G Casino Online Poker Client Launched

G Casino launched an online poker client as part of the Ipoker network the other day. They asked me to review the new site and these are my thoughts.

Firstly I already like the Ipoker network because I think it's the biggest network that doesn't allow American players to have an account. Not that I agree with the American poker ban but it is generally accepted that American players are better overall than European ones. This is probably because Americans have to jump through certain loopholes that we don't to play so casual players are deterred. Also as a Nation they have been playing Poker for longer than anyone else.

Secondly I am fond of the relatively small sized MTT's, when compared with the likes of Stars and Full Tilt, at the $10-$30 level. The fields are much more manageable meaning less variance for a regular MTT player.

My experience of playing on G Casino Itself was overall a positive one. Apart from one thing which I will explain later. I liked the fact that the tables were resizeable, which I don't think is an option on some Ipoker clients. But most of all I enjoyed the fish! After losing my initial £20 deposit with the usual AA losing to QTo etc. I decided to enter a WSOP sattelite.

G Casino runs sattelites to bothe the Main Event and the side events, something I've been looking for... So anyway I entered a $20 R/A event with about 12 players. This qualifies you for a $215 Super Sattelite that has a prize package worth $5,500. The package includes the buy-in for 2 NL side events + travel & expenses etc.

The structure is unusual though in that your rebuy is worth 2,250 chips (starting stack = 1,500) and the add-on is worth a further 3,000 chips. So it seemed to me that to get the best value I should rebuy at least once and definately add-on. So I rebuy immeadiatley and get busted by a fish with Q4o vs. my JJ. The players on my table must of thought they had clicked on Facebook Poker because the standard was abysmal!! This prompted me to rebuy and I manged to reach the final 4 with first garunteed a seat (to super sat) and 2nd gtd. $185. Then came the add-on period and the bad news for me... I had already made 3 deposits that day (my first on the site) at which point they instantly lock your account!?!?! So I couldn't add-on. To cut a long story short I went all-in pre with AJ as I only had 9 BB's and was called by T4o... straight on the river omg etc. I'll be back to fish in that pond!! :D

Security informed me that this was a measure taken to protect players agaminst fraud and apologised so I guess it's OK just such bad timing! They will reopen my account tomorrow.

The site will also run a special gcasino.com £50,000 Multiplier Tournament on June 20^th. The more players that enter the tournament the more added value gcasino.com will contribute – up to £50,000! In addition the overall winner will gain a seat in the Grosvenor UK Poker Tour (GUKPT) £150,000 Champion of Champions tournament. Promos like this mean G Casino is definitely worth a look! http://www.gcasino.com/poker

Nice weeeee Score :)

I played a lot of $3.30 rebuy 180 man turbo SNG's in the past couple of days. This was the best of 3 final tables (2nd if you cant see the image). The other two were 4th and 8th. I was pretty chuffed to finish 2nd in this one, although £200 is not a massive score I feel I've been playing really well in these soft fields, exploiting the rebuy fish to the max :D

I feel that small buy-in rebuy tourneys up to $10 are some of the softest games out there. I really like getting the oppurtunity to regulary build a massive stack within the 1st hour of a tourney which gives you the chance to exploit weak players from there on in. Obviously gambling early has it's downisdes e.g. I played in the same tourney 2 nights ago and was in for around $40 I think (in a $3 rebuy). Becuase I had a crazy guy on my left who went all-in pre every hand! Everyone else had folded and I kept getting hands like KJ and A6, so I went in ahead almost every time and lost... c'est la vie! The 3 final tables though show that it's worth it to take some marginally +EV gambles early though imo.

EDIT: Just won 2 tourney seats aswell :D Sunday Million and daily $90k worth $270 in total. Weeeeeeeeee!!!!

Experimenting with Aggression 2

Following on from my last post I've had a few more thoughts about aggression. Whilst Playing in the Newcastle Poker Forum 2nd Birthday tournament I made an unconcious decision to play more aggressively than I usually do live. When I play live I usually play pretty tight and the times I've tried to get a little more creative haven't worked out for me overall. So I've been thinking why?

The answer is a pretty basic one really, but I've never been good at common sense lol. It's the old addage that you should play solid ABC poker against poor players and that you must get more creative against better ones, as they will spot this straight away. We all know this but I think many people, me especially, forget these basic rules from time to time and try and get creative at a fishy table or tighten up when they enter a tougher field than usual.

Going back to the NPF Birthday game, in the few events I've played with the NPF in the past I've been quite nervous and as a result my play has tightened up a lot. This time I knew I had to play differently given the table I was sat at, where basically people were just playing their cards. As a result I opened my preflop raising and calling ranges a bit and made a few steals that I normally wouldn't have. As a by-product I found that I was enjoying the game more! In a way that I rarely do when playing live. Because I was acctually getting to think about each hand in some depth rather than just playing ABC Poker.

Unfortuneately though this brings us back to the catch 22 that many poker players are faced with: playing fish is boring yet profitable and the reverse is true against skillful players. Causing us to question why we play this game? Is it for profit or for entertainment? Or both... As recreational players do we need a bankroll or can we just chuck on the odd deposit here and there? Do we have to play our way thru the mind numbing micro and low stakes to get to play at an interesting level or can we just view Poker as an intellectual persuit that we're prepared to pay for?

Anyways went off on a bit of a tangent there. This was just supposed to be a post to remind myself to play ABC against fish and more creative against better players... Thanx 4 reading.