Fox's Bankroll Builder Project

Today's seminar will cover mixed game and fixed-limit tournaments. Complete information is here - 

http://www.pokerxfactor.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=33543

 

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I know I've been slacking on the Bankroll Builder Project, you all have my apologies. Things ran so bad for me in August that I got stressed about making money and played a otn of higher stakes games. I'm back on track with the project, and will have a new guide up for 6max no-limit at hte lower limits within a few days along with some videos. For now here is the old micro-limit SNG guide that so many people have been PM'ing me about.

This is the $10 SNG guide, but the other two were pretty similar, and this one should be a good start. Read ths guide twice, learn how to use it, play a few SNG's and then watch all of Beanmo's videos and you will be all set. 

 

While there isn’t a big difference in the style of play from $5 to $10 sit and go tournaments, the quality of play is much higher, so some adjustments should be made. If you are just starting to play at the $10 level after beating the $5 SNG’s consistently, take note of the following adjustments –

 

Your opponents are much more skilled now, and the very wild players may survive a bit longer because everyone will be afraid to call them down.

 

There are less wild and crazy players, and more overly timid players who you can run over later. This means playing a few less hands early is usually the way to go, and being pushy later will be more profitable than it was at the $5 level.

 

Paying close attention to those pokertracker stats is important now, because the difference between a 30% VP$IP player and a 7% VP$IP player is huge. You’ll see more of those 7% preflop “nits” at this level, and you’ll be stealing their blinds consistently from the 30/60 level on up.

 

Now on with the guide –

 

I have determined that sit and go tournaments are the fastest money maker at these levels. The play is so weak, and the structure so simple, that you can beat them without a great deal of thought going into each table. This means multiple tables with a good win rate, and that means you can build a bankroll quickly.  

 

First, let’s take a look at why these tournaments are so much more profitable that the other games at this level.

 

1. Low-limit players sometimes lack patience, which causes them to play too many hands preflop. They also tend to overestimate the strength of hands like Ace-Queen, Ace-Jack and even Ace-Ten, making them easy targets for preflop domination. There will also be players that are very tight, who will allow you to steal their blinds constantly.

 

2. The decisions tend to require less thought because the gear changes are so drastic. It’s easier to assess a table quickly when there are only a few choices, often all-in or fold. This makes multi-tabling these games much easier. In a cash game it’s much tougher to assess the table quickly and accurately and make the right decision when you have three other tables beeping at you..

 

3. The structure of the tournaments gives you enough time to wait for real hands, but often makes low-limit players feel rushed. The structure seems to create a perfect set of conditions at these levels, where you have very loose and wild players for the first few rounds, but by the time it gets to be four or five handed those players will be gone and you will often be able to run over your remaining opponents with lots of aggression.

 

4. These games can be beaten in an almost formulaic way, making your decisions that much easier. As with any form of poker, the less time you waste on the decisions, the more time you will have to study your opponents, take notes, and find ways to abuse them.

 

The common thread here is simplicity. Everything you need to beat these games is fairly simple, and with the ultra-weak player base the profit here is higher than anywhere else if your bankroll is below $500.

 

Let’s start out with which games you should actually be playing. Most of the time in poker, when you are looking for weak players, you look for the game that allows you to abuse their weaknesses. In this case the $10 buy-in, nine handed, turbo sit-and-go tournaments are the best. The turbo structure will cut your win rate slightly in terms of ROI, but your hourly rate will be much higher. The non-turbo SNG’s at this level require a little more thought and you don’t have time for much serious consideration when you are playing four tables at a time.

 

 The nice smooth climb from one blind level to the next on Full Tilt also makes life easy for you. It allows for lots of time to find a few hands to beat the overly aggressive players before the blinds get too high, and it doesn’t give you the unpleasant surprise of watching the blinds make a huge jump that you weren’t ready for. No-Limit Hold’em is the only game in town, because you will need lots of tournaments running to be able to play four tables at all times, and no other game can provide that.

 

Things you will need –

 

PokerTracker – You are going to be playing at least four tables at a time, and you won’t have enough time to get reads on your opponents or take detailed notes. If you get time to do those things you should be playing more tables and using Pokertracker instead. You’ll mostly be using it for the VP$IP statistic, which will be a big help in these games. You can get this program through us for $45, just check the top of the Books and Software Forum. If you aren’t a Pokerfox member you can get it for $55 at www.pokertracker.com.

