Months of SEO beginning to pay off!

First of all I'm going to apologise for not updating this blog in erm... 3 months! I've been incredibly busy in the 1st term of my 2nd year at University. Poker, getting drunk and working (and more working) have all pushed my free time aside.

My amateur SEO attempts have come to a halt. With little free time to do monotonous link building I have sat back and hoped for links to build naturally through word of mouth and so on. Well I guess they have just paid off... Or perhaps the few months of constant link building during spring and summer have started to really come into effect! Yesterday was a milestone... 04/12/08 (or 12/04/08 if you're across the pond) - Front page of Google! Amongst 6,000,000 search results we ranked just number 10! *pops a drink in celebration* - no seriously, I've got problems. Ok so this is purely for 1 key phrase... Obviously a succesful site needs to rank well for all their most popular keywords. But hey it's a start! With page 1 for "Poker Forums" we'll try to focus more on our pretty appauling effort of page 8 for "Poker Forum". Obviously we still need to work on reaching the top 3 with "Poker Forums" but that will come in time.

My motivation has been pretty low of recent after not seeing decent results and progress slowing. Sure, we've got a sponsorship deal with the university poker society and that's keeping it fairly active but I'm definitely not where I wanted to be 6 months down the line. What's good about this milestone is that it has really sparked some new found desire for success. Now that the Xmas holiday is coming up in just a couple of weeks, (and with some money in the business account) things should really start to fire up!

More news to come...

P.s sponsorship isn't going great! Will write a few posts on that soon.

Poker Sponsorship

After 50,000 hands and long deliberation I have decided to go ahead with a sponsorship deal at Badbeat.com. I've always been tempted by getting paid to play but I figured taking 50% of my winnings was too much when I'm earning 2.6bb/100 (Yeah I know that's shit). Things have been drying up a bit as I've been seeing my girlfriend and not really having enough time to play right now. The idea is to leave my $1300 in PokerStars to mature (with the rising $ and the weakening £) so that I can withdraw it in a few months for extra £££. 

I had a session today with a mentor from Badbeat.com and after an hour of watching (and with some empirical evidence of my winnings) he decided to set me off at a $800 daily loss limit. Holy smokes I said to myself! I've never had that sort of money to play with on a regular basis. He wants me to play 4 tables of NL100 and then to slowly ween me onto 6max :s. 

Well hopefully it's going to go as well as NL50 has gone and that way I can turn semi-professional for my Uni career. Now that would be nice! Poker sponsorship here I come!

Poker - The Grind of Your Life

Poker is a grind. An absolute grind. You can't get away from it and you will probably end up only make a handful of big blinds every hour.

Last night I was playing 6 tables on PokerStars and suffered a huge swing of bad variance costing me 4 buyins. I then further tilted off more money. I woke up today fresh (and sober) and totally regret tilting off an extra 2 buyins last night. In poker you can't afford to lose a buyin from bad play because it will cost you A LOT of time to grind it back. Here's a graph of my play, the two deep downswings are bad variance + a bit of tilt on top. The upswings are when I'm running good and not making any mistakes.

After playing 33,000 hands I have made something like 3bb/100. You have to set aside a lot of time if you want to try and make profit from poker. Obviously I'm not pro and therefore I won't necessarily be making as much as possible but 3bb/100 isn't far off normal. Just a horrible grind:

Error 71/1001 ... PokerStars, I ♥ U

After 3 loyal years at PokerStars.com I have finally had conclusive evidence that the site is by FAR the best in the business.

Back in early 2007 I self-exluded myself myself for a week because I had a terrible run and lost a few hundred $$$. A few days later I got drunk and opened a new account with the same name and details. What a dumbass I am. Of course this is against the TOS and I'm sure everyone knows that.

Well anyway,

a few weeks ago I won a tidy sum of $2,300 after playing for 7hours on a $11 MTT.

I was absolutely elated as this was my biggest win in one sitting after 5 years of playing poker. But oh shit, I've got two accounts. Instantly I think back to my friend who lost $6,500 after withdrawing the whole lot from PKR and getting caught on duplicate and false accounts. He lost all the money and was forced to donate to charity.

So I think of a plan...

$400 withdrawal every 5 days and it should go under the radar... right?

Well skip forward $800 banked and I impatiently make my 3rd withdrawal just one day after the last. Two days later I'm playing a $109 satellite to a big EPT London qualifier and I'm abruptly kicked out of the tournament. "Error 71/1001 please contact support@pokerstars.com" ... "Oh shit" I think to myself, "I've gone and lost my remaining $1,100." ... and being a student in debt that's a big deal!

