Studying Poker to be better

I am a poker studier. I may not be great at poker but I will admit that I am getting better. I want to submit some thoughts on how to study poker in a way that will make you better at the game. There is this debate in the gambling world and society in general wondering if the game of poker is a game of chance or a game of luck. I am not going to spend my time hashing the debate out. I will only state the fact. The fact is, the game is the only one I know of on a casino floor that you don’t play against “the house”. You play the game against other people. If you are sitting at a table with 8 other people, there are 8 other people that are honing in on your chips and their plan is to “empty your plate” so to speak. Is it a game of chance?

How do you either prevent your plate from seeing the bottom or filling your plate up. I don’t have the answer to that question for if I knew it, I wouldn’t spend any time writing this page for the 8 of you that read this. I would be filling my plate. Ha Ha Ha. I want to offer some suggestions on how to get an edge of your opponent by studying the game of poker outside of playing the game.

1. Take a Break from Playing. In order to study, you will need to break from playing. It is amazing how I find that people will play, play, play the game until the busto and busto and busto. I did it when I first started. During that time, I didn’t look up to think that I needed to find out why I am busto all the time. This year, I made a pact with myself that one week a month, I will take a break from playing and will study. I hope that my tools will help you too.

2. Open your mind and evaluate your game. This is a tough one because we often think the way we play is the best way. I mean, we are comfortable playing our game. The problem is to step back and re-evaluate your game. There are some tools which are free and also tools that would be a good investment for you to evaluate your game.

Here are some software and sites for you that are free.

• Universal Replayer- This provides you with a table and your opponents and replay your tournament. It also has some tools to speed up and slow it down, it gives you a handy grid that will assist you where your hands are that you won and lost and lost big or folded.
• Pokerstove- Invaluable to see where you are at in your hand. When evaluating my game in Universal Player, I would often open up Pokerstove as a resource tool to evaluate the hand. It is free and great resource for seeing if you were ahead or not, should you have folded or shove. This is great for trying out different things and looking at what you would be more profitable doing. You can also see during the times you folded, if you should have played the hand. It is also great to look at your Blind vs. Blind situations.
• Poker Bankroll Calculator- This is one of my links that I frequent especially when I started playing poker online. When you deposit, that is your bankroll. It is your lifeblood of your game. This site will assist you on what games you need to be based on the deposit or roll you fall under. It helps me to figure out what table I should be online for cash games and also MTT’s and SitNGo’s.
• Sharkscope- This is a tool I frequent daily for myself to see where I fall in a graphical. It pulls my data of play in my site. It determines my ROI and my AVG Stake. I like to look at this as a goal setting tool to determine if I need adjust my game. It is like my “grade” in my game and determine if I need to go back to the drawing board. It also is great to check this out when you are trying to get a quick read of the opponents that you play. I purchase the monthly and when I evaluate my game, I will “sharkscope” all my players at my table and determine if they are winning players or losing players.
• PokerTableRatings- This provides you with a great tool for your cash game play. It will give you a score of your sessions, how many games played, and also analysis of where you fall with the other players. It will provide you with your VPIP scores throughout. Great site for your cash play. It also has a replayer to see your sessions for cash played out.
• HoldemManager This provides a load of information to study your poker game. It will keep track of both your cash sessions as well as your tournament play. It gives you a graphical interpretation of your play and notes on players automatically through Note Caddy. It allows you to do notetaking on players and HUD statistics (Heads Up Display) which is great for multi tabling.
• Evernote- I watch a video a day on Tournament Poker Edge and one thing I do is I really watch the video. I don’t chat, skype, play poker or anything. I simply watch the video and I also take notes as I am watching. I will have one screen up for the video and the other screen up for Evernote. In my Evernote, I can tag it, I can put the webaddress in it for future reference. I can put my notes where I need to maybe adjust, change a color for that, go back to it. Anytime that I feel I need to work on a particular area like cbet play or something…I can then go to evernote and it will pull up the exact video session with a link and also to the note that I took specifically on cbet.
• CamStudio- This is invaluable and takes some time getting it setup but can be done is video taping your sessions for you looking back and talking out loud for your play. This is great for several reasons. It prevents you from makin donk moves since you would be videoed.

