LG John

Does the table you play at not have a royal flush bonus? A lot them pay out 250 for that!!! I've NEVER had a royal flush in all my years of playing

Tiggs

gutted...i have been checking the small print.....u need the RF to be made of BOTH your holes.....i only held the A....still, im up $250 on this eve so musnt moan!

LG John

Ah, yeah that is the case at most places. Sort of takes the shine off your hand but its still smart I'm nicely up too and doing ok in a freeroll to the cruise event at the moment

lokokkee

Tiggs, you should build up a USD 10K stake for next year's World Series of Poker Texas No-limit Hold Them Main Event in Las Vegas. Just downloaded and watched this year's series. More than 2 thousand players anted up 10 grand each for a crack at the top prize of USD 5 million. Took them 7 days to get to the last table of 10 players, each of which is assured of at least a USD 1 million pay day. In the final showdown between the last 2 players, they had more than USD 20 million worth of chips in front of them and make an "all in" call. Cool! If you can make the last 100, you at least will get your stake back as prize money.

Tiggs

I have hotel booked in vegas next year already! prob just gonna watch...but you never know!

LG John

I'll be taking part in the WSOP within the next 5 years I hope. I'd like to get the funds together to do it before they put it up to $25k buyin which they will ultimately have to do Because of the exchange rate to play the WSOP is actually pretty cheap for us brits and it would be some experience especially if you wind up at the table with Hellmuth, Ivey, Brunson, Chan, Moneymaker, Ben Aflack, etc.

I can just see me now.....Ben I raise your blind, its 10k to go. By the way, its j-low good from the back up the botty?

lokokkee

Tiggs, I don't think booking a hotel in Vegas will get you in to watch the WSOP. They can't even accomodate all the players at one go and they have to be staggered. And then, you don't get to see the hole cards of the players as in TV, which is where the fun is, seeing how players bluff or go all-in with unplayable hands.
Saxoboy, I understand you can play the qualifiers on the Net as well, so you don't really need to save up the 10K buyin to play. In the good old days, they had live satellite games where anyone with a hundred bucks can turn it into a 10K stake for the real thing. But now every poker playr in the world can take part and this year's winner is an internet qualifer, so you have hope yet.

LG John

Yeah Ladbrokes do loads of satellites and super-satellites into the WSOP and I played a few last year but I think I'll hit the really hard this year. I'm just assuming that one day I'll have to stump up the hard currency to take part myself

dharbige

It sounds like Saxo Boy is more of a risk-taker than Tiggs

You went all in on 3 7's when there was a flush draw?
And you bet £50 on 3 Q's, when there was also a flush draw?

Is that correct? Or am I missing something? Sounds like a great way to lose in the long run. But what do I know? I've only been playing a few weeks!!

So, Tiggs, just out of interest, whats the worst hand you would call the blinds on pre-flop? On what sort of thing would you raise on?

Tiggs

assuming its a proper table with at least $2 blinds (if its cheap i would mucj about and call any old crap) i would only raise AA AK KK.

i would call AA AK KK QQ JJ suited AQ AJ QJ Ax

if i was small blind i would consider calling 10 10 99

they are my "fixed" rules....depending on the play i may call other stuff, if im on the button and evryone has folded i may call the big blinds witha worse hand...or even raise them if they are playing like ****** to steal the blinds.

Once in if i dont hit what i need on the flop and i get raised i tend to bail.....only exception is if im waiting on a flush and i hold the A high.

i only see 15-25% of flops......but i win far more than i loose!

i tend to stick to 10 player tables to keep the blinds off my back as well.

as an example, i played a bit loose last night and lost £160 in my first hour on a 1/2 table!

took me 3hrs this morning to claw that back sticking to my "rules".

Tiggs

just to add, i wouldnt even check 77 ,

dharbige

So for 1 in 6 hands, you get dealt the above starting cards? No wonder you win so much!!!!

LG John

Than Tiggs yes, but as a poker player definately not. I'm tight/aggressive which is the most common winning style at poker and most of my poker friends are far looser and more risky than me (but still successful I might add)

With all due respect to Tiggs he isn't really playing 'poker' whereby you are playing the pot, the pot odds, the cards and MOST importantly the people. He is playing a 'system' by his own admission and that system is based largely on the maths/probability only. Clearly it works and applying it over 3 tables at once he makes good money. The reason for this is primarily the speed that the game he plays is played at. Assuming £0.50/1 with a max buyin of £100 and 10 hands per £1.50 in blinds tiggs can sit and see a hell of a lot of cards before he's concerned about the damage blinds are doing to his stack.

