paddypowerpoker.com launches Poker Pro promotion
Posted on June 2, 2009
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How many times have you thought, “I could do that” while watching somebody fold middle set to top set on High Stakes Poker? It’s not that easy, but it can be done.
The team at paddypowerpoker.com recognise the abundant poker talent out there, and have decided to make one of our players a Poker Pro, with the winning packages worth a whopping €100,000 altogether. The top prize is a €60,000 sponsorship package which will see you winging your way to events such as EPT’s in London and San Remo, GUKPT London, and of course our very own Irish Open and Irish Winter Festival.
Here’s the link with all the details
It’s a once in a lifetime opportunity for one of you, so get onto the tables now and make it happen!
Whack a Paddy and another CAPTION COMPETITION!
Posted on June 2, 2009
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Whack fol the toora loora laddie
Whack fol the toora loora lay!
One of our most popular PPP-exclusive tournaments starts at 8pm tonight, the Paddy Whacker. Don’t ask us where we came up with the witty title, it has been lost in the mists of time! What might interest you is that we’ve employed one of our beefiest (does anyone still use that word?) employees to play the part of PaddyWhacker0 and we’re placing a bounty of $100 on his head. If you find yourself on his table, knock the sucker out and take the bounty down to Chinatown (I recommend the Chef’s Special with Szechuan sauce). K.O. PaddyWhacker0 and go on to win the tournament outright, and we’ll give you a $200 bounty on top of your winnings - pretty sweet! Get training for tonight’s action!
Onto our almost-weekly Caption Competition…
Here we see the illustrious Emmet Kennedy (one of the main men down at Cork’s 96FM) and the legendary Padraig Parkinson, providing commentary on the Irish Open live stream. But this photo deserves a caption! Have a shot and you may be rewarded!
There is an Irish Winter Festival feeder token worth $27.50 to the winner (might have a few $4.40 feeder tokens as well for runners-up) - remember to leave your PPP screen-name with your entry; if you don’t, you can’t win as I can’t credit your account!
I’m off to Galway for the long weekend to enjoy the Volvo Ocean Race and the associated festival (the Red Arrows are doing a show on Saturday afternoon, hope the skies are clear!), so I hope all enjoy the 1st real weekend of the summer. Good luck to those playing in the ECOOP IV tournies and Irish Winter Festival super sat over the next few days! 
PPP.com player makes his mark in the ECOOP IV!
Posted on June 2, 2009
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Well done to shorty291, who made the final table of ECOOP IV event # 1, a $215 NLH tournament with a $250,000 guarantee. Shorty finished in 7th spot for $7,500 - with all that cash, you won’t be caught ’short’ the next time it’s your round! :) Groan!
Congratulations to our man Noel ‘BigCityBanker’ Hayes (he of PLO strategy fame) who came 19th in the very same tournament. It is great to see one of our own do well.
Remember, the last winner of an ECOOP main event was a paddypowerpoker.com player, Eoghan ‘Intruder123′ O’Dea, who captured the ECOOP III main event crown and hundreds of thousands of dollars in December 2008. There are 13 more ECOOP IV tournaments to play - which ones have you got your eye on?
PLO strategy - the next steps - PART II of II
Posted on May 26, 2009
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Part II of Noel ‘BigCityBanker’ Hayes’ PLO ‘The Next Steps’ strategy article - see post below for Part 1
As I have mentioned countless times in my last article, the better your starting hand selection the easier it is to play your hand post flop. Many times your starting hand is so strong that your position on the tables is of less importance. Lets take a simple example to illustrate how good starting hand selection can make life easy postflop.
Again let us assume a flop like above of Qc 9c 6d and assume that we have this situation both in and out of position. Using the same dynamic as above, your hand is Jc 10d 9d 8c – this is a somewhat idealistic match but its worth for the purposes of illustration is strong.
The Flop; Qc 9c 6d
Under The Gun
Option - Bet
Outcome - With one pair, flush draw, back door flush draw and a wrap you should be comfortable betting as no mater what course of action our opponent takes none of them upset us greatly as we have a multitude of outs to improve our hand.
