Sep 04, 2009 – 15:09PM
Played some PLO yesterday for the first time this month. So far a good start to the month. Been giving 2/4 a try for the fourth time, but this time got off to a good start with a 3 buy in upswing and felt like I was playing pretty well. I'm still keeping the 5 buy in stop loss on for 2/4, but hopefully this will be the month 2/4 'takes' although if my win rate isn't at least half of what it is at 1/2 then it really doesn't matter. Provided I keep at it the entire month I'll have to compare win rates at the end of the month and see which is more profitable.
I also played the first WCOOP event yesterday on Stars. Played really well, staying at around even for quite some time, then flopping a set of 8s and getting up to 7k. I then flopped a straight vs a guy with bottom two pair who didn' t know how to fold and went up to about 12k. I was stuck there for quite a while until a very poor, aggressive player raised the button with TT. I had JJ and 3 bet, he 4 bet all in and it was quite an over bet. After some thought I called but the river was a ten and that took me back down to ~3k. Ran AK into AA shortly after that and didn't manage to get there. Luckily there are A LOT more events so looking forward to playing well and making some deep runs! Now for the questions.
Q: I do a lot of reading and prefer MT tourneys. I'm 74 years young and in good health. Poker is my passion, though I don't aspire to turn pro. What suggestions can you give me to improve my game? I would like to compete in MTs up to 1,000 buy-ins at AC or elsewhere.
A: Honestly it sounds like you're already taking what my biggest suggestion would be to heart, and that's always be looking for avenues to improve. A lot of it depends on what kind of learner you are. If you are a book learner there are lots of good books out there. If you've already read Harrington on Hold Em Vols. I and II and my book, then next ones I usually recommend are 'The Poker Tournament Formula' (both 1 and 2) and 'Kill Everyone'. 'Tournament Poker for Advanced Players' is good as well, but some of it is a rehash of what's in Harrington on Hold Em. If you're a visual learner the video training sites are all GREAT tools, and obviously I recommend the one I teach at, PokerXFactor.com, but there are a lot of really good ones out there. Poker forums can be very helpful as well if you can sift through a lot of the riff raff.
Q: My question is how do you cash out your online poker winnings if it is still illegal to play online in the US? I play quite a bit and have been pretty successful but since the laws changed i am leary to play for higher stakes. I don't want to get to deep into it and win a lot and find out that I can't cash out. It is obviously possible, I would just appreciate some information on subject.
A: First, let me preface this by saying I'm not a lawyer and law is not my specialty. That being said, PLAYING poker in the US is not illegal. The law change in effect makes it illegal for the banks to process money to and from gambling institutions, is the way I understand it. At the very least, if my profession were illegal there is no way I would publicize myself so much, and neither would any of the other US players. As far as cashing out goes, I've never had any significant issues. It can take a while, and I've occasionally had a check bounce when a payment processor goes down, but by and large I've always gotten my checks and been able to cash them within 2-3 weeks, often faster. I often request a check every week, so I've had plenty of experience with it.
Q: I am posing a question which no doubt will be met with blanket denial by those who have the ability to address such matters. The majority of the responses will tell me that I must have terrible "leaks" in my game. Others will tell me that I am imagining things. I have played online (at several different sites for years now), and I have played live for far longer than that. I have been aware for some time now, through my own experiences, and through word of mouth (from countless players more experienced than I) that online software is designed to create larger pots for larger “rakes”, and to favor larger stacks as a means of keeping the tournaments moving at a good pace. This bias toward the large stacks becomes more apparent as the level of play decreases as one is more often faced with challenging the larger stacks where they have already put you all in (if one chooses to call) or almost certainly will call you if you push in simply because they have more chips than you. This becomes a very frustrating situation when I have to not only play the opponent but the SOFTWARE as well. This severely limits my options. In many cases I wind up folding hands where the odds are heavily in my favor regardless of what the opponent might be holding because experience tells me that the hand has virtually no chance of holding up. I am not only speaking of situations where I have the smaller stack. I will use my experience to my advantage when I have the edge in chips as well, but I then feel bad for the other player(s). Point is, I'm totally tired of the disproportionate number of times I see people getting knocked out, or lose a cash pots, by runner runner straight, runner runner flush, the miracle “one outer”… or one of my favorites – when four cards of the same suit hit the board; which, quite frankly, happens with a frequency I have never EVER seen in all my years of live play. One guy online once joked that the four suited cards on the board happen about every four hands. And he wasn’t far from the truth. I joked backed “The only thing that hits more than four suited cards are QUADS”. And I wasn’t kidding. I see multiple quads every day. Even today I saw quads 3 times, and yesterday I saw quads an amazing 8 times.” I wish I was exaggerating, but I’m not. And any online player will know exactly what I’m talking about. The thing is, I can go a half a year or more playing live and not see quads.