Quick Google check comes up with numerous results "Error 71/1001, my account has been frozen by PokerStars!!! Omgomgomgomg" etc. Well now it's hit me. I've done what my friend has done and gone and lost my bankroll + some luxury spending.

What can I do??? I rush around telling my friends in a panic and quickly come to the conclusion I can easily lie and get away with it. "oh, sorry Stars. My brother created a new account under my name because he was underage and didn't want to get caught". But that's bullshit and surely a site like PokerStars would find out the truth if they wanted to.

In the end I come to the brutal conclusion that I am just going to have to fess up and be honest.

Infact, here's the ball-licking e-mail that I sent:

"Dear PokerStars Team,

I recently received the error 71/1001 when trying to log into my account. I was told to e-mail support and then found the message below in my inbox.

I am deeply sorry that I have broken the TOS of PokerStars.com. I do know and have known that using multiple accounts on PokerStars is illegal under your rules. A while ago (maybe over a year ago) I self-excluded myself on the account ****. Due to my obsession of poker I was unable to cope with not playing tournaments on PokerStars and foolishly created a new account under the username "****". I filled in all my details correctly and since then did not use my "****" account again and considered it closed. I wanted to e-mail support to get it closed, but I was afraid I would have both of my accounts permanently banned and therefore could not play again.

I have been a loyal member of PokerStars for the last 3 years now and have rarely stepped elsewhere in online poker. I have had the desperately unforunate problem of winning some money on my account **** and now I am incredibly worried that this money is gone forever. I really hope you can understand why I opened this new account and there was entirely no fraudulent or cheating intention when doing so. I simply and stupidly, could not last the self-exclusion period.

I will wait eagerly for a reply.

Apologies and Regards,
Nick."

And guess what. I got all my cash transferred to my other account and my current $400 withdrawal was processed. Ok, so they forgot the W$ that I had on my frozen account but who cares. That was only W$200. Shouldn't I just be grateful that I got my $1,100 back? Yes. I was. However I still mentioned my W$200 a day later and sure enough it was sent through the very same day.

They had every right to take my money and keep it for themselves.

I ♥ U PokerStars!

Poker Forum Competition

Poker is Rigged | Forums

Win $100 By Signing Up!

- The competition will run until 12:00pm GMT on September 3rd.

How It Works

- The competition is only open to new members from August 3rd.

- Each member who has made 10 posts after the 3rd of August will have 1 ticket to win $100.

- Each member who has made 25 posts after the 3rd of August will have 2 tickets to win $100.

- Each member who has made 50 posts after the 3rd of August will have 3 tickets to win $100.

- Each member who has made 100 posts after the 3rd of August will have 4 tickets to win $100.

For each ticket, a member will have one chance of winning.

The winner will be drawn on September 4th.

- 1st place gets 100$

- 2nd place gets 25$

- You must contact an admin once you've posted enough for an entry. Admins will keep track of post counts above 10.

- There must be 10 eligible registered members by 3rd Semptember.

- SPAM WILL BE DELETED

It's as easy as that!

Link Building Experiement

This is a simple procedure. You might have seen it done elsewhere on a few scarce weblogs. What is different, is that when we reach a certain point on the list, we start yet another one. Instead of one master list and its done, we will repeat the process over and over again, with new folks jumping on board. These backlinks combined with the social networking friends status will affect all areas of search engine algorithims. -=This List Will Stop At 100, then the next phase will start=-

To participate is simple:

--->Copy The Post & List below into a blog post of yours.
--->Add Your Link to the list at the bottom.
--->Comment On the original post at LBP so that I can update the list with your link.
--->Make sure the list links and names are in place on your weblog post.
--->Digg, Stumble, Tag, and Reddit all of us, spread the word, get more on board.
--->Be sure to send them back to The Linkback Project for the updated list.

Make sure links and name are in place on your weblog, and then put yours on the last number, and "YOUR NEXT" below it on a new number.

Be sure to Digg, Stumble Upon, and Tag this post, so that you will be prepared with backlinks for Phase two, when we begin backlinks in Social Networking. Putting each list into the social networking system will be the second link in our "Closed Circuit" theory of search engine/link index exposure.