Our hand is very strong and thus we are less concerned about inflating a pot out of position or being raised by our opponent.
Option - Check
Outcome - Given a normal table dynamic there is no strong argument for checking in this spot. With the exception of flopping the nuts we have hit one of the best flops possible for our hand and checking seems counter intuitive.
On The Button
Option - Bet
Outcome - As a rule of thumb if you are happy to continuation bet and continue with a hand forcefully out of position then you are generally happy to do so in position also. On very rare occasion you may decide to check for deception but these situations are and should be very rare.
Should your opponent decide to fold, call or check raise you are not unduly concerned by his actions.
Option - Check
Outcome - As mentioned elsewhere there is no good reason for checking this hand on the button. Occasionally you may choose to do so but that decision is generally made with a different outcome in mind.
———–
The recurring themes of respect for the power of position and starting hand selection are of significant importance. The above scenarios serve as excellent food for thought regarding both facets of the game. If you can do enough to get the right mix of these two important factors then you have the building blocks for a successful transition to Pot Limit Omaha.
Top Tips on Postflop Play:
1. This one sounds obvious but it will always be my number 1 – Think – always pause for a moment to consider the texture of the board before embarking on your course of action.
2. Continuation bet smartly – depending on the number of opponents in the hand, your position and the texture of the flop, don’t fall into the habit of continuation betting with too high a frequency as you are leaving yourself open to the prospect of being bullied off your hand and folding draws that you should have peeled a free card with.
3. Consider your opponents tendencies – get into the habit of keeping player notes. Familiarise yourself with how they tend to play flopped sets, strong draws and what they do when there draws miss – information is power and this
PLO strategy - the next steps - PART I of II
Posted on May 26, 2009
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Originally published in WPT Magazine:
So now that you have gone beyond the multitude of pre-flop options, it is time to face the next point of action; The Flop. At any point you will have 4 options; you can bet, call, check or fold and these options are presented to you with different dynamics depending on whether or not you are the pre-flop raiser and your position at the table.
Overriding all of this though is the need to do whatever you do smartly. Don’t get into the habit of continuation betting with 100% frequency, don’t always try to check raise a flopped set, don’t always check call the nut flush draw and certainly don’t feel the need to always try and steal the pot on the river when your draws have missed.
If you become predictable like this then opponents will begin to understand your tendencies and learn to play against you profitably post-flop. This is a bad situation to find yourself in, but think about it and flip it around for a minute – are you working hard to understand your opponents game? Many players will fail to understand that they get into the habit of playing certain hands in certain ways – that is why you need to get into the habit of taking notes and using them to exploit you opponents weaknesses.
Again your course of action is often dictated here by the old chestnut that is position. Let us take an example of two hands and see how playing them both in and out of position post-flop on different flop textures makes life easy or difficult for us.
We can start with the hand I used the last time, you are playing Ah Jh Jd 7s, and for ease of instruction lets say that you are playing from A) under the gun and B) on the button. The important thing to consider here is that to know why you are doing something and its likely effectiveness.
The Flop; Qc 9c 6d
Under The Gun
Option - Bet
Outcome - As the preflop raiser the natural tendancy is to want to continuation bet, you have raised preflop from early position and you want to continue to tell the story of strength from your hand.
However, you are about to bet into players and you are about to inflate a pot when you are out of position - we only want to do this when we have a strong hand.
On this occasion, our hand has not flopped very well and the correct course of action is to check. Why? Well this board hits a multitude of ranges with any number of 2 pair, flush draw and wrap type hands possible for your opponent to have.
It seems somewhat weak but the noble thing to do on this occasion is to check and fold to a bet from a late position player should they elect for that course of action. This may seem weak but as I keep harping on about - thats the power of position.
Option - Check
Outcome - You don’t have to win every pot you play, if you do try to win all the pots that you contest then you are on a hiding to nothing as you will hemorrhage money to your opponents. Continuation betting this hand on the flop will only serve to make life difficult for you on later streets.
