I really don’t know how best to describe 2009, I think it has been eventful but odd in the same way. Many of my goals and projects have not come to fruition and that has been a disappointment.

BIGGEST DISSAPOINTMENTS OF THE YEAR

1. Having less time to play poker is pretty much up there but I have created this situation so I have to live with it. The results have gone well on the whole but hardly spectacular given that I have basically not treated my poker playing seriously.

2. Getting needless flak on the forums got to me a bit, although I noticed that Keith Hawkins made an apology on The Hendon Mob via an article he wrote. Trouble is that I cannot make my mind up whether that guy is sincere or not. I have sent him 2 PM’s now, one on Blonde and the other on THM and nothing has come back and I get the distinct feeling of ulterior motives here but anyway……..I have no problem with him or Mick McCool or any one else for that matter as I have gained immensely due to that exposure so its almost a positive.

3. I have had a few personal set backs as well which I would rather not go into but on the whole I don’t think that 2009 has been that great a year.

THE PLUSSES

For me it was The Vulture, my one true experiment that saw me make $25/hour multi-tabling NL50. I set out to prove that a player could make a living wage from poker with little bankroll, playing low-stakes and not using tracking software. I spewed countless times but over 75k hands I was showing earnings of $1000/week if expanded to a 40 hour week.

There are not many players who could make $4000/month online but I guess that I could have doubled this had I played properly and also played more tables. Next year will see me try to do a $10,000 challenge where I will try and turn $100 into $10,000 in my “100-1″ challenge. The real challenge is the discipline and not the actual making of the money as I know that I can do that.

But starting with $100 (may make it $200-$20,000) will be a test not to spunk that money away. Not an awful lot of pluses on the poker playing side although my naughty hit and run heads up sessions were proving very lucrative. I am ditching PLO next year, I am just not putting enough time into that game and the games are getting tougher.

So next year should see me writing even more which is a negative before we even start but I will be multi-tabling NL50 and NL100 and getting guaranteed profits rather than messing about all the bloody time……oh and dont forget the heads up games.

Speaking of heads up…….just read Danny Ashman’s book and really enjoyed it. Anyway sorry that it has been a while since my past post but Christmas time is always hectic so if I don’t see you soon then have a good one.

regards

Carl “The Dean” Sampson at poker loco

Been a while since I posted but you know how it is this time of year. I have been playing some online poker due to having more down time and I have to confess that I have been making some people very happy this Christmas. I lost $1100 playing $2-$4 PLO, $1600 playing heads up NL400 and a further $43 at $10-$20 limit and I am counting the $43. So yours truly had his worst session in ages and dips over $2700 and on Christmas Eve Eve as well.

Actually I cannot complain, the results were nothing short of variance and I have been due a bad run. The $2-$4 PLO games have toughened up considerably of late and maybe I had no value and I sure didn’t game select. I think that I am going to stay clear of PLO games unless I get PLO trackers. I use Poker Office for hold’em but I am not sure if they are compatible with PLO or not so that is something that I need to look into. I know several very strong players though at PLO who are struggling to make money at $1-$2 never mind $2-$4.

I guess I should face facts and admit that I have never been a great PLO player and stick to what I know. Actually I know full well that I can crush NL50 eight tabling and easily beat NL100 full-ring for a good earn rate. My problem is that the levels cannot motivate me but I know that I could make $10k/month playing NLHE small stakes but that would involve playing full-time.

Next year I may just target $5000/month and be happy with that but I seriously think that I am kidding myself if I think that I would grind 25 hours a week every week. My new years resolution starts here and it isn’t just because I am knee jerking after losing $2700. I am no longer playing PLO ring and I haven’t got the time to study it these days. I am also no longer playing limit hold’em as of now.

Next year I am doing three things, multi-tabling low-stakes full ring at NL50-NL200, playing heads up NLHE at NL200-NL600 and playing poker tournaments with buy-ins of $100+ and that’s it. No more messing around with games that I either don’t understand as well as the average player base or games that I am out of touch with. So I am hoping for a profitable 2010 on the tables…….if a little unspectacular……unless I pull down a large MTT.

Have a good one

Carl “The Dean” Sampson at Poker Loco

Played some more poker this week, I am starting to find some more time although Christmas is going to get in the way so last night may have been my last session for a while. I was playing heads at NL400 which is about the lowest level that motivates me when heads up.

