Cracked Aces

Pocket Aces, the Grand Poo-Bah of starting hands. the experts say you will be dealt this hand 1 every 220 times on average. This would mean if your playing online at a table that is averaging 40 hands per hour you could expect to see someone at the table turn over aces every 33 minutes. This is if there are 10 players at your table.

You see it all the time. Someone makes a big preflop bet when they are holding AA, which is exactly what you should do if your holding rockets and Joe Donkey calls with his pocket twos. The flop gives Mr Donkey his third duece for trips and cracks those aces right down the middle. Then of course the typical rant pursues about how the site is rigged for action and Mr Donkeys sexual preference is brought into question and it goes down hill from there. I guess poker being a gentlemans game is a thing of the past.

Calling a big preflop raise in an effort to crack aces is not a profitable play in the long run but if your just in the game paying for some excitement here is some info you might find interesting.

Against AA:
1.)Your pocket 2's or any other pocket pair are a 4.42 to 1 underdog .
(Pokerstove results: 81.548% to 18.452%)

2.)A/Ks puts you in as an even worse position as a 7.2 to 1 underdog.
(Pokerstove results: 87.859% to 12.141%)

3.)K/Qs doesn't help you as its still a 4.65 to 1 losser.
(Pokerstove results: 82.315% to 17.685%)

4.)Believe it or not your best bet at cracking those aces are with 7/6s, 8/7s or
9/8s where you are only a 3.41 to 1 underdog and this is only if your suit
is different than those of the aces.
(Pokerstove results: 76.967% to 23.033%)

The bottom line, AA is the best starting hand in poker, if you get it, bet it. If your up against it, fold. Your bankroll will thank you.


P.S. I created the above graphic. Your welcome to steal it but at least have the courtesy of adding Poker Chaos to your blog roll.


Technorati Tags: cracked aces, pocket aces, pokerstove

Bounty Hunting

If you play hold'em tournaments I'm sure you have run across the situation where a player has a bounty on their head, meaning if you get in a hand with this player and happen to get lucky enough to take all his chips you win the cash amount of the bounty.

If you've enjoyed hunting in these type of tourneys your going to love this site. Bountyplayer.com is a bounty management site where you can sign up to hunt bounties on other players at designated poker sites. Quite a few of the bounties are placed on players in freerolls and anyone can collect on them, but if your a true bounty hunter and want to jump into the real gunfight you can put a bounty on yourself and qualify to hunt and be hunted in all the listed tourneys.

The guys at bounty player have done a great job of setting up the site so everything is automated. You just go to the tourney lobby and click "sign up" at the top of the page, its free. Once you have your user id and password you can gain access to all the features. The lobby lists all tourneys that have bounties offered. The drop down menus towards the top of the page let you filter the tournament list to suit your preferences. Be sure to check out the sponsor's links, these are the guys that make the free bounties available and you can find some great info on their sites. For example, Redeyed at Pokerchamps League sponsors a bunch of bounties and lists freerolls daily at her forum . Holdem Radio also list bounties in their forum. Both forums are a great place to find information, so join up and tell them Strat sent you.

Spend some time at Bounty Player. Look at the rules tab to see how bounties are created, claimed. and all about their reputation system. The accounts page features all you personal information, transaction history and funding options. I really like that they let you fund your bounties from your poker site accounts. If you have any questions don't hesitate to e-mail Todd, he is one of the most helpful support guys you will ever run across.

Bounty Player also has a great affiliate program that can help you direct more customers to poker rooms with your affiliate links and can give your website more exposure. BP does charge a small fee to manage bounties but offers a commission for bringing more players to the site. Its a win, win situation all around.

Get on over to Bounty Player and start by hunting the free bounties on Stratman's head, but beware you better have some big guns if you want my bounty.


Technorati Tags: bounty hunting, bounty player, holdem radio, redeyed, pokerchamps league

Strip Poker

I told myself I wasn't going to post any more videos, but I happened to stumble across this one and its just to damn funny, I couldn't resist.

Btw, if you don't follow the stumble link above and sign up, you are missing the best content on the net without a doubt. I've never mislead you before.



Technorati Tags: strip poker, stumble

Rest In Peace

During my daily travels I logged into Pokerchamps forum and found the following post from Ox Loki ( Forum Admin):

"Hi everyone,

Well its been fun while it lasted. The new owners of the forum have made a business decision that due to the recent low traffic at the site www.pokerchampsforum.com will be decomissioned.