On The Button
Option - Bet
Outcome - Position is Power - If having raised this hand preflop and if checked to on the flop then despite your hand not flopping very well the decision to continuation bet has less to do with your hand and has more to do with both you and your opponents tendancies.
As a default I would tend to continuation bet in position and when we do so three things can happen - the first two outcomes are easy to deal with as we will be left with simple outcomes he folds and we win or he check raises us and we fold.
The third course of action by him is where the waters start to muddy a little bit - he check calls our flop bet. By doing this he reveals alot about his hand, his range is strongly polarised towards draws - he should protect sets and even some two pair hands by raising and he should also be playing big combo draws (wrap and flush draw) more aggressively.
It is also not the type of board a villain should be check calling one bet with naked AQxx as play on later streets will prove to be extremely difficult.
Option - Check
Outcome - The option to check remains and doing so is good on a number of levels. You may currently have the best hand and you a depriving your opponent the opportunity to bluff raise you off the hand.
It will also serve to lower your flop continuation bet frequency and if checked to on the turn you can put in a delayed continuation bet as it is unreasonable to expect your opponent to check to you twice with a strong hand.
Round-Of-Each - time to gambool!
Posted on May 26, 2009
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Does anyone out there regularly play a Round-Of-Each (ROE) game? I’ve played in a live casino before, just four or five hours of cash (one round of PLO followed by another of NLH), really enjoyed it but wonder if there are any specialists out there or any specific strategy to follow.
Since most players will invariably be Holdem specialists (assuming any ROE game gets a good number of players), I wonder what will be their approach to the PLO portion of play. Tighten up and ‘batten down the hatches’ for the PLO round, hoping to get back to Holdem intact - or maybe loosen up and try to take advantage of everyone else’s inexperience?!
A few of us from the office are going to play a Pot-Limit Omaha / Pot-Limit Holdem ROE tournament tonight; I’m looking forward to it but especially can’t wait to see how everyone reacts when they are out of their depth at different points during the game. Obviously, Noel ‘BigCityBanker’ Hayes will be a big favourite (as our resident PLO AND Holdem expert!) but hopefully the rest of us can put up a good show and have some fun.
Do you play any of the mixed games (such as HORSE, etc…) available? If so, what would you like to see on paddypowerpoker.com?
Hunt that bounty, boys + Caption Competition!
Posted on May 18, 2009
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One of my favourite tournaments is our Bounty Hunter, each Wednesday night at 8pm. Pretty simple idea, knock out the bounty and we award you with $100 and you will get another $100 if you show up the following week to play as the bounty. Win again as the bounty and we’ll give you $1,000! Alright, that isn’t so easy, but just by knocking out the bounty you guarantee yourself an easy $200.
So, how about a Caption Competition with a Bounty Hunter $10 + $1 token to the winner?
What’s going on here?! Three legends of poker, Liam ‘The Gentleman’ Flood, Andy ‘The Monk’ Black and Phil ‘The Unabomber’ Laak enjoying a ‘moment’ at the Irish Open 2009. Looks like fun, but can you dream up a caption worthy of the photo?
Remember to leave your screen name so I can credit your account with the token if you win - if we have more than one worthy entry, I might award more than one token, so give it your best!
Can you Tweet? Coz we’re going all Social on your ass…!
Posted on May 18, 2009
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Well, what I mean to say is that paddypowerpoker.com (in the form of your humble blogger, me!) is on both Twitter and Facebook and we’d love it if you followed us (on Twitter) and joined our group (on Facebook) - have a gander:
paddypowerpoker.com Twitter profile
paddypowerpoker.com Facebook group
Let me know what you think; constructive criticism welcome!
