Royal Flush Club Newsletter June 2008      Issue 4   About Us   Poker Articles   Poker News   Coaches Corner   Poker Strategy   Tournaments   Rick's Bio Mar's Bio Amy's Bio Al's Bio Bartley Bloch Seed Brecher   WPT Ladies The Buzz WSOP TV Schedule Turning Pro $1,000 Paycheck   Poker Tester Odds Hand Chart Kill Phil Way RFC WPT WSOP WPT Ladies US Poker Prem. Ad Space 150 x 150 Pixels Prem. Ad Space 150 x 150 Pixels   RFC SPOTLIGHT Goin' Pro     Recently we have had several posts in the forums from members who are considering turning "poker pros" and looking for a way to determine if this is the right path for them.  So, below you will find an article written by Chris Ferguson -- a player who has been there and done that on turning pro.  Coupled with Coach Al's excellent forum discussion on tips to consider  and Joe's detailed forum post on this topic, (both of which are reprinted above in the Coach's Corner) these articles should give those of us who aspire to be professional poker players some food for thought. "Should I quit my job and play professionally?" "Should I drop out of school and just play poker full time?" "I get these questions all the time and I always give the same answer: "Unequivocally, absolutely not. No way." Clear enough? If you want to explore being a professional poker player, you have to start out doing it part time. Spend your off hours thinking about poker and studying the game. Read and play and learn. Before you even think about quitting your job to play full time, you should be making more money at poker than you are in your current employment. Don't think that one big tournament win provides all the evidence you need that you're ready to play professionally. You should be showing consistent profit over a period of at least six- months. Only at that point should you even entertain the idea of becoming a full-time pro. Even then, you should be wary about taking such a step. Poker is a great pastime, and playing it casually is a lot of fun when you love the game. But when you become a pro, you have to play poker five or six days a week. In time, playing cards will start to feel a lot like a job. I happen to love every occasion I get to play, but for many people, it can become a grind. On the tournament circuit, you can play well and still go months - or even years - without a big cash. In ring games, the hours can be brutal. When you're a cash-game pro, you want to be playing when the other players are off their game. This means you should start late, when people are getting tired and gambling a little more than they should. So you might play from 11PM through the morning, and sleep most of the afternoon. Keeping these kinds of hours can be difficult for those who want to maintain a more traditional social life. Another risk is that you may not play enough. It can take a lot of self-discipline to put in enough hours at the table. With no boss on your tail, you might find it tough to put in the hours that you need at the times that are most profitable. Before you make drastic changes to your life - before you even ask the questions posed at the start of this article - you should know that poker will work for you. You should have long, profitable periods that serve as evidence of your abilities. You should have put in enough hours to know that you can really enjoy the game, even when it becomes the center of your professional life. You should know that you can endure some long, tough, unlucky stretches. If you're really sure you've got what it takes and poker does become your career, I look forward to meeting you at the table."     Courtesty www.fulltiltpoker.com     Overcards in Early Position Kenny Tran Recently, Andy Bloch wrote about the perils and pitfalls of playing big cards - A-K, A-Q, etc. - when they don't connect with the flop. Like Andy, I think learning to play these kinds of hands well, adds an important weapon to any player's arsenal. Of course, like any weapon, you have to approach these hands carefully to ensure that they don't blow up in your face. One of the most important safety tips I can give in regards to "big" hands is to be especially cautious when you're playing them from early position. I believe in this so strongly in fact that I won't even play A-Q unsuited from under the gun at a full table. It's just too easy to get into trouble with this hand and cost yourself valuable chips. In my opinion, the smartest thing you can do with hands like A-K in early position is mix up your play as much as possible. That means you're going to sometimes want to raise with these hands and, at other times, you're going to want to limp with them. Why? Because by mixing up how you play in early position, you'll make it harder for your opponents to figure out what kinds of hands you really are playing. Of course, there are some other things to keep in mind when adopting this strategy, the most important of which is that if you're going to limp with big hands in early position, you also need to limp with small hands... Keep reading... TOURNEY RECAPS   May 3 tournament report   The May 3 club tourney was played at Full Tilt.  The final table consisted of: bullish06, dustyroadz, sgtcyber, PokerSorcerer, Gary Braniff, Royal-F-Club, SamFarha1984, jajatras1 and winandloose.  