3. NOTES NOTES NOTES. Pretty important to yourself and evaluating. It is something we do in school and is no different to retain knowledge. Many of our poker sites we play on allows you to take notes. In a live session, we have to keep mental notes but also the iPad/iPhone is valuable. When someone is in a pot, do they limp the pot, when it goes to showdown, what was the card they played, how did they play it? What action did they take at each street? What was the board texture. How much did the cbet, did they cbet, when they cbet, at the time, what street, did they even hit the flop on the cbet? These things you may miss in the actual play but in Holdem Manager during your study session, pay close attention if you know the hold cards at the time. Note it on Holdem Manager and then it can give you more information the next time you play that person again.

4. Talk to other Poker Players- When I first played poker, I didn’t have a single person to talk to about poker. I had no information when I started as to how to play. I would google and try and get involved in forums and such but my first year basically was a no go on talking poker. I am happy to now be involved with a poker I would consider my “poker buddies” on Tournament Poker Edge. I have skype and daily am involved in conversation about  poker. TPE also has a chat session and people will rail and discuss hands and great forum area to discuss MTT play. TwoPlusTwo and PocketFives is another area of forums to discuss poker topics. There are countless of other sites that are up in a social way of connecting with other poker players. There is MyPokerHaven.com which is like a facebook for poker which once it hits, it would be a great connection tool. Twitter is I think the main area of poker players to connect with.

5. Joining a poker training site and coaching-There are scores of sites for poker training. I am a member of TPE but there are DeucesCracked.com, CardRunners and PocketFives. They all offer poker training in all different levels and concentrations to certain disciplines. They are all good and offer affordable solutions for your game. It is definitely an investment. I recommend it highly over getting a poker coach first. Some of these sites have coaching available through the site if you want to take your poker game to another level. I am personally looking really deep into this one.

6. Poker is Mental- Very important to get your mental state right for the game. I am no psychologist but there are lots of resources out there that will allow you get your “head right” for the game. It is the single most swingy game dealing with your emotions and state of brain power. You find yourself top of the chip lead and then in 5 minutes find yourself with 60 chips and find yourself at the end at final table. It happens but you got to have your brain right. It is discipline to your mind and studying poker is the step in the right direction but you need your brain exercised and mentally capable of the game. Couple of people to follow on twitter is Joe Navarro @navarrotells for he is a nonverbal communications expert which is invaluable in the poker world live.

Now…Is the poker game a skill? I don’t see the scores of resources out there for any other sort of betting. It is skill and luck at the same time. It is skill to have the edge of luck at hand. Can’t win them all but you can edge out your competition to be ahead of the other 8 players at your table to have your “cake and eat it too”.

“You don’t have the nuts until you get the river”

whitelextown

 

poker, Uncategorized

February 23, 2012

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Upswing in Poker a great feeling BUT can be a curse

Being in an upswing in poker is a blessing and sometimes a curse at the same time. It is a good curse and I will agree that it makes a very good day in poker players mind to be in the middle of an upswing. It breathes life to a poker player. This develops confidence and strength.

Continue learning and adjusting your game.
You need to continue to learn. It is easy to be hot headed and king of the hill in poker while you are in an upswing. You need to level your field and still try and learn every angle to even improve where you are now and possibly take shots that you don’t normally take to get even better at the game.

Stay in your Bankroll requirements
You would know that I would have to bring this one. Still this is key for a great poker player to stay healthy in your bankroll and not rob it. It is less about making money and more about getting better than you already have. Robbing the bankroll means taking shots because you are “good” at poker and robbing your bankroll to play in bigger bets is a sore disaster. It will ruin your upswing pretty quick.

Remember downswings only define the upswings
You have to be honest all…Downswing is coming or there isn’t a such thing as an upswing. This also applies to good bankroll management. Variance in poker is real. It will get you. You will get sucked out. Yesterday, lost 1/2 my 50bb stack late in a tourney from a shorty that decided to shove a 72o on me to get a 22 that hit the flop against my AA. The downswings can last a day, a week, a month or even years. We need to contol our aggression and make good decisions constantly at the tables.

