Very briefly, the challenge stipulated that I start with $20 on my favourite poker site bwin.com and the idea is to carefully build that into something more substantial. Surely my years of writing about poker stand me in good stead for this challenge I thought, but there were initial teething problems when I first sat down at the poker tables. Most of the problems were my own approach to the lower limits and until I had a semi-tilting chat session over Skype with a poker friend of mine I feared the challenge was going to end in failure. I would be pretty embarrassed to have to admit that.

My first sessions started with me being too liberal from early and middle position and it is vital for the lower limits and micro limits in particular that you are tight. There is no room for making fancy plays at this level, something I was woefully ignorant to in my early hands. When you have a good hand you bet and when you do not, you fold. It is really as simple as that and therefore your sessions are decided largely on your cards. Players are inclined to call with anything so checking the flop to barrel on the turn does not do you much good. I am just sorry it took 25% of my bankroll to confirm this concept I was already aware of in my mind!

$5 down with my bankroll begging me to re-evaluate I took a break and looked over a few hands. I was disgusted to see the sorts of hands I write articles about and criticise. Not good for an aspiring poker writer and player to admit so I gave myself a harsh verbal bashing and returned to the tables. My friend over Skype said “When you get something you bet, bet, bet like a madman”. What he meant was bet hard and do not be overly creative. A heavy dose of that strong poker pill immediately cured my fancy-play-itis and I returned to the bwin.com virtual felt a new man.

After much more simple poker that was a little boring I emerged a winner from those games and less than a dollar down overall. A 5% tuition fee was a small price to pay in order to learn that the fancy plays must be backed up with a solid foundation of ABC poker. I hope to carry on from where I left off and continue to improve my bankroll. Confidence is key in poker and I finished the session at the right time and am looking forward to my next one.

Stay tuned for more updates on my poker challenge and perhaps we will face off on the bwin.com poker tables in the near future.

By Malcolm Clarke

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

In poker, the “house edge” is the rake. Rake is the fee the poker room charges to each player in a cash game or poker tournament to play at the site. If you win as exactly the same amount of money as you lose when you play poker, because you pay rake you will be losing money.

Poker rooms fight hard to attract and keep new players by developing great poker software and offering good sign-up bonuses. Affiliates are paid money to refer players to the site and some of the clever affiliates realised one way to get a player to sign up to a site through them rather than an affiliate competitor was to give them some of their rake back. Thus, Rakeback was born. The poker rooms pay the affiliate a percentage of the rake generated by the player and the affiliate returns a large amount to the player minus a small amount for them. Players therefore received a percentage of the rake they pay back in the way of kickbacks from their affiliate. The affiliate makes money and the player makes money, everyone wins!

High volume players are known to use rakeback as their wage and any profits as bonuses. They can calculate what their monthly rakeback will be because of the amount of hours and tables they play. For a long term break even player, this can almost be a stable income!

When poker rakeback goes wrong it can, however, look really bad for the poker room where players are affected. The rakeback sites are not connected to the poker rooms so if they did stop paying rake to the players the poker room is then besieged with complaints when they can do nothing to help. It is the player’s choice on choosing rakeback providers and although unfortunate, the poker rooms cannot be held responsible for any problems. Despite this the poker rooms reputation can suffer and many poker rooms are uneasy about relying on third parties to maintain their integrity.

Poker rooms like bwin.com decided that they would prefer to be in control of their own player reward programs. If you follow the bwin poker blog you will see that their players who earned a large amount of VIP points when playing at bwin had a chance to use those points (if they had earned enough to cover the buy in) to enter satellites to win packages to the Aussie Millions tournament in 2010. Their poker blog will report on how these players progress at the tournament in a couple of weeks.

When you use a loyalty program you get site specific benefits that can sometimes be better value than cash payments. Even though you do not get cash payments from a rakeback provider you have the security of knowing that your reputable poker room is handling your VIP points and rewards program. It is up to you to decide whether you want that or you would prefer to use the rakeback type system. Both have their benefits.

Paying rake to a poker room is a reality of playing online poker. There is no way to avoid it but fortunately poker rooms like bwin poker are happy to offer loyalty programs where the effect of the rake to your bankroll is reduced through their loyalty bonuses and offers. You cannot expect to play poker for free, but luckily the poker rooms like bwin appreciate your business so much they offer perks to their players. All you must do now is become a winning player as although these perks are great they should not be the difference between you winning and losing at the poker tables.

By Malcolm Clarke

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Phil Ivey

What else needs to be said behind the name of Phil Ivey? It’s an incredible story to see a man they used to call “no home Jerome” morph into the incredible Phil Ivey. Ivey is arguably the best all-around poker player in the world. He has won over $9.6 million dollars and continues to dominate the cash game world both online and live. Phil is also a founding member of Full Tilt poker. Last year he won the WPT LA Poker Classic and this year he already has won 2 WSOP bracelets and will sit at the Main Event Final Table in November. Yes, Ivey is on top of his game as usual. It would be an incredible feet if Ivey were able to pull off yet another 3 bracelet win and further cement his name in history as one of the greatest poker players ever.

Annette Obrestad

What else can you say about Annette_15 AKA Annette Obrestad? She started out on the internet killing poker tournaments and winning millions. Over the past 3 years Annette has translated her online wins into live tournament cashes and a victory in the 2007 WSOPE Main Event Championship. She has lifetime winnings of over $2.4 million dollars. What makes Annette so special is her aggressiveness at the table. She plays a style that is extremely successful in a live poker tournament format. Some even say that Annette is the new face of women’s poker. She is young, intelligent, beautiful and has the charm and charisma that sponsors like. Most importantly Annette is a winner and that takes you a long way. Next year will be her first year playing the WSOP in Las Vegas and it will certainly be a media members dream to have her on the scene. It also gives us another player to keep a close eye on as the series progresses.

Phil Hellmuth

Phil Hellmuth is the reining WSOP bracelet champion with 11 of them. That is certainly no small feat as he continues to win bracelets despite the fields becoming larger and larger each year. I know it can be difficult to like Phil at times. However, none of us can deny his lifetime winnings of over $8.8 million dollars in tournament cashes. Phil is probably one of the most entertaining players in poker and his “poker brat” persona have helped to build, sell, and market his brand of poker to many an advertiser. Currently Phil is endorsed by Ultimate Bet and pitches several other poker related products for various companies. Phil, always the resourceful one, also has written several books on tournament and online poker that have done well. Sure, the routines at the table can get a little stale from time to time but one thing rings true, we all know they are just a shtick. Phil is about as harmless as a fly – unless your playing poker.

Vanessa Rousso

I have one word for this Duke University bomb shell – LETHAL. Don’t let her good looks fool you into thinking that she can’t play poker. Vanessa Rousso is another up and coming professional poker player that has already made her presence known to the poker world. She is the fiancé of Chad Brown and travels the poker tour regularly from city to city. She also has very nice endorsement deals with PokerStars and GoDaddy to name a few. Yes, you will be seeing a lot of Vanessa Rousso at both Final Tables and in TV ads. Vanessa has lifetime tournament winnings of $2.3 million dollars and has also done extremely well online coming in 2nd in the 2007 WCOOP and winning the European Poker Tour Grand Final High Roller event for a cool $1 million.

Each one of these players are people that should be on your poker radar going into 2010 as they continue to win bracelets and championships and garner media attention.

Curtis Mayfield III

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.