World Series of Poker: Be in it to win it

Just as football fanatics imagine themselves scoring the winning goal at the FA Cup in their beloved team’s shirt, or a Sunday golf nut cheers himself up after seeing his ball land in the sand by treating each bunker shot as if it were a miracle save that won him the Masters title, poker players at every level dream of one day winning the coveted World Series of Poker champion’s bracelet after battling their way through an enormous field in a marathon feat of endurance, skill and sheer nerve….

Not surprisingly there are some great opportunities for 32Red Poker players to win exciting packages to WSOP events and, in case you didn’t know, satellite winners this year will even have the luxury in Las Vegas of risk-free tournaments – how often do we get our money back when we don’t make the prizes?In the meantime, by way of additional inspiration, here’s a collection of trivia that makes the planet’s biggest and best poker extravaganza such a fantastic event to be part of…

Phil ‘The Brat’ Hellmuth might not be everyone’s favourite, but his WSOP record speaks for itself and his class as a poker player deserves respect. He has the most bracelets (11) as well as the most cashes (75), but perhaps his most impressive record is in reaching no less than 41 final tables.

Four players make up an enviable, exclusive group of those who have won the Main Event more than once: Johnny Moss was ‘voted’ into champion status in 1970 and went on to actually win a year later as well as in 1974. The legend Doyle Brunson won in 1976 and 1977, the tragic Stu Ungar was victorious in 1980 and 1981 and, remarkably (given his unfortunate circumstances) again in 1997. Johnny Chan also managed successive years, in 1987 and 1988, and came as close as possible to three in a row a year later when finishing runner-up to Phil Hellmuth in 1989.

The youngest Main Event winner was Joe Cada, as recently as 2009 (aged 21), while the oldest was Johnny Moss in 1974 (67). But the record for the oldest player to win a WSOP bracelet is Paul “Cigar” McKinney who achieved this feat at the tender age of 80 in 2005. So there’s hope for us all yet…

Good luck at the tables!

Angus Dunnington (AngusD at the tables)
32Red Poker Ambassador

Flush Royale Progressive Jackpot

Thanks to the success of the new Bad Beat Jackpot, with a lower ‘winning’ hand threshold, more frequent wins and a well distributed prize pool, another jackpot that promises to be great fun is the Flush Royale progressive jackpot. This revolves around a nightly multi-table rebuy tournament (with a buy-in of only €3+0.30) so that, as well as gunning for the jackpot as we hunt for a royal flush, everyone is also in the running for the prize money paid out to the top finishers. At least with two bites at quite different cherries we know that even if we’re nursing a short stack there’s still a chance to pocket – or earn a share of – the jackpot.

The quest for poker’s best, magical hand starts every night at 9pm UK time, and the aim of the game is to show down a Royal Flush, of any suit, using both hole cards. Manage this, and you win a share of the Flush Royale progressive jackpot.

Here’s how it works: 50% of the entry, rebuy and add-on fees goes towards the jackpot to keep it ticking along until it is hit, at which point the payout consists of 50% to the player making the Royal Flush, 25% split between the rest of the players at the table and the remaining 25% seeding the next jackpot.

Of course we need to remember that as well as keeping our fingers crossed that Lady Luck helps us find a royal flush (or at least that we’re sitting at the table where the jackpot is triggered), we’re also playing in a tournament, although we could do worse than invest some of our chips in any suited cards 10 or over.

Good luck at the Flush Royale tables!

Angus Dunnington (AngusD at the tables)
32Red Poker Ambassador

Free card/semi-bluff raise

While raising (in late position, especially pre-flop) in order to scare the opposition into checking the next round doesn’t give us a free card, per se, it can confer on us more than one advantage. We ‘force’ out players by thinning out the field, determine which players might have strong enough hands to justify their paying to stay in contention and, of course, we pump up the pot.