Take a break during the upswing
This is so important to have a proper balance in poker. While you are in your upswing, this is prime opportunity to stop your play for a bit and then go through your hands and really begin to go through the history of your hand and see why you are upswinging? Ask yourself questions, take notes on your resulting hands. Look for areas in your game that you still need to improve on even in your upswing. Also, take notes of what adjustments that were positive that is giving you an edge over the field during the upswing. The most important part is try and repeat your upswing and make it last.

Take the upswing to another level.
Be active in forums and “pass the mojo”. It will give you an edge and good confidence as you continue to the table. Join forums like two plus two and pocket fives. Take yourself to a good level and join something like tournament poker edge and great training sites and not only learn from the best but also bring you to reality a bit for there are better players in the game than you. Be optimistic but remember, you aren’t king either.

Upswing can also give you unrealistic expectations as you feel you are king of the world. I know of a lot of poker players that just have good luck on their side. They have a common mojo about them when they first start poker. I had that luxury early on my career. I entered a live tournament for the first time and find myself binking the tourney after only playing a year online. My first online roll on pokerstars had me seeing my bankroll double and that was a good accomplishment until I decided to donk off the roll within a day to find myself redepositing. Urgh…Never again. lol

Anyways, don’t let your upswing make you fall into the trap too soon for your downswing. The goal is to maximize the upswing and minimize the downswing. You also need to realize that downswings in poker is going to be there. You want to balance out a bit and just be consistantly a profitable player. To do that, learn, play, evaluate, and grow. Poker is a growing mental game full of skill that changes at every street.

For those bad beats, remember this its key “It ain’t the nuts until the river”

CYA

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February 15, 2012

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Balancing Family, Work and Poker

This is a long overdue post so I am going to give it a shot. My balance of family, work and poker is pretty important to be a successful poker player. I want to share with what I am doing at the moment with this pretty tough balance.

I want to start out by saying I am not a professional poker player and no where close. I am sure that professional poker players have their own way of dealing with the balance when they have kids and a wife and family.

I think to be a recreational or semi professional (which I am not sure if there is a such a thing) that has a full-time job and a family to support, it can be challenging. I think what makes a good poker player in this spot, you not only deal with good bankroll management, but you also have to deal with your life management to be successful.

When starting my poker career, I didn’t have this balance and still have some work to do. I hope that my story will  help other poker players adjust a bit to the balance. I started the beginning of fall last year in 2010. I watched poker on TV and had the chance to go to the Aria for a conference for my work and they bought me into a poker tournament. I didn’t fair too well but was hooked to learn this thing. I watched the Moneymaker win on On Demand ESPN2 and then I was hooked. I was about 4 years too late to the Moneymaker poker boom but here I am.

This was a new experience that I was embarking. I begin my googling experience looking up Poker, I got Holdem for Dummies book and downloaded it on my new Generation 1 iPad and read it to death. I then went to Pokerstars.com website and learned about pokerschoolonline. I took a test and was entered into their freeroll games where you win 5.00 each time. I didn’t realize there was a leaderboard but started crushing that thing to death and low and behold, I ended up getting some cash on the site.

I now had a new toy called Pokerstars poker and then was hooked like your first time you got a video game system and you play it to death. I played poker to death and then was out of control crazy. I would play poker at home, at work, on weekends. I would speed my family home, they worked around my crazy online poker schedule.

Then it was family or the highway. My wife was considering looking for an apartment me and contemplating the separation of my family. This happened when I had my first coaching session with a respected poker pro and hitting the majors. I was planning my first journey to WSOP and WPT run and everything. I was so ready but it stopped….

Then reality kicked in and set in gear what was a long 3 month hiatus of poker. I didn’t look at a poker book, I didn’t see a card, i didn’t watch any poker shows. I deleted my poker email account, twitter account all the sites that I frequented. I stopped cold turkey. Dude, I was down and out but was the best thing I every did. It brought “balance to the force” so to speak.

