So the other day out of curiosity, I wanted to figure out which game would require the fewest hands to reach Supernova Elite on Pokerstars. Turns out the 5/10 Limit Omaha H/L is the answer! Achieving SNE is based on earning VPP’s, which are awarded based on how much rake you contribute to the pot, it doesn’t do much good to play above 5/10 Limit. Rake is capped at $3 per pot, which happens about 60% of the time, and the average rake somewhere around $2.15/pot. Playing 10/20 could improve this, but there is usually only one 10/20 table which only lasts a few hours a day.

What does it all mean? Well you could play fifteenth tables of 1/2 NL hold’em, 9 hours a day, all year long, or you could play three tables of 6max 5/10 Limit Omaha H/L 8 hours a day. Still a serious undertaking, but the bankroll and stress level requirements are much lower with Omaha. Not to mention it’s soft as Hell!!

Food of thought..

Without a doubt, the first thing every poker player should do, is learn to analyze their own statistics. Everyday, as I browse thru many different forums on poker, I come across a plea for help similar to this: “Please Help me analyze my stats, I’m losing and I don’t know why!!” Followed by a list of the often times RANDOM stats that they think are important, as well as their Profit/Loss graphs.

Half the time these posts go unanswered, because no one wants to hold some noob’s hand while they explain things that have, most likely, already been explained ten times over in the same thread they’re seeking help from. So, my first advice is to find out how many of your questions have already been answered. Helping people improve their game is one thing, but no one will help you if they see that you haven’t bothered to do your own due diligence. Second, pay attention to the rules and etiquette of the forum in which you are posting. Otherwise, plan to be ignored. Finely, don’t just go there expecting people to solve all your problems for you, the purpose of the forums is so you can get “Assistance” solving your own problems. That means you must come up with what you think your problems are, what you think you need to do to fix them, as well as reasoning to support your thesis. This is how you get help!

Anyhow, I’ll step off of my soap box so we can get to business. The very first thing you need to learn about your stats, are which ones are most important, and what do they represent. Below you will find a list of what I personally believe are the most important stats for “NEW” players trying to hone their game, as well as an ideal range for “Tight Aggressive (TAG)” play in Full-Ring games.

VPIP – Voluntarily Put Money In Pot: 15-18 %
PFR – PreFlop Raise: 12-15% Usually no more than 3% less than your VPIP
Steal% – Overall Steal Percentage: 32-36%
cBet – Continuation Bet: 65-72%
Turn cBet – Turn Continuation Bet: 40-45%
3Bet – 3 Bet Percentage: 4.5-5.5%
vsCall 3Bet – Call versus 3 Bet: 15-25%
WSD – Went to Showdown: 25-30%
W$SD – Won Money at Showdown: 48-52%

Now again, these are just the stats that I feel are most indicative of the problems that a new player may be facing. There are many many more stats to choose from, but these are what I would consider the fundamentals. If anyone of these stats is out of their suggested range, then it will have a drastic effect on your optimal win rate. Moreover, all of these stats are inter-related, so rarely will you have on stat that is off, while all the others are perfect. If your VPIP is too high, then your PFR may also be high. If your 3Bet is too high, than your cBet may be too high. If your Steal$ is too low, then your VPIP may also be too low.

I’m sure you get the picture by now. The best advice I can give a new poker player is to learn about your stats, and make sure that they are within these suggested ranges. IF your stats are in these ranges and you’re losing money, then you’re most likely playing at a limit to high for your current skill level, move down until you’re able to make money, then work your way back up.

Do want to learn how online poker players make their living?  Do you live in the Tokyo Area?  Then come join the Tokyo Poker Society Mentorship Program, where you will learn from someone who makes their living everyday online.

The Tokyo Poker Society Mentorship Program is designed to guide you from the beginning, all the way to mid-stakes no limit holdem, and place you on the road to PokerStar’s Supernova Elite Status .  All that we ask in return is your hard work, dedication, and that perhaps one day you will mentor someone else in the program.

Once you decide to participate in the mentorship program you will be place with a mentor with whom you will every week.  You will be provided with charts and note cards, and weekly assignments that MUST be completed prior to the next lesson.  The program’s pace is completely dependent on your own motivation; the sooner you complete your assignments, the sooner you may schedule your next lesson.

Here are just some of the topics that will be covered in-depth:

• The basic wager equation
• Bankroll management
• Position and starting hands
• Starting hand percentage calculations
• When to 3bet or 3bet light
• When to squeeze
• Continuation betting
• When to float
• When to Check Raise
• Value Betting
• Set Mining
• How to play draws
• Drawing odds vs Pot Odds
• How to play small pairs
• How to play small suited connectors
• How to play large Suited connectors
• How to use statistics software
• How to use table management software
• Using Bonuses to grow your bankroll
• Tips and tricks for Multi-Table play

And much more.

If you are interested in joining the Tokyo Poker Society Mentorship Program, Email Us Here for more information.

Good Luck!

Set Mining is a power tool in the arsenal of any serious player.  Hitting your set on the flop, especially when your opponent is the aggressor, will almost guarantee you to walk away from the hand with a nice pot, and possibly your opponent’s whole stack.

