theonlinepokerleague.com Blog

Sharkscope video review

Last month I wrote an article called Know your enemy know yourself which was all about getting information on your opposition whilst playing them by making use of free resource sites that are available. One of the sites mentioned was called Sharkscope and during my trawl through YouTube looking for videos to put on my video depositary I came across avideo from Marty Smith at PokerCalculatorReport.com. Marty has a number of sites including MZonereport and SitNGoReport and all of them have great free video resources. I have tried to load the video on here but unfortunately it will not work so you can either check out my video depositary where there are a number of strategy videos including this one or you can pop over to You Tube and check out Marty’s 57 videos that he has uploaded. If you search for Turtleknife then you should pick him up.

Double Stack tournaments at Full Tilt Poker

Now I’m sure I’m a bit behind with this but I found the double stack sit n go tournaments that are hosted by Full Tilt today and I must say that they look good value. You get 3,000 starting chips and the blinds start at 15/30 and go up every 10 minutes. After an hour the blinds are just moving into 60/120 territory so even if you’ve managed to stay at the starting level you will still have 25 big blinds to play with. With 90 players prizes go down to 18th place and the first prize in the $5.50 tourney is $112.50 so it is well worth going for. Full Tilt do these tourneys in 4 different buy in ranges - $1.25, $5.50, $11 and $22. I’ve never been a huge fan of FT because I always seem to suffer horrendous bad beats such as earlier today when I had KK early on and I was in the big blind. Their was a raiser on the button and the small blind goes all in. Now I had noticed that he was quite an active player and didn’t put him on Aces so I went all in and the original raiser dropped out. It turned out I was up against 10s - my KK was crushed though with a 10 on the river. At this point I had just 650 chips left and I managed to get it back up to 5,000 or so when I had AQ and the blinds were starting to get a bit tasty and again I had an active player make a move on me. I decided to put him all in and he called and had KQ so again I was a good favourite to win but a King came up on the turn and I was winging my way home. The only way to get out of the bad beats though is to play through it and I think that I will be giving these tourneys a go over the next few weeks at least and if I do well then I may look to play the, even more.

Play Online Poker

Playing live games in the UK for fun and small stakes

I’ve been playing online for a couple of years now but I have never ventured anywhere near a card club or casino to get any experience of actually playing live. I heard a few months ago that there was a venture to set up a pub league in Spalding but it was reported that the organiser had to apply for a license to run the event (even though it was free to enter). To be honest I’m not sure if that went any further. I have therefore been doing some research into the area and for the UK this seems to be a booming time where organisations are setting up free poker leagues. One of the most famous is The Nuts Poker League (http://www.thenutspokerleague.com/) who were featured on a business reality TV show and famously was the only idea punted where the entrepreneur managed to get a larger investment than he was asking for! Next comes Redtooth Poker. “Redtooth are the largest supplier of pub quizzes and entertainment in the UK and are committed to providing you with both a legal and fun way of adding poker to your pub” http://www.redtoothpoker.com/default.htm . Now for me this one looks interesting as they have a Spalding pub on their list but with no results or fixtures I can only assume that the venture hasn’t gotten off the ground in our sleepy market town! One of the most interesting things I found was that Rileys Snooker Clubs have a poker league - now these guys are obviously traditionally know for snooker and pool but they have now added poker to their offering and each venue has one or two poker nights a week and with 4 venues in nearby Peterborough I should be able to break my live game virginity at some point! http://pokerleague.rileysltd.com/

I had gotten quite excited about this next site a few weeks ago as it was the first site that I had seen where I could enter a national pub league locally (again Peterbourgh 17 miles away - but hey thats nearly local!). This site is called The Poker Project (http://www.pokerproject.co.uk/) and they were due to play at Yates Wine bar in Peterborough but unfortunately I have now noted that this venue has been removed from their list which is a shame as I am on vacation for a few days and I was planning to take a trip over there tomorrow.

There are a number of other sites but some of them haven’t spread to far from their original sites but I intend to keep an eye on the following in case they get to Lincolnshire and in particular the Spalding area.

Poker Down The Pub - http://www.pokerdownthepub.com/index.asp
Poker In The Pub - http://www.pokerinthepub.com/ (This one looks good for me as they host a game each Tuesday at Bourne which is just 12 miles from where I live)
Amateur National Poker League - http://www.anpl.co.uk/index.asp
Live Pub Poker League - http://livepubpokerleague.com/
Poker.co.uk Live Poker League - http://www.poker.co.uk/league/home.html
Amateur Pub Poker League - http://www.appleholdem.com/poker/index.php?p=9&pp=0&title=Home
I’m sure there are more but this is what I have found to date.