I had been playing this guy for a while and I knew from Poker Office that he liked to min raise on the button and make half pot bets. He hadn’t done this for about six hands or so but I didn’t feel that he was strong at all. I had the 8s-5s and was seriously thinking about three betting after he raised to $10 but I didn’t do that because I had made a three bet just two hands earlier and I didn’t want to get four bet light holding 8-5.

So I call and the flop comes Kd-Jc-5h giving me bottom pair. I didn’t like leading out as I felt that this guy was shaping up to be one of those types who think that they are a “player” if you know what I mean. They like seeing flops and mixing things up and then think that they can outplay everybody post flop.

He may have been right in this instance and he may have been better than me but my Poker Office data suggested otherwise. I got the feeling that he might float me if i bet. I hadn’t check-raised the flop since the second hand and felt that he could respect that.

So I checked but they check it back so we see the turn which is another jack and the Jh to be precise. They bet $10 into a $20 pot. The way that I see things is that they didn’t have a king. His line of thinking would have been to either start a pot going by betting the flop or checking the turn trying to extract some value on the river. He would surely get more value from his king by betting more or checking trying to induce me to bet the river.

It’s possible that his king may not be good so he isn’t going to want to build a big pot with just a king with a pair of jacks on board. If he has a jack then that is a monster heads up so he needs to start building the pot but yet he chose not to do so.

Of course all this assumes that they are thinking logically and there is certainly no guarantee of that. I didn’t want to put myself into an awkward situation by check-raising the turn as a good player would know that they induced this by choosing a weak line and a three bet or call now becomes more likely. Would a player with a king or a jack for that matter check-raise the turn like that anyway?

But then I didn’t want to end up paying off successive bets of a hand that was stronger than mine as that would make his bets great value bets. I still didn’t think that this player was strong and he didn’t impress me with his thought patterns either. So I decided that even though my check-raise looks like it has been induced by weak play that under the time pressure, he wouldn’t conclude that so I made a pot sized raise…….they almost time out before folding.

I ended up winning two full buy-ins from this guy before he left the game, its been a while since I had a losing session which is most definitely unlike me

Carl “The Dean” Sampson at poker loco

Just wanted to say that I received my new poker book yesterday “Winning Cash Game Poker” and it fills me with pride to have written a book on poker. The book is basically about my thoughts on poker but I dare say that it will get knocked in a few quarters. The book has several problems in so much as I wrote it nearly two years ago but due to unforeseen factors it has been delayed until now.

I don’t seem to have had much luck with books and it will be a long time before I write another one. I have perhaps one big final book in me and may be my “magnum opus”. I have thought of the title….. “The Dean on Poker, Gambling and Life”…… a 600 word epic about as thick as Supersystem and so damn heavy that you get arm ache holding it

But the chances of me writing this book in the near future are slim at best. Books are so time consuming and my schedule is just so hectic these days. I guess that I will need some more coverage on the poker show to make it worthwhile…..I might pay Mick a few quid to promote me

Seriously though I could have made this a better poker book but then again all three of my books could have been better. The problem with books is that they never come out like you intended them to unless you get some serious help and I didn’t. I am not a great writer but I do know enough about my subject and have just enough writing skill to make something interesting.

I have been looking to play some live poker this year and haven’t got around to it. But I was having a discussion with some marketing guys last week and they told me that this could be a good thing. The “mystique” that surrounds me sometimes based on the fact that I haven’t played live in ages so the people who knew me then will not know me in my present capacity and vice versa is what could be very marketable.

But getting back to my book, it has no references to tracking software as I didn’t use Poker Office back in Jan/Feb 2008 when I started the book. It is about playing POKER and what it takes to succeed. It does have some hand examples thrown in but that is not the crux of the book. Just how many bloody hand examples do people need in the poker world?

It makes me feel proud to have those books sitting on my desk and to think that I produced them. None of them will be classics but that does not deter from my feeling of pride. In fact I am very proud of what I have done and to think that it has all happened in just over ten years is nothing short of remarkable.

But ten years can be a long time and you only have to look at The Hendon Mob, just over ten years ago they appeared on Late Night Poker as nobodies and look at them now……fantastic success and I wish them all well because they deserve it.

