Going where the fishes are ...

One of the aims of an online poker player is to find ways on how he can improve his game. He will usually read books about poker strategies. He will study hand histories and use various software to analyze his game. He will discuss hands with fellow poker players for advise and validation.

All these things he does just so he can play better and earn more money.

But there is usually one overlooked aspect that a player can do to improve his online earnings significantly. And this is simply to go where the fishes are.

I am not talking about choosing the correct tables, although this is also proven effective. But more on choosing the correct site.

Simply put, there are sites where the game is easier. Much, much Easier. Now the reason behind this is quite obvious. The pros or the pro wannabees would usually choose sites where they can multi-table so they can maximize their profits per hour. They would by logic, gravitate to the more popular sites like Pokerstars, FTP, Party and the like where anytime of the day, a table of their choosing can be found.

The smaller sites are not too interesting because it takes forever to fill up a table, much less talk about multi-tabling. But for the beginner poker player who only plays one table anyway, it doesn't really matter. You are doing yourself a great disservice if you insist on playing on the more popular sites. You're like a guppy who is suddenly thrown into a raging river filled with piranhas, you may evade them for a while, but you will eventually get shred into pieces.

Wouldn't you like to be thrown into a nice, quiet, placid lake with fellow guppies where you can swim calmly to your heart's content.

I know the metaphor's not too good. But I'm sure you get my point. You may say that you only play in the low limits anyway and the players there are not too good. That may be true. But in the fishy sites, even the players in the higher limits are not good.

And I am not talking about finding a random fly-by-night site where your online bankroll is at risk. But more on choosing the less popular, but steady sites like Carbon or Cake where there is a regular stream of players.

The advantage is not only in the lower skill level but also the quantity of people in the guaranteed tournaments. Which would you rather play ? A tournament with a guaranteed $1M but you have to compete against 8,000 other players. Or something with a 50K guaranteed but there's only 200 of you playing. The rakeback is pretty much the same and sometimes even higher because the less popular sites need to attract more players.

I am not claiming this from my personal experience alone. It is a fact that given the same number of games played, you will earn more money in the fishy sites. It is just logical dictated by the harsh truth that you are playing against less experienced players.

You might say that your skill set will not improve if you constantly play against fishes. But let us not kid ourselves. Your primary objective in playing poker is to earn money. Fuck personal improvement. =)

So the next time you lose your bankroll for the upteenth time in Full Tilt or Pokerstars. And you are thinking of quitting poker once and for all. Do yourself a favor and try out one of the smaller sites. You just might surprise yourself and discover that earning steady money playing poker is not so hard after all.

Turning Points into Dollars

The other night, I happened to check my FTP points and I saw that I had around 5,000+ pts accumulated. Every game you play earns you a couple of FTP points and some might think that these points are no use since FTP doesn't really ship any of their items to the Philippines.

But there are actually ways to roll the dice with these points and get some dollars in return.

For an SNG player, the best way in my opinion to try and turn these points around is to play the 1,800 FTP points 9 man turbo SNG where top three get a $24+2 token. You can then use this token to enter an STT or MTT depending on your preference.

This was what I tried to do. I had about 5,200+ pts, so I was still missing around 200 pts to make it 5,400 which would allow me to play 3 sets. So first I played a 50 pts turbo SNG to the Daily Dollar tournament. The guys who usually play these are totally crappy since they're basically scraping the bottom of their bankrolls. Top 2 get the dollar or 200 pts. I had no intention of playing the dollar donkament. I just wanted the quick 200 pts. As I said, easy win, just wait around for the premium hands and suck somebody in.

So now I had 5,400+ pts and it was time to play the 1,800 FTP points SNG. To make a long story short. I managed to get 2 tokens for the 3 games that I played.

So now, the 5,400 pts has been converted to two $24+2 tokens or $52 imaginary dollars. But its still just tokens at this point. You now need to convert it to real dollars.

I now used one of the tokens and entered a 45 man SNG where top 6 was paid. You could also enter just a 9 man SNG or even a guaranteed MTT. There are many tourneys being offered round the clock where the token can be used. But it was already getting late and I wanted one that finished in around 2 hours.

Well as luck would have it. I finished 3rd in the 45 man for a cool $170.

Heheh... so 5,400 pts turns into $52 which now turned into $170. And I still had the spare token left.

The purpose of this post was not really to brag about the win. Well OK, maybe just a little. I mostly wanted to get the point across to beginner players and maybe even experienced players to not underestimate the value of the pts that you accumulate.

One lucky streak and you do get a good return for these seemingly useless points. =)