I started back in November going to my local casino. It was my very first live tournament I played. I entered, got my first casino card. Went directly through the casino and the slots and blackjack table and felt so awesome to walk into the poker room and go to the poker table and give my money to the dealer and racked up my chips. Man it was a good feeling to just sit there. I shipped that tournament that day and was hooked yet again.

I went back the next day and decided to take a portion of my winning and rack up and quaded my initial buyin in cash and then I was hooked even more. On my 1 1/2 hour drive home that evening, very happy to be back, I decided to get my wife on my side. How can I explain what I just did. How can I convince that I can balance it out. So here is what I came up with.

I am not a professional poker player. I don’t need to play 40 hours a week on top of my day job. I want to enjoy the game of poker, learn the game, understand the details but don’t have to spend 40 hours a week. I can buy milk and my roof over my head with my day job. I don’t need to multitable 12 tables for 40 hours a week at home and totally void my family.

Learn to play MTT’s right. I love MTT poker. I love cash poker. I don’t need to grind out my bankroll to  make it to the WSOP or WPT or EPT or anything like that. Just enjoy the play of poker. It is a bonus when I win. Put the earnings in poker back into the family. Buy toys for the kids, invest in our favorite non profits like World Vision, Put the winnings back into the family and also invest in others. Wow, pretty unconventional right? It is balance which is all. When you play poker, you win, you give and it returns. It allows you to enjoy poker but don’t have to live and breathe it.

Time is spent with Family, not Poker. This is the hardest. You invest several hours playing tournaments, sometimes days. It can get out of control real quick. I have decided to get back to the game. My earnings from November until now has been much better than ever before. My time spent with my family is priority. It is a Saturday that we have no poker day, it is family day. I may play in convenient times like nap times, evening times. I play a session or two and then done.

Finally, communicate to your family about your intentions. This is the game changer for me. It is so important for a poker person with a family and a spouse. Always communicate your intent and your goals. Work with your spouse and help them understand what your goals are. Be open to criticism and also come to a solid compromise that you both can commit to. If you have a spouse that understands poker and it’s own commitments, that is a bonus. My wife, when I mention tilt, she is thinking pinball and when I talk about “getting suckout”, then she is not understanding what the means and “hitting the nuts”. no go for her. I had to give her some bit of training. She now understands the commitment to a MTT game online, what the difference between a rebuy, freezeout, a turbo session and cash game and it’s commitment to time. She can now ask me, are you almost done and i can tell her how many bb’s I have and she can plan accordingly. When I say I have doubled up, she knows what that means. She is now on my side for when I say I am on one session, i stick to an agreement we set forth. Now the balance is important for I can now play my A game because we both understand that the commitment it takes to be a poker player and I am working on balance.

This one of my longer blogs I have done but it has been one that I have had in my arsenal for awhile that I would like to share.

 

Thanks,

whitelextown (Steve White)

LOCK: stevenutz

Twitter: @swhitelextown

 

 

 

 

 

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February 7, 2012

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Cracked your Poker New Years Resolution?

Poker is a grind. It would be great to have a few 100K to hit the Poker circuit and travel the world to play in the Caribbean or the Aussie Millions or even Vegas at the WSOP all summer long. For most of us, it is a taxing grind. Like most of poker players, we sit down and we hammer out our goals of where we want to be by the end of the year. I have gone onto forums on two plus two and my forums that I travel frequently in the “Poker Goals” and I see lots around the first of the year. Of all my goals last year and see if I obtained them and guess what, I  did achieve but not all of them. I did do one of my goals which was ship a live tourney so I got one check. Now it is 2012 and I will have to say that I have similar goals of last year but decided that I would be more specific with what goals I did arrive at.

Your goal may be like to win a live poker tourney at your local casino or it could be that you want to obtain the coveted WSOP bracelet or ship a WPT event. To some, it may be to stay in my Bankroll appropriately, have a 10% ROI by year end or it could be like to just make money and profit.

