The PPT

As the networks started branching out in their poker telecasts, trying to create an original product, things started to turn sour. The first attempt at a “made for TV type of poker game” was the Professional Poker Tour, which sought to eliminate buy-ins by generating the prize-money through sponsorships and advertisements. The PPT faced three major hurdles:

First off their initial prize-pools were not enough to capture the public’s attention -1^st place was worth $225,000 and places 2-6 were worth $25,000 to $100,000.

Secondly, the entrants -already poker’s biggest stars– were basically in a freeroll, and one of the major allures of poker tournaments is seeing the players risk their own money.

Finally, the PPT eliminated the “everyman” quality from the show by making the tournaments “invite-only”. In doing so the PPT eliminated a major component of what made the 2003 WSOP so successful; the rags to riches amateur who comes out of nowhere.

Face the Ace

The next disaster came when they decided to combine a poker tournament with a game show, and created Face the Ace. While they found a way to boost the payday –by having only 1 competitor– and really push the rags to riches storyline –having an amateur face off against the best in the world– the show still had many problems.

The chief issue with Face the Ace is that the professional players are playing for no reason! They were being paid by the show regardless if they won or lost the match. Additionally, the amateur was free-rolling from the get-go, which was one of the issues with the PPT.

So, even though Face the Ace was able to highlight the amateur vs. pro aspect, and make the potential payday quite large, they were unable to figure out a way to overcome the PPT’s other problems -in fact they made them worse.

2 Months 2 Million

The most recent poker show to fail was GSN’s 2 Months 2 Million, with the premise being a challenge for four Online Poker phenoms to earn $2 million collectively over two months. The show was mildly successful with young males, but the idea of watching four twenty-something’s ridicule their opponents on a computer, party in Vegas, and basically act like rich frat boys likely turned off a lot of viewers.

Not to mention that with a week or so to go in their quest to earn $2 million the four had combined to make around $200,000. With a solid push they did end up earning $600,000; still a far cry from the $2 million in the show’s title.

Future Shows

It will be interesting to see if someone can create a “reality” type poker show with all the good qualities of a poker tournament/high-stakes cash game without creating a whole host of new problems, or highlighting the negatives of tournaments and cash games -which is basically the long periods of little action, and the been there done that aspect.

A Slow stage is anytime during the tournament when the average chip stack is over 25 big blinds (BB).

A fast stage occurs whenever the average chip stack falls below 15BB.

Anytime the average chip stack is between 15-25BB you’re better off looking at your individual tables average stack-size than the tournament as a whole. This is fairly important to do in general, since tournaments don’t balance tables based on stack-size, but the majority of the time your table will have a strong resemblance of the tournament as a whole, so long as the average stack falls outside of the gray area of 15-25BB.

Slow Stages

Generally, the slow stage of a tournament is the first few levels. Most tournaments give players a large amount of chips in relation to the blinds during the first few levels, and it’s these levels -where you have a very deep stack-that allow you to play the tournament more like a deep-stacks cash game.

During slow phases you should be looking to play hands with good implied odds, and not over-commit to medium-strong hands like top-pair top-kicker. And with so much risk, you should respect almost every player until you have reason not to.

An additional issue with slow stages is that the blinds are not worth as much as they are during a fast stage. This is where tournaments greatly differ from cash games: Winning four 200 chip pots early in a tournament is about as useful as stealing a single blind later in the tournament. Stealing blinds, and making plays at small pots, is typically not worth the trouble during the slow stage.

Fast Stages

During fast stages you have to understand that you are more likely to get called by any player approaching the 10BB threshold. At this point these players are becoming desperate, and most poker players would rather go out with a bang than a whimper.

You also need to realize that players with real deep-stacks are also likely to call short-stacked players, because they know these players are getting desperate. Additionally, deep-stacks use these stages of the tournament to attack mid-stacks, knowing they don’t want to jeopardize their tournament without a really good hand, and mid-stacks aren’t desperate like short-stacks.