 

PAHUD – This is a program that displays your opponent’s statistics on the screen next to their avatars. Without it you can’t see the valuable information that Pokertracker has gathered for you. It’s $25 that is very well spent.

 

A rake back account – Four-tabling turbo $11+1 sit-and-gos will yield about $2.50 per hour in rake back. Doesn’t seem like a mountain of money, but it’s a nice raise and at the end of the month it really adds up. Without it your climb through the levels will happen much more slowly, and during the first few weeks it might be what keeps you alive.

 

Full Tilt Planner (http://overcards.com/wiki/moin.cgi/FullTiltPlanner) and Table Highlighter (http://overcards.com/wiki/moin.cgi/TableHighlighter) – These little AHK scripts (http://overcards.com/wiki/moin.cgi/AutoHotKey) are invaluable. They are free, and available from overcards.com, just click on wiki and then on the AHK page. When playing more than one table they are both invaluable, and they will keep things running smoothly. If you play without them life will be harder.

 

Now on to some actual strategy -

 

The First Two Blind Levels –

 

During the first two blind levels many players are tempted to play speculative hands with the hope of flopping a big hand and doubling up. That was my first mistake in these games. You will find that you are raised off the hand you limped with far too often. It’s also not worth much to flop a draw in these games with hands like suited connectors, because your opponents will be so wild on the flop that you won’t get a good price to see the turn.

 

It’s important to remember here that you are looking to keep your variance down during these first two levels so that you survive until you have a chance to push a very large advantage later on. You should be happy to turn down close calls and potential double ups for safety during these levels.

 

Because they flop big hands instead of draws, and are much easier to play, small pairs are much better at these levels than suited connectors. Let those wild players try to push you around on the flop after you make a set of sixes. Small pairs can be played, but only in late position, and never to a raise larger than the minimum. When I say late position I mean the button or the cutoff seat. Other than those last two positions, just fold those small pairs until you are very comfortable playing and can easily determine whether the right factors are in place.

 

Learn to hate Ace-Queen and any other weak ace during the first two levels. Your opponents are not going to fold, and you are not a big favorite over much of anything with A-Q. This is especially true if you see a flop with it against four opponents, which is what will usually happen, even if you raise to thin the field. Overplaying weak aces is the most common mistake at these levels.

 

Hands that you feel good about include big pairs, tens and higher, and Ace-King. Medium pairs (66 through 99) are only really good for flopping a set cheaply. With TT or JJ you will want to think carefully about how much of your stack you are committing and how much you are willing to commit preflop. Plan it out and think ahead.

 

With AA and sometimes KK, you will be better off limping with the intention of making a large reraise when one of your opponents raises. If you raise from early or middle position yourself with your big pair, you are likely to get three callers and have no idea how to play on the flop, so it’s better to limp reraise and get a bunch of chips in while thinning the field. It’s no disaster if there’s no raise and you just see a cheap flop, just don’t play a big pot with your one pair hand. Which brings us to the best piece of advice in this entire article.

 

“Don’t play a big pot without a big hand.”

 

Simple enough to remember, and if you don’t remember it you won’t be a winner in these games. The more certain you are about your read on your opponent, the more you can consider breaking this rule, but I have to be very certain that my opponent is a complete maniac to play a big pot against him with a mediocre hand. You will be playing too many tables too give a lot of thought to in-depth reads on your opponents anyway.

 

It is okay to play a few speculative hands early on, but only if you follow these requirements. They must ALL be met or you are throwing money away. I find that a majority of my students find reasons to play speculative hands that only meet a few of these requirements, and lose money on them until they get it into their heads that they ALL need to be true to play the hand.

 

1. You must be in late position. You just can’t make as much money if your opponent has the advantage of position, and it turns speculative hands into big losers if you are in early position. Best to stick with the cutoff seat, the button, and the blinds. And don’t call raises in the small blind.
2. You need to have a hand that can flop a monster. Suited aces are nice, small pairs are good, medium pairs are the best. You would much rather have 66 than A9.
3. Your hand must play well against the field size. Against six opponents 22 doesn’t play that well, But ATs does. 88 plays pretty well here too, but 22 runs into too many better hands and gets sucked out on too often when it does make a set, while never catching up when it is behind. 22 does play okay against one or two opponents who play badly..
4. It must be during the first round. The blinds are smaller, the bad players are still around, and those two things add up to nice implied odds compared to what it costs you see a flop.

So if you are in late position, have a great hand to see a flop with, and it hasn’t been raised, you can consider it, but remember that it’s fine to fold those speculative hands too.