-BEGIN LIST- 1. The Linkback Project
2. All About Crime
3. Foolsville
4. Guy Vestal
5. SunEGrl Loves To Shop
6. Great Ways to Make Money Online
7. Shabam Development
8. CoffeeCoffeeCoffee~the blog
9. Kinky Personification
10. Da Kinky Kid Speaks
11. Josh Ottley Dot Com
12. Cebu Entrepreneur
13. Random Detoxification
14. PoeARTica
15. CoolAdzine for Marketers
16. Best Blog in the Universe
17. Ctrl + Alt + Delete : Personal random journal and reviews
18. the blog lab
19. Bradley Hankins
20. The Radical Blog
21. Get Rich Quick !? Really ??
22. Musikalye - Music is a two-way street
23. Planeta Turismo Activo
24. Swollen Pickles
25. EZ RICH PROJECT
26. ULUPONGDOTCOM
27. Picture to People
28. Your Fun Family
29. Mob Me
30. Healthy Moola
31. Champagne Dreams
32. David Rader
33. Gossip Girls
34. Before I am Famous
35. SUPLADO Online Reviews
36. Salsa Faith
37. BigMoneyList
38. Emmsy’s Stuff
39. That Blog 4 Me
40. Hey Just Blog
41. Poker Forums

Pokerisrigged.com League

The League

- The league winner will receive $50 to their PokerStars account, courtesy of Pokerisrigged.com.

- The league tournaments can be found in "tournaments > private > Pokerisrigged League"

- Passwords for each of the tournaments will be placed in this forum here every week. Forums is visable only to members

- The league will run every Sunday for 5 weeks with the first tournament starting on Sunday 6th July at 8pm GMT.

- The buyin will be $5.50 and will be a freezeout tournament.

- Don’t worry about missing the first few tournaments! By playing in any of the tournaments you will earn yourself reward points that you may redeem for cash or forum bonuses! Click here for details.

- Prizes will be distributed normally in each tournament depending on how many runners there are.

- Ranking first in a tournament will earn yourself a Gold Trophy reward to put next to your avatar. Ranking second and third in tournaments with a larger amount of runners will earn you a Silver or Bronze trophy. All awards are exchangeable for reward points.

- If you are good enough to win the league at the end of the 5 weeks, you will be blessed with a unique and special Poker Is Rigged bracelet!

Rules

- Strictly one account per member.

- Each league runner is allowed one link on their name.

- Collusion in league tournaments will result in a permanent ban.

- To be eligible for the prize money, you must be at least a mildy active member of the forum.

Prizes

There will be a collection of prizes for the weekly winners and even a bubble image for the poor person to miss the money! The images will be stacked so you can prove your worth with several trophies! A Pokerisrigged.com bracelet will also be given to the League Champion. We won't reveal what it looks like just yet!

Webmasters

If you’re a webmaster and you’re looking to promote a website, poker-related or otherwise, then you are allowed to have one hyperlink on your name that is displayed on the front page. This means if you have any points, or are featured in the “last weeks winner” table, then your name and link will be displayed on the front page. Please note if you’re name is higher on the league then your link will give you more “Google juice”.
Your name is not allowed to be a link in itself. I.e. “Pokerisrigged.com” as a name is not allowed, whilst “Pokerisrigged” is.

Please download PokerStars from this link. We are able to add more prizes and money to the tournaments for any sign ups that are generated from that link!
Thank you,
PlateFish

Know When to Push

Right, so a lot of the time in MTTs we get to a point where we are short stacked and have to either push our chips in or fold.

A Few Pointers:

Firstly, the push fold "boundary" can be very vague. Harrington suggested this theory of the "M" Value. - YourStack/BB+SB+ANTE. If your M is 5 or less then you should be push fold. I.e If the blinds are 100/200 and you have a stack of 1500 then your M = 5 and you should push your money in or fold.

I used to follow this pretty religiously a while back and now i've come to realise it's just not that simple. If you're raising with a stack of anything less than 10 BBs then you're committing yourself whatever. Even if you limp you're just leaking important chips necessary for a double up.

I tend to shove my stack if i am 10 BBs or less. Or if not shove, do a "stop and go" with pockets, i.e raise preflop to try and steal and if you get a caller then shove the flop no matter what the board comes.

Secondly, what hands are we shoving with?? It's easy to say that youre push /fold but what with??

I'll start off by saying that shoving in early position with A7 or less is a bad move if you are 9 or 10 handed. If you get called you are likely to be dominated, unless you are so shortstacked that the BB or big stacks are calling with pretty much any 2. (also depends on loose/tight table).