On another positive note, two members of the PPP.com team cashed in the JP Masters festival this weekend in Dublin; Noel ‘BigCityBanker’ Hayes came 5th in the Pot Limit Omaha side event (he came 2nd last year - he really is our PLO specialist) while I came 8th of 138 in the €300 Side Event, an event which I split last year. I got €1,100 for my final table finish but left quite disappointed, my AQ unable to out-race the chipleader’s 88. That said, my 44 outdrew 66 earlier in the day so I shouldn’t complain too much :) I had a great time over the 2 days of play, despite being obscenely card dead for the 2nd half of the tournament. Live poker FTW!
PLO strategy from a Poker GOD! PART II of II
Posted on May 18, 2009
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Part II of Noel ‘BigCityBanker’ Hayes’ PLO strategy article - see post below for Part 1
As the strength of our hand increases we become more comfortable with raising and calling preflop and playing a bigger pot out of position. Remember some of our hands we want to play a big pot with and some hands are deceptive, naked big pairs for example. Initially they look strong but they cant stand the heat of pressure when its applied, thats when it becomes acceptable to open raise the button and fold to a 3 bet.
Some of the hands are not that obvious but here is a quick snapshot of some hands that flip between raising and calling a 3bet; limping and calling a raise; and raising and folding to a 3bet. The stronger the hand the more raise calling you will be doing irrespective of position and as the strength of your hand decreases you more down the line towards raise folding – this also changes relative to your position.
Remember egos are bad for your profit in poker so don’t feel bad about either raising and folding, and open limping and calling. Also remember that you don’t have to always try and win big pots, if you can win enough of the small ones this will have a positive impact on your win rate also.
Depending on the strength of the hand you should picture them as being on a spectrum. The higher up the strength of your hand range you go the bigger the pot you wish to play, as you move down the more you don’t want to play the hand.
Hand AhJhJd7s
Raise & Call Limp & Call Raise & Fold
Button Yes No Maybe
UTG No Yes Maybe
Hand KhQcJh10c
Raise & Call Limp & Call Raise & Fold
Button Yes No No
UTG Yes No No
Hand KcKs7h2d
Raise & Call Limp & Call Raise & Fold
Button No No Yes
UTG No No No
Overall this advice should make you think a little more about how certain hands play from certain positions. Of course, overiding all of these factors is how smart you play your hands postflop and this is something I will touch on next time.
Top Tips on Position
1. From the Blinds – do not fall into the habit of repeatedly completing your small blind in limped pots or of calling single raises from late position openers from the blinds either. If you can break even from these positions over time then you are achieving far more than many poker players. Just count how often you will check fold unimproved once the flop has come down and you will soon realize how much this advice is worth to you.
2. The Power of Position – In a 6 max cash game you play a higher percentage of hands from the button than you do from under the gun. An examination of your Poker Tracker Stats will show you that if you play 24% of your hands in total (VPIP = 24) then your positional stats will reveal that you play maybe 32% from the button and 18% from UTG. If you do not see a sliding scale of activity from UTG to the Button then you are playing too loose out of position.
3. Hand Values Change - As the VPIP stats would indicate your hand values change according to your position. A hand like KK82os is a fold from under the gun but it is a raise from the button when it gets folded around to you.
4. Its ok to open limp – don’t be too cool for school – leave your 6 max NLH tendencies behind you, it is ok to open limp from early position in 6 max plo so long as you do not intend to fold to a single raise.
Weekend time - Irish Open Caption Competition
Posted on March 28, 2009
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Woo-hoo, it’s Friday! Yep, time to start thinking about the weekend, days without work and perhaps a refreshing beverage or two. I’ve started to really enjoy ‘premium’ Swedish apple ciders recently, I know they are sweeter than those from these islands but I think they are a lot better. Long story short, will have a few later I think!
The photo for the Caption Competition comes from WAAAAAAY back in time, yes, all the way back to the Irish Open in 2007:
Phil’s coming back to Dublin for another crack at Europe’s most prestigious tournament, should be fun!
This time I’ve got a few $6 Maui Jackpot SnG tokens to hand out, three in fact! Remember to leave your screen name, otherwise I can’t credit the token and you’ll lose out!
Have a great weekend folks! And of course…good luck on the tables and in the Irish Open qualifiers over the next two weeks.