Upping the Stakes

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about whether or not I should raise the stakes in my online play. For the past two years I have stayed strictly to mini-stakes ($1-$5, but mostly around $2 & $3). I am quite proud of the fact that I have played hundreds of games and for over two years on only $55US. Yet, as my game improves I’ve been wondering if I might be ready for a greater challenge. Here is a run down of what I have been doing lately to try and expand my horizons and maximize my poker profits!

First: some background on me. I was introduced to NL Hold’em at a friend’s 30th birthday in 2005. My poker experience at that point was so thin that I had to have a little cheat sheet that night, showing me the relative strengths of each poker hand! Still, I am a lifelong card player so I picked the game up quickly and made it to 4th place. Most importantly, I LOVED the game and was immediately hooked.

Shortly after this experience I made my first deposit to an online poker site and stretched that $25 out for a couple of months. Disappointed, I retreated to play money tables while hitting the library and reading a big pile of books on the subject. I’m a very competitive person by nature, so if I was going to take on this new, exciting hobby, then I wanted to improve my game and learn everything I could.

Fast forward to 2006, when I made my second deposit on a different site. Here I eked out all the pennies I could, and slowly improved my game, eventually turning my $35 into $150 or so. (Did I mention I am super-cheap?) It took me months to move from the $1 tables to $3 ones; even longer to take the odd stab at $5 tables. To be honest, these $5 games were very scary to me – here were players who really paid attention to what was going on! They stole blinds, even! LOL. These “high stakes” were too much for me though, and I soon went back down a level.

In March of this year I moved some money onto yet another site. I had some initial success here - say the first 5 to 10 games - but soon was below my initial deposit of $75, and actually getting down to my last $15-$20 by the end of April. And this really was even worse than it appears as I had earned $30 in bonus too, so I was about $80 in the hole. Not good. I was playing 9 player sng's almost exclusively, at both $2 and $5 buy-ins; I would have the odd win here and there, but I didn't seem to be making any progress. (I have stayed at single tables for the most part ever since I read Mike Sexton's book, Shuffle Up and Deal, as he suggested that players should learn to play with only the one table's worth of opponents to study, until they feel they can safely move up to a multi-table format.) I couldn't seem to find a table that had a) enough fish, throwing their money away, and b) few enough sharks, eating my money! Different times of day, as well as the days of the week, affected my results. (Weekends are often gonzo bingo matches, which are unpredictable and hurt my bottom line. Late evenings at the $5 buy-in are FILLED with really strong players who pay VERY close attention to everything, so they almost always trounced me.

A peek on Sharkscope.com showed that my greatest return (most profitable game) was at the $2 level, gaining slowly at about 20%, and that at the $5 I was actually slowly losing, at a rate of about 10%.

At the start of May I noticed a few entries on rec.gambling.poker discussing when one should move up to the next level. There seemed to be agreement that once your rate of increase (ROI) is 20% you can be comfortable moving up, although others argued that your bankroll had to be considered too, and that you shouldn't move up until you had 20-50 or even 100 buy-ins at that level.

Another discussion thread that I thought was interesting was by a few guys who seem to know a lot about statistics (which I DO NOT have a brain for AT ALL). They said that if you look at your results for 100 games, you should have a good enough sample to gauge how well you are doing at that level.

Obviously my strategy needed some tweaking and I decided to amalgamate these ideas into my own plan. I would play 100 games of 9 player $2 TURBO sngs, keep track, and then see where to go from there. I also started playing fewer games, often quitting at just one a day, whereas before I often would play two.

The first 7 games went VERY badly, placing in the money only once. I re-evaluated my plan and ditched the TURBO format. Starting over, I went to the $2 - regular speed - 9 player sng and immediately saw much improvement.

I didn't get any money the first game, but beyond that one, I have always been in the black column. Over 29 games, I made it into the money 15 times, (7 - 1sts; 4 - 2nds; and 4 - 3rds) for a total profit of $33.75. Including rake, I spent $65.25 and had $99 to show for it, showing a return on investment of roughly 33%. A profit, yes, but still very little to show for all of that time playing. I kept track of the time, roughly: 23.5 hours of playing netted me $33.75 - - - or $1.44/hour, $1.17 profit/game!!! If I’m trying to make money, I might as well open a lemonade stand outside my house!