This blog post isn’t going to be about me and my goals, it is how to achieve your goals as a poker player. Now coming into February, we are embarking on what we have come to be known as New Years Resolution cracked. If you haven’t already broken your poker goals of your play, then congrats but I am willing to be a degen for a minute and I KNOW that the majority of poker players have already cracked their goals.

The nice thing is that it is only February and we can get back on track really quickly. Here are a couple of “Cracks” that most of us have already broken.

1. Study hand histories and post on forums. It is tough to do this for we tend to forget about them and want to sometimes. We tend to want to put our bad beats on forums and move on and just gain our appreciation that we play with a bunch of donks. Bad beat is a bad beat, it happens and move on. We gain good insight to accept constructive criticism and really learn from costly mistakes so we don’t make them in the future. I would say if this is a resolution, get back on track with it.
2. Staying in your Bankroll Management goals. This seperates the good players from the bad players. I am talking to myself you know my actions at the table. This really does make you a good player at poker is playing insight your appropriate roll and NOT go outside. It is a challenge for me to do this but we have to do it. It is soo important if you are to be a good poker player is play within your means.
3. Being positive. I mean we all experience bad beats. We get sucked out when we are holding premium hands. We need to remain positive and think that “most of the time” you will have a good result to your best decision. It isn’t always the case and we tend to TILT. When looking at forums, I see berating, blaming the sites, the poker dealer, even the poker manager and really, it is just the variance. You have to deal with it and move on. You got to ask yourself the question, “did you make the best decision in that spot” and be happy with it.
4. Learn and read and learn from the best. It is best to go to your favorite forum and spend some time learning from those that have been at it. Ask questions, look past being berated and really learn. Most of us aren’t like bigdogpckt5s but remember, he had to start somewhere. We all need to just fess up and whip it to shape and start it going forward. Can you get lucky once in a poker tournament? Sure…But not the consistancy of poker, variance will get you. To be a skilled poker player, you have to take varience into check and use skills as a way to break through to be the best.
5. OBVIOUSLY. Play a certain amount of Hands in Poker. Can’t profit in poker if you don’t play. You may luck into a big ship of a Sunday Million on Poker Stars and then just cash and live off that for awhile but does that make you a better poker player? No. It is being consistant and win. I want to challenge you to play poker and remain unbeatable. It is a challenge to ship a tourney, win some money to raise the bankroll but my challenge is to be consistant in the buyin you are at until you dominate it. It is tempting to play the micro game that you ship and then as soon as it’s over to hit a bigger buyin that 4 hours before you couldn’t afford.

I tend to ramble through my blog posts but I am happy to see that some of you are reading it and are enjoying the blog. Please send me any feedback and I will do my best to make it much better for your enjoyment and for mine.

stevenutz/swhitelex/whitelextown whatever you see me in forums.

poker

bankroll management, beginning poker, goals

January 24, 2012

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How to stop the Poker session when you need too

How familiar are you with this scenerio in poker. You are deep in a poker tournament. You have grinded away some chips, playing well, you are deep in the antes and about 20 more spots away from being in the money and you have your AQsuited. You decide to get your chips in and voila you find youself busted. You paid 200.00 for this tournament. Geez, now it is make up time. Most beginning poker players, uh mm “me” uh mm tend to get a fast pay back by heading to the HU rooms or even worse… going to the casino IN JUST ONE CLICK.

I am sure some of you can relate to this. It is when you need to stop. I think the biggest leak in poker is STOP. Now, here are a couple of things you can do when you know you have the urge to stop but in your head you feel you can make it up pretty quick.

1. Walk away for 30 minutes minimum. I don’t know why I say 30 minutes. I think that 29 minutes is too short, I guess. It is valuable to step away from the losing session and clear your mind. Get a drink, go out and get fresh air. Get real and then come back and crush. I believe you will be more profitable that way and get a more clear head to make decisions correctly.

2. Treat your game selection like you treat your hand decisions on every street. Don’t make a decision like a donk and get into stakes that are not worthy of you sitting in. Don’t mean to be blunt but i am uh mm “talking to myself” uh mm. The decison of table selection is so important to make you more profitable.