Carl “The Dean” Sampson at poker loco

I played my first online poker in a while yesterday and played heads up at NL400. I knew that this player was good and probably better than me but I just fancied taking him on……yes yes I know.

Anyway we had been playing for about 30 hands or so and I am ahead by about $100 so I have about $500 on the table and he has just topped up. I get 10d-5s and raise to $12, I had been raising a very high percentage of my buttons.

They call and we see a flop of 8c-4s-2s and he checks. This is an interesting situation but I do not always like continuation betting here. I am very aggressive pre-flop so I cannot blindly continuation bet here against a strong opponent. It is pretty obvious what my range is seeing that I have just raised with a 10-5.

Raising pre and then continuation betting the flop 100% of the time is a leak. He could be looking to check-raise me here on air or any number of hands so betting something like $16 with air into a $24 pot isn’t a good strategy if I am going to do it too freely.

The turn card pairs my five and they check again, I check it back and the river card is another four and they bet out $22 into the $24 pot which I snap call and my hand wins. Then the fun starts and he starts to berate me in the chat box. I was going to leave but I figured that I needed to stay with this guy for a while.

I don’t see that checking the turn is bad, I know that many players are looking to protect their hand here but just what are you protecting when you have an aggressive image like mine? If I am behind then I may have five outs at best and if I am ahead then I am only conceding a small amount of equity by allowing them to take a free card with a hand that has a very small number of outs. The flip side to this is if I get raised on a bluff or semi-bluff and I cannot call or I make a “protection bet” on the turn that is already behind.

My play shouldn’t have spooked him but it did for some reason because his raising and three betting action went through the roof. Next hand and I get Ac-Qc and raise to $12 and they call. Flop comes Ad-Qd-9c and they check, now I want to get maximum value and I make a continuation bet that I feel is just going to get check-raised……so instead of betting 2/3 pot…..I bet $24….they check raise to $96 and I call.

Now they must know that I have a hand and the turn card is the 8s and they shove all in…..I call. They show Jc-7c and the river bricks for them and I win a huge $900 pot. It was here that I had to admire him because he left the game…..many people wouldn’t have done that. He obviously tilted losing to a muppet like me

see you soon

Carl “The Dean” Sampson at poker loco

There has been some sick action in the nosebleeds over the past week with Isildur1 who is probably now Viktor Blom losing an estimated 4.2 million to Brian Hastings. That is 4.2 million of the money that he has won handed back.

I reckon that Isildur1 had been the most analysed poker player on the planet over the past couple of weeks and the high-stakes boys would have been analysing his game. I think that Hastings must have found something that he liked.

This is the thing with the high-stakes online poker games, I really don’t think that it is possible to beat them for too much. What you have to remember is that we are talking about the best players in the world here but not just that…..the best online poker players in the world. So they are all too aware of how to identify weaknesses and then ruthlessly exploit them.

This happens at levels a damn site lower down than nosebleeds. Back when I played $25-$50, I did well originally but made the mistake of hanging around with very good players for too long. They were better than me for numerous reasons, firstly they were more mathematically aware, secondly they ate, slept and breathed the games at that level and thirdly, they weren’t filling in their bloody time writing about the damn game.

So the result was inevitable…..they goosed me good and proper. I cut it short at 20 buy-ins because if one thing is clear after twenty years in gambling…….I know when someone or some people have my number. But I don’t care who you are….Dwan, Sahamies, Townsend……whoever……you can get at these people with enough planning and bankroll.

But they ARE world class players and world class players rapidly adjust and this is when your initiative recedes. I don’t believe that it is possible to outplay these people repeatedly. You need to take them by surprise and you need to be the surprise package. But that quickly evaporates and then the initiative that you had is gone. Then they are responding to you and finding weaknesses in your game and that’s when the money starts flowing back.

If I played the nosebleeds I would go in with a plan. I would watch the games for at least six months very closely and try to find weaknesses in certain players and then go in and try to exploit them. But they wouldn’t know my game and I would play for no more than a month at the most and I would be gone. But there is misdirection thrown about in the nosebleeds and who wouldn’t for potential seven figure incomes.