Straights and flushes hit so often that I sometimes have to look down to make sure I’m not at a Omaha table. No joke. And you need only to play close attention to the “chat” to see how many countless people are complaining about the same thing. Today at a hold ‘em table I saw some guy say “You gotta be kidding me, three flushes in 6 hands?!” And that same guy won with ONE of the flushes.
After a while, one can see things coming. People say "I saw that coming"; at the tables all the time. How else do you explain someone going all in 6,7 8 times in a row with garbage getting called by people holding real cards and winning every hand? I also realize that the way the online software functions at present presents an attraction to those who like lots of big hands and big pots. And poker sites love loose players… the higher the pots, the higher their rake, the higher their profits.
I once had a representative from one site tell me that they get “so much player traffic” that it doesn’t make any logical sense for them to program the rng (random number generator) to generate higher rakes.” To which, I replied “You’re joking right? Online gaming is a business and the number one objective of any business is to MAKE MONEY.” I then mentioned that the LUXOR in Vegas is a very poplar casino that sees an amazing amount of foot traffic every year. But you don’t see the LUXOR tweaking their slot machines so that they all payout fairly and evenly. By the way – slot machines?? Also run off of a random number generator. The LUXOR knows (like every other casino in Vegas) that the slot machines are huge cash cows and, despite how much traffic their casino gets, design their slot machines (and everything else in the casino) to suck as much money from it’s players as possible.
So here’s my question, and I think the entire poker community is crying out for an answer. What is the collective professional opinion of online rng’s? Are they realistic? Are they fair? And do the pros also question the “true” randomness of the cards they’re being dealt?
No one would know better than a pro, and no one could contest the skeptics better than a group of pros stating their honest opinions on “online rng’s.” In fact, my friends and I wish there was a “pro” survey of all the sites online and a collective list of sites that had the most realistic and fair rng’s on the net. One can dream.
Being an online player yourself, I really hope you answer my question… not just for me, but also for the many players out there with the same concerns that I have.
A: I debated if I should post this one or not, but I hear this sort of thing a fair amount. I know when the poster asked the question he was truly hoping I was going to say 'YES, it must be rigged!'. The truth is though, I've been playing poker online and live for nearly 6 years now and I've actually seen CRAZIER things live than online (quads over quads, quads beat by straight flush, etc). Let me address a few points specifically though.
First, you say that the software is designed to create larger pots for larger 'rakes'. Pot rakes are capped, so at a certain point they don't rake any more money, which somewhat debunks the idea that that would be a good thing. It would statistically be best for the sites for more pots to be small, but still big enough to be raked. The problem (at least from the poker room side) for sites is that you really don't want large sums of money moving from one player to another, because if a player goes broke that's bad for you. In an ideal world every player would pass small amounts of money back and forth until they were all slowly bled by the rake. While it seems as if there would be incentive for the sites to create large pots to generate rake, in the long run, artificially creating large pots would actually be a money losing endeavor by sites because the huge swings would cause players to go broke too quickly creating a smaller player pool for less games and eventually less rake. There really is very little incentive for a site to do this. I can't say without 100% certainty that no site has ever done this, but it just doesn't make financial sense.
Second, you mention that larger stacks always win in tournaments. I've actually heard most people argue the shorter stacks always win to keep the bad players alive! I've heard tons of variants of this story, and the fact that they're all different probably means in reality it's pretty balanced. I will admit there would be a general incentive to end tournaments earlier, but from what I've seen I seriously doubt shorter or bigger stacks are favored in all in confrontations.