3. Play in your Bankroll Requirements. This is a bit tricky to figure out what the requirements are. I have a difficult time figuring it out. I have started to journal my sessions and using a HUD to record the games and buyins I am selecting. The requirement is the standard. You need a specific map of what your BR requirement is, when you can move up, when you need to move down, how many tables to play and at what buyin you play them at to determine what the requirement holds. You can play $1.00 SitNGo tables and multitable 24 of them, just remember, that is a 24.00 buyin and is also not including the rake. This is most likely not a good idea if you have $25.00 in your accoun.

4. Be realistic in downswings. The best thing for this is plan for the downswing in poker. It happens, especially in MTT’s if you play them. It is the nature of the beast. My recommendation is mix up your poker playing buyins and into lesser varient games. There are some poker that is a little less variant than other games. Double or Nothings and 9-10 table sitngos in a lesser amount to build confidence is always an option. Maybe even go to the cash with plenty of bb’s and play for awhile and win a couple of pots and then head back. It is OK to be in a downswing.

5. Learn from your mistakes. Pros make mistakes, we all have them from time to time. I believe that it is best to go back into your sessions and look at your hand histories and just look at what you could have decided a little better. Put your HH up on http://www.twoplustwo.com or my favorite site, http://www.tournamentpokeredge.com and get different perspectives.

6. Watch a movie like “Hitting the Nuts“. This is a hilarious “Best in Show” type of movie that stars no one you would know but absolutely fun just to watch. It is my favorite “tilt” movie that will clear your mind from poker and bring you back to reality for sure. Rounders is OK but brings me a little more on the tilty. I want to give props to Joe Boyd for the make of this movie. Try it, you will like it. It is a different genre but still a funny low budget style type of mockamentary.

Anyways, good luck at the tables and see you “flipping pots”.

Steve “whitelextown” White

stevenutz – Merge

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bankroll management, Lockpoker, Poker, poker players, poker tournament

January 12, 2012

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Downswings in poker

I am often on downswing in poker due to me being new to the game. I began like many other players that deposit a little play the chunk, Busto and then put deposit again and Busto and then end in Negative ROI.

From the perspective of MTTs, the variance is pretty high and can reach downswings pretty often. I want to try and give you some tips on how to handle the downswing.

don’t get down
I know this is often easier said than done. It is often a problem from poker players. We often make bad decisions for whatever reason, mutitablling, destructions, sleepy, tired, sick and tilting strength to your game could effect your play.
Getting down on yourself at you play can affect your future play. You are going to make mistakes and it’s part of poker. Nothing worse can happen to you of you constantly put yourself down and say you suck.

Be prepared
In playing MTT tourneys or poker in general, there is some preparation. The ability to sit and grind online does take some work and is different than playing warcraft online or Xbox. It is skill and takes a lot of thinking and so you need to be on your feet. The goal for a poker player is to mentally prepared for each hand and each seat you are playing with.

To prepare, here are some things to do to get prepared.
Get good sleep. grinding online sleepy is the worst feeling.
Eat well. eat good food. Stay away from the color of white including chips.
Get rid of distractions watching TV and even multitasking, checking the net or even chatting online could be distracting. The off button might be the best option.
Don’t play after a uber life tilt When you are experiencing issues with your family or friends or your kids, it may be a major leak in your game.
Plan accordingly if you are playing, plan as if you are final tabling. Nothing worse than having something planned and before you know it, you have 15 minutes left before you next scheduled appt and you just made the final tournament.

When on a downswing, make a break and stick to it. There are a lot of training sites available that you can participate. Throw up some of your hand histories, discuss your hands to get different perspectives. Sometimes, playing too much online can make you a bit robotic not thinking about making good decisions on your hands you play or making a good fold decisions.