The point is that you have to be satisfied with a couple of million dollars and then leave. A good game plan against the right targets with the proper bankroll and the discipline to leave sooner rather than later is the way to go. Isildur1 will find that his initiative will diminish and that it is sheer folly to suggest or think that you can keep on beating these guys.

Once they suspect that they are not losing through variance then they will take a step back…..reassess and then come back and it will be you who is the hunted.

See you soon

Carl “The Dean” Sampson at poker loco

I had an e-mail a few days ago from someone who was confused about the Isaac Haxton video and my comments about it. Simply it is to do with various factors and the main one being how expected value is more important as the field size shrinks.

Let us look at a six handed example, you have five opponents and 2 are superior to you, one is about break even and the other two are inferior. Now in NLHE we can theoretically calculate our EV against each player. I say theoretically because most of the time it simply will not be possible to calculate it accurately.

But let us say that against the two players who are better than you (assume stakes are NL1000) that they have an earn rate over you of +0.5 buy-ins each per hour of play. So you are losing $1000/hour being on the table with these players. This may seem awkward but is merely the sum total of the amount of equity that this players are dragging from the table and then breaking it down to a per player basis based on numerous factors…….keep with me here.

The third player is break even with you so you are basically recycling money against this player. The other two players are worse than you. One is providing you with an earn rate of 0.5 buy-ins per hour and the other is providing you with an earn rate of 0.6 buy-ins per hour. You now have an earn rate in this game of 0.1 of a buy-in per hour which is $100/hour. This is the $1000/hour that you are losing to the two superior players and the $1100/hour that you are gaining from the two inferior players.

This is despite having two players out of five who are better than you. But reduce this to a heads up situation and the dynamic shifts abruptly. But even in six max, game selection is critical. If one of the three players who are not +EV against you leaves this table then you have a potential -EV situation about to arise. If the player who is passing you 0.5 buy-ins per hour leaves then the game is now a bad game for you as your expectation is now now longer $100/hour but -$400/hour or 0.4 buy-ins.

In fact even if the break even player leaves and is replaced by another player who is only marginally better than you then your entire earn rate has been wiped out. We cannot always assess these situations as accurately as this in the heat of battle but this is why experience is so vital at any level. You need to know how good the players are at the new level and how that relates to you. If you can do this then you can have a better understanding of EV in online poker games.

In poker you make money by making a series of correct poker decisions or as many as you possibly can. So if you get into a game with a player who is better than you then you have a -EV situation and you cannot make money in poker putting yourself into these situations. Let us say that an employer paid you $100/day to do a certain job.

But if your employer said to you that if you went into work on a certain day that not only would he not pay you but also he would fine you $200 for coming into work…..would you go to work on that day? A silly example maybe but it highlights game selection in poker and how you can avoid bad situations and games simply by not sitting in them…..the key is to know your own skill and how that fits in with your opponents and this takes a lot of hands on work.

See you soon

Carl “The Dean” Sampson at poker loco

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I did promise another Vince Stanzione video and here it is. Once again I want to underline how these two fields are not just similar but they are frighteningly similar. Listen to how this guy speaks and imagine that he is talking about online poker. The very start of the video where he speaks about not doing it for excitement is highly pertinent for poker.

It is hard not to be excited when you are finally breaking through that barrier and making money. Unfortunately it then becomes a bind; even making millions gets boring (not that I would know). How can making big bucks get boring……easy and I can say it in three words……diminishing marginal utility.

If you gave a person who was very poor $50,000 then that amount of money would have a profound effect on their life. Give that same $50k to a man who already had $1 million and it is merely a “nice” bonus. Give it to a man who is worth $20 million and it wouldn’t even register. Does a person who is worth $50 million have a different lifestyle to someone who is worth $100 million? Probably not but be are talking FIFTY MILLION DOLLARS difference here!

This is the law of diminishing marginal utility and is why true happiness is not just about having money and being rich even though numerous people try to pursue happiness down those avenues. Happiness is a multi-faceted thing that can only be arrived at by numerous areas of your life being harmonised…..the financial side of your life is only one such facet. If having money was everything then rich people wouldn’t commit suicide would they?