Once the flop has arrived, it can be a good tactic to throw in a bet when we have four to a flush or an open-ended straight draw. We very likely don’t have the best hand at this point but aggression gives us the chance to win the pot without a fight, while we have two chances to fill our draw (as well as the opportunity – should we wish to take it, depending on the board and the opposition’s play – to fire another barrel). This semi-bluff aspect makes this strategy feasible even with lesser draws, or when we have a medium pair plus an overcard to the board after the flop (again, each situation should be judged on its individual merits).

Other scenarios, obviously, will dictate that we play quite differently. For example, if we have a strong but beatable hand (usually through a draw) we absolutely don’t want to be giving anyone free cards (unless we flop a monster, in which case we should step back in the hope that someone catches up a little and is strong enough to fight it out). When ahead we should bet high enough to force opponents to pay through the nose to stay in.

There will also be times when raising with a draw can backfire on us and perhaps should be avoided, typically when a straight draw is on a board with two suited cards so that hitting might have filled someone’s flush.

Generally we should be looking to make these plays with certain hands and in appropriate circumstances (it helps to think of position as an imperative) and incorporate semi-bluffs and free cards into our overall strategy.

Good luck at the tables!

Angus Dunnington (AngusD at the tables)
32red Poker Ambassador

No Limit: Playing an Underpair

Calling a pre-flop raise with a medium pair against a single opponent is clearly a decent play and tends not to be too difficult to handle when the flop comes because the combination of the board and the opposition’s action (or lack of it) gives us quite a bit of useful information.

Facing a bet from the raiser on a flop containing an ace or king isn’t good news, but at least we can give up the chase with a clear conscience (we could be up against a random pre-flop raise and subsequent continuation bet but – particularly at the lower levels – it wouldn’t exactly be a shock to be up against top pair).

But what happens, for example, when we have called with 99, there’s a queen-high flop such as Q 7 2 and our opponent opens with a bet? This is indeed something of a poker conundrum. Of course there are numerous factors to take into account that will be specific to the situation, but this is one of the many scenarios that we can contemplate in advance to make life so much easier.

It is possible we are dominated by aces, kings, AQ, KQ and even QJ, which is why previous history can be important. But if we are dominated by a pair of jacks or tens, a hefty enough raise should be enough for us to steal the pot. We will also take the spoils if our opponent has thrown in a c-bet with AK (again, more than a fair share of similarly aggressive plays will help us come to this conclusion).

Either way, with a flop that doesn’t quite tell us as much as we would like in terms of where we stand, a call here might very well not be the most practical of our options.

Good luck,

Angus Dunnington (AngusD at the tables)
32Red Poker Ambassador

€5,000 Easter Festival at 32Red Poker

Hot on the heels of four days’ worth of free and great value events during Cheltenham, here comes 32Red Poker’s €5,000 Easter Festival!

While some believe that Easter might be a time for chocolate eggs and fluffy bunnies, the clever money should be logging on to 32Red Poker over the holiday period (29th March – 1st April) because it will feature poker specials worth €5,000 in no less than 10 free or super value events.

Of course we’re not always successful in tournaments, which is why there’s a ‘nailed on’ offer of free money in the form of an Easter Reload Bonus with a reward of up to £/$/€ 100!

As usual it doesn’t matter what your favourite poker format is because among the 10 events packed into the four days there should be something for everyone. Kicking off on Friday March 29 (8pm UK time) is the (NL) Good Friday Freeroll – aptly named in view of it costing us nothing to enter yet dishing out a guaranteed €1000 in prize money. An hour later sees another NL tournament, this time with a buyin of €3 + €0.30 and €300 in guaranteed prizes. Other tournaments over the following three days include PL Omaha H/L, NL 7 Card Stud, NL Razz, PL Omaha and three Raked Hands Freeroll events.

