Eric Rizen Lynch

Ask Rizen

Been enjoying the time at home. Took the family to see 'Land of the Lost' Wednesday. I really only thought it was okay, but the kids got a kick out of it with all the dinosaurs and stuff. They're huge Transformers fans so I'll use them as an excuse to see the new Transformers moving on my next trip back. I head out to Las Vegas again tonight in time for the $1500 tomorrow. Glad to have gone home and gotten well rested though, and ready to go back out and hit the grind. On to the questions.

Q: What would your approach be if you had to train a complete n00b to make $25/hr net profit playing internet poker? Would he have a better chance 3-4 tabling cash games? MTTS ? Or SNGS? How much of a roll would you need? Which site would you want her/him to start on ?

A: Interesting question. First I guess I want to say that I'm not sure just anyone can make $25/hr net profit playing internet poker. It used to be somewhat easy to do if you had some discipline and ability, but it's much tougher now. I would definitely say that SnGs are not an easy way to do this and wouldn't really recommend that path. It's possible with rakeback and the ability to play like 12-16 tables to do for sure, but it's not easy. MTTs at this point I feel are where a vast majority of the fish hang out, but there are huge amounts of variance in them which make it tough.

This is kind of a non-answer, but I think it would really depend on the person's personality makeup. I don't really think any of the 3 methods you listed are easier than the other. MTTs have the most fish I think at this point but it's really tough to make consistent money at it. If the person were a very disciplined math oriented type person I would probably try and teach them how to play lots of SnG tables at once. If they tended to be more creative and were better at post flop play/hand reading I'd go with cash. As far as what site I would obviously recommend everyone play on Lock Poker.

Q: Hey Rizen, I loved the book top five poker book of all time. I am an aggressive maniacal small ball player. I'll raise w 57 suited and so forth. I confuse, intimidate, and players never know what i have. When they decide to play back at me i've got the goods. I accumulate chips in tourneys fast and it is not uncommon for me to get a quick chip lead. I'm having trouble in tourneys in the period right before the bubble. E.G. Tourney pays 18 out of 177 45 players left. usually at this point I'm about 35 bb deep. I'm usually chip stack here and the average stack usually has about 22 bb. This is where I'm imploding or runing into huge hands. At this point in the tourney I'm not trapping or playing middle pairs. But is there a time to tighten up my play even further to aa kk only. except versus desperate short stacks. People perceive me as a maniac at this point even though I'm playing solid.

A: I tried to clean up the question a little bit for readability. I hate to give the usual poker answer 'it depends' but it really does. If you have a maniacal image then you have to plan on getting played back at a lot when players start to get desperate. You can't completely tighten up your range because that's bad too, but you need to adjust to the way players play with ~20 BBs. That usually means opening less pots from middle/late position as you will get re-shipped on a lot. I will often defend my blind a bit more and 3 bet a little more. Maybe steal from early position some too. Basically you want to start accumulating chips in ways that won't allow the ~20 BB stacks to use their stack as a weapon and ship over you all the time. And if they are doing that, well you're going to have to raise/call lighter to make up for it.

Q: Live 1/2(sometimes 2/5). Lately I have been clueless what to do in spots like this.I call somewhere in late position with like 98 suited and the board comes...962(rainbow)....and a very tight conservative player bets about pot into a few people? which can be like 40$ Most people only have stacks of like 200$...

Or I call with like 97 suited and the flop comes....j63 .... I have a flush draw. I call a small bet on the flop after 2 people call so the total pot is maybe 65$ The flush hits with like a 10 .And a tight conservative player puts in bet of like 40$ 2/3pot.

A: Well there isn't really enough information on the first one. Since you say a $40 bet on the flop with 4-5 people in the pot, I'm going to assume we're dealing with 2/5 since that doesn't make much sense for 1/2. If the stacks are $200 deep at 2/5 then you have to ask yourself why you're playing those hands in the first place? I'm not saying you shouldn't be playing them, but if everyone is playing 40 BBs then your implied odds are going down. You can't really peel with just a pair with a bad kicker in a 4-5 way flop when a conservative player bets out so I probably do fold here. If you are finding these to be trouble spots though and you are either folding the best hand too much or calling and stacking off worse too often then you should stop playing these hands pre-flop in this game.

On the second one though, if you are playing 97s pre and you turn a flush and then fold, well that's probably a mistake. Obviously there are a lot of game dynamics and things that go in as well, but if it's the same type of game (40 BBs deep) and you're playing 97s and not getting your money in when you hit the flush, you shouldn't be playing the hand pre-flop. I would never ever play this hand at a table where I wasn't comfortable getting all my money in 95% of the time if I hit my flush. If I'm looking for excuses to fold when I hit my hand then something is wrong.

-Rizen