Let’s face it, most players do not have a clue regarding how to make money playing poker……most are just happy as Larry spinning their respective wheels. But I am interested in making money and to me that means making it as effectively as possible. I had an e-mail the other day from someone who didn’t like the tone of how I write……I say it as it is. There is no glitz…..fancy videos or anything like that as I don’t believe in it. But the vast majority of people who come to me regarding trying to make money from online poker are simply not far enough along the poker evolutionary ladder.
This is why they get seduced into playing in the way that somebody else wants them to. Just because a strong player multi-tables six max doesn’t mean that you should. Six max no limit Texas Hold’em games are all the rage now but they are also far steeper in variance as well. You only have to look at some of the supposed top online players to see that many don’t have a plan. By “top” then I am referring to some high stakes players.
One minute they are up a million then they are down a million and with no backup plan in place or at least that is how it seems to me. But a plan in poker can take you an awful long way. In fact if you commit to a process for long enough then you can amass very significant wealth from something that is very mediocre in terms of earn rate. Let us look at a solid if unspectacular winning reg who wins at a rate of $50/hour.
If they play for say twenty hours per week on a site like www.pokerstars.co.uk then they will amass on average $1000 per week. This makes $50,000 per year but the real kicker behind this is in what you do with that money. If you save that money and invest it and it then makes you a safe 5% per annum then by the end of year two you have $100,000 in the bank and a 5% yield on the first $50k which is a further $2500. That is a full two and a half weeks wages for doing nothing. Add another year to that and you have $150,000 saved after year three and 5% on $102,500 which is $5125 in interest.
Actually these figures would be slightly higher as you clearly wouldn’t wait until the year end to invest the entire year’s earnings. Also if you were prepared to speculate on equity backed investments then you could return 10% or more on some good years with a percentage of your portfolio. You can only imagine just how this can compound over time and imagine keeping to this process for 20-30 years?
Contact Carl for access to his Viper poker system and get Lesson 1 FREE
This question isn’t always answered easily but there are ways to do this above and beyond the conventional coaching methods that are currently in existence. As a sports bettor and ex-blackjack player then I obviously have a keen interest in many subjects to do with gambling and risk. This is why I have a keen interest in financial day trading as regular readers of my blog will know as I quote numerous analogies with poker and trading.
Some years ago I read a fascinating book on betting in the field of Horse Racing and that book was called Against the Crowd by professional punter Alan Potts. Back in 1997 then Potts made £50,000 in one year from betting (a pretty sum 14 years ago). That book is educational even if you have no intention of betting on horses. It highlighted the dedication and philosophy to succeed in ANY field. But the underlying philosophy of it all was that you simply couldn’t make money or it was very difficult to make money doing the same as everyone else.
You were simply trying to swim upstream and while that is possible, you have to be a bigger fish to swim upstream because of the current. But yet smaller fishes can travel at a far faster speed going downstream just by riding the current. That book highlighted that being successful in gambling means doing things that the majority of people are not. So to make money in poker and to do that relatively easily means two things……follow a process that is theoretically sound and make sure that it is different to what the masses are doing.
There……that’s it…..hardly rocket science is it? I know that I have been advocating deep stack play with my $100-$10,000 challenge but I am very skilled and experienced at deep stacked play. It is also difficult to pass that on in any reasonable time frame. These days I can be seen on PokerStars (www.pokerstars.co.uk) as that site represents the best avenue to get the most multi-tabling action.
However it also gives me the best choice of games as well as game selection is becoming ever more crucial now. It is important to go onto a site if you play six tables for example and be able to pick the best six out of twelve or fifteen available. I can usually spot the regs quickly because I know them……if they are not known to me or they have shorter stacks than usual or they are only playing one or two tables then I pencil them in as value until I get further data. The Viper though comes at poker in a completely different way. It will not turn you into an automated Texas Hold’em clone but it will show you how to think on your feet and in ways that are not common in the world of poker.
Carl “The Dean” Sampson can be contacted at Sharkpooldean@yahoo.co.uk for anyone interested in his VIPER poker system.
I decided a few days ago to start being active on poker forums again or should I say poker forum. For me there is only one and that is The Hendon Mob site which I was active on for about 2.5 years. Felt really good to be talking to old friends again but anyway enough of that. Recently I have been reading Big Deal by Tony Holden, it is an old classic but I have been reading this book for a reason and that is to do with the fact that it was very motivational if I remember correctly.
