Latest Tables - 5/6/08

Position	Name	No. of times staked	Av. Buy In	Profit/Loss
1st	EvertonYorkie	3	$4	+$57.59
2nd	Mair38	1	$26	+$49
3rd	MikeSaban	1	$5.50	+$2.37
4th	TanOrphues	1	$11	-$11
5th	BurnleyMik	1	$4.40	-$17.76
6th	Johnnyfish	1	$26	-$26
7th	G-Unit	1	$3.30	-$49.50

Micro Stakes Challenge

A new challenge has been set-up at the forum for the low stakes players. Here is exactly how it all works:

Rules

1. Ship your $5 entry fee to “BurnleyMik” on pokerstars.
2. Wait until pokersite sends confirmation email.
3. U will then create you a thread in the “RtR Challenges” forum. it will be titled ‘ Micro-Stake challenge’.
4. You then have one month starting 30th May and ending 30th Jun to play 15 $.10 360 player games on poker stars.
5. Each time you plan to start one of these tournaments you must make a post, under your thread, and include the tourney number, start time and date and your Pokerstars username.
(post time needs to be within 5 min of start time)
6. When you bust out of the tournament, you must return to your thread and input the postion you finished and the points you score for this according to the scoring system (see below).
7. Once you have played all 15 of your games, please total up your score and you are then done until the challenge ends.
8. Please keep threads in requested format (see example)
9. Will pay 70% for first and 30% to second

Scoring System

360th - 271st = 1 point
270th - 181st = 2 points
180th - 90th = 4 points
89th - 46th = 5 points
45th - 37th = 6 points
36th - 28th = 8 points
27th - 19th = 10 Points
18th - 10th = 12 points
9th = 15 Points
8th = 18 points
7th = 21 Points
6th = 24 points
5th = 27 points
4th = 30 points
3rd = 34 Points
2nd = 40 points
1st = 50 points

Example Of thread Title

“username” MICROSTAKES CHALLENGE

EXAMPLE OF RUNNING TOTAL POST

1. ) Date - Tourney ID - Start Time - Position Placed - Points
2. ) Date - Tourney ID - Start Time - Position Placed - Points
3. ) Date - Tourney ID - Start Time - Position Placed - Points
4. ) Date - Tourney ID - Start Time - Position Placed - Points
5. ) Date - Tourney ID - Start Time - Position Placed - Points
6. ) Date - Tourney ID - Start Time - Position Placed - Points
7. ) Date - Tourney ID - Start Time - Position Placed - Points
8. ) Date - Tourney ID - Start Time - Position Placed - Points
9. ) Date - Tourney ID - Start Time - Position Placed - Points
10.) Date - Tourney ID - Start Time - Position Placed - Points
11.) Date - Tourney ID - Start Time - Position Placed - Points
12.) Date - Tourney ID - Start Time - Position Placed - Points
13.) Date - Tourney ID - Start Time - Position Placed - Points
14.) Date - Tourney ID - Start Time - Position Placed - Points
15.) Date - Tourney ID - Start Time - Position Placed - Points

For a total of 0 points

Example of Indivdual Game Thread

Date - Tourney ID - Start Time - Position Placed - Points

Any questions on format please refer my micro stakes challenge thread.

Thanks-

So here is how the challenge is currently going…

Current Results:

AcefilledDreams 0 Games 0 Points
MRS P 8 Games 59 Points
Barry@BF 9 Games 73 Points
EvertonYorkie 0 Games 0 Points

Total Players: 4
Total Prize Pool: $20.00

Good Luck to all participants!

For more information or to participate follow this link to the forum, become a member and join us!

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!

Satellite Game Week 1.

The first ever game for the raisetheriver satellite has just been played out with the top 3 being:

1st -Mair38
2nd -dD
3rd- Amatay

dD and Amatay both shipped their 2nd and 3rd placed prize money over to Mair, which means Mair now has a pot of $90 to use to play a bigger game of her own choice. When Mair does play the game it also means that dD has 25% of her action and Amatay has 12.5% of her action!! This keeps it interesting to all and within the community!! This also allows smaller stakes players to play buy-ins above their normal level and mix it with the sharks!

So we must wish Mair the best of luck in her bigger game!

If you are interested in playing in the weekly satellite game and are a member of the forum then just check out the rules HERE and get yourself into next weeks game!

$3 90 player Challenge on Full Tilt

This challenge finally drew to its conclusion yesterday 5th April. Basically players had one month to complete 12 games and score as many points as possible.

After a long fought battle, new boy, davef86 managed to take down the whole thing and only needed 11 of the 12 games to do it!! He had some fantastic results to power ahead of the field with the only person really coming close was the second placed finisher Doomswitch.

