French poker players who have a chance to win the EPT 2010

August 10th, 2010

Michel Abecassis. This player was at the beginning a doctor in medicine but after a few years, the man decided to become the director of the famous French newspaper ELLE. He also collaborates on the Le nouvel ob, French newspaper. The man could manage very well his job and his passion. He has a huge passion for game and especially for bridge. He owns 13 title of French Champion in this type of games and also 2 title as a European champion. But after a few year she discovers Poker and he started to play it. His record of achievement is quite impressive. 1st in 2002 for the world championship WCOOP on internet in Pot Limit Hold’em, 2nd in the same competition in 2004 in Omaha Hi-Lo et 2nd in 2008 in Pot Limit Omaha. He also added to his list of achievement en “live” 2 places of 4e at the WSOP in 2001 and in 2003 in Omaha Hi-Lo; 2 victories and one 2nd place at the EFOP (Euro-Finales of Poker) in 2004 and a 3th place in 2010. He won in 2006 and in 2007, le tournament of Aces, mediated on the channel Paris Premiere. In 2008,.he finished 8th at the Main Event of Partouche poker tour and won 78 500 €. He favourite citation is “being unlucky is an esay excuse”.

Bruno Fitoussi was an architect at the beginning of his life but he is still one. He is very famous sin France for having introduced poker in France through the aviation Club de France which decides to use the poker has a main card game for their association. This player is certainly a Omaha player but he prefers to play the cash poker instead of tournament poker. He is not very interested in WSOP tournament or different one. In 2009, he finished 10th at the WPT (world poker tour), 2nd at the H.O.R.S.E of the WSOP 2007. In 2004, He won the European tournament of the Hold’em. And in 2001, he won the World Heads-Up Poker Championship. This player is quite pretentious but it is normal for a French Player and this player has the particularity to think that he is the best player ever.

François Montmirel has already two titles of international tournament. This player is a passionate player. He started to like poker when he wrote a book called “poker” and after that he wanted to write a book too about it. He is also a poker teacher at the French poker school. Maths and gestural movement are the best things to studies about players and the way to win.

Patrick Bruel is probably the famous French poker player from France. He is a singer, actor, commentator and also a poker player. He became a poker champion in 1998 with the WSOP. Canal+, a French channel employed him as a poker commentator. He has created a famous DVD about how to play poker. He can be the surprise of the EPT tournament.

Tips to Keep You Cool – Playing Online Poker

May 19th, 2010

One of the most important tips to playing online poker is never to see RED. Keep your cool and everything will be just fine – poker is a cool players’ game anyway. If you are having a bad day it is fine, just stay cool and the pendulum will swing the other way. One day you will be having winning streaks (rushes) and another you may be losing, both these scenarios have to be kept in their stride.

It is a real buzz to play poker online and it is a phenomenally fast game. This is the reason why so many people play. If you pull out of a losing play one day and into a winning streak the next, it makes the buzz of poker even sweeter. So when you are losing, never see red, just pull out of the game and don’t play.

The point of poker is to add to your bankroll on a continuous basis, if you lose your cool, you will lose your bankroll too. You don’t want this, you want to grow your bankroll so you can play in higher takes games without running out of money, so spending your time recouping losses is not ideal winning poker.

Online poker is played at such a fast pace that it can become addictive and you lose track of the fact why you are playing in the first place. Getting lost in a game could see you looking at the clock and find you have lost four or five hours. Some online poker players even brag about getting caught up in 12 or 24 hour sessions of this game and this is quite frankly; plain stupid!

Long sessions of poker are not the way to play, unless it is a tournament and you are well on your way to the final table. Even so these extended periods of play have to be properly planned for. Always set time goals for yourself and this will help you keep your cool, online poker will always be there, no matter what time of the day or night, it is not going anywhere.

You could plan to play until you have added 10% to your bankroll, or say for one Multi Table Tournament. Or you could give yourself a time limit, say two hours. But don’t get caught up in saying, just another half hour, or just another hour, this is justification and you will set a trap for yourself. You must be in control of the game, not allow it to be in control of you!

No poker player ever plays an “A” game when they play for over-extended periods of time, if anything this is fuel for the fire for playing badly. Poker is a stylish, strategic game of skill; it is not about tilting at windmills so you need a game plan. Stick to your game plan and your poker playing will be pleasurable, not something that bugs you makes you see red and lose your cool.    
 

