Greg Raymer is No Longer a PokerStar

Greg Raymer is No Longer a PokerStar

I ran across an article that Greg Raymer and PokerStars split company. The speculation is that PokerStars is cutting back its support of World Series of Poker winners as they focus more on non-US pros and online winners.

First, I've never played against Greg Raymer. Second, from watching him play on TV, Greg appears to be an excellent player who enjoys putting pressure on his opponents whether he has the goods or not. Of course, the best evidence of his skill is his winning the 2004 World Series of Poker. Third, he seems like a really nice guy and I am sure he will end up getting his support from another online poker site.

And, that's my problem. Online poker sites should not be paying star players to play at their sites. If they want poker stars to appear in their ads or promotions, that is fine. But, to give them money to play at their site is just cheating the game, and the players at the site.

I don't blame the players for taking the money. Heck, no matter how good a poker player you are, you are going to have long stretches of losing your money. But, giving players an edge like this, especially the "pros," is just wrong IMHO.

Personal Experience Being Sponsored, sort of.

I would like to come up with an analogy that helps illustrate my point, but I don't have one. Poker is gambling. It is skill and luck. And, the combination of these two ingredients weighs heavier on the "luck" factor than any other sporting competition I can think of.

Players who don't care about the money are going to play different than if the money was coming out of their own pocket. At least that is what I have found in my own play.

For example, I was visiting a friend and he said that he wanted to see me play a poker tournament at a local casino. I guess he gave me grief because I had a book on tournament poker, and he wanted to get a good laugh when some young kid knocked me out. I told him I wasn't interested in playing.

To convince me to play, though, he made me an offer I couldn't refuse. He would give me the buy-in for the event and I could keep whatever I won. I didn't realize it at the time, but that is the kind of deal these poker stars get from the online poker sites.

Of course, I took him up on his offer, and entered the event. I guess it was a psychological thing or something, because I took more chances than I normally would do in a poker tournament. I'd like to say I won the event, but I didn't win. I finished second.

This was not some major poker tournament. It was a local game with maybe 100 players. And, my friend thought some of my all-in moves were too risky. Maybe, probably, actually, yes for sure! Why? I wasn't gambling at all. I had no risk. I wasn't using my money.

Oh yeah, let me share with you how I got knocked out at the end...I am ashamed to say that I tried to bluff out my opponent pre-flop when he was holding pocket Kings. Now you know why I'm not sponsored by a poker site :-)

My point to all of this is that online poker sites should not be influencing the results of any poker event. But, by paying poker pros to play at their sites, they are doing precisely that. Pay these stars to promote your site in all the other traditional marketing ways--from PR to advertising to promotion. Just not in a way that effects the outcome of the actual events where everyone else is risking their hard earned money.

If you agree, please let me know. If you disagree, I am sure I will read your comments.

Poker Answers to Quiz: Inside the Mind of Greg Raymer

How to approach a poker hand the Greg Raymer way: Questions and Answers

See if you can you figure out why Greg does what he is does each step of the way in th

Image by horde.lt via Flickr

is hand:

It's a major event and the blinds are $300-$600 with a $75 ante. Greg is in on the button with $55,000. The cutoff has $50,000. The blinds have $80,000 each.

It's folded to the player in the cutoff who raises to $1,600. Greg finds Ah-10s. Greg calls.

Question 1: Why does he just call?

a. He identifies the player as being loose.
b. The blinds are deep stacked.
c. He doesn't want to be re-raised.
d. He wants to see a flop in position.
e. All of the above.

Answer: e. All of the above. He identified the player as loose, but he calls since he is concerned with one of the the deep stacked blinds or the original player re-raising which would force him to fold. He wants to see the flop in position.

After Greg calls, so does the big blind. There is $5,775 in the pot.

The flop is Ad-10c-9h.

The pre-flop raiser bets $4,000 and Greg re-raises to $13,000.

Question 2. Why does Greg re-raise here?

a. The board is coordinated and he wants to eliminate players.
b. He flopped 2 pair.
c. He wants to see where he stands in this situation.
d. He wants to have the lead on the turn.
e. All of the above.

Answer e. All of the above. Greg did not mention c and, so I added them in so answer e was best.

After Greg re-raises, the big blind folds but the initial raiser calls. There is now $31,775 in the pot.

The turn is the Jc.

After the cutoff checks, Greg pushes all-in for his remaining $40,000+.

Question 3. Why does he push all-in here?

a. He puts his opponent on a hand like A-K or A-Q
b. There are so many river cards that can beat him.
c. He believes he is in the lead at this point.
d. If he makes a big bet that is not all-in, he will have few chips left.
e. All of the above.

Answer e. All of the above. He does not put his opponent on A-J. He puts him on A-K or A-Q. Again, he doesn't want to get rivered.

After Greg moves all-in, his opponent calls.

His opponent actually thought there was only $20,000 in the pot, and that Greg made a huge overbet as a bluff. He turned over A-5. The river was a rag, and Greg won a big pot.

Congratulations to Johnathan Gelling for getting all the right answers

Poker Quiz: Inside the Mind of Greg Raymer

How to approach a poker hand the Greg Raymer way

I have never played against Raymer but every time I see him on TV, he is making the right decision. I am impressed.

Image via Wikipedia

See if you can you figure out why Greg does what he is does each step of the way in this hand:

It's a major event and the blinds are $300-$600 with a $75 ante. Greg is in on the button with $55,000. The cutoff has $50,000. The blinds have $80,000 each.

