Bank Roll Management

One of the most important, if not the most important aspect when playing a winning poker game has nothing to do with how you play your cards or the tells you pick up on someone, it is about managing your money and playing games within your "roll".

Because poker is a game of skill and LUCK, you need to be able to manage the swings of the game you are playing.  A friend of mine had the pleasure of meeting with Phil Helmuth and Johnny Chan a year back and asked them about managing their bankrolls and how much you should have to play poker with.  They both answered around the same.. To sum it up, if you are a recreational player with a full time job, you should have 15-25 times the buy in amount for the game.

So if you are a regular 1/2 NLHE player, you should have around $3000 to $5000 to play in these games.  

They also mentioned that if you are playing poker full time as a job, that you should have 200-250 times the buy in!! Yikes!  For a 1/2 game you would have to have $40,000 to $50,000 just for your poker bank roll!!!

A lot of people think that once you move up in limits, that it is embarrassing to move back down.  Don't ever let your ego get in the way of your Poker Bank Roll!

Maxxscam with Ivey to his left!

Position is always so important in Poker.  The person on your left always has an advantage of you as they see your action first 9/10 times.  Well one of our players Maxxscam has made it DEEP into the WPT event in Reno and is 7th in chips, despite having the worst possible player to sit to your left.... Phil Ivey.

Maxxscam is an amazing poker player and has been playing with Sun for a long time,  we are very excited for him and feel as though he is going to take this tournament down!  Maxx is also going to be heading one of our new marketing ideas which we will be revealing soon!!

Good Luck Maxx!  Take it down!

Fearsome Foursome Poker Team

It is always exciting speaking with our players that qualify to play in our promotions around the globe.  Just today I got off the phone with our latest San Remo Fearsome Foursome Finalist and he was very excited.  He said "I have never won anything like this before!!" and sounded like a kid in a candy store just after pay day from his paper route.

It is always great to give players that never played poker in a big event a chance to show their skills off to the world!

I just want to wish our San Remo Fearsome Foursome Poker team great luck and hope you all enjoy your experience, whether its your first time or your thousandth time playing in a big tournament.

The Fearsome Foursome

I just spoke with Alex Jagodik who is leading the SunPoker.com Fearsome Foursome team in Warsaw Poland right now.  It is day one and 3/4 players are still in including Alex, who was sitting with Greg Raymer at his first table.

Right now with 4 hours left in the day, they are all sitting with around 11k in chips and it sounds very positive for the Foursome right now!

Good luck to all the SunPoker players in the EPT event right now!  Bring home some money! :)

We hope to see the Fearsome Foursome all in day 2 tomorrow!

The Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities (KSA) of the Winning Poker Player, v1.0

I came across this post on 2+2 today about the knowledge, skills and abilities that make you into a good poker player.  I think this is a good general checklist to have and review before each session.  It gives you skills to work on and always have in the back of your mind when you are playing, so that you continue to play to the best of your ability.  I suggest you print this out an post it somewhere near your computer so you can always reference it and continue to improve your game! :)

The Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities (KSA) of the Winning Poker Player


Hand-to-Hand/Technical KSA

• Starting hand selection
  
• Reading the board and adjusting to it
  
• Adjusting correctly to stack sizes and ante structure (and prize structure/equity if tournament)
  
• Appropriate betting lines
  
• Appropriate bet-sizing; pot-size manipulation
  
• Hand-reading
  
• Adjusting to playing styles and table images
  
• Changing gears and setting up future plays
  
• Basic math: understanding EV, estimating implied odds, calculating pot odds, etc.
  
• Adjusting correctly to position
  
• Being tell-less and/or effectively using false tells; detecting and adjusting to tells of others
  

Other Table KSA

• Focus/Concentration, paying attention
  
• General memory; memorizing betting patterns, playing styles, eccentricities, etc.
  
