If Carlsberg did dull poker blogs, they'd do this one

[monkeyman]

Hi Simon, not been able to spend much time on BF with you so far but just interested to know if you"re doing ok. My bankroll up to over $400 so far and taken out more than my original investment so i"m doing ok for now. What u think of it?

So far this year I"ve played full table NL hold"em cash games on Betfair,Blue Square,Ladbrokes,Sky and Full Tilt. I"ve not played sufficient time on Full Tilt to draw any firm conclusions, but I"m unlikely to spend too much time there as it seems to make sense to spend time on sites which exclude US players. I"m not a huge fan of Sky as despite the competition being ultra-soft,as the games move way too slowly for my liking. Ladbrokes is OK as they seem to have reasonable numbers of players and there are plenty of Lemmings on there prepared to shove their chips in with marginal hands. I love playing cash games on Betfair as there seems to be plenty of players with only the haziest of ideas of the value of their hands. However, BF doesn"t seem to have much traffic and that is a problem. I"ve been playing with two full tables running simultaneously and BF frequently seems to only have one full table running at each level. I"ve probably spent more time on Blue Square than anywhere,simply because the volume of traffic guarantees the availability of action and if you scan through the operational tables, there"s generally a couple which appear to be much weaker than the others.  

[Mikeyboy9361]

How can you tell which are the weak tables just by scanning through them?

[Santino67]

I"m still concentrating on 1 25c/50c 9 seater table at moment (or /20c occasionally) and at certain times it can be a bit slow. Have tried 2 tables but so far it"s making my head hurt   Can"t multi task. I"ve also given up on Sky and used to also play William Hill but only use that now for footie coupons.

Still can"t reg on BSq, have issues with making withdrawals on the 2 bank cards I have but hope Des can recify this soon. Hope to be at same table again soon mate.

Cheers
Grant

[monkeyman]

How can you tell which are the weak tables just by scanning through them?

If I see a table where the stack size for most of the players is well under the maximum buy in for that level, I regard it as weak. Players who buy in for under the max and/or don"t rebuy chips whilst at the table tend to be weaker than those who ensure they are using as big a stack as possible.

[Mikeyboy9361]

Oh Okay, something I do is. I check the average pot size, and if it is fairly low buy into that one cos I feel I can be aggressive and bully people off pots, don"t actually know whether it works though!! And also on BSQ at say /20c the movement on the tables is so frequent that after one hour, you are lucky if the starting 6 are still there!

[Santino67]

I often deliberately go in to the 25c/50c table with strange figures of somewhere around 2/3 max buy in to make people think i"m weak. Will always be around the $35 plus i"ll add a strange number of cents on the end. Not sure ifit works but I"m in profit not fixing it if it"s not broken.

The average pot thing can also be deceiving as it could also mean there"s already a bully at the table meaning no one is taking them on and therefore the pots are small.

On BF I think the best approach is too click on the individuals icon and keep notes on them. That way you can combineall the info to make decisions you need to make.

[monkeyman]

I often deliberately go in to the 25c/50c table with strange figures of somewhere around 2/3 max buy in to make people think i"m weak. Will always be around the $35 plus i"ll add a strange number of cents on the end. Not sure ifit works but I"m in profit not fixing it if it"s not broken.

The average pot thing can also be deceiving as it could also mean there"s already a bully at the table meaning no one is taking them on and therefore the pots are small.

On BF I think the best approach is too click on the individuals icon and keep notes on them. That way you can combineall the info to make decisions you need to make.

Can"t pretend I understand the thinking behind this. Surely its best to have as much as possible in your stack in case you"ve got a monster and someone is betting into you? Doesn"t having less than the max mean you"re not getting the most out of your best hands?

[Swinebag]

I agree with you here Simon
I understand Grants thinking though that these players, who sit down with say $36.21 at a $50 NL table, are generally thought to be playing with the last of their bankroll and are therefore v weak. If this isn"t the case then you are giving people false info.

However I think this the reason you win at cash table"s, Grant, is probably more down to good solid play on your part rather than other players interpretation of your buy in amount.

I"d take simons advice and buy in for the max. If you play the same way it will improve your bottom line in the long run

[monkeyman]

Just finished playing my first MTT of the year, namely the UK online championship event and finished 15th. Looks like I"d better start clearing a space for that trophy I"m going to pick up in Walsall..........................  