The most critical reason for Tiggs success though is how totally unobservant his opponents are. Put me at a table with Tiggs (10 seater) and I'd be confident I'd take more money off him than he would me*. The simple reason is that I'd quickly see his 'game' and adapt to take advantage of it. I sure as hell wouldn't be betting into him or raising unless I had a bloody good hand. However, this is because I'm far better and more observant than the majority and for that reason tiggs can sit and wait and when he strikes someone somewhere will be too stupid to realise how he is playing and pay him off.

I must stress that I am not in anyway knocking Tiggs as a player - to have realised that he can play this way and make money is commendable in itself and also the only way he could make money with that style is being very tight and very aggressive which are brilliant poker qualities. However, I suspect he knows himself that if he sat at a table of 10 very good players he'd not get enough of the cards he needs to win playing that way and would have to adapt

*This assums Tiggs sticks to his system. I suspect he'd be good enough to realise that I was on to his game and was playing him and then be good enough to adapt to that and try to throw me - this is what good players do, they dual with each other and switch gears all the time!

I also assume that Tiggs does not bluff much (again another massive part of poker). By bluffing I don't mean betting at a missed flop to represent a hand I mean calling someone and getting a feel for their hand and then taking them off it at the turn or river - this again is something he doesn't have to worry about too much just playing a simple high starting hand strategy.

My play is based a lot more on implied odds. Take my first 77 hand:

First to act raises to £5 (its a .50/1 table), gets about 3 callers and I look down at 77. The pot is about £20 and I have £5 to pay if I want to be involved. I'm getting 4:1 on my money. There is no way in hell my 7s are good 4 way on their own so I must spike a 7 on the flop to play the hand. I'm about 8:1 against to hit my 7 so by calling that pot I'd be making a poor mathematical decision. However, I know from the original raisers and some of the other people in the pots play that if I hit my 7 they are still going to be involved in the pot and pay me off. This is implied odds - in otherwords, whilst I don't have the odds to call now I know that if I hit I'll make enough to justify that original call.

The flop came 7,10,5 so I hit my set. Someone might have 10s and have hit a set of 10s but as Doyle Brunson says in his book (best poker book ever!), 'if someone hits a bigger set than mines then they are welcome to all my chips' This situation doesn't come up enough to be a concern to your profits. Given the original raise I'm not worried about there being a 6,8 or 6,4 (which would give someone an open ended straight draw) so I checked knowing the original raiser would follow up and bet and push any weak draws out. He bet and got a caller and then I called. I'm now sure at least one of the other two is on a high overpair (AA,KK,etc) so I'm happy for him to bet into me because with just one card to come and only 2 cards in the deck to save him he's a big dog. The turn is a queen and puts two spades on the board. I check again, confident he'll bet and he does (£20) and the other guy calls too. Now I have to speed up as someone might back into a flush so I re-raise allin. At his point if they were both good disaplined players they would have folded and I'd have still made enough money from the pot to more than justify my pre-flop call. They both suck and both call paying me off big time. I assume one of them might have been on a flush draw but he was getting about 2:1 on his money with a 4:1 against draw, I'm glad he called as he vastly increased my profits from that hand!

I hope this shows how it can appear that I'm playing a little crazy but that every hand is played correctly and carefully and I'm not 'gambling' in the traditional sense. I'm applying edges that favour me. Had the flop comes without a 7 I'm out the hand under nearly all circumstances!

Personally however, I like to play drawing hands in cash games like J10s and suited connectors. The simple reason is that often other players don't bet enough to take you off the draw and give you the odds to call, when they do that its basically simple maths as to whether you call or not. Playing AA is far harder because if 2 people call your raise and the flop is 7,4,9 with no flush draws you absolutely have to bet it. What do you do if you get called? If you check you might give them a free card and let them complete their draw for nothing. If you bet or go allin then you are giving massive implied odds to the guy that just turned a set with his 7s

I play a lot tighter in tournaments though where you have a fixed amount of chips and if they are gone then your are out. I'm much more like Tiggs in a tournament, possibly even tighter!

