Royal Hold’em Notes
I’m messing around on UB with their new game Royal Hold’em just to have some fun. What’s Royal Hold’em?
Royal Hold’em is just like Texas Hold’em but with a twist. Only the best 20 cards from the deck are used (tens, jacks, queens, kings, and aces).
I even calculated the Royal Hold’em Odds earlier.
I’m no expert by any means, so don’t take what you read here as gospel. Just a few random thoughts I’m having while playing this crazy game of poker.
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Royal Hold’em Odds
Royal Hold’em is just like Texas Hold’em but with a twist. Only the best 20 cards from the deck are used (tens, jacks, queens, kings, and aces). While messing around with the game for fun I decided to calculate the odds of hitting your outs. Use them to crush your opponents.
| Outs | Flop | Turn |
| 1 | 14 - 1 | 13 - 1 |
| 2 | 6.5 - 1 | 5.5 - 1 |
| 3 | 4 - 1 | 3.7 - 1 |
| 4 | 2.8 - 1 | 2.5 - 1 |
| 5 | 2 - 1 | 1.8 - 1 |
| 6 | 1.5 - 1 | 1.3 - 1 |
| 7 | 1.1 - 1 | 1 - 1 |
2 New Books
A couple of new books came in from Amazon today…
- High-Low-Split Poker, Seven-Card Stud and Omaha Eight-or-better for Advan (Advance Player)
- Harrington on Hold\’em Expert Strategy for No Limit Tournaments: Endgame, 2
I’ve been enjoying tournaments lately so HOH2 was a no brainer buy, especially after I liked Volume I so much. Hold’em gets boring at times so I figured I’d try to learn a little O8 on the side. Al, the expert O8 blogger told me HLSP was the bible, so that’s what I bought.
Poker Podcasts
On my rides to and from work each day I’ve been listening to poker podcasts. Listening to poker discussions keep my mind off the traffic. In the mornings the poker talk gets my mind thinking and after work it helps to relax me after a long day.
My favorite poker podcast without a doubt is Card Club on Lord Admiral Radio. Cincinnati Sean, Brent Stacks, and everyone else who contribute to the show to an excellent job. Congrats on your 1 year anniversary guys!
Another poker podcast I started listening to is Rounders. It’s actually a poker radio show that they turn into a podcast. The radio station is Team 1040 AM out of Vancouver, Canada. My favorite part of the show has been the interviews with some of the top names from the poker world.
What do you know…my two favorite poker podcasts are both from Canada…eh! As a lifetime Michiganer I’m glad to finally find something good to come from our friends across the lake. 
Another popular poker podcast is Poker Diagram by Henry and Zog. It comes all the way from London. Each week they play some kind of online poker and discuss their play and other things poker. I listened to a couple of episodes and it was put together well.
I’m sure there are many other podcasts out there related to poker. Do you have some I didn’t mention? Leave a comment because I’d love to check them out.
In Focus
I just finished browsing through some of my Poker Tracker stats for cash games and tournaments. It was an eye opener to say the least. What I had previously thought were my strengths are actually my weaknesses and vice versa. Once I can go through the data a bit more I’m going to write up a summary complete with a discussion and my plans for taking advantage of my findings.
I also owe a post about the tournaments I played over the weekend, including the largest cash of my poker journey. My tournament play from the weekend is actually what spurred me to check out my stats and data. Part of me is still in shock at what I found, but part of me knew it all along. I guess I’ve been hiding from myself.
It also looks like I will finally be part of a regular home game that a friend is starting up. I definitely need more live play.
The Ultimate Secret
Bill’s post titled The Ultimate Secret to Winning Poker is a great read for any poker player. New or old. I’m not great at poker, but I don’t suck either (or so I like to think). His post hit home on some great points. I’ve read the strategy books and understand the concepts. When I’m losing at the tables it’s usually because I’m not doing what I know I should be.
Review: Harrington on Hold’em - Volume I
I finally finished reading the best poker book available on tournament play. Dan Harrington has done the poker world a great service by writing Harrington on Hold’em. I would have finished the book much sooner, but it was my bathroom reader, so I was only reading 10-15 pages a day.