[monkeyman]

The more observant amongst you will have noticed that I have altered the name of this blog. Unless I receive any objections from Des and his hearty band of merry men (and women, sorry xxMairxx), the name new name will stay.
  The thinking behind the change comes from increasing confidence in my play. Whilst most of this blog is not intended to be particularly serious (no kidding), I feel that describing myself as a fish, if only in jest, lowers my expectations and therefore can only have a negative effect on my play. As I finished 10th in the season two rankings, won a tourney in the pre-season mini series and was 15th in last night"s online national, the "fish" tag isn"t appropriate any longer.
  I considered a couple of possible new titles but felt that "National champ sometime soon" was just too damn cocky and "Come on then yer b******s, I"ll take you all on" too aggressive. "Am I a fish? No I am not" is more succint and does what it says on the tin. At Walsall, for the first time I will not be turning up for the experience or because I want a weekend away, I"m going because I think I"ve got as good a chance as anyone of winning the thing.
 Feel free to try and shoot me down in flames.      

[duke3016]

Personally I think you have every chance in Walsall, keep it going. Me ? I"ll be at the bar as usual after the first hour

[Santino67]

I agree with you here Simon
I understand Grants thinking though that these players, who sit down with say $36.21 at a $50 NL table, are generally thought to be playing with the last of their bankroll and are therefore v weak. If this isn"t the case then you are giving people false info.

However I think this the reason you win at cash table"s, Grant, is probably more down to good solid play on your part rather than other players interpretation of your buy in amount.

I"d take simons advice and buy in for the max. If you play the same way it will improve your bottom line in the long run

Rob & Simon, I appreciate your advice & your thoughts on this   so will try it out and see how it goes. I understand thinking behind the full buy-in, makes so much sense but so far on the 25c/50c table I"ve had huge hands made 3/4 pot and full pot bets on flop and turn and had callers who hit bigger on the river. I"d hate to lose a full buy in then have to reload a full buy-in when this happens but the whole risk/reward factor means it"s worth going for it then assess in a week or so.

Cheers again

[monkeyman]

I agree with you here Simon
I understand Grants thinking though that these players, who sit down with say $36.21 at a $50 NL table, are generally thought to be playing with the last of their bankroll and are therefore v weak. If this isn"t the case then you are giving people false info.

However I think this the reason you win at cash table"s, Grant, is probably more down to good solid play on your part rather than other players interpretation of your buy in amount.

I"d take simons advice and buy in for the max. If you play the same way it will improve your bottom line in the long run

Rob & Simon, I appreciate your advice & your thoughts on this   so will try it out and see how it goes. I understand thinking behind the full buy-in, makes so much sense but so far on the 25c/50c table I"ve had huge hands made 3/4 pot and full pot bets on flop and turn and had callers who hit bigger on the river. I"d hate to lose a full buy in then have to reload a full buy-in when this happens but the whole risk/reward factor means it"s worth going for it then assess in a week or so.

Cheers again

Fair comment Grant. I would certainly recommend going for the full buyin/continual rebuy option for the following reasons:

1) Betfair, much more so than any other site I"ve seen so far, is full of very weak players who will call any bet on the off chance they hit something. Therefore you want to have as many chips as possible to punish them with
2) You should only play at a level where you"re happy to push your entire buy in into the middle if you think you"re ahead. If you"re not, then there"s no disgrace in dropping down a level. Cash play isn"t about machismo and proving to others  how high you fly, its about bottom line - how much profit can you make and you won"t maximise profits if there"s an element of doubt in your mind.      

Having said that you"re clearly doing something right, looking at the bankroll increase you mentioned. Just don"t scare all the fish away from Betfair before I"ve had a chance to lay waste to them!

[monkeyman]

Oh b****r! How did that reply above appear entirely in quotations? Technology, pah!
 Since I have an aversion to working five day weeks (you would too if you worked in a call centre), I"ve managed to get today off as once again I"m going horse racing at Fakenham. Since the Co-op doesn"t open its doors to allow me to purchase a Racing Post until 9.00, I spent a few minutes reviewing my Blue Square account. When looking at the "Cash table history" I was initially a little perturned as there seemed to be slightly more losing sessions than winning ones. However, most of the losses were very small ones, some of the wins were substantial and in total, since the beginning of January, I"ve played 1451 hands to give an increase on my original investment of 320%. The "tournament history" tab goes back to 22/11/08 and only shows five MTTs. However, in this sample, there is a victory, saturday night"s 15/236 in the online UK championships and two final table bubbles which  gives me an increase in money staked of about 277% . Brothers and sisters I have looked into the future and its looking rosy. Yee haaaaaaaa

[monkeyman]

I"ve just got home from another unsuccessful day"s punting at Fakenham, my tea is cooking and I"ve got a long evening of cash grinding ahead. However, tomorrow night is the second lesson of my writing course and for homework the tutor has requested my classmates and I write a few lines of poetry. So far I"ve written the first line, "There was a young lady from Ealing". I"m not sure what I can come up with to follow that.............