RTR premier League game 7 - Kenn is Back!

Well Friday night saw the 7th round of the RTR League. So this week it was kenn who managed to get the pressure on the STILL league leader, the ever consistent Kronsdat!

Here was week 7’s result:

Position	Poker Site Username	RTR Name	Points
1st	woooooot	kennl	234
2nd	Hammerheid	Hammerheid	169
3rd	kronsdat	kronsdat	131
4th	Teaulc	Teaulc	110
5th	Mair38	xxMairxx	92
6th	dD	Mysterons	80

As you can see this game shook up the top five a little and now Hammer’s recent good performances will be paying off in the overall league table. A new player top this seasons game also jumps onto the table and squeaks in above BurnleyJoe, who currently is holding the Wooden Spoon position! Come on Joe drag yourself off the bottom before it is too late!!

So with three fixtures left can anyone take Kronsdat from the top? Not without a fight I am sure I can hear him screaming in the distance!!

Here is how the league now looks:

Position	Name	Points	Position Change
1st	kronsdat	1034	No Change
2nd	kennl	1023	Up 1
3rd	Mair38	976	Down 1
4th	Hammerheid	831	Up 1
5th	BurnleyMik	676	Down 1
6th	dD	484	Up 1
7th	Tanorpheus	480	Down 1
8th	rickyrosa	353	No Change
9th	Lukybugur	252	No Change
10th	Acornman	243	No Change
11th	TheCloud	161	No Change
12th	Teaulc	110	Up 1
13th	BurnleyJo	38	Down 1

Once again thanks to all who turned out and showed support to RaisetheRiver!

A New Night for the RTR League?

A few of you may have realised that the Raise the River Premier League of Poker has had a rather dissapointing turn out this season. After listen to the thoughts of members, the consensus seems to be that Friday night is a difficult night as many of them are out and about (playing poker we hope! ;-)). So, for season 4 of the League we have decided to put the decision to our members to vote for a new night. We would love to hear everybodys feedback, so please take a little time to pop over to the forum (click link at the top of page) and add your opinion, it will be posted in the “Raise The River Leagues” Forum!!

Thanks

RTR

League Game 6

Last night saw league game 6 of the RTR premier league of poker. Once again it was a hotly fought affair and after a husband vs wife heads up battle Mair came out as the winner!! The overall league is close at the top with the league leader currently Kronsdat and Mair now right on his tail. For a full report and the latest tables you can read the details HERE

League Game 6- Mair piles on the pressure at the top.

The 6th game of 10 in the RTR premier pleague of poker, was played out last night. 8 players took to the virtual felt to battle it out, including league leader Kronsdat.

First player to hit the rail was BurnleyMik when his flopped two pair ran straight into the mighty Mair’s flopped broadway straight! After shooting his bolt too soon the next player to be eliminated was G3lboy (Lukybugur). His early aggression and chip lead didn’t hold and the brave Scot was busted out in 7th. Unusually for an RTR game it was an extremely tight encounter with no player giving very much and maybe that could be accounted to the fact that the crazy kenn was sat out!! Even sat out kenn still managed to finish in 6th position, which may be detrimental to his league title hopes and dreams!!

dD was next to exit in 5th, when for some reason he couldn’t get access to his account even though he could see the game going on!!! Imagine having to watch hammerheed relentlessly stealing your chips while you can’t get back to the table!!! ;-). So dD, rather unfairly to be honest, busted in 5th spot.

One of the early chip leaders was back at the felt after a 3 week break and when he got a good stackeveryone at the table knew there could be trouble!! Unfortunately Tan lost a big race with his JJ vs Kronsdats AKs. Tan finally bust out in 4th spot.

So with three left two of those were the ever present league leaders, kronsdat and Mair. Both playing well and both seemingly extremely consitent top three finishers in this game. Only person who could put a dint in their title chasing hopes was Hammerheid and he was being cheered on to do exactly that by BurnleyMik and Lukybugur!!! (all in good clean fun of course!)

Next to bust and thus open up the league a little more was kronsdat. Once again Krons tight aggressive play got him into the top three and so he scores decent points, but with Mair still in the game he was unable to extend the lead at the top!

