Poker Room Hustle

David Benyamine and Gus Hansen are having a very good month on Full Tilt Poker so far, both players are on the daily hustle and have put in a lot of work as they have played a total of 32 000 hands combined. Gus Hansen has won around $477K for the month after 227 sessions, and Benyamine has made a total profit of almost $1.1 Million after 164 sessions. Both players have won some huge six figure pots over the past couple of weeks and have been doing very well, let’s see if they can continue hustling till the end of the month and capitalize on their winnings. To keep up with latest results from all the High Stakes action on Full Tilt check Out HighStakesDB.com.

PokerBlog has brought to my attention that a moderator from two plus two forums has claimed that people shouldn’t be posting quality strategy posts for free on the forum, and if they do, they should make it harder to find them. The reason behind this is that the content of Two Plus Two Forum that, Two Plus Two publishing owns is hurting their book sales, and therefore they are urging mods to delete stickies. It all sounds pretty ridiculous, and Mason claims that his ultimate fear is that the posters on the forum know more than his authors and write better than his authors therefore the strategy discussion on the site could seriously hurt his book sales.

Here is a screen shot of the Message Posted By Mason Malmuth:

Gus Hansen, who is known for his loose aggressive style, had a crazy month on Full Tilt Poker In July. Hansen will usually go on a lucky streak for a while, where he cleans up and makes a killing in a short period, and then eventually his good fortunes turn around just as quick, leading him to donate most of his winnings back. I guess this is mainly due to his aggressive – gambling style.

Anyhow the fact remains that Gus Hansen loves the action, and in the month of July this was on full display, as he went on amazing roller coaster ride. At First Gus was having a very good month as he was up around $1.3 Million, then everything went drastically wrong and he dropped $1.19 Million in only one day (July 22^nd). He lost almost all his winnings for the month in just one day; however he wasn’t discouraged and battled it out the next day to hustle up an extra $530K. I guess his good fortunes continued through till the end of the month as He ended up being the biggest winner on Full Tilt Poker for The Month of July. Gus Hansen made a total profit of $1.13 Million for the Month.

Play Online Poker

If you are to become a successful sit-n-go poker player then in my opinion you have to be very confident in your abilities, play fearlessly and become fairly aggressive. The reason for this is that passive players who only play the nuts or premium hands pre-flop become to predictable and in turn become extremely easy read, therefore they are very vulnerable to a lot of bluffs and also wont get paid off when they have made a premium hand post flop.

On the other hand If you are constantly mixing up your play, e.g. raising with suited connectors, or just calling a raise with AK, then you always leave your opponents guessing and they never know if you have made a hand or you’re bluffing, this uncertainty in your opponents leads you to getting paid off when you have made quality hands, and also allows you to effectively pull of bluffs in some situations.

However the key factor in taking this approach is to be very confident, if you aren’t confident and don’t believe in your abilities, then you too will eventually become an indecisive player who is very passive and only plays the nuts. You will see yourself folding cards that would’ve produced straights or 2 pair on the flop and when you eventually do get your AK or high pockets you will get a tough beat and your sit-n-go is over. To me there is no sense in only waiting for high cards and pockets to play a pot in sit-n-go’s, you must remember that any two cards are good if you hit your flop, and the more unpredictable your cards e.g. 85 suited, 10,8 suited, then there more likely you are going get paid off if you make a strong hand, and if you don’t make a hand you simply fold. Also this approach cleverly disguises your strong hands, e.g. if you have KK preflop and you raise you might get re-raised by an Ax just because of your table image, this allows you to squeeze out more money out of your opponents.

In poker you have to play the opponent not the cards, well you do play the cards to some extent but it’s mainly the player. Ill give you an example, I am in the Big Blind with 34 suited, there are 5 players left in the sit-n-go, everyone folds except the small blind who raised it 4xBB. Now we have been playing for a while and I am very aware of this guys playing style, he only raises with high cards or high pockets and hardly ever raises with junk, also I had seen him fold his small blind a few times when there was no pre-flop raise. All this info lets me know that this player is very passive and will only bet if he has made a good hand, the flop comes out 2,2,6, small blind checks and I bet half the pot as I know that flop couldn’t have helped him. He reluctantly calls, the next card is an 8 and is pretty irrelevant, he checks and check behind him considering he might have pockets. Next card is a 3 and I have made a pair, the small blind checks again and now I am fairly certain that he hasn’t hit and my 3 is good, anyhow just to be on the safe side I check it down and win the pot as he showed AQ. If my 3 didn’t hit i would’ve made a considerable bet on the river and if the card wasn’t an ace or queen my opponent would’ve most likely folded and i would’ve took down the pot with 3,4. So remember you don’t have to have high cards to win all the time, you must be able to read your opponents accurately and this will lead you to win more Poker sit-n-go Tournaments in the long run.

World Poker Tour enterprises has confirmed that it will be introducing it’s to show to one of the largest audiences in the world, India. The WPT enterprise has signed an agreement with Zee Sports, India’s first private sports channel, to begin airing episodes of the WPT on the Zee Network. Zee Sports is the flagship sports channel of Zee Network, the largest media franchise serving the South Asian Diaspora and the largest producer of Hindi programming in the world. The channel will exclusively broadcast nineteen two-hour WPT Season IV episodes in India and will promote the WPT series on-air and online through its website. The series is scheduled to begin airing in September.

