I just wanted to say that PLO has become my new poker game of choice of late and that is something that would have been amazing to say a couple of years ago. PLO is becoming the vaue game these days and I tend to play full ring games just like I did with NLHE ring games. I think there are a lot of misconceptions in games like PLO because hand values are very close pre-flop.

However where they diversify massively in terms of equity is post flop and especially when you factor in bad players. In this aspect then it is no different to NLHE on sites like www.pokerstars.co.uk  where you can have the choice of hundreds of poker games to choose from. The key to playing PLO full ring is in the hand selection pre-flop. It is a very nuts orientated type of game and so to make sure that you hold the nuts then you have to draw to it.

The key to playing this game is to hold the nuts or the current nuts with redraws. So for example if the board is Q-J-10 two suits then a player with A-K and four to the flush will be a good favourite over another A-K who doesn't have the flush draw. Or for example in games like full ring where you have Q-J-10-9 on a 8-7-6 flop and your opponent has 10-9-5-5. Any nine, ten, jack or queen is going to be good for you.

The way to play PLO is to build the nuts although in six handed games then you should not be chasing the nuts anyway. You need to think strategically in NLHE regarding what types of hand you should build and the same is applied in PLO. If in hold'em you play a 7-6s then you are not automatically chasing a flush. This is because in multi-way pots then you are often underneath another flush. So the key here is not to trap yourself.

I was having a discussion with a professional colleage the other day on the subject of the importance of balancing your ranges. He was in the middle of coaching a couple of players who had only ever played on free poker games. This is some task that he has taken on but I wish him all the best with that. Anyway, we both felt that balancing your ranges is far more important in online poker. This is especially the case when you move up in levels. I have been playing NL100 FR recently and multi-tabling them.

This has always been a very profitable way of playing poker until recently and I don't know if I am simply going through a bad run or if the games have just become tougher all of a sudden. I have been playing between 8-12 tables depending on the level of action that I can find. But I am now starting to think that playing one table at a higher level may be the optimal way to go.

I know that this incurs far greater variance but I have always stood by my gambling education in that if you really want to get ahead at any form of gambling then you absolutely have to be doing something that the masses are not. If everyone is multi-tabling lower levels and playing 98% ABC and playing for sign up bonuses and rakeback then I really don't know where the edge is going to come from playing that way to be honest once the fish leave.

If you can stomach the variance then single tabling a higher limit when the other players are busting a gut to play as many tables as they can may be the best way forward. The common concensus is that the best players at middle limits are playing four tables and that four tables is the optimum number of tables to play. Well even at levels like $2-$4 then I reckon that I can get an edge over most players at that level if I single table. I can balance my ranges better and only the best players will balance theirs at those levels.

Carl "The Dean" Sampson plays poker at www.pokerstars.co.uk

I want to expand on what I talked about the other day. There are more and more sites increasing their buy in levels these days from 20bb to 30bb and even 35bb. I was on a network last night coaching a friend that had 35bb buy ins. This means that the earlier stack sizes that online players used to use have been increased and so the players simply have to play a little more poker post flop.

The poker sites want people to give them more rake so they make more money in their poker games and that is only natural of course. There is nothing wrong with wanting to make more money. Of course  the better deep stacked players will relish opponents playing deeper. But the objective is to get players paying more in rake. Suddenly it becomes more of an error to shove pre-flop with hands like A-K, A-Qs and 10-10 with 35bb.

I know of some players on sites like http://www.pokerstars.co.uk/ for example who love to jump from game to game and milk deep stacked players. However though the one common denominator that these players share is that they chase fold equity very aggressively. This means that in order to do this then you have to plan your moves ahead. I will quote an example here to show you what I mean. You post after sitting down in the cut-off and you get dealt K-Q. This is a hand that is very strong relative to your position.

Ideally you want to extract some money from the hand without seeing a flop because if there is no flop then there is no drop. Now one line is to raise becaue winning th 1.5bb pre-flop is a good result. But it is also possble that you can play a cute line as well and check. The button may try stealing and raise to say 4.5bb. Then if one of the blinds calls then you have the opportunity to check-raise and if your stack is shallow enough then you can check-raise all in. This gets around 10bb in the pot of pure profit if the other players fold which they will do a very high percentage of the time.

As a full time poker player then I am more than aware of the importance of having back up systems in place and all sorts of different poker strategy that can make you money. I think I would find it difficult to believe to be quite frank anyone who said that they had been an online pro or semi-pro for that matter for years who had never had a losing month or year. The game changes constantly and so what that means is that your style of play can never be relied upon to be successful all the time.

I have been practicing my short stack strategy recently which I have called the VIPER. I think in my opinion then more and more players should be playing a short stack for numerous reasons. This is because the implied odds in deep stacked play are no longer what they were but also because too many players are skilled at playing deep stacked poker now. This makes playing a deep stack something of a problem in many areas.