Then there were two. The husband and wife… mair vs Stan… domestic pride at stake. It was an epic battle with swings going both ways, but eventually Mair came out on top when Stan made a minute mistake and it was all over, we had the week six winner… MAIR!

Here is the full result:

Position	Poker Site Username	RTR Name	Points	Cash (€)
1st	Mair38	xxmairxx	234	€14.00
2nd	Hammerheid	Hammerheid	169	€8.40
3rd	kronsdat	kronsdat	131	€5.60
4th	TanOrpheus	-TanOrph-	110
5th	dD	mysterons	92
6th	kenn	woooooot	80
7th	Lukybugur	G3lboy	80
8th	BurnleyMik	BurnleyMiktd>	60

This result has helped Mair move up into second spot and close the gap on the leader, kronsdat. You can guarantee kronsdat will not be going down without a fight, after all, we are playing for an online final seat to the WSOP!!!!!!

kenn drops one place into third spot. Hammerheid closes the gap on BurnleyMik who is currently sat in 4th spot.There is then no change for Tan in 6th spot, but dD moves up one place above rickyrosa, who didnt make tonights game. Lukybugur also moves up one spot into 9th and thus forcing Acornman down into tenth. There is no change for the bottom two.

Here is the current league table:

Position	Name	Points	Position Change
1st	kronsdat	903	No Change
2nd	Mair38	884	Up 1
3rd	kennl	789	Down 1
4th	BurnleyMik	676	No Change
5th	hammerheid	662	No Change
6th	TanOrpheus	480	No Change
7th	dD	404	Up 1
8th	rickyrosa	353	Down 1
9th	Lukybugur	252	Up 1
10th	Acornman	243	Down 1
11th	TheCloud	161	No Change
12th	BurnleyJo	38	No Change

Once again RTR would like to thank everyone who turned up to play and support the RTR events!

Admin team Increases by two!

As some of you more observant guys may have noticed, the RTR admin team has increased by two members!

We would like to take this opportunity to welcome onboard vgj_felix and Yorkshire Pudding. Both guys have been selected to help out with the main day-to-day running of the raisetheriver website. With all the new improvements and things in the pipeline the two old admin guys, BurnleyMik and HullJimi, decided they needed to try and help spread the workload. Hopefully this would be beneficial to raisetheriver as a whole!

So you will see it may be dangerous to let Pud have the power of banning and deleting, and felix have a dictator like grip of the Podcasts, but we know you will all welcome them on board and wish them all the best!

RTR Satellite Game Tonight!

Tonight sees the second game of the RTR Satellite game. Mair38 was last weeks winner and went on to play the $75 buy-in game on Full Tilt Poker. Unfortunately it was not to be for Mair, but she put in an excellent performance. Tonight you can have your chance to play in a big game by playing the satellite game. The winner will take the full prize fund and play in a bigger buy-in game of their choice. Last week there was $90 in the pot for Mair to use and she decided to use $75, which means there is now $15 in the “over-spill pot”, which will roll over each week and then be added to the satellite at the end of each month.

So, get yourself signed upto play!!! You do need to be a member of the RTR forum and be willing to obide by the simple, but fair, rules of engagement!

You can see the rules either HERE.

Here are the details for tonights game:

Site: Pokerstars
Time: Tuesday 9pm GMT (16.00 EST)
Tourney Name: RTR Sat Game
Buy-In: $10+$1
Password: RTRsat

Good Luck and Enjoy!

Fixture 5 of the RTR Premier League.

With the league reaching the halfway stage things are still hot at the top of the league! Here are the current league standings:

Position	Name	Points	Position Change
1st	kronsdat	772	No Change
2nd	kennl	709	Up 1
3rd	Mair38	650	Down 1
4th	BurnleyMik	616	Up 1
5th	hammerheid	493	Down 1
6th	TanOrpheus	370	No Change
7th	rickyrosa	353	Up 1
8th	dD	312	Down 1
9th	acornman	243	No Change
10th	lukybgr	183	No Change
11th	TheCloud	161	No Change
12th	BurnleyJo	38	No Change

As you can see, its still wide open, but Kronsdat is the player who is holding that top spot at the moment!