In that sort of spot it's best to put your money in with suited connectors or pocket pairs. Suited connectors from 78s upwards and any pocket pair, you may have some fold equity and any call will likely leave you with 2 live cards.

In mid/late position i would shove with almost any ace (unless i have been making a lot of steals recently and losing respect) any suited connector (probably not with 23 or 34s) and any pocket pair.

I hope this advice has helped you distinguish when and when not to push.

Nick

Betfair - Home of the WSOPE

Betfair

Like with all small sites, there is a lot of money pumping into making great bonuses to attract new players and Betfair is one of them. There are plenty of big deals with rakeback and added bonus money on first deposits etc. Betfair is a very small site and struggles to get even a handful of players online - yet it is a good starting ground for any beginner due to the good bonuses and low skill play. Also, they hold freerolls to the WSOPE on a daily basis which are well worth checking out. The software is getting better and now has resizable tables.

Click Here to play Betfair. They are offering a £5 Free Play for the casino with no deposit needed.

Learn how to play pocket pairs

I've been playing poker since the age of 15. Pocket pairs always used to strike me as one of the most difficult type of hands to play. Over a million hands on and countless books devoured - here is my guide to playing pocket pairs.

Short/Long Handed and Pocket Pairs

The chance of pocket 8s being the best hand on a 9 handed game are 79%, that's pretty large huh? I'm not saying that you should be raising pocket 8s in any position but it's a stat worth thinking about.
To get an understanding of the chance that you hold the best hand with any pocket pair, refer to the Pocket Pair Odds table below.

If you're playing a shorthanded cash game and you have a full stack, you should be looking at raising any pair in any position and re-raising with any pair in late position. The only time you should not re-raise is with low pocket pairs against a player who raises very occasionally. If you find yourself against an aggro player who is opening pots with a wide range, then re-raise back at him in late position.

If you're playing a longhanded cash game, then in early position you should only be raising premium pocket pairs and folding anything less than 88/99. In late position on a longhanded game feel free to raise with any pocket pair if you feel you can outplay your opponents on the flop. It's always safe to never play small pockets longhanded unless you have 3 or 4 limpers before you, in which case you have odds to call.

Why position is important

With hands like QQ/KK/AA, position is fairly irrelevant and it's not essential to be last to act on the flop, turn and river. When playing small pocket pairs you really must do the best you can to be in position and be heads-up with one opponent. The idea being, that provided the flop isn't coordinated (i.e. 678 suited board), a checked flop can be taken down by a strong c-bet.

Isolate your opponent

If you want to play a pocket pair, it is very important that you do your best to get into a heads up situation. Anymore than one opponent will mean you can't put anyone on any specific hand and will often have to fold with even one over card flopping. Isolate a player by either raising or reraising. Punish the limpers. But remember; if you're in early position then try not to build the pot too much, a failed c-bet can be very costly. Do not bother to isolate if you're limping/calling with low pockets to go set hunting, you want as much equity in the pot as possible!

Pocket Pairs and Tournaments

The previous advice has been mainly aimed at cash game players. As a tournament player, you need a whole new outlook on pocket pairs. Stack sizes and table images are of paramount importance.

Playing as a big stack >30bbs

You're big stack deep in a tournament... and you want to be bigger! Dominate the table with pocket pairs. At late stages people are scared to bust and you can really bully medium size stacks if you have enough fold equity. Raising 2.5bbs in any position with any pair is usually a great way to steal blinds and build pots. Remember, even pocket 2s UTG are 57% likely to be the best hand (of course AK may shove OTT the same as AA would). Raising pocket pairs and c-betting strong to take down pots is very profitable. Be sure that you know the opponent you're playing and if he shows any strength on the flop, get away from your low pockets. Keep the pressure up so that people play back at you when you hit your set. Remember to only c-bet flops that are reasonably clear of your opponents range. If things turn sour; slow down and play TAG (tight aggressive) again.

Playing as a medium stack 20-30bbs

Medium stacks and pocket pairs don't mix. Players can get caught up with over pockets or re-raise strong to find a board that even Gus Hansen wouldn't c-bet at. Position is hugely important to medium stacks with pocket pairs. Whilst as a big stack, you're free to play as aggro as you like (providing you don't get caught up c-betting), you should really only consider raising small or medium pairs in position. These are pairs from 22 up to 88 and should either be used to steal blinds at late stages or to hit sets and build pots early on.