Also game and table selection is key as well and this is why sites like http://www.pokerstars.co.uk/ have become so popular after the FTP fiasco. The site is so huge now that this is the premier site to go to for action and game selection. However deep stacked cash game play is difficult to teach and to learn as it is very time intrusive and the amount of time that it takes to master deep stacked play makes it tough to be successful at over the medium to long term.

I see many players in areas like full ring simply playing the same way as everyone else and there is simply no advantage to doing that. Short stack play or should I say...... effective short stack play is very difficult to combat for anyone. The strategy goes looking for and maximises fold equity because it is fold equity and not implied odds that are the key to success in modern online poker. In essence then it is looking to get your opponents to contribute to the pot who then do not get to see a showdown. This also takes advantage of conventional poker play as well

I have never been a natural poker player and I certainly have had no form of formal training. All of my education has come in a sort of ad-hoc way and that is not the best way. The new breed of online player may be getting tons of "experience" in a fraction of the time but I have a different slant on what people refer to as "experience". If you play for say 1 million hands over the space of 1 year and make 5ptbb/100 then the earn rate has a very good chance of having a very high confidence level attached to it.

This will mean that the poker strategy that you have employed for those 1 million hands has worked but in no way is it representative of the next million hands. It cannot possibly be because the poker environment that you are in constantly changes. So this is why previously successful players are no longer making money and this has been my biggest problem since I first turned pro in 2002. There have been several periods where I have no longer been making money but that has been the main reason for bad spells.

These days then I split my time between playing and writing but the levels that I play are quite low and NL100 full ring is a such a good level for me. I have though had a pretty tough week and my toughest for a while. I was on the recieving end of half a dozen coolers during the weekend and lost around 7x200bb pots with big hands versus big hands. The worst one being AA vs AA and they make a flush......that always sucks when that happens.

But I won $414 yesterday and finally broke even for the past seven days. It is never a good thing to work all week for no pay but income in poker comes in a non-linear fashion and so it took me a long time to come to terms with that. The action at http://www.pokerstars.co.uk/ is exceptonal compared to many of the other sites that I have played on. However I have been thinking long and hard this week about making the jump to NL200 full ring. I know that this level requires more work and concentration and the opponents are vastly superior but it is a move that although I would like to do it.......I am almost scared too. It isnt the amount of money because my bankroll can easily justify it.......I just hate the thought of wasting time......I think it is time to "man up" though and maybe see what I am made of.

Carl "The Dean" Sampson can be contacted through his site at http://www.pokersharkpool.com/   for anyone interested in being coached in his new VIPER poker system.

 

I have been experimenting with my new  NLHE system recently which I have dubbed "The Viper". This is more than just a system really but an entire poker philosophy. I wanted to make my blog more interesting than just a few ramblings from an online pro playing and writing about poker every day.

I have not been using any tracking software and I know that I can improve on the results if I use this. It is the first time that I played short stack strategies so I am also feeling my way into it as well. Hopefully when the trials are over then I will articulate the system into a series of courses (doing that now) but as of next month I am also getting someone else to help me increase the sample size. Regular readers of Poker Pro Europe and Online Poker Pro magazines will already be aware of my challenge to turn $100 into $10,000. I completed that on the 30th December last year and I then decided to take it onto $100,000.

I haven't played as muchTexas Hold Em this year as I had hoped and have played more PLO. But the current bankroll now stands at just over $40,000 from the original $100. I have decided to only play at NL100 full ring games and I have really found my niche there. I am managing to play between six and eight tables at the moment. I apologise to many readers if they are missing a lot of information with my first blog but I kind of thought that there was really too much to mention. However I will give a quick overview here for all concerned.

I started playing online in 2000 when the entire concept was very new. I had worked as a croupier for nearly nine years but by 2002 I  was playing online full time at limit hold'em starting at $3-$6 and moving up to $30-$60. Those games became very tough though and by 2007 then it became clear that the levels were too tough for me to cope with and finding value was hard. So after a brief flirtation with SNG's then I swtiched to NLHE.

This went well at first and I had a fantastic six month period where I made over $100k. But then those games started getting tough also and I ended up playing $25-$50 levels with $5000 buy-ins. That led to a really bad run of me dropping $100k which I luckily got back. I had a backer at that time but I decided to significantly drop down in levels as the loss spooked me. These days the $2-$4 and $3-$6 NLHE games are almost as tough as the $25-$50's and I simply try and make up for higher stakes by playing more volume at levels like $0.50-$1.00 and $1-$2.......its just far less stress. On sites like http://www.pokerstars.co.uk/ then the traffic is huge. But anyway.......keep a check on my progress of  life as an online player and my ups and downs on the virtual felt.

You can also contact me at http://www.pokersharkpool.com/  to register interest in my V.I.P.E.R poker system as well which is usable for all calibre of poker player.