Disqus - Latest Comments for paulellis

Re: A fast five questions with @Kevmath

paulellis — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 14:53:16 -0000

Question 3 also poses a 2nd question within the second question. Does that make 3, 4, or 6 more???? #Multiplication #FTW

Re: Twitter Poker Tour Player to Give Winnings to Red Cross

paulellis — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 16:15:14 -0000

Count me in...100% of winnings. Book it.

Re: TPT “Bad Beat on Cancer” event was a success

paulellis — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 19:21:26 -0000

Thanks for participating in the event Steve, and for you kind words in the other posts. I'm really happy that we had the turnout that we did, and I think that these events will only continue to grow!

Re: What if win my way to the WPT event via a satellite?

paulellis — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 11:22:32 -0000

Last night I had a dream that I was sitting at the featured table of the main event of the WSOP. In walked Phil Hellmuth to sit with us, playing up to the crowds as he took his seat two to my left. I thought, "Great, I've got the World Champ, and argueably the greatest tournament NLHE player in the world, not just at my table, but with position on me. Does it get any worse than this?"

My dream was pretty cool though as I was a card magnet, and I was hitting right and left, including scooping a couple of big pots off of Phil. I remember vivdly the hands that I was playing, as well as stacking those Orange and Blue chips. I couldn't believe my good fortune.

I think that at their core, poker players all have a thought of "What would it be like, if even for a moment, to be considered the best in the world." WPT and WSOP are great stages to do so as so many of poker's elite are present and focused on that similar prize. It IS about the money, but its also about the fame and the glory. For some, they covet the latter more than the former. For me, and I'm assuming you too Steve, it would simply be an honor to squeeze to hole cards and raise a pot with some of these names. That's what makes poker so special. I'll never handle Lebron 1 on 1, I'll never play the back 9 with Tiger, and I'll never have Peyton Manning throwing me a "Go Route." But the possibility of an accountant who won a $50 sattelite one year and turned it into a WSOP Bracelet all while millions watched on ESPN gives us all the thought, "Hey, that could be me." And with a good run, it could be. Wouldn't that be cool.

Re: Pay now for rewards later - hmmm?

paulellis — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 19:35:59 -0000

Paying off for information. I've done that. In fact, in a NLHE session today (.05/.10) limits, I had a guy that was consistently raising my blind with any two cards from 3 seats to my right. So he was in the cutoff everytime I was in the BB. After the 5th time, I just decided "I'm going to play every pot with this guy." I lost the first 3 pots in playing with him because I had junk hands. But then I started to get some tells on his betting patterns, and figured out what he was doing. In the end, I went from a $8 balance, down to a $1.30 balance, to a $17 balance just playing this guy.

I'm ok with calling a guy down with the worst hand sometimes, simply because it lets them know "I'm not afraid to play pots with you" and "You're not going to bully me out of pots when you're in position." Occaisionally, I'll reraise these guys from the button with air, but I really wanted to prove a point to this guy, and it worked.

Re: Thursday’s adventure results

paulellis — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 11:14:17 -0000

I like the last paragraph of this post a lot Steve. I have to say, that I do goal set when I play poker, both cash and tournaments.

In ring games, my goal is either to play a certain amount of time, or to double my buy in and walk. I want to set those limits so that I don't spend too long at the table, and that I don't lose too much. And I figure that doubling my investment is sound. I will probably bag the cash, and then sit back down with half as much, and effectively play with my winnings for the remaining time.

In tourney's, my 1st goal is to finish in the money. To do this, I simply calculate what the average chip stack will be at the bubble. For example, in a 27 player S&G where there are 5 places paid and 1500 starting chips, I want to get to 8100 chips. My goal is to focus on getting to that number, and then I tighten up. Once the bubble is reached, I then focus on winning the event. In large MTT's, I create a 2nd goal after I reach the 1st one of being average stacked for a final table.

In the end, my goal is always to finish with all of the chips, but I think that you have to start out smaller. Especially at the early stages, you have to remember that while you won't be able to win the tournament on a single hand, you can sure lose it.

Re: When to move to the next level

paulellis — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 15:34:28 -0000

Great post Steve. I've been thinking about this a lot lately. Remember when Patrick Sebastian challenged us to the 10 to 250 challenge? It was somewhat of a wake up call for me about bankroll management.

With respect to online play, I've basically been unable to play at the levels necessary to exercise proper bankroll management techniques and play the games that I wanted to play. For example, a $50 initial deposit is too little to play the TPT which is a $5 buy in event. Risking 10% of your bankroll on a single buy in is just well above what you should be doing.

So I created a separate Full Tilt account for the sole purpose of the challenge, and have stuck to the bankroll management techniques reccommended by Chris Ferguson in his $0 to $10k challenge. It's been a real grind, but I've been able to move up in levels twice, and have run my bankroll from $10 to just about $100. I'm still a long way away from the $250 goal, but I've been steadily increasing the bankroll, and only moving up in payscale when my bankroll tells me that I've been running positive enough to take the risk.

But here's the more important thing, when I went through a rut, I moved down a level. I feel that it was VERY important to realize that when I wasn't winning at the higher level, instead of jepordizing my bankroll on players that had a likely higher bankroll (especially since they now had my money ;)), that I needed to eat a slice of humble pie, stand up, and move to another table with lower limits. I think that this is the mark of a good player. Being able to recognize limits that are acceptable to play within so that you're comfortable if you do lose. This is a game of skill, but it also has an element of chance/luck. And sometimes, the cards just don't fall your way. When you're on the one of the down swings, you have to know what your comfortable losing, and not jeopardize your entire bankroll with the swing.

Moving up for me is just a simple matter of mathematics. If you've got the cash, you can take a swing at the bigger stakes for a percentage of your bankroll that you're comfortable losing. But when you don't have it, stay disciplined, and within the ranges that you're comfortable playing at.