Finally, players with mid-size stacks are more likely to stay uninvolved unless they have a really strong hand. They not only have to worry about a short-stack taking a sizeable portion of their chips -which suddenly makes them a short-stack-but they also have to be concerned about a deep-stack waking up with a hand and busting them.  Because of this, you should give players with 15BB-25BB more credit than you would a short or deep-stacked player.

The first fast stage of a tournament begins when the average chip stack starts approaching 15BB. At this point a substantial number of players will still be playing deep-stack poker (with 25BB+) but a similar number of players will be approaching the “push-or-fold” strategy that kicks in when you have under 10BB. It’s imperative that you recognize when the tournament is approaching a fast stage, because even if you’re at the same table, with the same opponents, it basically turns into a completely different game.

This isn’t to say that this is a bad thing, but players need to be very aware of these instances so as not to overestimate their implied odds. Another reason is to recognize when a bluff may work on a very coordinated board or why a check-raise bluff may work better than a continuation bet.

Drawing to a straight or flush using a single hole card

One such scenario is when you are drawing to a hand where it will be very obvious that you have made your hand: The most obvious examples of this are straights and flushes that only use a single card from your hand.

In these situations the board itself is so scary that you are likely to get any action from the other players. Additionally, it’s difficult to bet into these types of boards unless you have the straight or flush, so when you bet your opponents will be fairly certain you actually have what you are representing, and aren’t simply bluffing.

For instance, what would you have called with on a 3-suited board except the nut flush draw? Most players just don’t call with middle or top pair on a coordinated board like this.

A set of Aces

Another “Action Killer” scenario occurs when you have Pocket Aces and flop a set. Not only does your pre-flop raise scream, “I have an Ace!” since a player’s raising range typically includes big pairs and big Aces. Now you are also in the unfortunate situation of hoping your opponent has the case Ace, and is also willing to call with his Ax hand. And if you decide to slow-play, even more alarm bells are raised in your opponent’s mind because you raised pre-flop!

The supreme action killer

The final scenario is one of the more common situations in poker: The Check-Raise! Check-raises should simply be renamed “Action Killers” because as soon as someone check-raises the whole table suddenly comes to attention. Regardless of whether your opponents believe you or not, utilizing a check-raise makes every player proceed a little more cautiously. Furthermore, if you are one of those players who never use a check-raise as a bluff -preferring to make continuation bets exclusively-you might as well just tell the dealer to shuffle the cards for the next hand anytime you check-raise.

Holden went on to clarify the current confusion by explaining, The International Poker Federation is planning to apply to the International Mind Sports Association (IMSA) in an effort to officially recognize poker as a game of skill.  The IMSA currently includes 4 International Federations: World Bridge Federation, World Chess Federation, World Draughts Federation, and the International Go Federation; the inclusion of the International Federation of Poker would be a major victory for the proponents of legalizing poker.

What would inclusion in the IMSA mean for poker?

Most importantly it would erase the social stigma that lumps poker in with gambling games based solely on luck. By replacing poker’s association with blackjack, craps, and roulette with chess, bridge, go and draughts (also known as checkers to most of us) poker could finally receive the respect it deserves as a game of skill. This would likely accelerate Online Poker’s legalization and less stringent regulations of brick and mortar poker games -In some states it’s illegal to play poker for nickels at your kitchen table!

Inclusion would also bring about an air of respectability to poker professionals, by making them more than simply professional gamblers. This type of recognition could lead to numerous opportunities for both individual sponsorships and possibly tournament sponsorship with money added to the prize-pool. So far, mainstream products haven’t jumped on the poker bandwagon -much like the UFC-despite the huge following poker has gained. Undoubtedly a lot of this has to do with a fear of backlash from family values groups should companies like Coke, Pepsi, General Mills, or AT&T start sponsoring poker players or tournaments.