Added to my discouragement over these piddly profits, I was also getting pretty bored with this same game over and over again. Out of sheer boredom I played a couple of $5 - 9 player sngs, and then tried a $5 - 18 player game...and came in 2nd, for a profit of $20.50! I kept playing these 18 player games and have now played ten, for a total profit of $86.50 in 10.5 hours of play. I have paid $55.50 to amass $142, showing a rough ROI of 150%, if my math isn't off. At this rate I am profiting to the tune of about $8/hour. Perhaps most importantly, my balance is finally above where I started ($75 + $30 bonus), for a balance of $138 and change.

Why am I more successful here? Well, for starters, there are MANY donks in this game, willing to chase. I am playing tight-aggressive and almost always doubling or tripling up by 30 minutes in. Even when I don't have any cards, just by playing tight I can get to the final table, and wait for my luck to change. Although the blinds move quickly in this game (every 6 minutes), the raise is VERY gradual - only 10-20 chips for the first 45 minutes. This really lets me take my time, conserve my chips until I find good cards, and then really control the game when I catch something big. Also, I am finding that the game REALLY tightens up by the final table, as people just try to get into the four paying spots. I bluff my patootie off here, and steal many pots.

Of course, it is really early in my experience at this tournament level, and maybe I will tank as I continue. Still, I am finding this methodical approach really interesting, and it may help me fine-tune my game. Maybe some of you might benefit from trying something similar to analyze your game and maximize your profits.


Lori “OllieStar” Astle

My First Victory!

In September 2004, my husband and I went to Las Vegas to play in a friend’s tournament. This would be the second time we played in this tournament. The tournament was a three-day affair at the Sunset Station Casino in Henderson. This time we stayed in the hotel. It was very nice and had floor to ceiling windows across one wall that showed a fantastic view of the mountains. I left the curtains open the whole time we were there. On Friday we went to a small private welcome party in one of the conference rooms. It was very nice with good food and friendly people.

The first tournament was on Saturday. It had sixty participants and was also held in a conference room. We had prizes and gifts, even our own bartender. The dealers were fun, hilarious and very professional. We had the tournament director announcing some of the action. They even had a Sunset Station jacket for the first person out. It was funny watching a couple of the guys fight over who would win the jacket.

Even though we only had around sixty players they came from all over. We even had a young man from England come to play. He was very sweet and funny. I played tight and very basic poker. I was still new to the game and needed to work on my confidence in my decision-making.

When we got down to three tables I was moved to a table with M. from England, my husband and a girl friend named T. She is a very aggressive player and was running over the table. I watched her closely for a few rounds and started seeing a pattern to her betting. I started playing back at her by re raising and sometimes going all-in. After a few hands of this she re adjusted her play and started slow playing big hands. She got me a couple of times but not enough to put me out. I again had to adjust to her play and slow down. I knocked out M. from England with a hard to see boat. He didn’t believe that I would play anything before the flop other than premium hands and this allowed me to mask my hand.

He was so sweet he wanted to give me a hug after I knocked him out but wanted to make sure it was okay with my husband first. I laughed and said hug away I say it’s okay. There weren’t a lot of big hands after that and the table slowly whittled down to four people. After the forth person was out it left husband, T. and me. We decided to chop three ways and give the dealers a nice tip, then play on for the trophy and 1st place bragging rights.

It didn’t take long for T. to be out. Then it was just my husband and I. We had agreed before the tournament started that we would play each other just like anyone else if not harder. I wanted to beat him so bad. We went back and forth with lots of cheering from the railbirds. It was getting late and I felt that some of the people were getting a little antsy so I started pushing with any king, ace or connected cards. I finally knocked my husband out of the tournament with A6 and he held something like 87. I was so excited. I received a very nice trophy and a Sunset Station jacket. The bartender even made me a very yummy “fruity” drink, since I’m not a big drinker.

Overall it was a great experience. I really felt that we were treated like high rollers. It was well organized and lots of fun. The first trophy I have ever won in anything sits on my fireplace mantle. When my husband’s ego starts to get on my nerves I pick up my trophy and tell him I’m going to polish it.