Over the past few months I have been multi-tabling Texas Hold’em NL100 ring and doing really well. I have found a niche at this level in full ring but it is really boring me. Pre-2006 UIGEA then the smart players were making hay in six max NLHE and this is where the fish were. The combination of playing more hands per hour vs fish and being able to isolate them with position far better because of shorter player numbers made this game perfect for good NLHE players.
Did I see the good days…..don’t be silly….things never go that easy for me and I was still busting a gut banging my head against a brick wall in limit when the smart players were moving to NLHE. By the time limit became dead and the game was mathematically solved and I was seriously playing NLHE then it was 2008 and the 2006 UIGEA had already taken effect. When you look at how world class cash game players analyse the game and the quality of the analysis and how they assess your ranges then playing six max NL400+ wasn’t a viable option. Full ring regs are weaker in my opinion than six max regs on a level by level basis because weak-tight can be profitable in the right circumstances unlike in full ring. This is why I now focus on multi-tabling NL100 ring on sites like www.pokerstars.co.uk ……..does that answer your question Dan?
I think that over time then you need various back up plans in place as a pro and this is something that I think I have done wrong in the past. In all professional fields then safety margins are written into business plans and models. So if you want to play poker for a living then you need to be good at more than one game in my opinion. I used to think years ago that mastering one game is the way to go.
This is true in terms of making money as quickly as possible but in terms of longevity playing the game over the long term then you absolutely need to have back up plans in place and this means being able to play more than one form of poker for profit. Hopefully The Viper will just be what you are looking for and anyone who is interested can get the first lesson from me completely FREE of charge just by contacting me through the site comments section.
There are two main reasons as to why online Texas Hold Em poker lends itself to systematic play. This is the ability to be able to multi-table against weak opponents or weak opponents in enough quantity and external financial incentives provided by poker sites. Competition is good and the sites crave one thing……that is to get your money before someone else does and to keep your custom for as long as possible. The figures vary year by year on what the average MGR is for your average online poker player but it used to be in the region of $150.
One of the main reasons why many people fail to make money playing online is that they will treat it like a live game. Essentially you need several elements in place to make money online on sites like www.pokerstars.co.uk . The first is to be better than your opponents but this takes some explaining because you can be technically worse and still be +EV. To better explain why this is the case then an example from sports betting is instructive. I bet on sports from time to time and I also make money. But this is despite the betting firms and professional odds compilers knowing more than what I do……so how can this be possible?
Well firstly you need to know how professionals make their money from punters. England in the 2010 were a classic example of what I am saying. Clearly when looking at the facts then England who were 8/1 to win the World Cup were massively lower than what they should have been. This is a combination of betting firms knowing that mugs will still take the 8/1 anyway regardless and them laying off huge sums of patriotic money that has already been lumped on them and lowering their exposure. The end result is that a team that really should be 20/1 minimum is now as little as 8/1.
Clearly then you lay England at 8/1 and reap in the value but my strategy cannot prevent the betting firms from making money because they have done that from all of the mugs who have backed England at a non-value price. If you are selective then you can make money from professional people but you would ultimately lose if you tried to take them on with too many bets. Online poker is exactly like this, you can be on a table with decent players and still be +EV and The Viper is the system that allows you to do that. System based play is perfect for the vast majority of players because they do not have a strong enough way of playing on their own and their opponents are often technically proficient.
Carl “The Dean” Sampson can be contacted through the site for his new Viper system and to get lesson 1 totally FREE then simply drop him a line.
Tournament Texas Hold Em poker players have it easy, it is quite rare that they have to play deep stacked of 100BB or more and especially online where levels are very quick and a 100BB stack is soon only around 20-30BB. This is why many tournament players cannot hack it in cash games and cash games do require a higher skill level for sure. I am not saying that tournament players are weaker because a cash game reg who didn’t have enough gamble would not have the game to win or final table in huge fields, it is just that they are vastly different disciplines.
Mastering how to play a deep stack isn’t easy and this makes NLHE ring games more akin to financial trading than anything else. You can record a very high strike rate of winning trades to losing trades just like you can winning pots to losing pots but if you are only winning tiny amounts but losing huge amounts when you do lose then it becomes very difficult to become a net winner. The post UIGEA environment on sites like www.pokerstars.co.uk in online poker has made it very difficult to make money and in six max then the effect is even more pronounced where very few players are recording significant ptbb/100 figures over large sample sizes anymore.
