Useful Tools

I just wanted to mention also that there are many useful programs out there that help keep track of players and their tendencies. Unfortunately they seem to only operate on Windows and not mac yet. One that was recommended to me by my friend Tlane was tournament indicator. Here is the link to it if you'd like to check it out http://www.tournamentindicator.com/

Learning the Game

There is really no point in poker where you can sit there and say that you know everything there is to know about the game no matter how good you are or how much money you are bringing in. One of the best ways to continue to improve your game and learn is to read lots and lots of literature about it. There are literally hundreds of poker books out there written by some of the top players in the world, and these books talk all about strategy and reading people. Some go in so much detail as to describe a good playing area and mindset when you sit down to play the game. I probably haven't read as many books as I should and I'm hoping to get a lot more read this summer, but my friend Tlane has read right near 20 of them and they have paid for themselves over and over. He started out as just a typical beginner online, knowing the game and winning some, but ultimately having a negative return on investment (ROI). After taking a break from the game he hit the books, needless to say he's got an ROI of well over 100% in his cash games and after putting only a measly $20 in his account is now somewhere around the $2000 mark within only a couple months. Not a bad job while going to school. I asked him which books he recommended the most and he said definitely both volumes of Dan Harrington's Holdem books.

What the heck are people thinking??

I have no idea what some people are thinking when they get their hands like K8 suited and push all in. I see it on the $10 tourney levels and especially in the Daily Dollar tournament, which is a one dollar buy in that has a guaranteed prize pool of $10k. One would think that with 1st place being $1599 people would want to play a little more realistically knowing they have a chance to make an absolute massive return on investment. This is not the case though. Every night anywhere from 8,000 to 11,000 people sign up for the tournament and half of them are gone within the first hour. Now don't get me wrong, most the time I don't mind this, but sometimes their horrible playing can come out on top and bad beat me killing my tournament chances. Luckily I folded preflop on this hand, but here is an example of some crazy fools. All of these guys in the hand go all in preflop, even though not one of them should have since it was only the 2nd hand of the tournament. AJ wins the tiny side pot and who wins the huge pot? K8 does even when they are completely dominated by KQ, that's just silly.

A little summer fun

This photograph has quite a bit of significance to me. First of all it was taken my first summer back from college when all my friends and I were able to get together for a beach volleyball tournament one last time. Unfortunately we didn't think to take a picture the first day with everyone who was in the tourney; this one shows the teams who made it to the semifinals. I'm also very proud of this photo for the fact that I was able to organize, advertise, and set up the entire thing on my own. It wasn't just a crappy thrown together one either, it actually turned out to be extremely successful and everyone enjoyed it to the fullest, in fact I'm having somewhere between 5 or 6 more this summer and registration is already open for one that will take place on May 29th and 30th.

Cracking the Online Rush Poker Game

Recently I was asked about some strategies I use to play poker online as opposed to playing live.

It is correct to assume that online poker is different than the live game. When playing online some feel a great disadvantage due to the loss of visual cues and being able to "read" the other players, while others love the fact that people cannot see them because they themselves may be a very emotional or easily read person. The fact of the matter is that even though you lose some visual cues online there are still "tells." It is just human nature for people to fall into patterns and while sitting in a normal cash game it is important for you to pay strict attention to everyone the entire time and catch all their different playing styles and techniques accordingly. At the same time though you want to continuously change up your own game so you yourself do not become victim to the trend.

Rush poker is very much different than typical cash games very briefly described above. In rush poker you can play a couple hundred hands in an hour as opposed to an average of about half that for a normal game in the same amount of time. The first image is rush poker followed by a normal cash game. In rush poker you're also continuously switching tables every time you fold so there really is no time to be able to take notes on players and make "reads." How do I combat this disadvantage? Well I like to embrace it. I play the most aggressive and most straight forward game possible. I play my big hands big and let all the "fish" taking their shot at the game pay me off. Pretty simple. I also like to play my good drawing hands like suited connectors, calling min raises when the flop is right and in the long run it really seems to pay off. If there are any more questions about the game or strategies let me know!

