December 2010 Monthly Digest

Thread Contribution of the Month

This Month's Winner is:

buckster436
of Massachusetts
Member since Mar 2005

This month we would like to honor our beloved Buckster who recently passed away. He was a long term and very loyal member of Cardschat almost from the beginning. Buckster is greatly missed by all of the Cardschat family. His contributions to the forum were many. He tried to make sure everyone had a happy birthday thread.

In honor of Buckster:

November Truckin' Contribution of the Month Thread

Cardschat News and Updates:

Merry Christmas!

We'd like to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from all of us at Cardschat! We hope Santa is good to you all under the tree as well as on the tables! Thanks for another good year at Cardschat!

Upcoming Events:

Calendar

3 x$1k CARDSCHAT TRIPLE REWARDS Freeroll Series at Pokerstars:

• The first freeroll was a hit with F1rs7onflop taking down the first place.
• Don't miss out on the next freeroll on Jan 15th!

Cardschat Triple Rewards - 3 $1k Freerolls at Pokerstars

$1k BOUNTY HUNTER Freeroll at Sportsbook/Players Only:

• Only 15 days left to qualify for this freeroll!
• Don't forget to sign up and earn your 50 player's points to qualify

Cardschat Bounty Hunter $1k Freeroll at Sportsbook/Players Only

Winter League:

Cardschat Fall/Winter League Freeroll Sun Dec 19

We are now accepting sign-ups for the Winter League:

Cardschat Winter League 2011 Sign-up Thread



Last Month's Big Winners:

Daily Dollar Rail Fun - JohnBoyWWFC
10+1 Rush FTP - Beerm4n
12k rush rebuy, final table - stubzy11
5th Place - PS $162 Nightly Hundred Grand - WEC
FT 9k rush guarantee. - Shady Vision
KC chops 35K GTD - KingCurtis
A Win and a 2d in the same 10k gty 3 weeks apart! - Bonflizubi
Monoxide wins bad beat jackpot on Ultimatebet FOR 200K WUT - Monoxide

Adventures:

Road Trip! - Roland Cote
Vegas Trip - November 2010- dakota-xx

Strategy Article:





Tournament poker is one of the most exciting forms of poker around, the lure of a big score and life changing money in just a few days work is a powerful draw. Online there are tournaments running every single day where you can turn your small buy-in into a substantial figure. But they’re happening live as well and to ignore the potential windfall available from live poker tournaments is doing yourself a great disservice.

Live tournaments differ a great deal from online tournaments from the way they’re run to the types of players that play, to even the pay out structure.

Field Size

Online, there’s no limit to the numbers of players that can play, most tournaments have thousands upon thousands of players competing. Live, the tournament size is limited to the amount of tables the casino has, which means a smaller field size. Though that also means a smaller pay out to buy-in ratio it means they’re much easier to win.

The Payout Structure

Because the fields are much smaller live tournaments often pay out a higher percentage to first place. They generally still payout the same percentage of the field, 10%, they just weigh first place much higher, where online tournaments pay 25% to first live tournaments will often pay 35% or even more.

The Blind Structure

The blind structure is often much different live as well. Online tournaments have short 10 minute levels. Live tournaments generally have much longer levels, 40 minutes for almost any tournament and sometimes an hour or more. In most online tournaments the average stack is down to 15 blinds within the first 2 hours. In live tournaments long blind levels allow higher average stacks and more play and more play allows for your edge as a good player to manifest.

The Players

Obviously who plays what tournament depends on the tournament itself but as a general rule the players that play live tournaments are much tighter than the ones that play online. Your average internet tournament player is used to three-betting light and floating flops and making plays to accumulate chips whereas live players generally just play their own cards.

Obviously this is a generalization but you get the point, live players play much, much tighter, for example I’ve personally seen players muck AK face up against late position shoves from players with 10bb and less.

They play tighter because busting means more to them, when you bust online you can almost always find another tournament starting right away, if you’re playing live you may have to wait weeks or months to find another tournament and they don’t want to play all day only to bubble. So they adjust by tightening up. Obviously you adjust by loosening up and taking advantage of these players.

Live tournament poker is a different ball game. The game is the same but you have to adjust to the subtle intricacies because there is more play there is less pressure on picking up chips early, you can be more patient in the early levels. When the blinds get bigger identify the players that tighten up and exploit them, but don’t stop there, identify the players that are loosening up and exploit them as well. A well timed re-steal is a great way to pick up chips against a loose opponent. If you can adjust to the live scene you may find these games much easier to beat than their online counterpart of the same buy-in size and if you run well you may be able to book yourself a nice score.

About The Author

Daniel Skolovy started out in the poker industry as a dealer at a local casino. He quit to play full time after eight months and began playing the local $1/$2 games around town and dabbling online. After a year of the live grind Daniel switched his focus to online first playing and killing the 45 man turbos on PokerStars, before switching his focus to online cash games. It’s here where he’s spent the bulk of the last few years. Lately he’s also began to play live tournaments, mainly WSOP events and local Canadian Poker Tour events where he just recently won the West Coast Poker Championship at Edgewater Casino

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