Planet Mark's Blog. Thoughts, News And Strategy For Poker Tournaments Of All Sizes

Planet Mark's Blog

Spotting New Players At The Poker Tables

Played a few hands last night and witnessed a chat-row between a couple of players. Nothing unusual about that – except this time one of the terms being used got me thinking. One player called another while behind and caught up to win, and got barraged with the word 'Newbie' in different formats and combinations... A few of things confused me here:

Time Tournaments, Tokens, Updates And To-Do's

Mixed post today, loads going on as usual... Both for me and at the various poker sites. Going to start with my opinion of Time Tournaments at Pokerstars (not all positive, though the free entry deal helps!). After this I have some site update notices. I'm already on the record here as urging readers to follow the newest games and structures provided by online poker sites... What you will find is that new and recreational players are the ones who check out the new offerings (while the grinders might have a look, they are more 'sticky' with their tried and tested games). This makes new games the softest, and anyone who is smart enough to see what adjustments to make will make a nice profit. This time I'm not going to cheer for the latest game.

An Unscientific Delve Into The 180s

Took it upon myself to have a look at the 180 player SNGs over at Pokerstars yesterday evening. Though I have played the occasional game, usually when tired at the end of an evening working, I had done nothing to compare the levels or games. So, 3 hours, 4 games played and several dozen more observed at various stages... and I came up with the following (unscientific) thoughts!

Sit N Go Volume For US Players – Get Your Grind On!

Every poker site and its dog will have the news that the Merge Network have re-opened to new US players today… So I wanted to try and say something different. One thing this means is that those players from the US who are prepared to mix and match their buy-in levels and games can now potentially mass-table the SNGs again… and if you get the bubble math part right this could be very profitable indeed.

October Planet Corp Update

Time for another of my intermittent Planet Corp updates. For those who have not seen one before, these posts cover the status and future plans for my business. As we come into the last quarter I have a long list of projects and challenges to get through – including a 5th part to my SNG course and a new video training site for Russian players.

A Few SNG Themed Links

Got a few links to share today. Should do more posts like this really, after all it is too easy to live within your own little website bubble. All of these are SNG themed, including a mobile tool created by a reader and 2 interesting 2+2 threads which I had lurking in my bookmarks.

A Big Head Start This Week With My Updated Fish-o-Meter

Yesterday morning I got fed up with waiting. In a way I ‘caught myself’ procrastinating, and over a long period of time. It started with black-Friday, then waiting to see if Full Tilt would return… and last waiting to see whether Carbon (Merge) would start allowing new US sign-ups again. In the end it all came to a head on a Sunday morning – and I spent all day updating my ‘Fish-O-Meter’ widget with the fishiest poker sites as of *now!*.