I appear to be getting all philosophical on my blog which is actually deliberate because it is about time that I started talking about how poker is actually a microcosm of life itself. Zen philosophy teaches us how all things in the Universe are connected in some way. Listen to Stanzione when he says how much quicker losses can be achieved compared to gains…….THIS IS POKER!

Tilt and bad play can wipe out hours of work and even variance itself can wipe out hours of winning play and then tilt just puts the icing on the cake. So remember that you can be a good poker player by getting into a trading mindset and even doing a study of trading is no bad thing.

Carl “The Dean” Sampson at poker loco

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I was going to post another Vince Stanzione video today but I totally forgot about the World Cup draw in Cape Town yesterday and it’s a great draw for England…..is our luck finally turning?

I think that Capello will prepare us right and I think that we will have a good tournament at the least. We should top our group against Slovenia, USA and Algeria. Some people will say that these are not easy teams and they are right but there are no easy teams in the finals.

But if you want to win a World Cup then you have to come through against these sides. Alan Shearer got it spot on during the BBC commentary when he said that if we fear the likes of USA then there has to be something wrong somewhere.

It always makes me laugh when I hear footballers and managers say that it doesn’t matter who we get because you have to beat the best teams sooner or later anyway…….partly true but mainly incorrect. You would rather have an easy route to winning a World Cup than a hard one.

If you are playing world class sides after world class sides from the 2nd round onwards then the chances are that you are not going to make it through those series of games. Imagine a sequence where you had to play Portugal, France, Argentina and Brazil from the last 16 to the final in order to win it.

How many countries in the world would come through that series of games. But if you only have to beat 1 or 2 of them because you had an easier fixture or two along the way then your chances of winning the competition are far greater…..want proof……Germany in 2002. They did not play ANYBODY who was capable of winning the tournament until Brazil in the final and you can simply google the 2002 World Cup to see what I mean.

Same tournament and England had played both Argentina and Brazil by the time it had got to the last eight. So you need some luck with the draw and which teams you have to face and this is the same with any cup competition. One only has to look at how the 2008 FA Cup turned out with Portsmouth, Barnsley, West Brom and Cardiff reaching the semis.

If Cardiff had to face Aston Villa, Blackburn, Liverpool, Arsenal and then Spurs to reach the final then what would have been their chances? It is true that you have to beat a top side at some stage but you don’t want to have to beat them at every step of the way and the less serious hurdles you have to overcome then the better your chances……simple.

I am getting World Cup fever already, don’t know how I am going to get any work done next summer

Carl “The Dean” Sampson at poker loco

After more than 20 painstaking years in the betting, casino and poker industry, one of the things that strikes me about them is in how they share common ground in so many different areas. The process of making money in sports betting is akin to making money in financial trading and especially with the arrival of the betting exchanges a few years ago. Today’s video may seem like it is taking a diversion from poker but it really isn’t when you think about it. I really like Vince Stanzione, I like the way that he speaks, I like his body language and I have yet to see or hear something in his lectures that I don’t like.

One of the key areas for me a few years ago was based around how I started spotting connections between seemingly different fields. If you can understand poker concepts then you can play different forms of poker reasonably well with little experience or theory behind you. I knew that I could play a fair game of PLO before I even played the game, fine so I may not be Phil Galfond but you don’t need to be at the lower levels.

With sports betting, it is often a mistake to go looking for areas where betting firms have made mistakes with their lines. They use odds compilers and information networks that MI5 would be proud of at times so getting information that they haven’t got and trying to decipher data better than them is putting you on very thin ice.

But value can be created in numerous situations but it isn’t to do with betting firms making mistakes but more to do with them knowing full well that certain prices do not reflect the true theoretical probability of the event actually happening but following their own strategic plan. They may be looking for action, they may be looking to deter action or to balance their books or reduce liabilities. They may even be looking to hedge…..who knows.

One thing is clear and this is that if you think that you have spotted value then do not think that the bookmakers must be right and that you must be wrong. If you do a thorough research on how they work and operate and what they look to do in certain situations and why then it will leave you in a better position to understand why certain prices represent value but this in no way means that a betting firm is about to get filled in.

I am going to show another video of Stanzione’s shortly about not following what betting firms want you do and not allowing yourself to be manipulated…..and this certainly does apply to online poker and the misdirection that is pivotal to success in that game.

The Dean online at poker loco