I think one thing you're noticing (and I'm sure you've heard this before) is that you simply see more hands online than live, so you're going to see more things. When I play live, a good dealer can get in 30ish hands per hour, maybe 40 if the entire table is moving quickly and tight. Online, I can get in 60/hr pretty easily, and I can play 4+ tables at once too. So 30 hands/hr versus 240 hands/hr I should be seeing crazy things happen about 8x as often.
Lastly I would also like to mention that I've honestly seen more blatant cheating live than I ever have online (mostly in the form of collusion and chip dumping), and I have personally never seen this, but I've heard lots of stories of dealers palming chips or dealing from the bottom of the deck in certain instances (although rarely in actual casinos). I personally trust the online game more than the live game in terms of actual game integrity, although honestly I believe both to be honest enough I won't hesitate to play either.
I realize that what I'm saying is not going to convince you to change your mind, but I share this based on the person experience of someone who has played professionally, with success, both live and online. I do not adjust my game any differently be I playing against a live dealer or an RNG, I only adjust based on the different players. If you don't trust the game than you shouldn't play online, but I see no reason to believe in any of these conspiracy theories I often hear because most of them make little sense from a longer term business perspective, even if some of them might make some sense in the shorter term.
-Rizen
Sep 02, 2009 – 13:09PM
Well, I'm saying goodbye to Vancouver in about an hour. Sorry for the lack of updates, but I've been north of the border in Vancouver for a while now working on some things for Lock Poker. I can't really talk about them right now but I'm hoping that all of you will get to see them in the somewhat near future. Definitely a lot of exciting things going on and I'm really happy to not only get to be a part of it but get to have some input as well.
Since I've been doing a lot of work up here I haven't really had a chance to play any poker at all since last Saturday. I'm still primarily focused on PLO. Once I get home and have my Omaha Manager handy I'll post some statistics for the month. Over the last couple of months I've been really crushing the 1/2 games, but every time I move to 2/4 I just get hammered. I'm really not sure if I'm playing differently, the competition is just that much tougher, or if the sample size is too small. I've tried to move up about once a month since I started giving myself a 5 buy in stop loss, which isn't NEAR enough in PLO to really do much, but going down much more than that would be somewhat demoralizing and I like to keep my bankroll as close to all time highs as possible so dropping more than 5 buy ins before moving down then having to grind back 20+ buy ins at 1/2 just to get back to even isn't that appealing to me.
I'll probably take another stab at 2/4 this month and see how it goes. It's kind of odd because after I took second in the PLO SCOOP event in March i splashed around in lots of PLO between 1/2 and 5/10. I was a winner at every level (over a small sample size) except 2/4! I think part of it is there are just some really good mid stakes grinders playing at that level, some of it is sample size, and some of it is that I still have a lot of room to improve in my PLO cash game.
I'm probably going to make some 1/2 PLO vids on PXF real soon. I'm in the process of learning how to record myself 4 tabling then dub in audio after the fact that way I can pause the action and really go over concepts. I feel confident enough in my game that I could make some good instructional videos on how to beat the games up to that level, but it's not quite as fluid and natural to me as NLHE is yet so I'd prefer the ability to go back and go more in depth and not record in real time. For those of you who have ever asked, yes ever video I've ever done 'live' has been one take, no audio dubbed in afterwards real time thoughts into my brain. Every time I've ever recorded live with the exception of once where I ran AA into KK and lost a MTT in 3 hands has gone up too, so I don't just pick and choose the ones that work out well.
At any rate, I have my fingers crossed that we're going to be able to offer rakeback to North American players on Lock real soon (non North American players can already get it). I'm really not normally a guy who does this, but I would definitely encourage everyone to sign in and check it out over the coming couple of months if that happens. There are a couple of changes I am hoping will go into effect real soon, and the games start to get really good in the fall as the weather turns cooler, more people spend time indoors, and since there are a few sports books attached to the network, football season is upon us.
