Here’s What He Covers:

Full Tilt Poker news is covered. Daniel has a couple of sources who are offering conflicting views as to whether American players are likely to receive compensation as part of any resolution. Daniel stressed it’s important this money does come back into the poker economy as so much is tied up and that both sources seem to suggest some progress is being made.

Daniel’s Two Plus Two Ban for posting a link to a random forum he sometimes is involved in is ridiculed by Daniel as he clearly says I don’t bother reading minute TOS and has been a good member of the forums for ten years. He feels like they are just ridiculous how they treat their members like children. To be honest everyone thinks pretty much the same as him, that it’s an overzealously moderated forum where their profits are all that matters. What’s totally ridiculous about the whole situation is that 2+2 pretend to treat famous players the same way as regular members despite:

• The BanHammer phoning Mason Malmouth at 2am to confirm the decision
• Reducing the ban to one day from three days
• Doing a full review of Daniel’s financial affiliation with the link he posted.

Another hilarious point was that every week someone posts his video blog link. He wanted to take the time to discuss this with the community and post the thread himself so he could talk to their members. Instead of seeing this as fine he gets the BanHammer. Time to move to Daniel’s new forum Full Contact Poker or even Cardschat as basically TwoPlusTwo can’t be trusted to treat even celebrity players well and apologise why should any of us expect to be treated fairly there.

He covers off the i-Series betting and throws out some tips. He pushes 10/1 on himself as the strong bet in the tournament believing that his aggression will give him a good shot. It’s in Ireland April 2nd – 10th and he’s looking forward to a tasty Guiness (of course!).

The thing I love the most about this Michael guy is that like most donkeys… he believes that it’s some minor flaws that lead him to not be a winner. He blames bankroll management yet talks like a racing addict or a roulette degenerate when he describes the rush and his desire to play more poker. HIs words went something along the lines that he’d describe himself as a good player who can’t manage his money.

Somehow that story goes on to an explanation as to how poker drove him to be a theif and a total degenerate instead of completing his college degree. It just goes to show how people want to play and to win so badly despite their total lack of skill that they’ll kid themselves that they are winners on the back of a couple of – $10 to $1,000 luckbox scores yet forget completely that their terrible play led ot them busting all that money. Probably during some degenerate shot at $200NL with five buy ins and no ability – the kind of combination of behaviours that lead to guys like Dusty making millions.

I wonder how much those cash guys really do love the tournament players. Even a freeroll playing fish like Michael in this video can get lucky with $10 one day and have enough to buy in with Leatherass and donate yet another $1,000 to his coffers. Good luck to Leatherass IMO – and to be honest I really liked his explanation about why he plays – “who am I to turn down $1,000 per hour”. Well I’d say he’d be a fool to do so and anyone who knows anything about online poker, love him or hate him, knows that Leatherass isn’t a fool. Now those of you making $2/hr or worse from poker that’s not even bad – a hobby that leaves you with a profit and the rush of poker is pretty rare. Those of you losing thousands – quit – unless you enjoy making other guys rich.

Online poker has gone through quite an incredible journey from Black Friday destroying most of the American games and bankrupting the Full Tilt Poker empire which once bragged the most powerful roster of online professional players ever seen. The likes of Phil Ivey could be seen blasting the pot with Durrr and Isildur1 in the biggest games in the World Online thanks to the excitement of Online Poker.

It all began, of course with the online poker boom caused by Moneymaker, who found his home on the site that gave him his World Series ticket in the first place. How exciting that on PokerStars one could simply buy in for fiddy bucks and find yourself the World Champion a short few months later and one of the biggest names and faces in the World of Poker.

With the burst of excitement that led up to the online poker boom we saw millions join the game and more fish than the few sharks (some of whom could barely play themselves but at least knew to fold their 4 high flush when a 4 flush came on the board!) could handle. The first generation of poker millionaires who never even left their home to make the money was born.

Let’s face it though – in a game where making money was always more important than integrity – there always were going to be scandals. Everything from the various Stoxpoker Scandals of Jason Ho then eventually StoxTrader himself to the way Isildur1 was destroyed by the away from the tables analysis of the CardRunners professional team would rock the industry. Cries for regulation from players hurt in the scandals were never likely to go ignored and the catalogue of errors and banking decisions made by the big sites made them an easy target for the Department of Justice. What would happen next?

Nothing short of poker armageddon. Sites closing, funds disappearing and players in dissarray – millionaires suddenly unable to play the game they loved. Some such as the mighty Ozone that we follow moved to Mexico or Canada to escape regulation only to find that the absence of American fish did make the games a lot less appealing than the wonder they left behind. Others have simply continued to milk the cash cow training businesses they founded in the good times – hoping that they stay fresh enough to convince people that a guy who hasn’t played a hand in a year is actually worth thirty bucks a month.

This is the millenium of Bloodbath.

I thought this was a really interesting free heads up poker video as there really is a lot to think about when considering heads up bet sizing strategy. A huge number of players have moved to a theoretically tough strategy of minraising every button then betting exactly one half pot on each and every single flop regardless of holdings and the cards. This forces the decision to lie with the villain in every hand as our hero’s actions will be identical in most spots.

The downside of this strategy is that it allows our villain to play his hand as he wishes knowing what our courses of action will be. If villain adopts a clever donking strategy and starts to check/call our extremely wide range with the correct range of hands it can make things more difficult for us in post flop heads up poker situations.

Another factor which we need to take serious account of is that if we switch to a 2x strategy every time we have the button in heads up no limit holdem we are giving up the advantage of playing bigger pots when we have the power of position. If our villain is making it 3x with his buttons we are constantly going to be playing smaller pots when we are in position and faced with playing bigger pots against villain when he is in position. This can lead to us having an automatic disadvantage if our villain has a similar skill level and adjusts correctly to our 2x and virtual 100% c-bet one half pot strategy.

The main reason I do find that 3x is less comfortable than 2x thesse days is the amount of 3-betting that goes on heads up. We will be able to small 4-bet more often and more profitably as well as call more often and play pots in position more profitably when we have made it 2x preflop from the button heads up. Our 2x makes it much more difficult for our villain to profitably make a 3-bet that commits us preflop and we lose very little the times we choose to fold. When, however we make it 3x having any kind of fold to 3-bet stat starts to print money for our villain but without us really being able to call that often profitably against a lot of players we will need to move into an aggressive preflop game which can increase variance without necessarily pushing up our profit.

Anyhoo some additional thoughts on top of this great video from DiscGolf01 on heads up no limit holdem bet sizing strategy.

Closing Date: January 15th.

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