The order of finish is as follows: bullish06, dustyroadz, Gary Braniff, SamFarha1984, sgtcyber, PokerSorcerer, jajatras1, Royal-F-Club and winandloose.  The final heads-up hand was 7To versus 54o to give bullish06 the win... Keep reading Watch Video....                     June 6, 9 and 13th tourneys   June 6 tournament report   We had a nice field of participants for our June 6 club tourney.  The final table consisted of: Poppy, Jdboggie, ObNesnah, coinboy, Chipster IV, PokerProf007, Torbjorn, Goldengirl48 and R0undAb0ut.  The order of finish is as follows: PokerProf007, coinboy, Obnesnah, Torbjorn, Goldengirl48, Chipster IV, R0undAb0ut, Poppy and Jdboggie.  The final heads-up hand was A9o versus QQ to give PokerProf007 the win. Keep Reading.... Watch video...     GAMBLE! Conor Fennell Tournament life and the value of chips are two of the most quoted and least understood concepts in tournament poker. This article aims to seed a few ideas that will dispel some of the myths and hopefully help some understand the underlying concepts of what these two terms could correctly be interpreted as. But first to an example that happened me recently! You are playing a $100 150 runner live tournament and have managed to accumulate a slightly above medium stack of 12500 when roughly midway through the tourney. You feel you should be one of the better players in the tourney, and would have quite a large edge over the field (not to be modest!) The player to your direct left has one of the larger stacks in the tournament with 39000. With blinds at 300/600 it is folded around to your small blind. You raise to 1500 with 33, and the villain shoves all in. He then accidentally flips over his hole cards of KQ suited. You know that you are a 49.5% dog against this hand. What should you do? This is the question that this article purports to address.  The majority of good but inexperienced players will claim that this is an easy fold for a number of reasons. I am here to provide the counterargument! Firstly, it is claimed that you are a dog in the hand, so you should fold. Correct? Absolutely not. You have 49.5% equity and with the money in the pot already you only need 44% equity to call. This should make it a call. Pot odds are the first thing that you should check in this situation. In this situation they are favourable. Secondly, it is noted that you are one of the best players in the tournament. Surely you don't want to take a flip for your chips when you can wait for a better spot? Of course you do! How big an edge do you think that a good player has when he is 20 big blinds deep? It is almost impossible to outplay someone else when you are this shallow.  The edge that you have in this tournament is made up of the fact that you can take every small edge available to you. You cannot afford to pass up small edges in tournaments  where the ultimate goal is to accumulate all the chips. You must be willing to gamble and to get your chips in with even a slight edge. In this example you actually have quite a significant edge on the pot odds, so this should be a call. There is one other avenue to explain what some people like to call Tournament Life Syndrome. Most people are familiar with the fact that your tournament life does have some value. Have I omitted this from my analysis? Yes, but it is always in mind. In fact, this concept can be explained fully by the theory of Independent Chip Modelling (ICM). This theory explains why a tournament chip is not equal in value to its direct monetary equivalent. For example, in a $50 6-seat Sit and Go, we have reached the bubble where you have half the chips in play. Your chips are worth less than $150 though (closer to  $125 in fact.) This is again best explained by an example. If you have a 10,000 chip stack, the last chip is much more valuable than the 10,000th. If you lose the 10,000th you still have 9,999, but if you lose the last one you are out of the tournament.  This concept is what is generally referred to as the value of tournament life, yet it is much misused and abused. ICM is only significant approaching bubble situation or at pay jump situations. Again, in my example we are nowhere near a bubble so the value of each tournament chip is very close to their monetary equivalent, and so ICM can be ignored. In tournaments, we must be willing to take any edge that is available. We must be willing to take each opportunity that arises to accumulate chips, be it through a button that folds to much to resteals, or a thin call that you barely have pot odds for.  To win a tournament each of these edges matter. You may be playing a slightly higher variance style but you will be well rewarded for this by more final table finishes, and more wins. Forget about your tournament life, and make decisions that are simply profitable in terms of chips and watch your results soar! Take that flip!     Good ICM calculators are common and available free in many places on the internet.   Congrats to the following Members: Rajko- Won his WSOP Main Event Package at Mansion Poker. Dr Spaceman- Won his WSOP Main Event Package. Gank - Cashed at WSOP 2,000 Limit Hold Em Event Buddy2U- Cashed at WSOP Senior Event.     AD SPACE AVAILABLE HERE 150 X 150 PIXELS AD SPACE AVAILABLE HERE 150 X 150 PIXELS