'Ask Rizen' will be back this Friday and I have about 12 questions still in the queue so plenty of people to get to. Feel free to submit new questions as well, just fair warning there is a 5-6 week lag time between asking and answering right now. I was also thinking of resurrecting my old 'hand of the day' post into a 'hand of the week' post. Let me know if that is something you all would be interested in. I would basically take one user submitted hand each week and break it down into what I would be thinking about and do on every street. The key to doing that really is getting feedback and hands from you all. It died out last time because I stopped having enough hands submitted, but if I brought it back and did it once a week it might work, and if I get a ton of submissions I could do some bonus ones or start to do it twice a week. Let me know if that's something you guys would be interested in and if it is I'll bring it back. If I don't hear much on it then I'll assume no one is that interested.
-Rizen
Aug 25, 2009 – 15:08PM
As those of you that follow this blog might remember, I am one of the partners over at PokerNations. Anthony Martino has been working SUPER hard on the site, and has let me know that it's now ready to show to my readers. I'm extremely pleased with how the site has turned out so far. If you have a minute, I would like to welcome you to go check it out. If you sign up, be sure to check out my profile and add me as a friend. As always, feel free to give feedback too!
I've been playing A LOT of pot limit omaha lately. I'm just really enjoying the game. Right now, I would consider myself a PLO cash player primarily, so I'll probably start talking about that a lot more in my blog. I kind of wrestled with that decision a bit, as most people who follow me do so because they enjoy my discussion on tournament play. I still play tournaments, and have no intention of quitting them. I play on Sundays and Wednesdays because Sundays are still SUPER soft and not playing then would just be criminal, and Wednesdays my parents watch my kids so I don't feel like I'm 'missing out' on anything when I play that night. I also make special exceptions for FTOPS and WCOOP upcoming. At this point though, while I still LOVE tournaments and plan on continuing to play them both live and online at a high level, I'm really focused on becoming a world class PLO player.
I'm not even close yet. I beat the 1/2 PLO games for a very healthy win rate but I still struggle at times in the 2/4 games. I'm playing way too straightforward right now, mainly because beating the 1/2 and lower games you can simply play solid starting hands hit flops and bet, bet, bet and show a nice profit. I'm going through Jeff Hwang's new book, Advanced Pot-Limit Omaha, and I'm watching PLO videos on various sites, including PXF. Full disclosure, Jeff Hwang's book is through my publisher, Dimat Publishing. I still think it's a great book, but I always like to disclose when there may be any conflict of interest just to be honest. For now in PLO I'm still really focusing on some of the basics in pre-flop hand selection and post flop play. I see SOOO many mistakes in PLO I know these games are beatable at very high levels, but the swings are massive. In some ways I think the game was built for me because I control tilt perhaps better than any poker player I know and otherwise good poker players can easily tilt in PLO. Anyways, I'll be talking about PLO a lot more in the days/weeks/months to come.
Lastly, there is an August Pro tournament on Lock Poker next Monday, the 31st. This tournament is going to have all the new Lock Poker pros in as bounties. If you knock one out, you will get 1 hour of free training from them. I, unfortunately, will not be able to play due to a prior obligation, but getting coaching from any of these guys can do nothing but improve your game. Don't forget if you download Lock Poker at http://www.lockpoker.com/download/rizen and use bonus code 'rizen' when you sign up, you will get an instant 110% deposit bonus. If you're having troubles depositing feel free to e-mail me at rizen@lockpoker.com and I will help out as best I can. If you already have an account, you can reload using the code 'augustpro' and get a 25% reload bonus. Using either option will get you a free ticket into the August Pro tournament. Otherwise, the tournament is a $10+1 with a standard prize pool. Good luck!
-Rizen
Aug 18, 2009 – 04:08AM
I'm a bit late on the 'Ask Rizen' this week obviously (or a bit early I guess, depending on how you look at it). I've been fairly busy with things over at Lock Poker and FTOPS. We also got a new puppy at the house for my kids, and it's been fun, but is taking some time out of my day. I've been managing to hit the gym pretty regularly as well, which has felt nice. I only got a chance to play in 8 of the 25 FTOPS events. I cashed in 2, neither a super significant cash. I collected one pro bounty as well, which made me right around break even for the series. I bubbled both the NLHE and PLO heads up events, which always feels brutal. I really hate losing the first round in a heads up tournament, but at least then it doesn't use up quite as much time! In the 4 other events I never really got anything going. Here are a couple of questions for an abbreviated ask rizen. I'll do a full slate this Friday.