The final thing to remember. Always play poker for the fun of it. If it becomes dredge, definitely re evaluate it.

poker

bankroll management, Poker

January 8, 2012

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Tournament Poker Edge Review

For 2012, I decided that I am going to start becoming much more serious about poker. I have decided that I am going to stick with what I enjoy doing and that’s poker. This year, I decided to join a poker training site. I went to Cardrunners, PocketFives, and a host of others. I decided on one and am very fond of and that is Tournament Poker Edge.

I consider Tournament Poker Edge site as my training site and destination for training. I chose TPE because they specifically cater to the poker tournament player. With Tournament Poker Edge, I was leery of the site being busted due to Black Friday but I was definately wrong. Since Black Friday, I lost my poker online as I just started to “get the hang”. I decided I play on Lock Poker post Black Friday and for the most part, been satisfied with it. I still need some help and get better at it.

PROS

Video training: The video series are current to online poker tournament and live tourneys. It brings some of the best poker players into their minds as they are just playing away. Lock Pro tournament superstar Casey “bigdogpckt5s”, Grandmaster SitNGo Lock Pro awesomeness Marc “azAllin007″ Alioto and Pokerstars tournament extraordinaire Jon “IveGotToeJam” Wien and a host of others that are on a level plane that hold their own. The resume of the poker pros on the site have crazy resumes Pretty crazy stuff.

The forums: They are full of discussions of Hand Histories of members, live sweats, and information about how to get your tournament poker to a different level. It is very specific and very easy to get around and connect. It is the easiest connection to other poker players that I have seen. You can even post your own videos to have a discussion about a hand or an entire tournament if you would like.

Podcasts: The podcasts are weekly and guess what…They are strategy podcasts that discuss hand histories. This podcast isn’t about sweating all the Poker Pros (except the TPE pros and I like Killingbird and RonFezBuddy update how they are doing), it is about how to become a better tournament player. The better bonus, it’s free. Subscribe to iTunes or download stitcher and search for Tournament Poker Edge and you got it.

I like to say that I am a poker marketer and pretty good at it. I rate Tournament Poker Edge very high. It is a tight knit community and I consider all the members on the site as my poker buddies. The close contact you have with the poker pros there is second to none. They are just right there. I will have to also give it up to Derek “Killingbird” Tenbusch and Diego “RonFezBuddy” for their contributions and the direction of where the site has become and what is heading.

Chat: Bold for this makes the site stand out above the others This makes Tournament Poker Edge stand out. Not only do you get good information through videos, articles, blogs and insightful threads, you also have Chat. This is where you can hang out when you are grinding online and just get some railing and get their perspectives on the game. I don’t play everyday but have been connecting with my buddies daily just to chat out and discuss poker and hands and the like. It is a great community. It also has a handy spot to convert your hands so you can discuss them freely in chat.

 

NOW when you review, you gotta have the bad with the good. I don’t like to be negative but gotta do it. I hope that Diego and KB will take this as constructive. I am no expert at this but in my perspective, I just say it to give them props because they have done awesome of what this site has done already.

CONS:

Don’t like the green. it’s not my favorite color. I like the color of money which is prolly the intent. I like orange.

Need more subscribers: Need to have a way of having referral bonus like a free month or something to refer others to the site.

A league or a frequent tournament since we are tournament players. I would love to be at the same table as the people I am chatting with so that we can play together and transfer each others money.

I would like a better way of filtering the videos. TPE has a lot of content but it is rather difficult to filter it correctly to find some of the video

If you decide to hope onto the site at Tournament Poker Edge, sweat me out there. I am a newbie still on the site and I hope in and out of the chat as swhitelex. I hope to be a reg there on the site. Hit me up.

Peace

Steve “whitelextown” White

 

 

 

 

poker

Poker, review, tournament poker

January 5, 2012

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Purpose of a poker blog

I hope everyone had a great time with their New Years Eve parties and just the holidays in general. Mine was a great time with family and friends.

I hope to give a purpose to my small group of blog readers my purpose of this blog. It going to change names this year that will provide the base of this blog.

This bloge intent is

1. NOT to make any money.
2. NOT to advertise for a single site or a book.
3. NOT to be an expert at anything.

What this blog intends to do.