Finally, try to be neither full of chocolate or a fool on April 1 at 9pm as that’s the time of the Easter Main Event, with a €20 + €0.20 buyin and a guaranteed prize fund of €2000…

The events can be found under Scheduled Tournaments > Special, while all the information is at www.32redpoker.com/promotions/easter-festival-2013.html

As for the Easter Reload Bonus, this is a 100% match bonus of up to £/$/€ 100 when you deposit at 32Red Poker between 29th March–1st April, the free chips credited into your bonus account and released into your actual cash balance as you play (at a rate of 5 chips per 25 generated in cash games rake or tournament fees).

Good luck at the tables, and Happy Easter!

Angus Dunnington (AngusD at the tables)
32Red Poker Ambassador

Get the most out of new-look WiseGuys

As well as extending the prize distribution of the Bad Beat Jackpot, and making it easier to be triggered, another recent development at 32Red Poker is the WiseGuys set-up.

WiseGuys, which rewards winners with over €2500 in free chips every month, has been broadened so that there are now three quite different categories at which to have a bash, namely Cash, Sit n Go and Multi-table tournaments (MTT). Regardless of your favourite format there will be a leaderboard to fight your way up, and the fact that prizes are on offer regularly means that we’re always in with a chance of pocketing a useful cash bonus for our efforts.

Cash games on WiseGuys is run on a daily basis, with the top three cash earners netting themselves €50, €30 and €20 respectively in free chips! All we need to be eligible to win one of these gold, silver and bronze prizes is to earn 500 Redbacks during the relevant 24-hour period (note that 500 Redbacks earned exclusively in each format are required for eligibility on a specific leaderboard). Of course having seven opportunities each week (instead of the former, weekly format) to find ourselves on the leaderboard affords us the flexibility of suffering losing days – even disasters – yet nevertheless starting on a level footing with everyone else in a brand new race as soon as midnight chimes.

The WiseGuys Sit n Go leaderboard runs on a weekly basis, so the rewards are higher, with €150, €100 and €50 going to the three players with the highest profits through the week.

Multi-table tournaments being a little more difficult to get into the money, the WiseGuys MTT category gives 32Red Poker’s MTT fans a whole month to build a successful leaderboard campaign, with the Gold, Silver and Bronze rewards being €250, €150 and €100 in chips respectively.

Good luck at the tables, whether they are Cash, Sit n Go or MTTs, and don’t forget to check your progress by visiting the leaderboards, which are updated hourly at www.32redpoker.com/promotions/wiseGuys-leaderboards.html

Multi-Table Tournament Tips: Early Level Mishaps

Inexperienced tournament players who try too hard to be solid and patient and concentrate on premium hands can be at their most vulnerable during the early stages when, ironically, they have the most chips in front of them. And to add to their confusion, one of the most dangerous hands to be dealt when everyone is sitting so deep is AA. Read more

The All-New Bad Beat Jackpot is Here!

Very few things in life can’t be tweaked to our advantage and, as exciting as the Bad Beat Jackpot has been at 32Red Poker, the latest version, which comes into effect today, promises to put smiles on more faces and thus make our quest all the more promising when hunting down the elusive ‘losing’ jackpot hand at the Bad Beat tables.

Whereas we have been used to the only recipients of the jackpot being those at the actual table where the hand was finally played (where the minimum blinds were €0.50/€1), the all-new Bad Beat Jackpot enables players sitting at any of the €0.10/€0.20 or higher special Hold’em tables a chance of poker riches, just by virtue of opting in!

And opting in is done simply by clicking the Bad Beat icon found at the bottom right of every qualifying table. After that we contribute 2 cents per hand toward the jackpot and (the point…) everyone opted in at their particular stake is then eligible to win a piece of the jackpot when the hand finally does appear somewhere.

As for hand criteria, there is good news here, too, as the losing hand, which used to have to contain four of a kind 8s or better, has now been downsized to a lower four of a kind 2s or better. And the jackpot hits even if those involved in the actual Bad Beat aren’t opted in!