Day 2 of my Journey

Yesterday was a pretty good day. I ended at $1004 and was so happy, but today was a different story. I had to wake up super early for my classes today which was a bummer after the long night I had last night. While waiting for my Chemistry class I decided to play some Rush Poker again; worst idea. I ended up going down $500 after a couple bad beats and was about to go on tilt, which you never want to do, but I was able to pull myself together and just get out. When I got home from class i decided to play some more while working on my homework. I played some Rush Poker yet again (I'm hooked on this) and quickly made my money back plus some. After 3 hours of playing i was back up to $1100. I also decided to play in a $26 tourney and ended up getting 16th out of over 2100 entrants. I should over won a huge pot to put myself in first and most likely take down the tourney but one guy made an absolute ridiculous call on me and ended up beating the odds and beating me. Very upset ONLY made $191.27 when I could of most likely made $10k if the one hand wouldn't of ruined me. Today I've ended at $1246.75, its not bad for 2 days but it's a great disappointment after doing so well in that big tournament just to get jewed in the end. Hopefully my luck is better next time.

All New Topic (Poker)

So I was initially going to talk about things that I love to do under the sun.. but I've decided to go a completely different route. I've been playing online poker for some time now and have made little profits here and there, but I'm wanting to take it up a notch and keep track. In these blogs I'll keep track of all my wins and losses and even give some advice on how to and how not to play hands.
Today I've deposited $200 dollars into my online poker account on fulltiltpoker.com. My goal is going to be to increase this amount to $10,000 by the end of this school semester. For cash games I'm only allowed to play with 5% of my bankroll, for rush poker cash games 10% and for tourneys and sit-n-gos I'm only allowed to play at stakes equal to 2% of my bankroll excluding the extra tournament fee.
After depositing today I sat down at rush poker table ($.25-.$50 stakes) with 20 dollars. After playing for about 30 minutes I got an extremely good run of hands that put me up to $498.68, where I decided to stop and get out.
I'm planning on keeping up with this blog pretty consistently so keep checking in to see how I'm doing and wish me luck at the tables! ;)

Global Warming?

I don't know if anyone else has noticed but it's so freaking cold, wet and disgusting outside! I don't understand how people can be worried about "Global Warming" :). To be quite honest, I wouldn't mind some global warming at the moment to warm things up and bring out the sun! I'm already looking forward to spring break, not too mention some summer fun also. Anyways, it feels like I've heard so much nonsense about global warming and how we humans are basically destroying the earth. Well, due to the fact that we've been having so much colder than normal weather here in Texas, I can't help but wonder what in the world are these "professionals" on the subject talking about. They seem pretty crazy to me. One funny thing to me now is how the term "global warming" has been thrown out the window and the new accepted vernacular is "climate change." Well good for them, now since they were completely wrong and it's freezing outside they can still be sort of right since the climate did change... haha I guess. By the way, I'm no "professional" on the subject, just find it funny. I do realize how much more pollutants are being released into the air and how damaging the effects can be, looking at the numbers of the past present and future is scary. Luckily for the earth though, people are becoming more aware and some slowly changing and doing there part, good for them. I don't think there's any hope to stop releasing all these emissions, especially not with the type of lifestyle people live, but hopefully new alternatives such as electronic cars and what not will help to fix the problem.
Out searching for the sun....

Quick Introduction

My name's Chris Cooper and I have many hobbies including Wakeboarding, skimboarding, playing guitar, and drawing along with many others. I love being outside in the sun and always in the sand whether it be a beach, lakefront, creek, or sand volleyball court.

I intend to blog on several different topics, but the big picture as the title implies is doing things and living life "Under the Son."

Blogging is a new form of media for me as I'm sure you can see but hopefully my talents will progress as time goes on and feedback is openly welcomed!