A player is dealt a poker pair once out of every 17 hands, however the odds of flopping a set are only 7.5 to 1, so the question becomes: is this profitable over the long run?  Since exact probabilities are not necessary at the poker table, lets round up to 8:1. This means that for every nine tries, we will only flop a set once. In order for this to be a break-even play, we must be able to win enough to equal the 8 times that we lost. This creates two constraints on our equation, 1)we must see the flop for as cheap as possible, and 2) we must only play this situation against players that have a stack size at the very least eight times the average pre-flop bet.  Now most players online tend to raise 3 times the big blind.  So our opponent must have at least 24 times the big blinds in his stack.

Ok, now if you’re are already a poker player you’re probably freaking out because you already know that “Set Mining” is most profitable against “Deep Stacks” of say 140 big blinds or more, but certainly no less than 100 big blinds. In this case you’re absolutely right.  Although my calculation shows 24 big blinds is required, this only represents what is required to break-even, and it does not account for all those times that you flop a set but are unable to extract a big pot, or the few times that you lose to a better hand.  When all of that is taken into account, then the number becomes 100 big blinds or more.

So in conclusion, set mining is a very profitable move, but be sure that you are seeing the flop as cheap as possible, and only against players that you can win at least 100 big blinds from.

Do you want to know more about “Set Mining”? Come join the Tokyo Poker Society! We meet Wednesday and Sunday evenings in Tokyo. Contact Us for times and locations

I was trying to find a good video on position, but I couldn’t find one that didn’t make position harder to understand, so I’ll explain it myself.

Position in Texas holdem refers to where you are sitting on the table with respect to the dealer button.  As the deal button moves around the table clock-wise, your positions changes.  For example, in a standard 9 seated PokerStars, cash game the positions would be as follows:

1) Small Blind (SB)
2) Big Blind (BB)
3) Under The Gun (UTG)
4) Under The Gun +1 (UTG+1)
5) Middle Position (MP)
6) Middle Position +1 (MP+1)
7) Middle Position +2 (MP+2)
8) The Cut Off (C.O.)
9)The Button (Button)

If you ever find yourself in a 10 seated game you would simply add a new position called (MP+3).  Now the idea behind position is simple.  The more people there are waiting to act after you, the more likely they will have a better hand than you.  Therefore, when you are the first to act (UTG), you must only play really strong hands from that position to combat the possibility that someone behind you may have a stronger hand.  As you move towards MP, the C.O., and eventually the Button,  it become less likely that someone behind you will have a better hand, simply because each time your position changes there is one less person behind you.

We learn to take advantage of this situation by playing with really strong hands when we are in early position (UTG or UTG+1), and then incrementally add weaker hands as you move into late position (C.O. & Button).  To give you an example, from UTG, I calculated that I  play only 5.4% of all combinations of starting hands.  However, by the time I get to the button, that percentages grows to 41.2%

Here at the Tokyo Poker Society, we have starting hands charts for each and every position.  We will help you develop you own hand range from each position and show you how to calculate the percentage of total hands.  

All too often, poker players simply lump position in to three giant groups, Early, Middle, and Late, but we feel that that is far to vague, and would much rather define it by each individual position, allowing us to surgically choose our Pre-Flop starting hand percentages.

Watch this example of Phil Ivy (The world’s best poker player) floating the flop and the turn, to take down the pot on the river with the worst hand!

The “Float” is a very powerful poker strategy, that allows you to take advantage of someone who often continuation bets after they lead with a pre-flop raise.  Because they raised pre-flop, they will want to keep the initiative by betting on the flop, regardless of whether they connected.  The reality is that the flop will only improve on your pre-flop hand 1/3rd of the time.  That means without having any knowledge of our opponent’s hand, we know that roughly 67% of the time he missed the flop.  So we “Float” is continuation bet in hopes that he will check on a later street, and we can take down the pot.

So let’s say you’re sitting on the button with A9 off-suit, and someone in front of you raises pre-flop. You assume that because they raised, they have a playable hand, but you’re feeling lucky and you want to play your A9 off-suit. So you decided to call, and everyone else has folded. The flop comes, and without even looking at it, you know that the raiser will have missed the flop 2/3rds of the time. The person who raised, also knows that, so it’s in his favor to make a continuation bet, and hope that you missed the flop and will fold. But you’re smarter than that. You decided to call his continuation bet, so you can see what he does on the turn. If he really missed, it will be very difficult for him to bet twice with nothing, so he will just check. And that is when you take advantage of your position and hammer him with a convincing sized bet. More often than not, he’ll fold and you will have taken the pot down.

This works because poker is not about what hand you have, it more about what hand your opponet doesnt have. You see, you can bet with any two cards, but it much harder to call with nothing.

This video does a great job at explaining how to calculate pot odds, and compare them to your drawing odds.  If your drawing odds are greater than your pot odds, then you will be assured “Positive Expectation” or +EV.  Poker is all about finding +EV situations and exploiting them, while avoiding -EV situations (when pot odds exceed your drawing odds).

In my opinion, understanding statistical expectation is really the only thing that one really needs to master the game of poker.  You can screw everything else up, but if you can master the concept of expectation nothing else will matter. 

Enjoy, and keep studying!