Poker Playing Luck – It’s All Part of the Design

April 28th, 2010

It has long been acknowledged that playing poker is not about luck, it is a game of skill and strategy where luck has a place, but this is not a slot game. The difference between dumb luck and true luck is that you find most lucky people create their own luck, through belief in their abilities, damn hard work and a huge amount of skill.  It is true what Vince Lombardi said “the harder we work, the luckier we get”. 

If the result of hard work outside poker is luck, then the result of hard work in poker will also be good luck. However some poker experts believe that if you experience pure luck when you play poker, your game will actually suffer. You won’t learn to improve your game because winning just comes too easy. 

If you think that Chris Moneyemaker has a masters degree in accounting and he went on to challenge the system by getting into the WSOP for the first time ever, by playing online poker. You better believe that he deliberately planned, worked hard to achieve this goal, and he did have luck – yes. But only because of his hard work and deliberate planning! He stuck to it and managed to turn $39 into $2.5 million and he is a not a stupid man. They are right about poker being a thinking man’s game. 

On the other side of the coin too much luck for a good player can have the effect of turning them into a bad player, because of it being too easy to win, they just stop learning. Bad poker players really do try to get lucky and good players try to avoid this by playing by design. 

An opponent “Player A” who throws in his hand may do so because they say to themselves, “this guy ‘Player B’ is always so lucky – I’m folding”. In the meantime player B raised so that player A would believe he was getting lucky again. The raise was not as a result of luck, it was by design, he intended for player A to fold to deliberately get him out of the game. A play of the poker hand needs to be designed to get another player to give in extra bets first, it is not luck which extracts these extra bets from the player, this is poker playing skill. 

It takes years of practice to read tells, and get opponents to bluff into you, as well as all the other skills required by a good player so that his opponent thinks he is lucky. This game is not only about having a hand full of winning cards, each betting round, each draw, each deal and combination – every nuance of the game counts, and understanding how it works to change the game is a skill! 

If you have been playing for years and are still kicking yourself that you don’t get lucky, you are probably playing poker right. Beware if too much luck comes your way and this is not part of your deliberate design, because you could be in for a hard knock sometime in the very near future. 
  

Avoid Common Poker Mistakes And Be a Winning Player!

April 15th, 2010

Poker players can’t afford to make mistakes, but like all mistakes, they are costly, something which is unavoidable, and something which provides a benchmark for learning.

One of the most costly mistakes to make when playing poker is discomfort playing and this can be avoided. Never play poker for money if you are ill, hungry, depressed or angry. This is the quickest and most harmful way to prevent a player from winning.
Profitable poker is the only poker to play, it is a game of skill and if your decision making processes are compromised, it is highly unlikely you will win.

While playing against stronger players is a good way to test your skills and improve your game, it is also the skill of your opponent which makes up one of the main components of your ability to win.

You don’t necessarily know if another player or players are stronger than you until you have played them, so this is a difficult mistake to avoid. However, if you are of intermediate skill, you should play in this level, why play in high stakes games against a table of semi-professionals if you aren’t in their league. Not all of us is a Chris Moneymaker, these kinds of players are few and far between.

Always be prepared… may be the Boy Scouts motto, but it applies to playing poker too. Poker is a game of strategy and skill and if you don’t know the rules of a particular game, or if you have something on your mind distracting you, don’t play.

Remember your money goes where your mind is! Study the rules of the games you are playing there are many variations of poker and each has its own winning strategy.

Tells are not only something you need to learn to read in your opponents, you may also be providing your opponents with tells of your own.

Don’t for a moment believe that playing online poker dismisses you from tells, there are many of these in online poker too. Don’t give away anything to your opponent and concentrate on your game, displaying tells will allow your opponents to know the kind of hand you hold.

Don’t be afraid to play, your opponents can smell fear from a mile away, don’t be too relaxed either, just be alert. Learn when aggressive play is required and how to go about this – find out as much as you can about aggressive and timid playing strategies.

Playing marathon sessions of poker may be good practice for the professional, but they are not good for the amateur. Take regular breaks, or limit the duration of your play so that you are still fresh enough to be able to look at your game at the end of it and break it down to see how you played.

Winning poker players always keep records of their games, to see how they can improve on them in future. Limiting play to specific timed sessions helps measure one session of play against another in terms of winning.