Let me thank everyone who contributed to the forum. Whilst we did not get everything we wanted at pokerchamps we were integral in getting some things changed and I firmly believe that without the voice of this forum these things would not have occured.

Thank you all once again. I have met and made some great friends through Champs and this forum, and I thank each and every one of you for the support you all have given it over the past 14 months.

Say hi when you see me at the tables.

Best of luck to all.
Cheers
Oz"


Pokerchamps Forum was started by "Fenwick" a Swedish poker player and avid fisherman, hence the name. Fenwick fishing Rods are some of the best in the world. Fen invited a friend, Oz Loki to help administer the forum and the two managed to build quite a following with membership reaching 860 with over 4000 posts.

Around October of last year professional poker player Tony G. at the time CEO of Pokerchamps made a play and bought the forum from Fenwick. It appears now that Tony knowing of the impending purchase of Pokerchamps by Betfair, a British sports betting Company, was trying to capitalize even more by holding ownership of the forum domain name. Tony also owns pokernew.com from what I understand.

Since the purchase by Betfair, Pokerchamps and the forum have experienced a unexpected continual decline in traffic to the point we find the above post. It's a shame that Betfair screwed around and has made very little effort to promote or fine tune what I thought was some of the best software in the industry. I only hope that they will pull there heads out of the sand (I'm being nice) and make the changes necessary to keep Pokerchamps from experiencing the fate of its associated forum.

I'm going to miss the forum. Its like a part of me is dying as my posted words of wisdom, humor and occasional sarcasm are tossed into the virtual digital trash with no record of them ever having existed other than the memories of the people that endured reading them. It makes me realize that anything you write on the internet is kinda like drawing on an etch-a-sketch. Maybe I should print out my daily rants for the sake of posterity....Nah, get it while its hot.


Technorati Tags: pokerchamps, betfair, pokernew.com, tony g, etch-a-sketch

Some times poker sucks

I have neglected the blog lately simply because poker has been about as much fun as a blind man has trying to drive nails with a 16oz. framing hammer. I have been so pissed by the time I leave the poker table I could care less about anything to do with the game.

I'm suffering one of those streaks where I can't seem to catch a break. I get my money in the pot with the best hand and get out drawn every time. It enough to make one question his sanity. I'm sure no one wants to hear me moan and complain, or describe bad beats so I won't but something has got to give soon.

The only bright side is that its not my first time having lady luck piss in my corn flakes so I know how to limit my losses. I get up and leave the table when I feel that familiar tilt feeling coming on. I don't try to compensate for loses by moving up in stakes and I really try to play tight and don't let myself get sloppy. I'm Sorry I don't have any great words of wisdom or humor to offer up today but I will leave you with a little find of mine. If you like playing freerolls you have to check out Pokerchamps League, they hold quite a few freerolls as well as league play.

Technorati Tags: poker sucks, losing streaks, freerolls, pokerchamps league

Do you suffer from CRS ( can't remember shit)

Well I do, but I have found a bit of software to help me remember those league and freeroll tournaments.

It was getting ridiculous the amount of "post-its" that I had plastered all over my monitor. I would register for a freeroll a few days away, slap a note on the monitor and get so used to seeing it that I would still forget to play.

If your like me and need a little help organizing and remembering those little things, then your in luck. Stickies is PC utility that is the digital version of a post it note. The cool part is that you can set an alarm for each sticky so that it will pop up and wiggles until you click on it. Stickies can be formatted for color, size, visible or hidden and the program is free. Check out the site, download stickies and start showing up on time for those tourneys.


Technorati Tags: stickies, post its, freeroll tournaments, leagues

A sign from god

Ok, I'm convinced now. I was sent here to carry the burden. My bad luck is not just a series cosmic random occurrences but are a part of a higher purpose. There is reason I suffer all those bad beats. I can play with a new found freedom. Hallelujah!

Only kidding, I don't want to piss off the religious right. I just came across this site that lets you put up any sign you want on the church bulletin board. Thought it was funny. I'm sure God has a sense of humor.

Where I live here in North Carolina all the churches have bingo on Wednesday night but hosting a poker tourney would be a mortal sin. With the popularity of poker now, I just hope to live long enough to see "Poker Night" on one of these signs for real. Maybe an aggressive man of faith will get a vision on how he can increase his membership and it will happen. "Rake for god", I'll be there.

Technorati Tags: church sign, bingo, man of faith