I am extremely glad to announce that High Stakes Poker will be returning to TV for a fifth season. It was mentioned earlier on in the year that GSN will not be renewing their contract for a fifth season, however all that has changed and the show is set to return. There are many rumors floating around the net, like the show will be airing in February 2009, and that it will feature Pot Limit Omaha as well, however at this point these are just rumors and nothing has been officially confirmed yet. I will keep you posted on exactly what is going on however, In the meantime just be happy that the show is back and that we can continue watching the most exciting Poker Game around.

Heres A Pot From HSP Between Doyle Brunson and Guy Laliberte

Alright its been a while since i posted any tunes so i thought i will post a new Track. Its a big tune from Kymani Marley and it should give inspiration to all you hustlers out there on the daily grind. Enjoy!

The World Poker Tour Has Officially commenced its latest season, Season VII, and the event that kicked things off was the WPT Bellagio Cup. With a buy in of $15,000 and featuring a field of 446 players, the event attracted a large number of dedicated pros and awarded a nice hefty paycheck to the winner, as the prize pool was lifted to well over $6 Million. The final table consisted of some famous names, such as Full Tilt Poker Pro and recent WSOP Bracelet Winner David Benyamine, and John Phan, who has also had an amazing year this year, as he recently captured his first 2 WSOP Gold Bracelets in the 2008 WSOP.

However the player who emerged victorious in the first battle of the WPT’S Season VII, was online poker pro Mike Watson, he ended up taking out David Benyamine in around 34 hands of heads up action to capture the title and approx $1.6 Million in cold hard cash. On the final hand of the night Watson moved all-in from the button pre-flop holding Qh 9s and was called by the short-stacked Benyamine who held Kh 9h and was clearly dominating Watson. A miracle Queen appeared on the flop and put Watson way infornt, and when a king failed to appear on the turn or river, it was all over. Benyamine picked up a generous $840,295 for his runner up finish, and continues his incredible form which he has displayed throughout this year. On top of the $1.67 Million in prize money Watson also receives the WPT champions bracelet, the Bellagio Cup bracelet and the $25,000 entry into next April’s WPT Championship.

This is Watson’s first ever win in a WPT tournament, and with 7 other cashes in previous outings at the WPT, I think he will pretty relived and at the same time overjoyed by his first victory.

Other notable finishes include:

David Pham in 9th ($90,495),

John Gale in 11th ($64,640),

Daniel Alaei in 20th ($51,710),

Ted Forrest in 26th ($38,785)

Barry Greenstein in 30th ($38,785).

Joanna Krupa

If you are to become a good poker player and make a living of playing poker in the long run then you must realize the fact that poker is a long term business. No single session will determine how good or bad you are at poker, it should be fairly clear that in order to become a winning poker player you have to be consistent and win over the long run. You could win $5K over the course of a week but then blow it all in one night if you are not dedicated and disciplined enough to play No limit Poker, therefore you must have the right attitude when playing in order to succeed. No limit Holdem is a very tricky game and if you don’t approach it with the right mind frame and knowledge you will wind up going broke in no time at all. It is essential to be aware of the variance factor in no limit poker, and be prepared to handle bad beats, miracle suck outs, and also have the discipline to avoid gambling in certain situations so you don’t end up tilting and donating your entire hard earned stack.

When you play poker for a living (No Limit Cash Games) you should be in the mind frame that the game is continuous, it never stops, you could come back 5 hours later or even the next day and continue playing. Therefore you should approach every situation independently and not get too attached to any single hand (unless you have the absolute nuts), because the fact remains that, there are plenty more hands to come and there will always be a better spot to get your money in if you feel you are beat. So do not risk more than you have to on any particular hand. Study your opponents and the board to the best of your abilities, if the board displays cards that are likely to have you beat (e.g. flushes, straights, 4 card straights or flushes etc.) and your opponent appears strong then lay your hand down. It doesn’t matter whether your holding pocket aces or you have trips, when your beat your beat, and laying your premium hands down when you know your beat is what separates the pros from the amateurs. With that being said always remember who you’re playing against, you may have to call an opponent down with mid pair at the river, only because he is a loose aggressive player who has the ability to continually make plays and bluffs. So there are a lot of factors to take into consideration when you are involved in any particular hand; analyzing them separately and individually on each hand without emotions affecting your judgment, is what’s going to help you become a better no limit poker player.

Remember The cycle is continuous, so don’t put pressure on yourself to make a certain amount in one night or think that “I have to win a hand in the next half an hour”. Instead just let the cards do there job, you do yours, which is play solid poker, and let everything else flow into action. If you begin to think objectively about every situation (this can be done by taking a third person view of the hand and analyzing the situation objectively without any emotions), suppress your emotions at the table and understand that the game is continuous and there is plenty of time left for you to make money from your opponents. Then I assure you will gain a significant edge over your competition and will see yourself making better reads, better decisions, and overall, playing better Poker in No Limit Cash Games.

For all you dedicated Poker players out there who are doing it tough, but are confident you could make decent money playing online poker only if you had a legit bankroll, there is a great way to get in on the action, and it is commonly known as Player Staking. These days staking players to play online poker has become a large business and many people are out there looking for players to invest their money in. There are plenty of sites that offer these services and if you are interested in getting staked or maybe staking a player yourself, then you can check out this List of Sites from Do or Die Poker. I believe you need to provide the investor with some statistics about your poker play in order to get staked, and these can be obtained from Bluff Magazine or a site like Shark Scope. So If you believe you have what it takes to get staked and are ready to hustle up some extra cash for doing nothing but playing poker then check out some of These Sites and find which one is best suited to your liking to start hustlin up sum cash.