Lisa "Shion" Torres

Cards Gone Bad

It’s been a long few weeks that all poker players will eventually have to go through if they play long enough. “You’re not getting any cards or luck”. It seems that everybody else on the table are getting good cards, with lots of action happening around you, raising and reraising of the pots, hands going to the river with good cards being shown down at the end. You can’t seem to even get two connectors, let alone two flush cards so suited and connected – forget it. As for pairs – you end it preying for even a pair of ducks…

You try to make some moves to win the blinds but with others catching cards, its hard to bluff and when you try to win a race you fail. It can be a very long tournament when this is happening and a long slow death can happen until you’re eventually all in with the best “card” you’ve seen all day – or basically what you hope will be any “two live cards”.

Not much you can do but ride it out and keep your fingers crossed that it will end sooner rather than later, but know it will eventually come to an end. Statistically this will happen to everybody at sometime.

In the past year this has happened to me on two occasions, December 2006 was a very bad month and left me in negative equity for that month. But after the New Year it changed and I was able to play some good poker and finish in the money on quite a few tournaments more than making up for the previous losses.

The next time it started at The Amateur Poker Players Tour (APAT) Scottish Championship in Edinburgh on 14 April. Somehow I managed to last six hours with no cards. Once I did get a pair, QQs on the BB. With five callers in the pot I took the option and raised my BB by 9x the blind. All five called the raise… !!!. Flop came A52, SB came out betting. Starting to get frustrated I reraised him (I was the original raiser, wanted to make sure he had hit that Ace, but with six people in the pot it was a bad move – one of them was sure to have an Ace and there were four people behind me still to act). The rest of the table folded and the SB reraised me all in. I had to reluctantly fold after a few minutes of dramatics. SB showed an A 5o, you know your luck is out when he hits two pair on the flop, with all the callers out there I don’t really know what he thought he was beating preflop. You just have to hold your head in your hands and bemoan the fact that it had to happen in a large tournament.

Finally, last Friday and Sunday (4th and 6th May), my luck turned and I started to get hands I could play some poker with and I started to hit some of the flops. Friday I finished 1st and Sunday 2nd. Only the weekly tournaments at our local Casino - not big championship games but not bad payouts and not only am I back into positive equity for the month I have a nice profit.

Just remember negative swings in luck do happen to every player. Try not to let it get to you and don’t ‘push’ trying to win your money back. You’re not the only player out there it’s happening too (just feels like it at the time). Eventually it will end and you will start to get your fair share of playable hands and good flops for your cards.

Luck is just statistics and it does even out eventually, so with good play and good management of your bankroll you will be able to ride the bad times and make up for it in the good times. Good play will always be a pay off.



Linda Iwaniak
UK Ladies Open Poker Champion

When Expectations Fail

Two weeks ago I planned a much needed poker trip to Mount Pleasant, a two-hour drive from my home. After a busy month I was looking forward to some alone time with some poker thrown in. I signed up for the end of the month tournament. It was $175.00 for 5000 in starting chips with thirty-minute rounds. The blinds did double instead of increasing slowly but I am used to this structure. 180 players entered.

I arrived a day early so that I could play some limit poker. I haven’t played live limit poker in ages. It didn’t go well at all. Hands such as K2 off suit etc called my raises. I would flop two pair and lose to rivered flushes and straights. You know how it goes. Sometimes you can’t buy a hand. After losing my buy-in I decided to take a break. I played another session in the evening and lost that one pretty much the same way as the first. I could not get any of my good hands to hold up. I was starting to get frustrated and impatient. I didn’t want to go on tilt before the tournament so I called it a night.

The next day started out much better. I was pleased to see a few women in the tournament, especially as it was on a Friday morning. I had a slow start in the chip building. I was moved a few times and nothing exciting to report for the first four levels. After the second break I was beginning to get short stacked when I got KK in the small blind and my all-in was called by QQ. My hand held up and I doubled my chip stack. I was moved after that hand again. Nothing much to report at the new table, I didn’t get many playable cards. After the next level I was moved again. I was really short stacked by this time I only had ten times the big blind. I got lucky though and had a table that was very tight. I had four players behind me who were tighter than me. If all of the players before me would fold I would raise four times the big blind to get the tight players to fold. They did and I stole the blinds three hands in a row.