Now that the action is going to hot up considerably on the Bad Beat tables as everyone will be going with any pair, we might as well acquaint ourselves with how the jackpot is distributed. In order to keep the ball rolling, 20% of the total is used to ‘seed’ the new jackpot, so the remaining 80% is shared out as follows:

• 40% goes to the Bad Beat Jackpot winner (i.e. the player with the losing hand at showdown)
• 20% goes to the player with the winning hand
• 10% is shared between the remaining players at the table triggering the jackpot
• 10% is shared between the players at the same stakes!

Click here for more information and good luck at the Bad Beat Jackpot tables!

Thoughts on Position

A problem with poker, which we also experience in other sports and games (and was touched upon in ‘ABC or Autopilot? Don’t Forget to Think’) is that, for many of us, familiarity breeds carelessness and a blasé attitude to some of the key strategies and golden rules that we once appreciated and adhered to. By tightening up our game to once again get the most out of what we have picked up over time we are sure to enjoy significant improvement in our results.

The more we play and learn, the more we hear about the importance of position (where we are seated in relation to the other players at the table), and this is absolutely one of those major aspects of the game that we can’t afford to ignore.

In poker, the ‘action’ journeys around the table in a clockwise direction (with the money following it), which means it will be coming to us from our right. This, of course, means that we have an advantage over those players to our right by virtue of seeing what they have done before deciding on our own action. On the other hand, we are at a positional disadvantage to players on our left.

If everyone played the same kind of game, then, eventually, these (dis)advantages would even themselves out. But poker is far too rich a game for that to happen, and herein lies the secret to exploiting position according to its context.

Not surprisingly, we will get more out of position on some players than others, while some players will punish us more than others when they are seated to our left. How we get to maximise the pluses and minimise the negatives is by recognising when our neighbours on both sides are playing poorly enough to either give us too much or to fail to punish us properly.

With this in mind, we want to be sitting to the left of the looser, aggressive (and, ideally, weaker) players as these can be best exploited when we have more control over the pot and more information (or, to look at it another way, when we’re giving them less information). Tight, conservative (i.e. not aggressive) players we are content to have on our left because their positional advantage isn’t going to be used as much because these players don’t get involved very often.

Obviously positional poker is much more complex but, as a starting point (and a reminder to those who already know!), this should prove useful.

Good luck at the tables!

Angus Dunnington (AngusD at the tables)
32Red Poker Ambassador

No Limit: The Probe Bet

In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. On the (virtual) poker baize, it would be ideal to be able to see everything but, of course, this isn’t possible and information is limited. While much of the game is based on experienced guesswork (indeed second-guessing opponents is a useful skill) we should anyway be trying to garner as much information as we can, and we should be prepared to pay for it, too.

A (dual-purpose) way of doing this is with a so-called probe bet – typically up to a third of the pot or, feasibly in some circumstances, half the pot  (betting too little isn’t going to trouble anyone and therefore won’t induce a ‘serious’ response). An added bonus in getting used to making probe bets (within reason, obviously, like lots of things in poker) is that these can also become indistinguishable from stealing the pot and, ideally, in some circumstances such a bet can simultaneously play each role.

Some players find it difficult to make a ‘sacrifice’ and hope instead to find out useful info for free. Apart from this being too optimistic an approach, by holding back we deny ourselves the possibility of assuming the initiative, and generally we risk creating a table image that is too passive and susceptible to being exploited.

Furthermore, taking into account the fact that the pots we win as a result of probe bets should heavily outweigh the investment, and it should become easier to incorporate this tactic into our overall strategy.

Remember that betting only the minimum, for example, isn’t enough to do the job and can lead to confusion (and invite bets that put us on the back foot). A half-pot bet, on the other hand, tends to achieve more because we’re going to put the opposition under enough pressure to either commit them into making a meaningful declaration of intent, or to give up the fight (perhaps with a stronger hand than ours). Importantly, the former response might provide sufficient information to save us money, as even this way of doing things is cheaper than cumulative smaller bets that lead to our losing the showdown.

Good luck at the tables!

Angus Dunnington (AngusD at the tables)
32Red Poker Ambassador

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