Phew, it was a long one

Tiggs

jesus.....thats a fcukin book!


my system is only used for online poker playing tables with blinds between .5 and $4........play off line or at a more expensive table and i "play poker" as opposed to "doing maths"

there are enough morrons on the online sites to make plenty just playin the maths though.

its also near impossible to make mcuh money (all the time) playing 3 tables with a proper poker game...you cant study the game enough. my system rarley wins big but does win a little regular (x 3)

T

ps- i tend to avoid mid priced tables as there are to big a mix of proper players and idiots....if i want a proper game i will play on a table with $10 blinds at least

LG John

Figured as much I knew that to be able to play that system you'd also have to know how to play 'proper poker' too

Do you have a process of table selection to try and ensure you'll get a good bag of fairly poor players? % seeing flop, average pot, etc?

dharbige

Great post. Very informative.

I'd still like to know how Tiggs gets more than his fair share of faces and aces though...

fitzscoob

where are you fellas playing? at the moment im stuck on william hill, playing ring games and tournaments, william hill is pretty tight, my brothers playing on victory poker at the moment making a mint, takes home about £800 ish per month now. Mind you the amount of hours hes playing he should do.

Warwick-hunt

do they have a demo account just to try it?

LG John

I suspect he'll see a little more flops with a little weaker cards than he thinks J10s on the button with no raises! How can you not have a look

I play WilliamHill mainly at the moment and Ladbrokes. The problem with online poker for us Brits at the moment is that the exchange rate is so poor that $$$s are hardly worth the effort and there are not many £££ sites.

dharbige

What's your nickname at Ladbrokes? Just so I can avoid you? :P

Tiggs

your right ....i do see more than just the hands i listed.........BUT! my rule is not to, in order to break i rule i need good reason, and a reasonable hand on the button may be enough......but with rules i always have a fall back.....if i am getting some bad beats i just revert to rules and sit tight. when you play multi tables you have to have some plan otherwise you will get loose a lot very fast!


as for table picking, i always pick a table full of yanks....as i play 3 at once i will just pick the 3 busy ones, soon as it drops to 6/7 players i'll dump that table and go find a full one. My system doesnt work to well with low players because the blinds come to fast and i cant play 3 tables at once at that speed.

LG John

My name on Ladbrokes is 'Acevader' and the force is strong On Willyhill its 'Throat' cause given half a chance I'm going to cut yours

Tiggs you seem to place a fair bit of importance on playing the 'yanks'? Poker is much bigger in the US than the rest of the world so I'd have thought the US poker playing population would be better educated in general?!

Tiggs

the yanks play like babies! they are not very agressive and normally drunk

check out my last 53 minutes, thought id have a few hands before bed. It was a $1/3 10 player table with limit bets of $3/6.....i was dealt 98 cards, i saw 18 flops and won 13 of them!

T wins $55.50 with flush, ace high.
T wins $41 with two pair, kings and queens.
T wins $7.
T wins $6 with queen high.
T wins $44 with a pair of aces.
T wins $40 with full house, nines full of sixes.
T wins $7.
T wins $7.
T wins $12.50 with a pair of deuces.
T wins $7.
T wins $21.
T wins $12.50 with a pair of sevens.
T wins $78 with a pair of kings.


Total $337 (less blinds and folded calls…not many of those!)


GOD BLESS AMERICA


T

ps. T is not my ID, i removed my player tag.......in case i bump into you

speedcrazy

If anyone is interested i have a few gaming sites that i use or have used in the past, they have poker, slots and also bingo games, I also have the addy of a casino site that i have used once or twice, good deposit bonuses on all and it is in U.S dollars.

PM me if anyone is interested and i will give you addy's

LG John

Thats not bad Tiggs but try my day on for size

I raise JJ UTG to £3 in a £.50/1 NL ring game. Lots of callers and then the BB makes it £10 to go. I know he's ahead but also know that if I hit a set he isn't going to let his big pair go so the implied odds are there. I call as does another. I hit a set on the flop and both their stacks go in

I then limp with J10o and flop the nut-straight when someone else hits AK, 2 pair. I take his stack too. I then get AA and take another pot before hitting the nut-flush a few hands later on the turn and selling that hand.