So what is the answer…..well The Viper short stack professional system is one such answer because if you want to make money online these days then you need to stop “playing poker” in the conventional sense. Playing a short stack in 2011 is far different to how users played a short stack pre-2006 and nearly all still do. It isn’t a simple case of waiting for good cards and shoving and being +EV. Too many people know that just like too many people know the tight-loose style in SNG’s…..they simply don’t work anymore. Playing a short stack these days requires far more and this is where the Viper comes in……it is easy to learn…..easy to use…..easy to replicate over many tables and very difficult to combat for even the best players.
Carl “The Dean” Sampson can be contacted at www.pokersharkpool.com or alternatively take a look at Carl’s latest site which is www.thedeanrakeback.com where you can find the latest news on the best bonuses and rakeback in the online poker world.
Now before I continue, I am not going to say that the majority of the top players who coach are wrong….far from it. But these days then deep stacked play simply isn’t as profitable as it used to be and there are several reasons for that. The implied odds associated with true deep stacked play are nowhere near what they used to be. Many of the deep stacks are regs and this is especially the case in six max where players improved at a faster rate than full ring. But when you factor in the growing number of short stack players and then the number of fish who don’t have a full stack in front of them then it is clearly a problem for deep stacked regs.
I play deep stacked and I have had to change the way that I play hugely over the past six months. Regular followers of mine will know that I have been working on “The Vulture” system since late 2008. It is actually finished but I no longer use it as I no longer believe in it even though I know it can make money below certain levels. My $100-$10,000 challenge has proved that to be the case. These days the lower implied odds meant that I needed a new system to coach and that system has become known as “The Viper”.
Online poker changes and changes constantly and anyone who wishes to contact me regarding being coached in this system can do so by contacting me at Sharkpooldean@yahoo.co.uk in the first instance. It is little use teaching full deep stack poker to people who either will not comprehend it, stop half way through thinking that they know it all or move off in a different direction and change the way that they have been coached. This is a serious problem with complex coaching systems. You do not need to play deep stacked well anymore to make good money.
See Carl at www.thedeanrakeback.com where you can see all of the latest news on online poker bonuses and rakeback and see some of the best deals online. Alternatively check him out on his blog at www.pokersharkpool.com
Down at my local pub, they all know what I do for a living and that is to play poker. But very few of them really understand the game much above the novice level even though as per usual many of them think that they are Phil Ivey (assuming they even know who he is). However because of this they hold me in much higher esteem than is necessary because of one simple fact……a professional player basically makes money doing things that are very far removed from being exciting. They are reticent about inviting me to their poker evenings because they perceive the situation as if I sit down then suddenly……WHOOSH!….every single chip will come my way.
It isn’t going to happen of course because much of the aspect of being a pro is simply game selection and getting as many external financial incentives as you can. This means that being a pro is more within reach than what you think. However to be a deep stacked pro is far more difficult than being a minimum stacked pro but do you know what……the earn rates can be very similar for one simple reason. This is because a minimum stacked player is playing a very simplified version of the game and can thus play more tables. But I will tell you something else, the vast majority of players who play deep stack are not good enough to do so and should be playing minimum stack…….that is FACT number 1…….FACT number 2 is that the overwhelming majority of players who play a minimum stack do not play it anywhere near well enough……this is where the VIPER comes in.
Carl “The Dean” Sampson can be seen at www.thedeanrakeback.com where you can find all of the latest news on online bonuses and rakeback and he can also be seen sharing his wisdom in Poker Pro Europe, Online Poker Pro and Player Ireland poker magazines. You can also join Carl at www.pokerloco.com quoting bonus code DEAN600
I had my best session at NL100 for ages yesterday in online poker and I think it may just be the best ever but I will have to go back through my records to check. I played for three hours and made just over seven buy-ins which ended up at $714! But my style feels powerful now and I think that I have pushed through this stagnating phase. This may just have a profound effect on my online poker challenge because I have gone from 35k to 36k in the blink of an eye.
This leads me to discuss the most important metrics in online poker. You can talk about VPIP/PFR/AF…3-bet percentage and all of the rest of them until the cows come home but they are nothing compared to hours played and dollars won. I see people discuss the merits of theoretically perfect tracker metrics in online poker all the time but you can have great VPIP/PFR/AF figures and if your game selection sucks then you simply are not going to make money in online poker unless you play NL50 and below.