BurnleyMik was the winner of game 5 and here is the full result for the game:

Position	Poker Site Username	RTR Name	Points	Cash (€)
1st	BurnleyMik	BurnleyMik	234	€10.50
2nd	kennl	woooot	169	€6.3
3rd	kronsdat	kronsdat	131	€4.20
4th	Mair38	xxMairxx	110
5th	Hammerheid	Hammerheed	92
6th	rickyrosa	theCloser!	80

You can read a full report on the game HERE

As always we thank everyone who turnoed out and played the league this week. GG all!

League Game 5 -The Halfway Stage

League game 5 kicked off with only 6 players, which was a shame, but this was due to a couple of things! Firstly some guys were having trouble getting the Virgin Software working after the new upgrade and also a few got the times mixed up!! So anyway the three league leaders all made it to the virtual felt for battle to commence.

First player to bite the dust was rickyrosa when he lost a stack of chips with AQ vs Burnleymik’s AK. Ricky had made a great comeback from a small number of chips early too! Next to bite the dust was Hammerheed when he mis-read the board of 889 with two spades and he shoved over BurnleyMik’s flop raise. Hammer Showed JQo and BurnleyMik showed KT of spades. The KT held and Hammer busted.

Then came the funniest part of a league game to date! Kenn went down to something like 60 chips and made the biggest comeback since Lazarus!!! He hit every flop with any two cards, which to be fair he had to do really, it was hilarious, he ran like god!!!! Eventually he got enough chips to bust Mair when it was Mair’s AK vs Kenn’s AQ and it all went in the middle pre flop. The flop came QxQ and Mair busts out in 4th spot.

Then there were three…..

With three left BurnleyMik had the chiplead, kenn was close in second and kronsdat had a little to catch up to be back in the game. Kronsdat played some really good aggressive push/fold poker and eventually got himself a double-up when kenn made a stand with KQ and Kronsdat had AA!!!!!! The game went back and forth without much happening until kenn finally got the better of Kronsdat who made a noble exit in third place. One thing was for sure, the league leader didn’t give it up easily!

The heads up didn’t last long when BurnleyMik raised from the button and Kenn re-raised enough to basically commit himself to the hand. BurnleyMik shoved and kenn had to make the call for his remaining chips. It was BM’s AQ vs Kenn’s A8. The AQ held up for BurnleyMik to take down week 5.

Here is the final finishing list for game 5:

Position	Poker Site Username	RTR Name	Points	Cash (€)
1st	BurnleyMik	BurnleyMik	234	€10.50
2nd	kennl	woooot	169	€6.3
3rd	kronsdat	kronsdat	131	€4.20
4th	Mair38	xxMairxx	110
5th	Hammerheid	Hammerheed	92
6th	rickyrosa	theCloser!	80

This game has affected the overall standings slightly. BurnleyMik has moved up into 4th spot. Kenn has secured 2nd spot after sharing it with Mair last week. Mair has made a slight drop into third, but is still well in contention. Kronsdat is still holding onto his lead for the moment and things are starting to heat up! Hammerhead drops slightly into 5th spot and rickyrosa moves up 1 place into 7th spot after dD didn’t manage to attend this week!

Here are the overall standings after game 5:

Position	Name	Points	Position Change
1st	kronsdat	772	No Change
2nd	kennl	709	Up 1
3rd	Mair38	650	Down 1
4th	BurnleyMik	616	Up 1
5th	hammerheid	493	Down 1
6th	TanOrpheus	370	No Change
7th	rickyrosa	353	Up 1
8th	dD	312	Down 1
9th	acornman	243	No Change
10th	lukybgr	183	No Change
11th	TheCloud	161	No Change
12th	BurnleyJo	38	No Change

A big thankyou to all who played and supported the league again this week. Well done to kenn for the all time greatest comeback! Remember if you want to play you can still join in the fun! Just check out the details HERE.

The Semi-Bluff - BurnleyMik

The Semi Bluff – My interpretation.

A semi bluff is a bet that is made when you don’t really want a call, but if you do you still have outs to draw to the best hand.

So let’s have an example….