Additionally, the IMSA’s ultimate goal is to see “mind sports” competitions take place under the Olympic banner. If they should succeed in their aim, the IMSA would like to see these Olympic “mind sports” competitions occur before or after the Summer/Winter Olympic games in the host city.

Finally, the creation of a poker federation could lead to a united poker tour, instead of the current situation with 5 or 6 major poker tours, along with a few independent major poker tournaments, like the World Series of Poker or Aussie Millions. This “United Poker Tour” could be exactly what is needed to take poker to the next level; perhaps boosting attendance to WSOP numbers at every stop?

The only time someone could justify setting a stop-win limit is if the player has a certain personality quirk where they play quite wildly when they are winning. While not an unheard of problem -quite a few people seem to think they are invincible once they start winning some money-these situations, with this type of player, are quite uncommon.

Ok, now on to the reasons why stop-wins are a horrible idea for 99% of us. Typically you can trace the reason for your wins back to one of these three reasons. Sometimes your wins will be for two or even all three of these reasons, and in these cases you’ll book your biggest wins.

When you’re winning you likely have an edge in the game

Unless it’s just a hot streak of cards -which I will explain in the second reason-you’re winning for a reason. And the likely reason is that you are facing some weak competition! And it’s always a bad idea to quit a game when you have an edge.

When you have an edge you need to push it, so quitting a soft game because you’re up is a lousy idea. Some people think they can only win so much before things go sour, but I’ve personally made $1,200 in a $5/$10 limit game (about 5 buy-ins), and I’ve seen people sitting in $200 No Limit games with over $2,500 on the table. When the competition is weak, you can never win too much.

When you’re winning your opponents start to fear you

Suppose you are winning because of a hot streak; you can still use this to your advantage. Think about how you view the guy who is playing a solid game and winning pot after pot: You respect these players and stay out of there way! When you’re winning your opponents will fear your play; they’ll respect your bluffs; and avoid you at all costs. This is why when good players start winning they typically keep winning: 1) they’re good players to begin with 2) they’re able to better manipulate their opponents because they’re winning 3) and lastly, they’re running good to boot!

When you’re winning you’re probably playing your ‘A’ game

The last reason that makes setting a stop-win limit a bad idea is that you’re likely playing a near perfect poker game. You can’t expect to play your best every time you sit down, so you need to take advantage of the nights that you’re in “The Zone”. Just like an NBA player might have an off night, so do poker players. Similarly, when an NBVA player is on fire his teammates keep feeding him the ball, they don’t shy away thinking he’s bound to cool off.

For casual poker players the idea that winning a lot of pots leads to losses seems strange to say the least. The reason this is the case, is because in order to win a lot of pots you have to be competing for a lot of pots, and going a lot further along in hands than a winning player does. In poker parlance; you’re loose and sticky!

The Cornell study focuses mainly on the positive reinforcement gained from numerous small wins, which override the big losses you are also suffering. The study also goes into detail on why small-stakes players tend to better with small pairs than mid-pairs (to save you a little lengthy reading, mid-pairs are harder to let go post-flop) and a few other reasons I won’t get into in this article. Instead I want to focus on the negative aspects of playing the loose/aggressive style that some of the top pros seem to implement.

I don’t think new and intermediate players realize the many downsides of playing loose, and speculating with a lot of mediocre hands. This really is a style only meant for the top 1% of players to utilize. Too many players think that as soon as they invest any money into a pot they must try to win it at all costs. And it’s this thinking that gets them into serious trouble; as the study points out, these players tend to win a lot of small pots and lose the big ones.

Loose play leads to higher variance, and variance is one of the main causes of tilt. When you decide to speculate with a lot of mediocre hands, your hands profitability is miniscule at best, which leads to very large swings in your bankroll. And it’s these swings that often lead to players going on tilt. The only way a loose style is profitable is when you are playing your absolute best; the small advantage you have will be gone the moment you go on tilt.