Here is the final finishing table:

Position	Name	Played	Points
1st	davef86	11	117
2nd	Doomswitch	12	113
3rd	HullJimi	11	99
4th	ISgrinder	12	91
5th	Hammerheid	12	86
6th	Lukybugur	12	76
7th	Zanshin	9	67
8th	Mair	10	64
9th	sttrow	12	63
10th	PokeKing69	7	47
11th	BurnleyMik	8	40
12th	TanOrpheus	5	30
13th	Acefilleddreams	2	15

There were quite a number of people who didn’t manage to get through the allotted amount of games. Not really sure why that was, maybe in future a longer time period is required? Either way the beauty of these challenges is that you can play them on your own time and at your own pace.

So a big well done to davef86 who definitely deserved his win and picked up $91 for his efforts and also makes the RTR Roll Of Honour for his victory. Also well done to Doomswitch for the runner up spot who picked up a small prize of $39 for his efforts!

Once again a big thank you to all who took part in the challenge and keep your eyes out for the next one!!

Latest from the $3 90 player Challenge

Prize Pool:

13 Players = $130

davef86 - played -10 points-117

Doomswitch Played-12 points-113
HullJimi Played-11 Points-99
ISgrinder Played-10 points-80
Luckybugur Played-12 Points -76
Zanshin played-9 points-67
Mair Played-10 Points - 64
sttrow played-12 points-63
hammerheid played- 7 points- 50
Pokeking69 played-7 points-47
BurnleyMik played- 8 points-40
TanOrpheus played-5 Points-30
AceFilledDreams- played-2 points-15
sttrow played-12 points-63

This data will be updated once the event is complete. Good Luck and can anyone catch davef86??

For full rules and to see how the points are scored, please follow this LINK.

$3 90 Player Challenge on Full Tilt Poker - Rules and Points

Rules

1. Ship your $10 entry fee to “Big_miky” on Full Tilt.

2. He will PM to confirm you sent payment.

3. I will then create you a thread in the “Online Live” forum. it will be titled ‘ $3-90 challenge’.

4. You then have one month starting 5th of march and ending 5th April to play 12 $3 90 player ko games on full tilt.

5. Each time you plan to start one of these tournaments you must make a post, under your thread, and include the tourney number, time and your Full Tilt username.

6. When you bust out of the tournament, you must return to your thread and input the postion you finished and the points you score for this according to the scoring system (see below).

7. Once you have played all 12 of your games, please total up your score and you are then done until the challenge ends.

8. Will pay 70% for first and 30% to second.

Points System:

Position	Points
90th-81st	1
80th-71st	2
70th-61st	3
60th-51st	4
50th-41st	5
40th-31st	6
30th-19th	7
18th-10th	9
9th	11
8th	12
7th	13
6th	14
5th	15
4th	17
3rd	19
2nd	21
1st	25

The New Raise The River Avatar!

As with the new launch of this site, we would love to introduce you to the new RTR Mascot- Dan Utz!!!

To try and help spread the word about RTR, we would love for our members to use the avatar on the Cryptologic and Pokerstars online poker sites. We are sure it would also allow us and you to recognise other members when playing at the tables and enable us all to show support and encouragement to one another!!

If you would like to help support us and change your avatar, then all you need to do is right click any one of the images below and then choose “save as” and give it a name. You then go to your chosen site and look at your account options and select to change or add an avatar. If you are using Pokerstars a quick email to support will allow you an extra change if you have already used your allotted two.

Once again we thankyou for supporting RTR and would love to see you at the tables with the avatar!!!

RTR Weekly Satellite Game - Rules

We all want to play in bigger games without too much financial risk don’t we?? Well here is your chance to do so with your fellow members at www.raisetheriver.com. There will be a weekly satellite game held on Pokerstars.com. The dates and times are TBC as of yet, but basically the winner will go on to play a bigger buy-in game with whatever money is in the prize pool from the satellite game.

Here are the rules:

1. You must be a member of www.raisetheriver.com.

2. The players who finish 2nd and 3rd in the sat. game must forward any winnings onto the winner for the “big-game” buy-in.

3. The winner must agree to give shares of 25% and 12.5% worth of shares to the players who finished second and third respectively in the satellite game, when they play the main game.

4. Any monies left over must be shipped to BurnleyMik and they will be stored for an end of year or six monthly game. (i.e. you want to play a $100 game and there is $130 in the pot, then you must transfer the other $30 into the “overspill pot”, held by BurnleyMik)

5. The winner has to play the big game within 7 days of winning the satellite.

6. The winner has to post on the forum, which event he is going to play, as well as the date and times to allow railage!!

7. The winner to ship any monies owed to shareholders within 48 hours of cashing in the main event!

Other than that lets enjoy it and see if we can win some $$$$$!!!

Next Page »