I won a couple of hands out right and increased my stack to 21,000 with levels at 2000/4000. They paid out 20 places and at this time we got down to twenty-two players. An older gentleman in early position made a standard raise. Everyone folded to me in middle position. I have AK clubs. I have the raiser covered and all of the tight players behind me covered as well. I decide to go all in and the raiser calls me. He has 33 and his hand holds up. I am out in 22nd place. At the time I felt that I played the hand well. After talking to my husband and women on the forum, I think I could have played it better. The gentleman who called my all-in had stated when he first sat down that he knocked out two people by calling an all-in with pocket twos. I wasn’t worried about a call but I was pretty sure it would be a race. If I had just re raised him another 4000 he may have folded before the flop. He would still have 9000 in chips if he folded the hand and almost another round to pick up better cards. He may still have called but by just re raising him 4000 I would represent a stronger hand and be inviting him to call me.

I was not going to fold into the money. I feel that my game has improved enough to always play to win a tournament not just to get some of my investment back. I came home disappointed but still happy with my play. Sometimes our expectations don’t always come true but I think we should still keep them high.
Lisa "Shion" Torres

In the beginning…

First, I just wanted to thank you all for contributing to the blog. Whether you are reading the blog or writing for it…you all contribute so much to it and I look forward to taking it further. I think it will be a very useful tool for women who play poker to be able to relate to the stories, hands and general poker information that it contains.

WPC is the brainchild of Maryann Morrison also known as Goddess. When she started playing poker she saw the number of women in poker growing but saw no place for women to get together with out the hassles of men cajoling and teasing them out of the game. She wanted to create a safe haven for women of all walks of life, all levels of play and mostly women who wanted to share their passion for poker with others who felt the same. Thus, Women’s Poker Club was born and from it more chances for women to compete in poker.

My beginnings on WPC were pretty typical. The very first freeroll tournament that WPC hosted was on Feb 25 of 2004 on the now defunct Jet Set. It was a freeroll and opened to any woman who wanted to play. All you had to do was join the forum. I thought it would be a fun tournament and loved the idea of women only. The women only part did not last very long. With in hours of the announcement of the freeroll the men of Jet Set decided it would be a good idea to play….I think they figured women were easy money. I am happy to say not one of them got to the cash. A problem remained however, the men had to go. There was no sense in having a women’s only club if the men could not leave it alone. A number of safeguards including requesting ID from some and the threat of being added to the bodies in my basement were then put into place to ensure that men had a harder time getting in. Many women grumbled and there are still a few who do when they come into the club but it is necessary to the integrity of the club and to us all that these safeguards are in place.

WPC grew very rapidly and hit 1000 members by August 2004. With the growth of WPC came its share of “publicity” in the poker rooms. Most of us had “WPC” in our mouse overs or added to our user names on the poker sites. WPC as a whole became thought of as a group of men haters. Which was the furthest thing from the truth. There was and still is very little man bashing that goes on at the club. There are of course rants about a bad beats by men or discussions about the way women are treated at the hands of men at the tables and a few men jokes. But not much more than that. We showed anyone who had that train of thought differently by the way we played and the way we supported one another at the tables. It was not long before we were feared at the tables versus looked down upon. I see none of that now…as a whole we have become a respected part of the poker community.

WPC now has over 3,600 members; we are still winning online and live. I have seen beginning players come on to WPC with very little experience and have seen their confidence grow to take part in major tournaments, many times cashing in them. I have seen the support of the club and poker itself responsible for many successes in the lives of these women in and out of poker. Confidence, focus and vision are key in their personalities now.

I look back at the very beginning of WPC and compare it to the great community it has become with awe. I am proud and honored to be a part of such a great society of women. Thank you to you all for all you have contributed to WPC and to me personally. And thank you Goddess for your tireless efforts in keeping WPC a place for us all to share and grow on and off the felt.

Ladies, we have come so far together and have so far to go. I look forward to taking the small steps and the huge leaps with each and every one of you.