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ITH Poker League Starts Off Strong The February 1 debut of the ITH Poker League was a rousing success. Since then, 445 unique participants have played in at least one of the seven weekly leagues. The top 27 overall point totals will play for a $2500 World Series of Poker travel/entry package. Winners of each tournament and monthly league winners qualify for a freeroll that will award a $12,000 World Series of Poker Main Event package. Additional prizes include stakes in Matthew Hilger's World Series entry, free Poker Tutor lessons, and cash. The current top ten overall point scorers are Ohjay, ciaran, 86fxrd, evv98, Patch, rayrns, McFoldem, rezster, nsidestrate, and DSpitler. ITH Member “Tall Paul” Enjoys February Swoon Tall Paul has shredded the fields in recent big-dollar online tournaments. His big wins included final tables of a $320 PokerStars tournament and the nightly $80,000 Guaranteed at Paradise Poker, for net wins of at least $10,000 during the month. Party Poker Million Cruise Approaches Matthew Hilger is one of the thousands of poker players and guests who will set sail from Fort Lauderdale, Florida March 12 to participate in the Party Poker Million V. This is a fixed-limit Texas Holdem tournament. Planned stops in Jamaica and the Cayman Islands are part of the cruise. World Series of Poker Satellites Less than four months from now, the World Series of Poker kicks off at the Rio in Las Vegas. Forty-five days of non-stop poker action will be followed by the second annual ITH Convention. There are a lot of new satellite offerings from poker sites. Here is a quick recap of those already discussed, including entry fee, chances of winning, event, and amount of travel/expense money included. Sub-qualifiers are available for each of the satellites listed.
Upcoming Live Tournaments with Online Qualifiers UK players should consider qualifying for one of the upcoming events in London. Paradise Poker is awarding packages ($5225 buy-in + $2275 travel) to the British Poker Open, March 23-26. Tribeca sites award $5000 (2850+2150) packages to the March 24-26 Euro Poker Classics. The World Poker Tour Championship is April 18-24 at the Bellagio in Las Vegas. Sites running qualifiers include PokerRoom, Paradise, and PokerStars. Prima sites are awarding a $7600 entry/travel package to the WPT World Poker Challenge March 27-30 in Reno. St. Maarten, Netherlands Antilles is the next stop for the World Poker Showdown, April 29-May 8. Ten tournaments range in buy-in from $180 to $2600. Travel and entry sponsorships can be won at America’s Card Room. Paradise Poker joins the Bahamas tournament revolution by hosting their first all-live tournament, the May 8-14 Conquest of Paradise Island. Satellite winners gain tournament entry, travel money, and a stay at the five-star Atlantis resort. Look to the Tribeca Network again to enter the World Heads-Up Challenge, held May 19-28 in Barcelona, Spain. One in 25 $220 entrants will win the $5000 package ($1900 for travel). UltimateBet has begun satellites to the Fifth Annual UltimateBet Poker Classic, September 23-October 1 in Aruba. Satellite winners get a $5200 tournament entry, airfare, and hotel. In addition, the first 150 qualifiers will be entered in a live freeroll to be held September 24 in Aruba. The winner becomes a sponsored pro for 2007, with paid entries and expenses to the 2007 WSOP, Five Diamond Classic, Aussie Millions, and UB Poker Classic in Aruba. Strategy Corner Last month’s MTT Scene took a brief look at endgame strategy in qualifying tournaments (where multiple players win the same prize, usually entry into a larger tournament). This month, the Strategy Corner will discuss some preparatory planning that can be done in these tournaments to set you up well for the endgame. As soon as the number of prizes is determined based on the number of entries, you must take careful note of how many places are paid. In a freezeout tournament, the prizes are often determined as soon as the registration period ends. In rebuy tournaments, this usually comes at the end of the rebuy and addon period. Once the prize structure is posted in the tournament lobby, you will have an idea of how you must play throughout the tournament. If a small number of prizes is awarded in relation to the number of entrants, strategy is quite similar to standard payout tournaments…you are simply playing to win first place. Your level of aggressiveness will be primarily determined by the blind structure of the tournament. When the bubble approaches (meaning the number of remaining players is about 150% of the number of prizes), you can then adjust strategy based on chip counts. Alternatively, in some rebuy tournaments, as many as 20% of the entrants can win a top prize. Once the number of prizes is determined, you should take note of how many places receive entry to the next tournament. If there is significant extra money in the prize pool, the next three places after the winners often receive a substantial amount of cash. If this is the case, you can often play more aggressively on the bubble if one of the cash prizes will make a nice consolation. When the prizes are posted, immediately calculate the average number of chips that will be held by each player at the end. Use this formula:
The result of this formula will give you a rough idea of how many chips you will want to have towards the end of the tournament. For example: You have entered a rebuy tournament, and the rebuy period has ended. At the conclusion of the add-on period, the site will post the prizes in the tournament lobby. If there are 150 players remaining, and the top 30 receive a first prize, and the average stack is T8000, then the average stack at the end of the tournament will be T40,000. When 75 players remain, the average stack will be T16,000. Use these two numbers as rough guides to help you determine how fast you should play in certain situations. If you are significantly ahead of schedule, you might tighten up some and wait for a huge opportunity. Remember, when it’s down to 30 players, you get the same prize whether you have 1 chip or 1 million! Discuss qualifier (and all MTT) strategy in the ITH MTT Forum. Participate in tournament “sweats” and chat about poker in the ITH Forum Chat |