 

The third and fourth blind levels –

 

Now the blinds start to mean a little something, but honestly not a lot, and not nearly as much as most players think. Don’t overestimate the size of the blinds when they are 25-50 or 30-60. Unless you have taken a real beating in the first two levels, which should be quite rare if you follow my advice, you have a comfortable stack and the blinds are still quite small.

 

The real difference, much bigger than the blinds, will be the players. You will have twenty hands or so on them, and that will give you an idea from the stats on the screen, as well as from your observations, as to who the fish are. At this point you will probably have lost a player or two, sometimes more, and the table will have begun to quiet down. If you are in late position with a reasonable hand, and the blinds are tight players, (preferably below 20% VP$IP), you can attempt a steal with a raise of three times the size of the big blind.

 

With the players a little tighter, and the table a little less foreign to you, it’s possible to defend your blinds at times, and to limp along at times when you are sure there will be no raise in front of you. Stick with most of the default strategies for the first two blind levels, but you can be just a bit more creative. Remember to be in late position when you are creative, it makes everything easier. In early position you will need to play only the premium hands and nothing else. Position, Position, Position!

 

The 50-100 level and above –

 

You are going to have a decision to make before each hand that you are going to play. Is this a standard raise or a push all-in situation? If a standard raise is more than a third of your stack then you have no choice, and you might as well be all-in unless you are going to try something sneaky which we will talk about in more advanced guides. You will be looking for a reraise when you have a big hand and you want to get some action with it because your stack is so short that stealing the blinds won’t be enough chips to put you in a good position.

 

If you have less than 10 big blinds you are usually in push or fold mode. With 12 big blinds or more you can raise to 3x the big blind, but make sure to look at the opponents who are yet to act. If some of them are short stacks then you will have to call an all-in reraise from them because the price you are getting from the pot will be so good. In that case you would rather have a small pair than a weak ace, because the ace will run into a better ace so frequently when you are reraised.

 

Think ahead about what you will do according to your opponent’s actions preflop, because it is a rare situation in Hold’em where you can actually have all your moves planned out, and you should take advantage of it. Most players at this stage don’t realize how simple the game has become, and try to make tricky plays. Which brings us to our second important piece of advice.

 

“Don’t get tricky”

 

Trying to trick someone in these games is really a waste of time, they aren’t smart enough for it. You can make a perfect check-raise bluff when a scare card falls on the turn, but don’t come crying to me when top pair with no kicker calls your all-in bet because he doesn’t know any better.

 

The large blind levels (150-300 and above) –

 

Get yourself a SAGE calculator here (INSERT LINK), and use it. If you have the funds, it will be great for you to get a program like Sit and Go Wizard or Sit and Go Power Tools, which will teach you perfect end-game play that will be useful to you for the rest of your SNG career. At the very least you should download the free trials of these programs and work with the free trial of the Bubble Trainer at pregopoker.com. These programs are much more powerful than the simple SAGE calculator linked above, but when you get to heads up, and the blinds are very high, the SAGE system is pretty strong and it will do you a lot of good to work with the SAGE system long enough to understand it and be able to play it when you are distracted by other tables.

 

The most important concept you will learn from the software in the paragraph above is the idea of fold equity. There are times when you would push all-in with seven-deuce offsuit if you were first in to the pot, but you couldn’t call an all-in from an opponent even if you had a top ten hand. Being first into the pot and having a chance to steal the blinds is huge, especially if you really need those blinds and still have enough chips that you can scare your opponents. Remember, they don’t want to lose half their stack to you, so get your chips in now on a steal rather than waiting for a hand and ending up so short stacked that your opponents have to call you when you finally try to get all your chips in.

 

“When the blinds are high and the bubble is not yet burst, be very tight to a raise but very loose and aggressive if you can be first in.”

 

Of course if you are a very comfortable stack who is headed for the money, you shouldn’t be stealing too many blinds, and if you are a small stack with three other big stacks then you should stealing like mad to try to catch up. If your opponents are all going crazy playing hands against each other you may want to wait and let one of them go out first so that you can sneak in to the money.

 

“When should I panic?”

 

When your stack is nearing five big blinds. At that point you are looking at a real problem, but it’s also very dependent on how your opponent’s stacks match up with yours. See the attached visual guides for some really good stuff on stack sizes and when to start pushing and when to stay out of trouble.

 

“Your goals are 3^rd place and 1^st place, that’s where the money is.”