• Knowing when to quit and take breaks
  
• Remaining calm, logical, objective, disciplined; avoiding tilt
  
• Being ruthlessly competitive
  
• Tilting and manipulating others
  
• If cash game, optimal buy-in for skill-level and playing style
  
• Willingness to experiment to learn
  

Beyond The Table

• Self-criticism and objectivity in session analysis
  
• Discipline to actually do the session analysis
  
• Obtaining and internalizing useful feedback (self-correction)
  
• Research and other active learning, e.g. online forums, books, magazines, training websites, etc.
  
• Table selection - day, time, stakes, type of poker, room, table
  
• Seat selection
  
• Deciding whether to play or not
  
• Bankroll management
  
• Online: Obtaining optimal rakeback and bonus deals
  
• Online: Exploiting add-on software (e.g. Poker Tracker, PokerAce HUD) to analyze play, close leaks, exploit opponents, etc.
  
• Online: Multi-tabling; optimizing # of tables; increasing the # of tables one can play
  
• Online: Taking good notes
  

SunPoker Forum on twoplustwo.com

We recently launched our own sponsored forum on twoplustwo.com. 2+2 is a very well known poker forum that was more USA based, but has been slowly shifting to having a lot of NON-US players on it. Some of the top poker pros post on 2+2 and in turn bring a lot of very knowledgeable people that can help you improve your game.

Feel free to post any questions that you would like answered or talk about upcoming promotions you would like to see! The new forum is a great way to have a lot of people chime in on how to make SunPoker a better poker room for its players.

Check out the forum at: http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/forumdisplay.php?f=105

Seeya there!

Poker Coaching Sites - Learning to Play from the Pros

A few years ago, poker was a lot easier to win then now a days. It used to be the people that read the poker books that seemed to come out on top, and still to this day every bit helps, but today there are so many resources out there that can help you.

There are many ways to improve your game but one of the best ways that has become incredibly popular is Video Coaching Sites. These sites have top poker pro's record their sessions while they explain exactly why they are making the decisions they make. You now literally know the analytical thinking that goes into the top level poker pro's decisions that have helped them be so profitable through poker.

The first coaching site I had ever heard of was CardRunners.com. The big name that I had heard of was Brian 'sbrugby' Townsend who started out playing 0.50/1 tables and has moved up and made millions from online poker. This is the only site I have personally signed up for, and find that it has some really great videos and some great coaches.

StoxPoker.com has a very good reputation as well and seems to have a lot of good videos and coaches. You are able to sign up for a free account as well as watch demo poker videos to see exactly what they offer.

DeucesCracked.com, is a site that I haven't heard much of, but they offer a free 7 day trial account. So before signing up for any of the coaching sites, I suggest getting a demo account here just to see if coaching videos are for you, before making a commitment to any of the sites.

A free way to get some coaching advice is to take your hand history and use a hand converter like http://www.weaktight.com and posting some of your hands or sessions onto some major forums asking for advice on what you would do in that situation. Some great forums to post on for advice are twoplustwo.com and 604poker.com. Also read hands posted by others and think what you would do in the situation and then read what other players would do, I can't stress how much this has helped my game in general.

Poker Movies

According to most movies about Poker that are out there, Poker is an always an adventurous, comedic journey filled with outlaws, secret games, and the hands are always played till the river and everyone still in the hand always has a huge hand, yet is somehow beaten by a slightly better hand.

Now first off, I should say that poker adventures do happen, but nowadays with the large poker boom, the underground excitement has left the game for the most part. It has not been replaced with commercial antics and drama caused by the characters that play poker.

There is a new movie coming out this year called "The Grand" which looks so over the top it just might actually be right on the money, specially with David Cross playing the character that goes far beyond "Hollywooding" his poker accessories.



Someday as Online Poker Grows, I am sure there is going to be a romantic drama comedy about online poker pros, but until then we will just have to watch episodes of "Joe the Pro"

Funny Hand on PAD

I know this hand is old, But I recently watched a few friends all play in a private 604poker.com tournament, anyways the same scenario happened, Hero Flops the top set and checks it down as he is scared of a huge hand! Pretty funny stuff:



Here is the link to my friends hand.. pretty funny stuff :)

http://www.604poker.com/images/mikevids/vanuck.mov