Another problem is that when you’re playing a lot of pots your opponents can get a better read on you, even though you are supposedly more unpredictable with your hand selection. Always remember, the more hands your opponent sees from you the better read they will have on you. So, by showing down a bunch of hands you are giving your opponents a lot of information on your play, and the more astute ones will patiently wait to stack you off.

Finally, loose play leads to more difficult decisions post-flop. A lot of the players I’m talking about -casual to intermediate–don’t take into consideration the times they will flop ok, instead they think about missing completely -where they will likely try to bluff their way to a win-or when they hit a monster. However, when they call with a 78 off-suit, and the flop is T82, they have no idea what to do! And the looser you play, the more of these borderline, difficult, decisions you will be faced with.

The tournament features a $1.5 million prize-pool -with $500,000 going to the winner– and will take place from March 5^th-7^th; the tournament is scheduled to air on Sundays, in 6 parts, in April and May.

The complete list of competitors and a quick profile can be found below:

Patrick Antonius - One of poker’s biggest stars, and best cash game players

Eric Baldwin — 2009 Card Player Magazine POY

Andy Bloch - Former member of the MIT blackjack team who made the switch to poker

Doyle Brunson - 10-time WSOP bracelet winner and poker’s living legend

Joe Cada - 2009 WSOP Main Event Champion

Johnny Chan - 10-time WSOP bracelet winner and back-to-back Main Event Champion

Don Cheadle - One of the creators of the Ante-Up-For-Africa charity tournaments

Allen Cunningham - Has won over $10 million in tournaments including 5 WSOP bracelets

Pieter De-Korver -Won the EPT Grand Final in 2009 worth $3 million

Annie Duke - Considered one of the best female poker players

Tom Dwan - One of poker’s most aggressive young players and one of Online Poker’s biggest winners

Peter Eastgate - 2008 WSOP Champion

Eli Elezra - Plays in the biggest cash games in Vegas

Antonio Esfandiari - The Magician is one of the most well rounded poker players; excelling in tournaments and cash games

Sam Farha - A PLO specialist who became a household name when he finished runner-up to Chris Moneymaker in the 2003 WSOP

Chris Ferguson - 5 WSOP bracelets, and a runner-up finish in the 2005 Heads-Up Championship

Ted Forrest - Considered to be one of the best poker players of all-time

Jamie Gold - 2006 WSOP Main Event Champion

Phil Gordon - Hosted Celebrity Poker on Bravo

Barry Greenstein - Competes in the biggest cash games in the world and is best known for donating his tournament winnings to charity

Bertrand Grospellier - One of the tournament scenes rising stars

Joe Hachem - 2005 WSOP Main Event Champion

Gus Hansen - The “Great Dane” is one of the most feared players in poker

Jennifer Harman - Considered one of the best poker players, male or female, in the world

Phil Hellmuth - 11-time WSOP bracelet winner and self-titled “Poker Brat”

Orel Hershiser - All-Star Pitcher for the Los Angeles Dodgers

Jesper Hougaard -The Danish pro has two WSOP bracelets

Phil Ivey - The best poker on the planet, #1 on the all-time money list

John Juanda - One of the most consistent poker players on the tournament trail

Gabe Kaplan - Of Welcome Back Kotter fame, has been a lifelong poker player, and co-hosts High Stakes Poker

John Paul Kelly -An English pro with a WSOP and WSOPE bracelet

Phil Laak - The “Una Bomber” is a fan favorite for his skills as well as his quirky behavior

Howard Lederer - One of the top tournament players

Erick Lindgren - Another solid pro with great results in tournaments and cash games

Mike Matusow - “The Mouth” has legions of fans after his brash behavior and deep runs in recent WSOP’s