 

Third place is two buy-ins, then second place is only one more buy-in, and first place is two more buy-ins. 4^th and 2^nd place are junk. Your first goal is to make the money and then once it’s three handed you are playing to win and you can forget about 2^nd place unless the short stack is very small and the big stack is huge, with you in the middle. In that case you can avoid tangling with the big stack until the small stack goes out or doubles up.

 

Play on the flop is much tougher to put into a formula, but it’s not too hard to do well, as long as you are making smart decisions preflop.

 

If you flop a monster, do what you can to make some money, but be careful slow playing against a large field. If there is any chance that someone could catch up to you then you have to play fast. That means flopping a set should generally be played fast unless the board is J-7-2 rainbow and you only have one or two opponents. If the board is very safe like this, then slow playing is okay, but generally you will want to play a flopped set fast, by betting and raising. Don’t make your bets and raises too large, people like to call and you don’t want to discourage that. Just make the right size bets to win a nice pot and hopefully break someone.

 

If you flop a medium strength hand like top pair, it’s important to bet or raise on the flop. This helps define your hand and gives you a chance to get away from it if one of your opponents wants to play a big pot (one pair is not strong enough to get too excited about and should be easy to fold if necessary). The other major reason to bet and raise here is to punish your opponents for calling and protect a very vulnerable hand.

 

Stack size manipulation is an important tool for you to master in order to achieve a good win rate. It’s important to consider your opponent’s stacks and your own stack before every decision you make so that you can make wise decisions and keep yourself out of trouble. As a general rule, until you are very good at reading hands, you shouldn’t get more than 1/3^rd of your stack in the pot unless you are willing to play for all your chips and have a very strong hand compared to the range of hands your opponent would get all-in with.

 

While I talk about formulaic play in sit-and-go tournaments, there are more skills involved than I can possibly cover in one guide. I believe this guide will help you to become a winning player, but to achieve a huge ROI and make serious money, you’ll need to keep studying. Below are some good ways to keep improving.

 

1. If you are not a member of pokerxfactor.com, join it now. The forums and videos are invaluable, and you can learn a lot about sit-and-go play from the videos explaining how to extract more money from these tournaments.
2. Get the free SNGEGT at sngegt.com or buy Sit and Go power Tools. Both are excellent programs. Remember to play slightly tighter than they recommend in most cases, but a little looser when the blinds are about to hit you and they are high.
3. Aside from our forums on pokerxfactor the sit-and-go forums on 2+2 are also very good and there are some excellent players who post there.
4. Find the best players and watch them. Sharkscope is a good tool for finding the best players, just check their leader boards and then find the people who are the best at the level you are playing. Then watch a few of them play for a day and take notes. There’s no substitute for learning from the best.

 

 

So far I have a very nice 21% ROI in $10 SNG’s using mostly what is written here with a few more advanced concepts. I believe that the advice provided here will get you a 10% ROI if applied carefully, and with rakeback and a nice steady income you’ll be moving up to the $20 level within a few weeks.

 

Some numbers –

 

With a 10% ROI, which is pretty easy to do with a few weeks of study, your win rate should be around $8 per hour and your rake back will be another $2.50 per hour. This assume seven or eight tournaments per hour, which is not unreasonable when you are playing turbo $11+1 sit-and-gos on Full Tilt. $10.50 an hour is not a dream job by any means, but it’s a nice wage to make while you are learning the game, building your bankroll, and acquiring some of those more advanced skills to improve your game and increase your win rate.

 

 

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Puck, and nay of you who are followig his gold chip guide will be unhappy to hear some news I just saw in the Cake affiliate newletter today -

They have discovered, due to a programming oversight, that the seats won in gold chip tourney were not being deducte from MGR, and they have changed that for July...

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If you are playing on Cake, as I know many of you bankroll builders are, this great guide from Puck will help you use those gold chips efficiently.

Puck's Gold Chip Guide - 

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 While I haven't nearly made up for a very rough month, I am still running good for the week.Unfortunately the great run of cards has all been in the bankroll builder project, while the bad run of cards was mostly at 50/100 Omaha. It will take an awful lot of $10 sng's to make up for the butt kicking I received at the big cash game tables...

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Since I started playing a few sit and go's for the project, I have had excellent success, and I remember now why I like them so much. Itcoul dalso be that they look really good compared to the nightmare tha cash games have been for the past few days, but that's for another post...

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I must admit I'm cheating a little bit on this one by using programs I already had on my computer. I'm using Hold'em Manager and the Sharkscope HUD (As far as I can tell this program is allowed on FTP, but if you know differently please email me the link that says it is not)...