It's folded to the player in the cutoff who raises to $1,600. Greg finds Ah-10s. Greg calls.

Question 1: Why does he just call?

a. He identifies the player as being loose.
b. The blinds are deep stacked.
c. He doesn't want to be re-raised.
d. He wants to see a flop in position.
e. All of the above.

After Greg calls, so does the big blind. There is $5,775 in the pot.

The flop is Ad-10c-9h.

The pre-flop raiser bets $4,000 and Greg re-raises to $13,000.

Question 2. Why does Greg re-raise here?

a. The board is coordinated and he wants to eliminate players.
b. He flopped 2 pair.
c. He wants to see where he stands in this situation.
d. He wants to have the lead on the turn.
e. All of the above.

After Greg re-raises, the big blind folds but the initial raiser calls. There is now $31,775 in the pot.

The turn is the Jc.

After the cutoff checks, Greg pushes all-in for his remaining $40,000+.

Question 3. Why does he push all-in here?

a. He puts his opponent on a hand like A-K or A-Q
b. There are so many river cards that can beat him.
c. He believes he is in the lead at this point.
d. If he makes a big bet that is not all-in, he will have few chips left.
e. All of the above.

After Greg moves all-in, his opponent calls.

Tomorrow: The answers and the outcome to this hand.

How to Turn the Small Blind Into the Button by Angel "GiJoe" Valdez

He's Back!

Angel "GiJoe" Valdez has a few observations from watching the Pros play online poker Sunday. He brings up two moves he sees the Pro use that essentially turns their small blind into the button. After reading this post you may think, "That donk is actually a Pro who is pushing with nothing to get chips early, since he is busy doing the same nonsense at 20 other games at the same time." Hey, you never know.

Joe, thanks again. Mitchell

Watching Pros Play Online Poker

I like to take breaks from online poker quite a bit. I don't play that many games like most, so during my breaks I like to work on my game by reading up on my books, my notes from the academy or watching others play online.

Yesterday I logged into PS to check out what the pro's were doing. To my shock I saw 36 PS pro's logged in and playing. I am sure there were more but they

Image by Ryan Harvey via Flickr

weren't affiliated with PS. Most of the 36 players were playing the $215 or the $500 MTT. Now the $215 MTT had over 8k players. It seemed like this particular game was an ALL-IN-LET-ME-DOUBLE-UP-OR-BUST game.

I chatted with one of my WSOP instructor and I asked him about this tactic, and his response was very interesting. He said that the pro's have a huge bankroll to play with so $200 is nothing for them. They don't want to play a game just for the sake of it and waste time. They want to double up quickly and often. They want to be in with huge stacks and take advantage when the blind and ante's increase. For them there is always another game they can play and most play 12 games a across multiple sites.... By the way when I was chatting with him he was playing only 9 games on PS!!! ONLY!! lol His buy-ins were $5, $33R, $500, $215, $50, $109, $55R1A, and some cash games of mix 40/80, mix 10/20, and 1 more that I don't recall.

When he first started playing this game I saw him go all in with hands like A5 and above. It didn't matter if they were suited. He did go all in pre-flop in the later stages with A3s vs 88 and of course he flopped an Ace to give him the win. This was against a smaller stack that he easily had covered. Once half the field was eliminated they started playing poker, with the exception of the short stacks who were looking to double up.

Two Moves To Consider

There were a couple of moves that I saw several pro's make successfully. The blinds were high and ante's had kicked in. The first one is called the All-In Re-Raise and the second the Stop-N-Go. Both are covered in one of my favorite poker books "Tournament Poker: 101 Winning Moves." The pro's did have a bigger stack then the other players so that might influence when to use these moves.

In the All-In Re-Raise players folded to the button which made a standard 3x raise. Then the pro being in the SB moved all in. The BB would fold and so would the player on the Button that tried to steal the blinds. So not only did the SB get all the ante's but he also pick up a nice bonus from the button. It was amazing to see it work.

After a few times the button didn't want to steal so the SB became the new button. I saw a pro get called by the BB with 66 once. The pro showed J7 and they held up. So his range to me was basically any 5 gap cards, suited connectors, to any pair. I mean that's a huge range. When they get deeper into the tournament, players value their tournament life more than at the beginning. I can see why this move worked out the way it did, although I kept saying "will someone please call that!!!"

The Stop-N-Go I first read about in "Tournament Poker:

Image via Wikipedia

101 Winning Moves" and even got hands-on experience at the WSOP academy while sitting at Greg Raymer's table. This is how it goes. It all gets folded to the cutoff or button where they make the standard 3x raise. The player in the SB would smooth call and so would the blind(sometimes). After the flop, the SB being first to act would fire off a half to 2/3 pot continuation bet. The BB and initial raiser would fold. I saw this move work well a lot for the pro's. Again they were taking advantage of their stack size and being first to act.

I originally planned to watch the pro's play for only 30 min but 4 hours later…

The SB is the New Button

I now understand why most online pro's are calling the SB the NEW button. With the two moves above you can not only steal the blinds to keep up with the

blind increases, but also get extra chips to increase your stack.

Image via Wikipedia

After a while players feared the pro when it came down to the button and SB. He was considered a maniac not only by them but by me!

So the next time you are in a tournament and the blinds are starting to increase and you think you might be "card dead," try one of these moves and see what it does for you. I know the more I see it, use it, and re use it… the more I will remember it.

Good luck

Angel "Gijoe" Valdez