Jason Mercier - One of the top tournament pros

Dario Minieri - The hyper-aggressive Italian poker pro

Chris Moneymaker - The 2003 WSOP Main Event Champion

Darvin Moon - 2009 WSOP runner-up

Greg Mueller - Former NHL player who won two bracelets at the 2009 WSOP

Daniel Negreanu - One of the most popular Poker Pros, and #2 on the all-time money list

Scotty Nguyen - His 5 WSOP bracelets are only upstaged by his table talk “Baby”

Annette Obrestad - One of the rising stars on the poker scene, already with great success around the globe, Annette can finally play in the US tournaments after turning 21

Brock Parker - Another multiple bracelet winner from the 2009 WSOP

Dennis Phillips - The 2008 WSOP final table competitor has really worked on his game, and has become a very solid player

Greg Raymer - The 2004 WSOP Main Event Champion and spokesman for the PPA

Vanessa Rousso - The Go Daddy Girl is also one of the best tournament players in poker

Kara Scott - Co-host of High Stakes Poker and a formidable player in her own right

Huck Seed –Last year’s champion, Huck excels in the Heads-Up format

Erik Seidel - 8 WSOP bracelets

Mike Sexton - MR. Poker, Sexton hosts the WPT, is a spokesman for Party Poker and was inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame last year

Gavin Smith - The poker pro is best known for his prop bets

Jennifer Tilly - The actress turned poker player won a WSOP bracelet in the Ladies-only tournament

Paul Wasicka - The 2006 WSOP runner-up recently won a WSOP Circuit Event

David Williams - The 2004 WSOP runner-up

Leo Wolpert -Wolpert won the 2009 WSOP Heads-Up tournament

Jerry Yang - 2007 WSOP Main Event Champion

ONLINE QUALIFIERS (7)

However, there are times when I think having a stop-loss limit is a good thing. Let me outline the scenarios where going into a poker game with a stop-loss limit will be beneficial for you.

• New or Casual Poker Players

Players just starting out in poker, and players who don’t play all too often should think about setting a stop-loss limit for the simple reason that their inexperience makes it difficult for them to understand when they have an edge in the game, or when they are in fact -EV.

Additionally, inexperienced players are likely to make numerous mistakes, and are at best only slightly +EV. Because of this, their swings will be huge, and the likelihood that they make a huge mistake is a lot higher than a typical winning player. Where a good, winning, player may get stacked off, it’s unlikely they will get stacked-off from a bad play; this isn’t the case with an inexperienced player, who could quickly lose four, even five or more, buy-ins.

• Emotional Poker Players

Players who are prone to tilt should definitely have a stop-loss limit in place. A bout of tilt comes on from losses, and once you are on tilt you are likely to lose more. For this reason, a player who knows they have a hard time keeping their emotions in check should go into a game with a clearly defined stop-loss limit. Furthermore, they should only bring, or have access to, a certain amount of money.

• Players on a Short Bankroll

A short bankroll presents a variety of problems of its own, but these issues are compounded when you start losing precious pieces of it. If you find yourself playing on a short bankroll (which happens to just about every poker player at some point in their career) you typically focus even harder because every dollar is so precious to you. However there is a line that is crossed when you start losing, where your focus turns into passive/scared play. This is followed by another threshold where the money left in your bankroll becomes insignificant.

Suppose you started the day with 10-buy-ins for $500 No Limit Holdem with dreams of doubling your roll, and getting back to a more comfortable bankroll. A couple bad beats later and you might find yourself down to 7 buy-ins, and suddenly you become more concerned with staying at 7 buy-ins than trying to win. If you drop down to 4 buy-ins your passivity is likely to turn to despair, and you start playing wildly trying to turn things around.

On the other hand, if you had quit the game with 7 or 8 buy-ins you could have taken a day to think about the ramifications, and decide if you should drop down in limits, or take another shot at the $500 buy-in game willing to lose another 2 buy-ins.

But a poker face is not just an expressionless mask; a poker face refers to acting the same way all the time, whether it’s the stoic persona we all equate the term, or being totally erratic with your movements and expressions.