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After grinding it out last night and this morning and having some nice sessions, the bankroll is up to $261 and I have some decisions to make. For now I'm going to play the $.10/.20 games on Cake, but I may be making a change soon. I've been looking into short stacking, and I think I'm going to try it since my guide for the $10 games pretty much covers the $20 games as well and I don't know if there is much more to say about them...

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The guide for the Cake micro-limit games has been submitted, you can see the rough draft in the forums, but the final version is slightly different and addresses a few concerns from the commenters in the forums. It should be up in the articles section within the week...

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I'm nearly done with teh guide to Cake micro-limit games, and I want to hear about any problems people are having at those games so I can include them in the guide. Feel free to respond to this blog or post in the bankroll building forum, I'll check both before I finish the article...

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The project is only on Cake for the moment because of the high rake at Full Tilt at the micro games. Cake is a unique placeto play, and it tooka little getting used to playing against people who just absolutely can not fold. So many bad players I actually had two small losing sessions before I made the right adjustments and caught a few cards...

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I finally hit an ugly downswing, one of those nights where you just know that the guy who always calls has just rivered the nuts on you again. I actually finished one session down $25.05, and if I had lost another $10 I was going to move back down to $...

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Since the last bankroll building project was mostly SNG's, and I was hired to be a cash game instructor here, I've decided that I'm going to play cash games throughout the project. I know I could do it with SNG's, and maybe a little faster, at least for the first $10k or so, but I've already done part of that, and I want to do it with cash games...

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Things have slowed down a little bit, in fact my BB/100 has actually dropped to 49.46! How hot was I running that almost 50 BB/100 annoys me now? Current HM stats below.

 

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First of all, RTHUD, which I am using for this project until I decide to buy Hold'em Manager out of the bankroll, does not work with Windows Vista. If you are a Vista user you will probably want to buy the small stakes version of Hold'em Manager now if you are planning to follow along...

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Here's an interesting hand from the $5 no-limit games. Very dfferent from the giant river bet that I made in a blog hand a week ago, and looking back on this hand I might have bet the river a little bigger, but six-tabling prevents the depth I can think into each hand as they are playing out and making a big river bet here would require stopping to think it through, which I don't always have time to do...

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I noticed today that many of the people who have posted winning stats at the micro-limits are more aggressive than my initial stats were for the project. I saw preflop raise numbers anywhere from 12 to 22 and agression factors as high as 4 in the pokertracker stats from winning players, and it made sense to me that my numbers were low...

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I'm sort of using this project to shore up any holes in my own game as I move up through the levels as well, which will also help me in teaching you how to do what I'm doing. Today I did some research on starting hand values because I just haven't played enough at these micro-levels tohave a good idea which hands I can get a profit from...

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I'm back from Paris and reqdy to get rolling on the Project! I played my first session today and it went fairly well. Six tables will take me a day or two to get used to I imagine, and I have a bunch of other projects that are taking up my tme as well so I won't get to play as much as I would like...

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[Hand History Replayer Removed. Click "Read" to show.]

This hand illustrates two important concepts that every no-limit player should understand, and they both often apply at the micro-limits. 

1. Don't play a big pot without a big hand...

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I think I have it figured out, at least temporarily. Multi-tabling cash games on Stars is something I've never done before, so I had to go through all the AHK scripts and free software and figure out what was worth using. After some testing, I have a set up that seems to work pretty well, and I have some experience at the very lowest limits on Stars now too, so I have some better perspective on the games...

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After doing some research, it appears that I will be starting off on Stars. Stars was the last place I expected to be playing cash games, but a few things make Stars the obvious choice for a new player.

Stars has the right limits ($.02/.05) for my $100 bankroll, and there are tons of games...

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I was pondering a bunch of the questions that came from people who read the intro post about the project yesterday. I was having trouble with exactly how to pursue this thing. I was hired to teach cash games here on PXF, but in the first project I found that single table tournaments were a faster way to make money at the micro levels, so which do I play? I also know that I will move very quickly through the micro levels, so the amount of teaching I have time to do at the lower levels is likely to be fairly short, so how do I find enough material to teach people about them? Someone also asked about the number of hours it would take me to reach $50,000 and if I had any projections...

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Thanks to those of you who were following the first bankroll builder project, and their insistence that I do it again, we are back! With a permanent home for the project here on PokerXFactor, and a lot more free time than I had for the first one...

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