Who wants to be a Prop player!!

You can earn a decent salary being a prop player on pokerstars. They need to make sure you are reliable and will put in the hours on the table so they wont just hire you - you have to prove yourself first. Here is how:

- play poker on their site with your money and earn 1 million VPPs in a year

- then they will call you a Supernova elite player

- they as you play more with your money they will pay you cash and tournament entries/benefits of $100,000 plus per year as long as you continue racking up 50,000 vpps on their site every month.

So they are basically playing you an hourly to play poker with your money on their site....just like a prop player.

Now my mate (use that word loosely as he does not even know me but I follow his poker playing online through his blog/twitter and 2+2 posts) Nick Rainey (mi_turtle on pokerstars_ is striving to make Supernova elite this year to get all those benefits next year. It will give him some stability on his earnings if he makes it. And good luck to him.

But what happened to the good old standard notion of a poker player making his money purely through playing the game. All the big name guys are sponsored and receive monthly stipends from the online sites so they dont do it. Is there anyone left???? Can we find one poker player who ONLY makes money by playing poker - probably not!!!! Maybe the game just got too tough and the way to make money playing poker is by not playing poker but by being a celebrity. Or failing that, be a prop player for pokerstars.

Or failing that.....give up.

Lots of new games on the online sites

So Full Tilt just brought out a new release with lots of additional games. There are:

Holdem NL, Holdem Limit

Pot Limit Omaha, Limit Omaha

Omaha 8 hi-lo

Stud games

Draw games (5 card, 2-7 triple draw etc.)

Badugi

Then for each of these variants there are different numbers of players:

heads up

short table

6 handed

9 handed

10 handed

For each game and number of players there are multiple buyin levels. And now Full Tilt have brought us the new concepts:

- Rush poker - when you faold your automatically put on another table

- On Demand poker - SnG tournaments where players can late register like a regular mtt

- Turbo - quicker blind level, shallow starting stacks

- Hyper turbo - 6-10BB starting stcks, tiny blind levels

So what to play. Whats the point of all these games. Basically the term "poker" is becoming fudged and is anything the sites can push where they can get paid rake and keep the suckers returning. I would not be surprised if the next software release had GUTS, Iron Cross, Polish poker or anyone of the other "home poker games" that people choose for dealers choice as long as the sites can take a rake.

And like suckers - we keep trying these new games and paying that rake. We justify it by saying we get 30% rakeback - that means THEY GET 70% you fools! I have another post discussing rakeback coming up later.

Like all software the online poker systems will contain bugs especially as they keep getting more complex. Maube thats how we will make money going forward - find and exploit the bugs. For example one player recently complained he was only being dealt one card in a holdem game - if I can play against him all night I might squeak out a decent profit!!!

Not much poker

I've played about 4 live tournaments in the last 3 weeks and did not cash in any of them losing each time getting it all in with the best hand somewhat close to the money. I have lost set over set (when I had the set on the flop v overpair), overpair v underpair (where he spiked a set on the river), same hand v same hand all in preflop (where he made the flush) etc. A tale of woe and bad beat stories. Now 1 theory goes if I had build up a big chip stack earlier in the tourney I could have survived the all-ins - this is not really true as I did build big chip stacks but close to the money you have to gamble when you hit those big hands - just sucks that I lost all the flips.

Now each time I busted a tourney I went on the cash tables. Whereas previously my cash game has been inconsistent sometimes winning large amounts and sometimes losing large amounts the last few weeks have found consistency - I just lose. Again often with big hands - the last flip was all-in preflop 3 way with aces and one of the guys (a gambler) shows J-3 and kills me on a K23T3 board. I tried fighting back - playing tight in early position and looser in late position, trying to play connectors to bust a big pair etc. but was mostly card-dead and/or missing flops.

So I keep asking myself the question - how much is luck a part of this game. I cannot keep going to the casino and losing money. Maybe I'm just now a good enough player. I console myself saying that I got the money in good most times and lost a flip and eventually the percentages will kick in and I will win a bunch of flips when my hand holds up. Of course, maybe thats not true -I might be playing against better players who are always going to win my chips.

Is poker gambling. It sometimes hurts when friends ask how the "gambling is going" and I stress to them I am playing poker - a game of skill. But the last few weeks feel like I am gambling in a game of cards where skill can be easily overcome by luck.

Right now I am considering quitting poker as a full time role as I cannot make enough money playing small tournaments and cash games to make it more lucrative than the computer consulting I used to do. Even though there are people out there making 50k per month playing poker I cannot seem to crack that nut. I have some ideas on why not - I will save them for another post.