Likewise if you don’t play online poker or you don’t play much poker, it is pretty hard to make money if you don’t play. So clearly then a vital metric is the number of hours that you play but another vital metric is the dollars won figure. I think far too much emphasis is placed on sample sizes. It is true that to have a high confidence level in any earn rate needs a big sample size. But online poker changes constantly and so let us say that you have a sample size of 1 million hands taken over 1 year with an earn rate of 4ptbb/100.
Now clearly over that sample size then 4ptbb/100 will be pretty close to the absolute figure in terms of EV. However this does not alter the fact that you have still only played for one year and the environment may change the following year which means that the 4ptbb/100 figure is no longer valid.
Get the latest news on online poker bonuses and rakeback at Carl’s new site at www.thedeanrakeback.com and why not join Carl at www.pokerloco.com quoting bonus code DEAN600. You can also reach Carl at Sharkpooldean@yahoo.co.uk to register interest in his new VIPER poker system.
Whenever you play online poker then you are in fact entering into a highly complex moving dynamic. You can find someone with a great earn rate over say 1 million hands but if those million hands have been compiled over the space of only one year in online poker then that doesn’t alter the fact that only one year has passed. All this means is that your earn rate has a very high confidence level for that particular year. But environments change and I started playing online poker seriously in 2001 and during that time have had to undergo numerous changes. The biggest one was totally switching poker codes in 2007 from limit to no limit.
The brief excursions into PLO have been nothing more than that but I am not a great PLO player and so my short stacking system has been my mainstay. But it is easy to take your finger off the pulse when you are making money and I have made around $35k so far this year from all sources which mainly means the challenge and PLO. But after taking some good advice lately then it has become painfully clear to me that my earn rate in NL100 is nowhere near what it could or should be.
I do not frequent forums anymore and so my contacts in regards to me playing poker have shrunk somewhat so I have been cocooned when it comes to talking to people. But I am going through a transitional period again and hopefully I can get my earn rate up to $100/hour by early next year. The advice that I have been given is top notch by a strong pro that is unknown in the industry. His earn rate at NL200 exceeds $120/hour and if I was making this sort of money rather than the puny c$35/hour that I am making at the moment then I would maybe have more incentive to play poker.
Go to www.thedeanrakeback.com and find all the latest and best news and reports on the best bonuses and rakeback in online poker along with all of the latest rake races.
Why not join Carl at www.pokerloco.com quoting bonus code DEAN600 for sign up bonuses up to 1000%.
For those of you that were following my posts on my $100-$10,000 challenge then you will be aware that I am taking this onto $100k. I passed $10k almost at the end of 2010 and the current bankroll has just passed $35k…….not bad from $100 but $25k this year is hardly pulling up any trees. But I have had a bit of advice lately in how I have been game selecting at NL100 and I think that this will pay dividends over the next few months. I intend to start playing NL200 by the year end but I have not been concentrating well enough.
Anyway, the regular readers will also be aware that I have been talking about my poker systems for ages now and mainly the Vulture, Jackal and Fox. However I have had problems articulating these systems into print as passing on what I want to say has not been easy. I have basically approached this from a system based aspect. At least 90% of online poker players lose money long term……period! In fact this figure could easily be as high as 95% for all I know lately.
If you are in the 5%-10% then well done or you are kidding yourself! However just like in financial day trading, system based methods of operation are a huge quantum leap forward for any players who either do not have the skill sets to become top poker players or they do not have the time or inclination to learn and master deep stacked play. Poker is complex enough when you play deep stacked that top players often fail to make money any longer. This doesn’t mean that making money is impossible; you just need to approach it from a different angle. The Viper does this and does this very well. If you are interested at all about coming on board and being coached in this system then contact me at Sharkpooldean@yahoo.co.uk
See you soon
Come and get some of the best bonuses and rake deals and other financial incentives anywhere on the internet through me at my new site at www.thedeanrakeback.com along with the latest news regarding online bonuses and rakeback.
You can also join me at www.pokerloco.com quoting bonus code DEAN600 for outstanding sign up bonuses.
You can also read my words and thoughts in Poker Pro Europe magazine, Online Poker Pro magazine and Player Ireland poker magazine.