Q: I've been reading and re-reading all the relevant poker books, played 200,000 hands at least and analyzed my play afterwards. Still, I don't seem to advance at all and running break even for a year. I play online at the 25NL-cash and $5 SnG's so it's hard to blame it on bad luck, because the level of play is so low at these stakes.
I tried to figure it out and come to the conclusion I'm fine when I can analyze a hand for a few minutes, but at the tables I feel like I don't have enough time to find out the best play. My brain is just too slow I guess. Do you think there's a way to work on this, or is it only possible to become a good poker player if you're able to make fast and correct decisions?
A: Most people if they tell me they're running break even over that sort of sample size I would tell them to drop down, but I'm not sure how much softer the games are going to get if you drop to 10NL-cash and $2 SnGs. Without knowing more about your play it's hard to say if you're playing poorly or not, but based on your self assessment this could be right. Without knowing how many tables you currently play, I would honestly drop down to a single table and try and stay really focused and make good decisions. I'd slowly add more tables once I was able to play enough hands to get a feel on if my results were improving. I know as I was learning to play going from 1 table to 2 was a tremendous hurdle and going from 2 to 4 seemed nearly impossible at the time.
If you're already playing 1 table and struggling with timing and decisions, I'm not really sure what to say. Live poker obviously would allow you more time to think out your decisions, but if you're needing the full time and time bank to make these decisions one tabling you probably need to do some more work away from the table mastering the concepts so they come a little more automatically at the table.
Q: Generic question about the release of Volume II of the book here.
A: I've gotten probably a dozen of these questions. Quite honestly at this point I don't know. I should have a firm release date in the next few weeks and when I do I'll share. There were some unexpected delays in finishing the second book that I can't really go into here. I think it's going to be a great book and I do share in the disappointment that we haven't been able to get it out sooner. Once I have a firmer release date I promise to let everyone know, but at this point anything I post would be speculation or guesswork. I would be extremely disappointed and surprised if it slipped all the way out of 2009 though and anticipate it to be out well before then.
-Rizen
Aug 06, 2009 – 06:08AM
Here is a copy of the press release. I'm very excited to be taking an expanded role at Lock Poker and getting to work with all these great poker players!
ABERDEEN, New Jersey (August 1, 2009) – Seven of the best and most respected players in the poker world have joined Lock Pro. Eric "Rizen" Lynch has accepted the position at Lock Poker as VP of Product Development.
The newly announced Lock Pros are: WSOP bracelet winner Jason Young; Mike Leah who is currently ranked 6th in Cardplayer’s POY race; online phenoms Matt ‘AllInat420’ Stout (he also owns a WSOP Circuit Ring), Joe ‘JoeytheB’ Brooks and Kyle ‘kwob20’ Bowker (the first player to win two WCOOP events in the same year); 2007 WSOP ME 7th place finisher Lee Childs and up-and-coming superstar Jonathan Jaffe.
"One of the most exciting aspects and driving forces behind me joining Lock Poker was getting an opportunity to have an impact on the business direction of the company” said Eric "Rizen" Lynch. “Accepting the position of VP of product development will allow me to really create the room for the player. This will give us at Lock Poker some really innovative and unique opportunities that leverage the unique abilities and personalities of these new pros moving forward."
“We are thrilled to welcome this incredible group of players as part of the Lock Poker family,” said Jennifer Larson, sole founder and CEO of Lock Poker. “We will be integrating them into all aspects of the business. These Pro's are the insight we need to really create the best online poker experience worldwide"
All seven players, as well as Eric ‘Rizen’ Lynch, are clients of Poker Players International, the world’s largest poker agency. PPI founders Eugene Castro and Randall Kasper expressed their enthusiasm with respect to the signings as well as the direction Lock Poker is headed.
“We basically worked together to construct a Pro Program from the ground up. The parameters were fleshed out for Eric and even further for this expansion phase. Lock truly wants to create a partnership with its pro players, and was willing to go beyond traditional industry measures to create a phenomenal package for these guys” remarked PPI’s Agency Leader Randy Kasper. “I think the poker world is going to be blown away by Lock’s plans for these players.”
As always, if you would like to sign up for Lock Poker click here and use bonus code 'Rizen' for a 110% first time deposit bonus up to $600!
-Rizen