In total I put in a 45 minute shift this afternoon and made £320 profit I then made the final table at the casino tonight and profited £20 by getting the small £50 prize. All in all a good poker day for us both

Tiggs

"I raise JJ UTG to £3 in a £.50/1 NL ring game. Lots of callers and then the BB makes it £10 to go"

brave call, you have to assume one of them has AA KK or Ak which puts them way ahead of JJ preflop....i'd have folded......in fact, i wouldnt have raised UTG.

Luckily for me, there are lots of ppl that play like you with no idea what they are doing! (i mean they have no idea but play risks...not you have no idea!)

if i'd been the BB on your game with AA i'd have called your $3 only. he also has to assume that your initial raise is eaither Ax suited or AA,KK,QQ......a pair of anything is not a stunning hand and i'd want to see the flop before chucking more in.

as you can see from my stats....i had a pretty risk free session....not once did i worry that i was going to loose much or take a risk.

i dont normaly play limit tables but found this really works, the prob with NL on cheaper online tables is the money doesnt mean much to some people and they chuck it aout in a way they NEVER would in a real casino. I played a .5/1 cash game on sat where someone stole the blinds 3 times IN A ROW by chucking $70 in before the flop. Even with AA i wouldnt want to risk $70 on a lottery.....ruins the game in many ways.

LG John

It wasn't really a brave call it was just a mathematical one. I knew without doubt that he had AA or KK with that re-raise and I knew he would not let them go if I flopped my set. Therefore, approximatly 7 times in 8 he gains £10 from me but that 1 time I hit my set I'll take over £100 from him therefore if I make that same play over and over I'll profit from the hand

I usually limp from most positions with JJ but I had been quiet and decided it was time to switch gears. The raise of 3bb was good because its not risking much put should push out total garbage hands meaning that if the flop is not overcards and nothing scary a pot sized bet should usually take it down and any callers have me beat (usually) so I can check fold it.

You absolutely cannot chuck AA head up preflop for any amount of money! My online bankroll is not money that I actually need (not to say I wouldn't be gutted if I lost it) but if someone challenged every penny of it and I had AA I would call. Mathematically I just have to call and if I take a bad beat then I can slowly build it back up. More often than not though I'll double it up You have to play those edges.

Tiggs

"You absolutely cannot chuck AA head up preflop for any amount of money! "

lol....yes you can!

my poker is 2nd income, my bank roll is my business, if someone said to you "i bet you your job that i can hit heads 3 coin tosses in a row".....would you gamble!

LG John

Doyle Brunson's Superstyem: A course in Power Poker - page 512

I feel Doyle has a bit point although accept that he's maybe a little over willing to gamble. The job example is poor as I hate my job and would rest it on a coin-flip whether I gained or not

However, my bankroll is a 2nd source of income also and is valueable to me but losing it wouldn't mean that I couldn't eat or pay the bills and I wouldn't die so yes I would risk it all on AA heads up against ANY other hand. As long as I make that exact same mathematical decision for the rest of my life I WILL win in the long run. This is the very reason casino's exist and don't go bust. A roulette table has an edge of just a few % yet every casino in the world has one and that edge will always make them money. AA has a FAR greater edge than a few % over all other hands.

If you take the 10-1 example then no I wouldn't risk it because 50% of the time I'm homeless. However, I have recently nurtured my new Willhill roll up to £1000. If you gave me 10-1 on a 50:50 on that I wouldn't think twice. 50% of the time I have to build it slowly back up again through skilled poker. The other 50% of the time I turn it into £10k. That is a total no-brainer and I'd do it everytime. I'd even take it on 3 times in a row (cumulative) whereby 87.5% of the time I lose my grand but 12.5% I gain £1m. How on earth could you pass up that chance?!

The only time you chuck AA heads up is perhaps in tournament poker under extreme circumstances or more usually a satellite with x amount of places and you know your stack will last the blinds to carry you through and are folding EVERY hand. In NL cash games you are vastly reducing your expected value (EV) by chucking AA heads up. Its would be a horrible leak in your game and I doubt a professional poker play in the world would support your view. If your poker money is vital to feeding your family then yes, maybe. But if that is the case tiggs I seriously urge you to reconsider if playing poker under such pressure is a good idea

Tiggs

maybe....but i dont need to play AA against allins preflop to make a living from this. my system returns consistent results every day. i rarely win more tha £2-300 a day but i rarley differ from this. If i wanted to earn £50k+ from poker i would play at higher tables or go offline...i woldnt change my style against low blind tables.

Doyle is a bad example as he is a nut that would gamble on anything!