actually, nothing is easy in Minnesota so it just means Love has a ton of rebounds.
Next on the list is relatively young Joakim Noah. Pau Gasol, a veteran, is third followed by Reggie Evans, Andrew Bogut and Dwight Howard. Love, Noah, and Bogut all young up and comers weren?t even at the top of the list last year (though injuries might have played a role in some cases). Howard, Marcus Camby, David Lee, Zack Randolph, Carlos Boozer, Chris Bosh, Troy Murphy, Tim Duncan, Gerald Wallace, and Al Horford were the top ten with Howard and Horford arguably the only youngsters on the list.
This year is shaping up to be a changing of the guard as the rise of a ton of young players has moved many of those vets way down the list. The revelation that is Reggie Evans being an exception to the rule. Kevin Love, you?ll remember, also went to Turkey with the U.S. team. Noticing a trend yet?
Rajon Rondo was the last cut? or the last player to opt out of the USA team, depending on your viewpoint, and he leads the NBA in assists. Rondo is ahead of Deron Williams and Chris Paul. Jason Kidd is still relevant dishing 10 times a game but John Wall is next on the list with Derrick Rose only two spots behind. Former MVP Steve Nash is in between them. Raymond Felton who came out in the same draft class as Williams and Paul is tenth in assists.
Meanwhile, pushing the top ten are players like Russell Westbrook, DJ Augustin, Jrue Holiday, Mike Conley, Brandon Jennings, and Stephen Curry. Youth hasn?t quite taken hold in the assist department but it?s coming, and the numbers generated by young players in all three categories are night and day from last year at the top.