Players like Gus Hansen, Phil Laak, or Daniel Negreanu would rate really low on the stone-faced charts, but still these players are unreadable because they are always behaving in the same manner: Talking out loud, making strange movements, or in the case of Laak just acting absurd. Their ability to be erratic makes them unreadable, their opposition has no idea what the gestures or talk means.

On the flip side you have players like John Juanda, Dan Harrington, and Phil Ivey. These players are the epitome of stone-faced; you have a better chance of getting a reaction from the statue of David than from one of these three players.

The silent, stone-faced, approach tends to cause your opponents to guess a lot, where the talkative, movement, route tends to manipulate your opponents into what you want them to do: However, the talkative approach is a lot harder to implement.

The tack you should take completely depends upon your personality, but if you are unsure you should probably stick to the silent, statue, poker face for the simple reason that it’s easier to pull off. If you are not used to chit-chatting, acting zany, and making big gestures it’s going to be pretty easy for people to see through your act. Where pretty much anyone has the ability to “clam-up” whenever they want to. So for the sake of simplicity I would recommend you implement the classic poker face.

However, if you know from experience that you’re an affable person that seems to put people at ease, or have the type of personality that causes people to open up to you, you can probably take the crazy, talkative, route. But, you need to be certain that your table talk and wild gestures aren’t giving away more information that they are taking in!

The best way to determine the effectiveness of your poker face is by how often your opponents guess correctly in tough spots, and how long they debate their decision. If your opponents are picking off your bluffs left and right, with little thought before they act, chances are your poker face needs some serious work! On the other hand, if your opponents have to do a lot of deliberating, and are only moderately successful in reading you than whatever you are doing is working just fine.

The comeback started against a couple of new opponents, Justin “zeejustin” Bonomo and Isaac, “ILoveTheWNBA” Haxton. Haxton held his own against Isildur1 playing 8-tables of capped PLO and ended the session up about $90k; Bonomo didn’t fair quite as well, and dropped over $550k to Isildur1 on the No Limit Holdem tables. Isildur1 was able to fleece a few other players out of a couple hundred thousand dollars to end a long 5,800 hand session up $730k.

Day 2 of the comeback saw isildur1 jumping from the $200/$400 games up to $300/$600 where he tangled with some familiar foes, including Brian Hastings who took $4.2 million off Isildur1 in a single day back in December. This time around Isildur1 was able to lighten Hastings wallet by about $450k.

After Hastings, isildur1 set his sights on Ilari “Ziigmund” Sahamies and after 1,100 hands Ziigmund was down $132k.

The day concluded with isildur1 taking on the man he utterly dominated in late 2009 Tom “durrrr” Dwan. Dwan had a miserable 2009, but has turned it around in 2010, basically winning at will. However, Isildur1 still seems to have Dwan’s number, taking about $250k off the young poker phenom. It also seems Dwan is still rattled by the Swedish poker pro, having a slightly heated debate in the chat box when Isildur1 suggested switching to NLHE instead of PLO: Perhaps the lingering effects of 2009 are still in Dwan’s head.

One of the most amazing things about Isildur1 is that despite his definite skills, his willingness to play big pots makes him an alluring target for the other top poker players. Unfortunately, he is a very skilled player, and can do incredible damage to a player’s bankroll in the blink of an eye. In fact most players won’t go near a NLHE table he is sitting at; a game he has proven to possess expert knowledge of; instead they wait for him at the PLO tables -a game that he is definitely proficient at, but could be one of his weaknesses against the top players.

With the stakes and sessions he has been playing, it seems isildur1 is ready to make another run at it, hopefully having learned from the pitfalls that derailed his last attempt. As long as he can keep his cool, not let his opponent’s constantly dictate the game and stakes, and realize it’s alright to quit a game every now and then, isildur1 could be poker’s “Next Big Thing”.