Best Online Poker

Tournament Indicator - Free Trial

Over the years I’ve tried a few programs such as Calculatem for my tournament games but I’ve always found them lacking as they do not really give you the information that you need but last weekend I stumbled across Tournament Indicator on YouTube. This one looks good and have some interesting features such as:

• instant M calculations
• player profiling
• tilt factor monitoring
• matchcard showdown (ie what are you beating)
• odds calculations
• miniview and customised settings
• video tutorial guides

I took advantage of their free 48 hour trial last weekend and I was sufficiently impressed that I have taken up a license. If you would like to test drive the software for 48 hours then please click the link below:

alternatively you can check out my video site where I have posted a Tournament Indicator video so you can get a flavour as to what the software can do: http://toplvideo.blogspot.com.

Update 18 June

I hosted the Pot Limit Omaha event on Saturday and whilst there was only a small field it was still a tough game and I am glad to say that I came through in the end to win the tournament.  I was messing around with a screen recorder during this game and I have uploaded the last couple of hands onto YouTube and posted to my video blog. (http://toplvideo.blogspot.com/) . The video is also here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2stob4GT7k

On Sunday I tried to qualify for the Pacific Poker $75k event and I entered an initial $3 sub satellite which I won but then when it came to the main satellite I was out in 30 place from 80 players. It was a bit dissapointing as this was one of those games where I just didn’t pick up any sort of hand but because of the structure of the tournament (semi turbo!) I had to start making moves but I kept running into hands. After that I decided to play the turbo sat at $26 and I went out early here when my 66 hit a flop of 2 6 Q and as I was getting on the short side I pushed and typically I was against the guy with QQ!!

Not played much this week

That’s right my playing poker has been limited this week due to work but I hope to get a few games in this weekend. I have also spent a lot of time going through YouTube to pick out some clips to put on my new Poker Video Library blog at: http://toplvideo.blogspot.com/ . I’ve put some great clips on there so far and I will update with Gus Hansen Strategy and SNG Strategy in due course. I have part 1 of each on there at the moment.

I did try an play in an $11 game at Party Poker this afternoon but after having identified the donk at the table I managed to go against him the only time he had a hand and his trips busted my 2 pair. (what a d o n k I am!) lol

Anyway I’m schedule to play a $22 PL Omaha later today at PokerStars and I am putting up a prize for this. To be honest because of the buy in I’m not expecting a huge turnout but I will put up a prize even if there is only 3 of us. Of course as ever we welcome anyone who would like to play and the details are in the previous post.

Pot Limit Omaha on Saturday (with prize!!)

 On Saturday I am hosting a $20+$2 Pot Limit Omaha event at PokerStars. This is one of the 3 “majors” that I am hosting this season and what “major” means is that I will put my hand in my pocket and provide a prize for this event.  I’m not exactly sure whether it will be a plaque or a trophy but there will be something and I will look to see what else I can lay my hands on to include in the prize such as WPT Cards or a t-shirt or something. Anyway what you need to know is that there will be a prize for this one and its gonna cost me money!! (That should be incentive enough!!..lol)

The details of the event are that it will be at PokerStars at 1500 EST on Saturday so if you’re in the UK like me then that will be 8.00pm. You can find the tourney under Tourneys–>Private from the lobby!

The details in full are:

Table name: TOPL $20 PL Omaha
Table number: 51431701
When: Saturday 16 June @ 15:00 ET
Game: PL Omaha
Blinds: 15 minutes
Starting chips: 1,500
Places paid - Normal PokerStars payout rules (top 3 up to 27 players etc)
Break: 5 mins after each hour
Buy in: $20.00 + $2.00
Password: topl07

I’m just hoping that I can win the thing so that it doesn’t cost me too much…lol. 

Assuming that I do not win then the winner will have to contact me to sort out the prizes.

Phil Hellmuth Sets Another Record With 11th WSOP Bracelet

Poker superstar Phil Hellmuth, Jr. made history today becoming the first player ever to win 11 gold bracelets at the World Series of Poker. The WSOP bracelet is considered the gold standard of the poker world. Each bracelet represents a single win at the world’s largest and most prestigious poker tournament. ….

 see full article here: http://www.worldseriesofpoker.com/news/article.asp?newsID=984

Frank Bill Receives Lukewarm Hearing

A hearing at the House Financial Services Committee for Barney Frank’s HR-2046 Bill, which would create a regulated environment for online gambling to take place legally in the U.S, attracted only six members of Congress.”

The Online Poker League Video Library

I’ve set up a new video library where I will be posting the best You Tube et al videos as and when I see them. So settle back open your beer and popcorn and enjoy the show!  Click here for video library