Monthly Archives: September 2010

PokerStars Milestone Hands Observers

If you’re a cash game player over at PokerStars you’ve likely come across their “milestone hands” promotion which is part of their main 50 billion hands milestone promotion. Basically for every millionth hand dealt, PokerStars are selecting a table and for each player with cards at that table they will win a cash prize (with the winner of the pot having their prize doubled).

Quite a nice promotion and one that’s bound to increase cash game participation particularly when PokerStars have a countdown of hands played in the lobby and even display a popup during existing games (such as tourneys that aren’t even applicable to the promo) when a millionth hand is nearly there. No doubt punters are rushing to multi table cash games when a milestone hand is imminent in the hope that their table is the lucky one. The part that struck me about this milestone hand promotion though is not the players that are in the hand but the players that aren’t.

Let me explain. When a table is selected as being a milestone hand table it is publicised in the PokerStars lobby and the hand is paused for a minute or two until a moderator explains how things work, etc. This is the time when the vultures start to circle. Due to the fact that everyone logged into PokerStars knows which table is the milestone table literally a couple of hundred observers descend onto that table waiting in the wings. Now some of the observers might be bloody stupid enough to think that they can sneak onto the table somehow and grab some of the spoils, but most of them are there to basically offer their critique, ahem, on how the players played the hand. In other words post a stream of vitriolic abuse at how the players should have done this and that – not folded, etc.

What makes me laugh about this situation is that there seems to be a band of milestone hand observer “groupies”. Basically people that are just constantly following milestone hands around so they can wait until the hand has been played to add in their pathetic comments and abuse the players on the table. This can go on for hours. A whole sub culture of the same observers who bring up stories of bad plays (in their opinion) from hands played several hours ago. Nothing to do with jealousy of course, I’m sure they just want to share their knowledge with the other players. However, based on the level of grammar, wit, articulation and knowledge displayed by the observers sending in comments I wouldn’t trust them to sit the right way round on a toilet seat let alone offer poker schooling. A radical idea for these “observers” may be for them to actually play poker themselves, rather than spending hours abusing the play of others.

Drive the Dream Fiasco at PartyPoker

Out of interest I decided to play in one of the freerolls at PartyPoker that was geared towards the Drive the Dream promotion just to see what level the folks were playing at. What a mistake that was! Read on for details on why I believe PartyPoker is one of the worst online poker rooms around at the moment.

Basically PartyPoker ran 2 or 3 qualifiers in order to get through to the final $15,000 Guaranteed Drive the Dream Final Satellite that was to be played on 12th September. Anyway, I played in one of the freerolls which was so soft that I qualified for the 12th September 2010 tourney straightaway. Fair enough I thought, I might check out the action on 12th September as there are a couple of places on offer for the Drive a Dream Final in London. So I was sat in front of my laptop on 12th September at 14:00ET ready for the off along with 800 odd other players. The tourney kicked off at the scheduled time and we got about 2 hands in and that where things started to go wrong… After 2 hands were played our table was “paused” for a few minutes, this pattern then carried on for about 10 minutes after which we were then placed on a paused status for much longer. 5 minutes passed, then 10, the 20, then 30, during which time the other participants were getting restless and one even commented that is was a regular occurrence for PartyPoker to mess up monthly finals. I waited (foolishly) for 30 minutes on hold after which time I gave up and emailed PartyPoker support.

I won’t go into details with regards to the level of support offered by PartyPoker suffice to say that they couldn’t find me on their systems, and only accepted I was a player once I provided a screenshot. It went even further downhill from there. Additional attempts at resolution were even less satisfactory from the hapless support staff there.

So essentially, I am none the wiser as to why the tourney didn’t progress and there is no opportunity to re-play that I can see. The PartyPoker support staff are worse than useless and there has been no official communication to players that were due to play in the tourney so I guess that’s it! Serves you right for playing in a freeroll I hear you say. Fair comment. I won’t be doing it again, certainly not at PartyPoker.

How to Increase a Small Poker Bankroll for Beginners

If you are starting out with a small bankroll you will want to try to maximise your chances of increasing your bankroll with the least risk possible. The difficulty comes in finding the most efficient way to build your bankroll. Different folks advocate different methods and of course your particular playing style with dictate which works best for you. I’ll let you into a little tip if you are starting out, have a reasonably solid game and you play at PokerStars. Go look for the Sunday Quarter Million $2.20 cash satellites (avoid the 6 seat tourneys and go for the set time tourney). You can find them by logging into your PokerStars account and clicking the following tabs – Tourney –> Satellite –> Cash

A Little Background into What You Will Be Playing

When you sign up to one of these $2.20 satellites you’ll be playing for entry into the popular Sunday Quarter Million tournament which has a standard $11 entry. Now you can play one of these satellites and actually play in the Sunday Quarter Million along with the other 40,000 hopefuls or you can do the smart thing and win entry to the tournament via the satellite and cash the price of the $11 ticket back to your PokerStars balance for a rainy day. Rinse and repeat. I advocate that you opt for the Sunday Quarter Million $2.20 satellite that has a fixed start time as opposed to the fixed 36 entrants. If you go for the fixed start time you will be playing against anywhere from 70-130 players and you will have an average a 1 in 5.5 ratio of getting in the money. These tournaments are no-rebuy and no-addon tourneys that have an extended 10 minute registration time. Do yourself a favour and sign up towards the end of the late registration period (just before the entry closes), that way you will have already lost between 5-10 players and the average stack will only be 50-100 more than what you will start with. In fact when you start, your position will inevitably be halfway through the (already reduced) field.

Sunday Quarter Million $2.20 Satellite Strategy

If you’ve taken the late entry route you’ll probably be playing against 90 or so players depending on the time of day you have decided to play and your ratio of getting to the money will be around 1 in 4. These are very good odds considering the weakness of the field and the small initial $2.20 outlay. The good news is that these particular satellites are extremely easy to dominate. Alternate between a TAG (tight aggressive) and a LAG (loose aggressive) style and you shouldn’t have any problems making the paid places in this satellite. After about 1.5 hours when the blinds start to get steep and the antes kick in, the other players will inevitably start the risky plays so if you have a healthy stack you can sit back and watch the carnage. If you’re mid placed you will still need to play aggressively where appropriate as the blinds will swallow you up. If you’re shortstacked deep into the tourney, you know that other shortstacked players are going to be making misjudged steals at some point so stay alert and hold your nerve. Go after players that appear to be stealing in late position by making big raises to shake them off the pot. Typically these satellites last around 2 hours, so you will be getting an $11 return from your $2.20 entry. Clearly this method for increasing bankroll isn’t for everybody as we are taking very small change here, but if you are starting out and have a small bankroll to begin with you could very easily play 4 or 5 of these daily and win through at least 4 times making you $44 to add to your bankroll. Do this for the whole month and you’ll make over $1,300.