Example:

You have 25bbs and raise 3bbs preflop with 66 on the CO.

Action folds to the BB who calls.

Provided you know that the BB has been playing fairly TAG and has seen ~20% of hands, you can put him on a range. He either has low pockets (unlikely as he'd probably reraise) or a marginal hand such as KTs/KJ/KQ/AT. If the flop brings 2s 7h 8s, you're looking at throwing out a strong c-bet or even a raise if he bets into you. A flop such as 9c Kh Jh should rarely be c-bet at, as your opponents range hits this flop a lot of the time.

Playing as a short stack <20bbs

The simple way to play pocket pairs. Being a short stack, you can never really fault yourself for getting your money in with any pocket pair as long as the action wasn't raise, re-raise, all in, "hero" calls. Of course premium pockets such as QQ/KK/AA are played normally (don't be frightened to shove if you have 10 or less BBs, people will expect you to do that with KQ!) and lower pockets need some evaluation.
First off, let's clear things up. If you have any pair with less than 10BBs, even if it is 22, you need to get your money in. It's +EV. When you're around 11-12BBs then shove medium pockets such as 77 through to JJ, you don't want to raise 3BBs (1/4 of your stack) to see 3 over cards come. If you're deep in a tournament and have anything up to 20BBs and the CO or BTN is stealing (or at least appearing to steal), then shove back at them. If you have 15-20BBs then you have a lot of fold equity and rarely will they call off with a hand like AT/AJ, they'd probably need 77/AQ+ as a minimum. If you're a short stack then shove back anyway, you're probably in a race and that's exactly what you want.

Slow Playing Premium Pockets

*Sigh*
Countless times this goes wrong. If you limp pockets in any position then value starts building and people will limp anything in late position and you won't have a clue if you're AA is good on a 27Q rainbow flop. Only limp/mini-raise AA in early position if the table is aggressive or shorthanded (or even heads up). Remember that isolation is key, and having half of the table in with you on a flop isn't going to work out.
Slow playing isn't necessarily bad if you are willing to lay down your hand on any sort of coordinated flop or with just one over card. Slow playing is dangerous simply because it can be hard to get away from AA or KK when the flop looks dry. Remember, the BB could have anything!

Instructional Videos

Poker X Factor

Instructional videos that have very visible improvements. This site is dedicated to bringing you videos on all style of Poker play. Each video has a running commentary from a professional poker player - some who have made HUNDREDS of THOUSANDS of dollars.

This site does come at a cost but at just $25 a month it's a real bargain. They bring out at least 2 videos a week with incredible detail. This kind of advice will turn a losing player into a winning player and a winning player into a professional.

Go check out some of their free teaser videos.


Poker Savvy

The lesser known of the two instructional poker video sites but by no means worse.
The site consists of several different pros - a lot of them in their 20s.

They demonstrate not only the ocasional low staked freezeout/rebuy/cash game but also stakes including $50/$100 HU Cash games! Some seriously great advice and poker theory here that you would quite simply not have come across before... ever!

Again, there is a monthly subscription of around $20. Another great site which differs enough from www.pokerxfactor.com to make it worth while joining.">

Where to play poker?

PokerStars

By far the LARGEST poker room on the internet. The cash game players here are at a much higher standard than players you find at most other sites. Therefore beginners should KEEP CLEAR! What this site has to offer the most is tournaments, tournaments, TOURNAMENTS! With $1,000,000s of prizes guaranteed each week. The software is top of the range with resizable tables which helps for multitabling and helps for general ease of use.

If you're looking to play tournaments rather than cash games then there is no doubt you should be playing here. The site caters for all stakes having regular tournaments ranging from $3 to $215 with a whole aray of SNGs in between. Every sunday there is a $10+1 tournament with $100,000 guaranteed and sees 20,000 entrants. This is the largest tournament ever seen on the internet and a prize pool of $200,000 for a $10 buy in is simply gigantic.


Betfair

Like with all small sites, there is a lot of money pumping into making great bonuses to attract new players and Betfair is one of them. There are plenty of big deals with rakeback and added bonus money on first deposits etc. Betfair is a very small site and struggles to get even a handful of players online - yet it is a good starting ground for any beginner due to the good bonuses and low skill play.

Click Here to play Betfair. They are offering a £5 Free Play for the casino with no deposit needed.

I hope this has helped you guys choose which site to deposit at!