1. WILL be a real commentary to assist in learn and grow as a person and a poker player.
2. WILL be an encouragement to other poker players whether you just started playing or have been playing for years.
3. WILL provide news on poker topics.

I hope to keep the blog updated and newsworthy. I also want to provide some insight o strategy of what I am learning from the game. Most of all, my goal is to develop for myself a community of poker players so please don’t hesitate to comment on the blog even if it is just to say hello and provide me some feedback of what could make the blog better.

I hope the blog will be of help and hope for a great new year of 2012.

Wanna hear my predictions for 2012? Here goes.

1. We will see online poker back in the USA again. It won’t come in without criticism. I don’t think it will take off as some players will hope it would be. It will be here though.

2. I believe we will see Phil Ivey back in the picture again in full force. He may even take down a tournament.

3. The Micros will hit big time this year with their YouTube hits.

4. The WSOP main event will be the biggest field.

5. The Epic Poker League second season, though I hope it won’t will go south.

6. Finally, for me. I will hit the majors on Merge network and I will be a force to recon with. LMAO

Happy 2012!

poker

bankroll management, Poker

January 1, 2012

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What to do when busto? Break, Learn and focus

It is common among many poker players to bust their whole bankroll. A bankroll is a term in poker that refers to the amount of money that is specific to their budgeted amount strickly for poker. It can come from various ways. In my case as a recreational poker player, my poker roll is located in two spots, one for live play which I am doing well on and the other is found on LockPoker and the my “reserves” which is the alotted money in my budget that is lined as “entertainment”. When I say I am Busto, I simply mean that my LockPoker account is .50 cents. It doesn’t mean I am completely broke of my roll.

Now, with that said, when I went busto on Lock, I decided to take a break for the year and say let’s regroup for the first of January where I will do my last deposit. I have decided over the Christmas Break is to take my training of poker to a new level with focus and determination. I have decided that my favorite type of poker that I seem to do well in is MTT’s (multi-table tournaments) and DON’s (Double or Nothing). So I did subscribe to Tournament Poker Edge. I also am reading the book “Decide to Play Great Poker”.

In the forum on Tournament Poker Edge, @RonFuzzBuddy sent me a link to a great blog of his that is brilliant in looking at bankroll management. With the bankroll management blog, Annie Duke’s book on decision making and the script to Tournament Poker Edge, I am ready to hit the felt running. So far, I have a week left and I want to bring you 10 top items that I have learned from my process. I hope to have it ready by the first of the year.

I am going to be thinking of what my goal is for 2012 and blog throughout the year of how I am doing. I am a goal oriented person and blogging is great for me to be accountable and also hopefully get some direction and insight of those players that have been through it.

Let’s crush and take names in 2012.

whitelextown

poker

Poker, Poker bankroll management

December 25, 2011

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Step up my MTT Poker play with Tournament Poker Edge and “Decide to Play Great Poker”

I am working on stepping up my MTT game and got a subscription to Tournament Poker Edge. Bigdogpckt5s has a video out where he shipped the PokerStars Sunday warmup and a hand to hand sweat with aznallin007.

I am really psyched at gaining the subscription. I also have picked up Annie Duke’s book, “Decide to Play Great Poker” and with these both resources, it has already helped me in my poker journey.

I know that there isn’t much a following but I am new and is understandable. I think that once I get a couple of years behind me, the following will be night and day bigger.

My goal is to take my poker seriously. It is a profitable game. It is something I enjoy online and live poker. I enjoy cash and MTT play. I also enjoy the competition and learning and growing into this profession.

I think that this time next year, online poker will look different and I want to have a head start than the others that hop on. It will be a great day that we can see fields like Poker Stars and Full Tilt. Merge and Lock are getting there but no where close. For me, it is a great spot to invest small and learn and grow as a poker player without having to move out of the states. To be honest, I am nowhere close to that anyway.

Anyways, I hope you enjoy this blog and really begin to start following this. I hope it can be insightful.

poker

Poker, Poker training, tournament poker

December 19, 2011

3 Comments