Harrington breaks down the game of no-limit just like any other author by pre-flop, flop, turn and river. What makes this book stand out though are the awesome Problems presented at the end of each chapter. Dan uses actually hands that he’s run into or observed over the years. He lays out the hand and then asks you questions along the way. He describes what you should be thinking as you make you decision. It’s great to see what a world class player and World Series of Poker Champion is thinking during a poker hand.
Volume I is a great book for any poker player of any level. The attention to details is fantastic and the book is easy to read. I can’t wait to get my hands on Volume II for some of the more advanced topics and moves.
Harrington on Hold’em: Expert Strategy for No Limit Tournaments (Strategic Play) definitely gets an A+ from me.
Quoting Howard
While watching Howard Lederer play Razz on Full Tilt he said this…
NL is about making good laydowns
limit is about making good calls
Review: Winning Low-Limit Hold’em
Lee Jones did a good job writing Winning Low Limit Hold’em. The book is a solid 193 pages of information for low limit Texas Hold’em players. If I hadn’t read SSH and ITH, I would have really been impressed, but WLLH was pretty much the same information, but just a shorter format.
Jones breaks the book down into two main sections titled Hold’em: The Game and Play of the Hand from Deal to Showdown. The first section goes over fundamentals, reading the board, and odds. It’s your basic Texas Hold’em primer. The next section of the book gives strategies for playing through a hand. This second half is the real meat and potatoes. It covers playing pre-flop from all different positions, playing the flop according to what type of hand you make, and then how to proceed on from there. It’s all broken down through the course of how a hand progresses, which makes the advice all mesh together.
As I mentioned, I didn’t get anything out the book that I hadn’t already read in other texts, but it’s always nice to reinforce the strategies I’ve read from other authors. If you’re looking for a good beginner book, WLLH will do the job. It’s a quick read and easy to follow, but I’d recommend SSH over it any day. Sklansky, Malmuth, and Miller put together the bible of low limit hold’em when they wrote Small Stakes Hold’em: Winning Big With Expert Play.
A Fresh Start
I hadn’t played poker since the 28th and my sister is coming to visit for a few days so I figured tonight was my best chance to play some poker. I’m glad I played. After a few hours of play at the Party Poker .50/1 tables I got in 300 hands and lost 8.5 BB. It was the greatest poker I’ve played in quite some time.
You might be wondering how I can you lose and say I played my best. My VP$IP was less than 12.5% and my W$WSF was less than 17%! That’s just the cards I was getting; not many premium hands and not many flops hit my hand. I only cold called a raise pre-flop once in 300 hands. I had A♣4♣ and three other players had already cold called the raise so I figured I was getting some good odds if I nailed a flop. If I didn’t catch on the flop, it was an easy fold. Looking back I should have probably even folded that one.
I just wasn’t getting any quality hands or hitting any kind of flops. A week ago I would have been frustrated, giving away bets. Today I was patient. I was aggressive when I hit and my big hands paid off for the most part. There were only two hands where I lost more than 2 BB and one of them was only 2.5 BB. The other hand cost me 5.5 BB, which is about 3 more than I should have. I found A♥Q♥ in early position, so I raised it. Everyone folded around to a tight player on the button who re-raised me. I called. The flop came queen high so I bet my top pair top kicker and was raised. I told myself he had rockets or cowboys, but I re-raised and then the pot was capped. I knew I was beat, but I check-called the turn and river anyways. The player showed K♥K♣ for a big surprise. In the future I’d like to be able to fold after the flop raise. I fell in love with my hand even though I called his hand. Bad play.
I reviewed my 10 biggest losing hands (most were in the 1-2 BB range) and I only made that one mistake I just went over. After looking over my 10 biggest winning hands I couldn’t see any place where I could have extracted another bet out of my opponent. I’d say that’s a pretty good day at the tables, even if it was a losing day.
How do I know all of this? Well, when you combine the information gathered by Poker Tracker with the great advice in the Poker Tracker Guide, you have an easy and effective way to review your online poker play. I wish I had this a few months ago when my game went down the shitter.
I know I’m only 300 hands in to my new start, but with the new auto rate rules from the guide book, Poker Tracker has me tagged as a Good Player (Tight Aggressive Solid). That must mean I’m doing something right so far. Let’s hope it continues and the cards improve. If so, my bankroll will quickly build back up and I’ll be sitting at the $1/2 tables again in no time.
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