You get dealt 9sTs on the button. One player before you raises and you call with position. The two of you go to a flop. The flop is:

FLOP: 7s8sAd

Here you have an open ended straight draw and also a flush draw, basically a very strong hand. If your opponent checks it to you then you can make a bet at this pot and this bet is known as the Semi-Bluff. The semi bluff can also have the advantage of disguising the strength of your hand too. Let’s say you lead at the pot here for a ¾ pot bet. A lot of the time you take the pot there and then, but if for some reason your opponent calls, you still have a lot of outs that could help you improve to the best hand, but also if you do hit your hand it can be difficult for your opponent to put you on a made hand!

The semi-bluff is a very powerful move on any Poker player’s Arsenal. Use it well and make it pay!!! Good Luck!

The “Stopper Bet” - By Kennl

This is a little thing called the ‘Stopper bet’, how to use it and how not to use it.

So what’s this you say? – This is something which I am finding I’m coming up against more and more all the time. This is a hand from the $20R on FTP:

Full Tilt Poker Game #5782635565: $10,000 Guarantee (Rebuy) (43308999), Table
13 - 60/120 - No Limit Hold’em - 20:55:14 ET - 2008/03/25
Seat 1: kennl (21,250)
Seat 2: MrGotti1 (1,905), is sitting out
Seat 3: CompleteDonk (9,330)
Seat 4: Cougar76 (15,550)
Seat 5: sonofhud12119 (12,020)
Seat 6: jagtalon (5,845)
Cougar76 posts the small blind of 60
sonofhud12119 posts the big blind of 120
the button is in seat #3
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to kennl [9s 7s]
jagtalon folds
kennl raises to 295
MrGotti1 folds
CompleteDonk folds
Cougar76 folds
sonofhud12119 calls 175
*** FLOP *** [4s 5h Qd]
sonofhud12119 bets 120
kennl raises to 595
sonofhud12119 folds
Uncalled bet of 475 returned to kennl
kennl mucks
kennl wins the pot (890)
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 890 | Rake 0
Board: [4s 5h Qd]
Seat 1: kennl collected (890), mucked
Seat 2: MrGotti1 didn’t bet (folded)
Seat 3: CompleteDonk (button) didn’t bet (folded)
Seat 4: Cougar76 (small blind) folded before the Flop
Seat 5: sonofhud12119 (big blind) folded on the Flop
Seat 6: jagtalon didn’t bet (folded)

Seems pretty simple and straight forward doesn’t it? However, as most of you know, knowing you should raise and actually raising are 2 completely different things in NLHE. Me personally, I absolutely love playing against this kind of bet as I feel it’s so transparent.

So, this game is 6 handed, which is a lot more active (I do prefer it) and I have been extremely active so far. A couple of others were watching me while playing and I was getting lots abuse from some friends as they thought I was taking the Mickey ,literally! So anyways, basically I am explaining I have a loose image.

Back to the hand - I come in for my standard raise and BB defends as most were doing that night. Flop is not good for me but at the same time there’s no Ace so if he was defending with a weak Ace he hasn’t hit it.

Now he decides to fire out what I call the ’stopper’, but he gets it completely wrong IMO (In My Opinion) – if your going to employ this tactic, which I do at times and in fact its a “cheaper” way sometimes of finding out where you are in the hand, then you have to make it look like you ARE actually defending something. I mean there are 650 in the pot and he is firing 120 – What the hell is that!! Make it expensive for me to carry on while not putting yourself out on a limb, that’s what I always thought the ’stopper’ was for.

If he makes his bet something in the range of 375-475 then its not so easy for me to go OTT (over the top) is it?? As it means that if I want to ask him the question again, but know I can’t price him in, then I have to raise it to at least like 1475+ which is not that easy to do.

Now, you can see I got complete air here but his bet screams weakness and therefore you can exploit it.

Of course if he know comes back OTT then you’re clearly behind and 95% of the time you have got to dump it, unless your playing a really good player who you can shove on and will fold top pair etc, however this is generally not happening at this level of buy-in.

All this said, some will ask the question why risk so much for so little return and here is my thoughts: Firstly if there’s any chips lying about which need a home from a weaker player I’m more than willing to help them out!! :-). Secondly its all about long term, i.e. metagame – if I only re-raise with my good hands I become pretty easy to play, however if I’m caught with my fingers in the cookie jar occasionally I don’t mind to much (as long as I haven’t bled to many chips) as this creates action for the time I flop top 2 or a set etc. In the end it’s those hands that I want the big action on.

Another example but this time I got half a hand – although if he pushes here I fold so quickly.

Full Tilt Poker Game #5782840821: $10,000 Guarantee (Rebuy) (43308999), Table
9 - 80/160 - No Limit Hold’em - 21:11:11 ET - 2008/03/25
Seat 2: caasikilam (4,825)
Seat 3: kennl (29,490)
Seat 4: Fialho72 (2,200)
Seat 5: Binkii (6,155)
Seat 6: YH Time (9,405)
caasikilam posts the small blind of 80
kennl posts the big blind of 160
The button is in seat #6
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to kennl [Ad Ts]
Fialho72 folds
Binkii folds
YH Time folds
caasikilam calls 80
kennl raises to 675
caasikilam calls 515
*** FLOP *** [4h Qh Ac]
caasikilam bets 160
kennl raises to 1,830
caasikilam folds
Uncalled bet of 1,670 returned to kennl
kennl mucks
kennl wins the pot (1,670)
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 1,670 | Rake 0
Board: [4h Qh Ac]
Seat 2: caasikilam (small blind) folded on the Flop
Seat 3: kennl (big blind) collected (1,670), mucked
Seat 4: Fialho72 didn’t bet (folded)
Seat 5: Binkii didn’t bet (folded)
Seat 6: YH Time (button) didn’t bet (folded)

Once again you can see how weak his bet looks, which to me, doesn’t make any sense at all.

So why employ this sort of bet in your arsenal? Well firstly I use it as it’s a very cheap way of finding out if your opponent has a hand.

Let’s take the following example:

Hand 1:- In a MTT you’re in the BB with 89dd. A MP player makes it 120 to go with blinds at 15/30 and you are both playing 3k stacks. You defend, out of position, with the mighty suited connector. The flop comes 23J, missing you by a mile, but so far in the pot is: 120 + 120 +15 = 255 chips. You can feel pretty comfortable that your opponent has missed this flop, however so have you, so why not fire out 185-195 into the pot to find out where you are at? If your opponent comes OTT and you fold, all you lose is your 185 chips.

Now, let’s look at the check-raise for the same hand. You check and your opponent bets 215 into the pot. You raise and make it 575 to go, in total. He dwells and jams OTT – your investment in the pot is now 575 chips and on top of the pre-flop action, a massive loss compared to 1st hand.

So can you see that in the first instance you lose 185 chips and in the 2nd you lost 575 chips – This is why the stopper is much cheaper and easier to play.

All this said, I don’t suggest using this too often as someone who is paying attention will quickly pick up what you’re doing and then it becomes easy for them to counter-act your bet.

Lastly, and this is the latest in my limited arsenal, the bet that looks like a stopper but in fact is a disguised monster. Now a firm favourite of mine!

Example 1: You’re holding 10 10 with the same action as the above hand. Pre-flop you flat call the MP’s raise to 120 and flop comes Q102. You lead for 185. Sometimes your opponent folds and you take down the pot there and then.

Example 2: Exactly the same, but after your 185 bet at the J high flop, your opponent decides to re-raise with his AJ and makes it 575….. lovely… how to play it now?? well that’s for another discussion, however your weakish lead has now increased the size of the pot and lets face it, if you check your set he makes it 185 to go and then you min re-raise he likely folds (so you get an extra 185 – big deal!). However, in example 2 where you get a stubborn opponent or someone who hit his Q your going to get his chips pretty quickly as you have increased the size of the pot by leading out.

A good thing to remember for metagame is when you do flop a set, or 2 pair and get action and you have led out, people remember that and now you can use this stopper bet with much more frequency as immediately they are thinking – remember this guy leads out with a set!

At the same time if you have used the ’stopper’ and it doesn’t work, lets say you get flat called, what do you do then? Well, this is where it gets real tricky, as in position I will sometimes call with absolutely nothing with the intention of slowing my opponent down so that I can take it away from him on the turn or river. Don’t use to many chips being to clever – you can only use this if firstly you have chips and secondly if you feel really strongly that another bet on the turn or river is going to lead to a fold (I have bled chips like this so
often in the past), so be careful if you meet with any kind of resistance.

Next discussion – maximise your big hands – don’t play scared play to double up!

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