Lock Poker Signs New Players!

Date: Fri, Jul 22, 2011 Live Professional Internet Tournament

London, UK - July 20th, 2011 - Lock Poker Signs Chris Moorman and Nicky Evans! LockPRO Army Continues to Grow!

Lock is thrilled to announce the new additions to their LockPRO ELITE team. Chris "moorman1" Moorman and Nicky "Cod Meharly" Evans.

Chris Moorman began playing poker in 2004. Taking 2nd place in his first ever tournament, a freeroll, Chris never actually deposited turning $120 into nearly $20,000. In his first Sunday major in 2006, Chris made the final table, and this is where the poker career of Moorman1 truly began. By January 2007, focusing exclusively on MTT's, he cracked the prestigious Top 100 on Pocket5's. This splash was just his entrance, as he went on to dominate with over 200 MTT wins in the biggest tournaments across every online site. By 2009, these wins were sufficient to propel him to the #1 spot and legendary status earning over $7,500,000 along the way. He holds the record for 9 P5's Triple Crowns!!! In 2011 Chris showed his talents expand well beyond the virtual felt, final tabling the Aussie Millions and his dominating WSOP performance leaves him in 4th place in POY entering WSOPE cementing his place as a unique talent in the poker world.

Nicky "Cod Meharly" Evans had a rather inauspicious start to his poker career in 2006. "Back then I played small home games and low stakes rebuys at the local casino. Like any beginner I took my lumps but it wasn't until losing to my girlfriend that my competitive side really came out. I read some books and began discussing hands with friends; I started taking it a bit more seriously," explained Nicky. Once that fire was lit, Evans became a regular winner racking up over $100,000 in earnings within a year. In 2009, Nicky felt comfortable enough to turn to full-time professional poker. Since then, he has racked up over $1,100,000 in live and online earnings, attained the rank of 59th on the prestigious Pocket5's online leader board, and given his current form is looking to make a press at the Top 10.

"Chris and Nicky are stars and we are all very excited to welcome them to the Lock Family," says Jennifer Larson CEO/Owner of Lock Poker. "Together we will work very hard to provide the best product, support and overall online poker experience worldwide. As we grow our LockPRO team, we get closer to really becoming the best online poker room in the world. Partnering with our players is the true path to success."

'I'm excited to sign for LockPoker and despite all of the negatives in the poker industry as of late, I believe Lock Poker has an incredibly bright future and is doing all the right things necessary to succeed in the current climate," says Chris "moorman1" Moorman. "I can't wait to be a huge part of that and look forward to taking them to the next level."

"I am super excited to represent Lock Poker as an ELITE LockPRO," says Nicky Evans. "The roster of talent they have is unbelievable and i am privileged to be part of such a team."

"Jennifer Larson continues to assemble the most powerful pro team in the World. Chris and Nicky are phenomenal additions to Lock's star-studded team. In addition to being amazing players with poker resumes that speak for themselves, they are two of the classiest players I have ever had the privilege to work with," commented Randy Kasper, Co-Founder and Agency Leader at Poker Players International (www.ppipoker.com ).

LOCK
Lock is the world's most innovative online gaming brand. Lock launched their first masterpiece, Lock Poker, over two years ago and recently launched their ground breaking Casino. They exploded into poker industry by introducing the Bluff Online Poker challenge, becoming the first company to develop a Mac download casino and hiring Eric Rizen Lynch as their Poker Room Manager. Lock continues to bring a fresh perspective to this exciting industry and its mandate is to drive innovation through superior design and initiative. http://www.lockpoker.com & http://www.lockcasino.com

PPI
Poker Players International (PPI) is the World's largest poker agency, representing hundreds of players from around the globe. Following Black Friday in the US, they were the only agency to immediately announce they would not participate in online deals for US players. However, their strong and growing International Team leads all other agencies in online pro deals. If you are a NON-US player interested in a pro deal join PPI at www.PPIPoker.com.

MERGE GAMING
Merge Gaming is the fresh new face in the online poker world, growing rapidly and providing a solid, secure, gaming platform for its partners. We are dedicated to providing users with the best possible online gaming experience, and providing our operators all the tools necessary to run a successful poker business. Merge Gaming accepts players worldwide and is focused on catering to all player groups through active promotions, game variety, quality software and security.

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Challenge Update

Date: Tue, May 17, 2011 Live Professional Internet Tournament

I was teaching at a WPT Boot Camp and have been keeping fairly busy so I haven't had a lot of a chance to move forward on the SnG challenge, I did want to give a general update though. I started with $100 and was playing $5 super turbo 6 max tournaments. I ran that up to $150 pretty quickly and did something that many of us do (even myself obviously) that was a huge mistake. I moved up to the $10 tournaments before I had the requisite 20 buy ins i'd promised myself. I signed up for 8 of them and managed to cash in 0 (the super turbos are very high variance), so I promised myself not to break my buy in rules again and moved down to the $2 HU Super turbos and have since moved that back up to $110 and am playing the $4 HU Super Turbos.

I'm seriously considering switching to cash though for timing issues. I think there are value in the super turbos at the lower levels because people don't really understand push fold, but I think it goes down a lot as you go up in stakes and longer term with my kids and schedule i would prefer to play cash rather than SnGs. If I do switch or start to mix in cash I will adhere to a strict 25 buy in rule for NLHE tables. I haven't completely decided yet.

On another level, i often get asked about coaching. I haven't been accepting new students in a long time, but given the current poker landscape I've had some openings. If you're interested in coaching from me e-mail me at rizenpoker@gmail.com and we can discuss terms and make sure I'm a good fit for you.

If you want to join me for the challenge at the low stakes SnGs/cash games (you can always add me as a friend so you can easily find me, username 'EricLynch') feel free to download lock poker here:

http://download.lockpoker.com/rizenpoker

Until June 1st you can get some pretty sweet rakeback/bonus deals through me too, e-mail me for details.

-Rizen

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Online Poker Prodigy WINS the Bluff Pro Challenge

Date: Tue, May 3, 2011 Live Professional Internet Tournament

Lock is excited to announce that their new LockPRO ELITE team member. Jose "Girah" Macedo has taken the number one spot in the Bluff Pro Challenge! A total of 966 players were enlisted and they had 30 days to make the most profit. Jose will be featured on the cover of Bluff Magazine in July 2011 as well as representing Lock in several European live events. At the young age of 18 he is unable to represent Lock at the WSOP this year. He takes first prize with a profit of $104,824. bigguylegend22 came in second with a profit of $90,198 and third was taken by Sweeeeeeet with a profit of $44,120. Jose has already been signed to a LockPRO ELITE contract so the player that came in second will potentially have a shot at becoming a LockPRO.

Jose has also announced his Zero to Hero tournament series where he is giving away 30 hours in coaching to the top positions. Sign up under Jose and win free coaching with the online Poker Prodigy himself.

More details on the tournament please check his website http://www.lockpoker.com/zero-to-hero/ to download and play in this tournament series please use this link http://download.lockpoker.com/girah

"Jose taking down the BPC is a very exciting milestone for him and Lock," said Jennifer Larson CEO/Owner of Lock Poker. "He really brings to light that we have the ability to achieve anything we set our minds and hearts to. With the right mix of passion, determination, focus and intelligence anything is possible. I am very proud of Jose and incredibly happy to have him as part of the Lock Family."

"I'm really excited and happy to have won the BPC! I had a very good run at the Lock High stakes tables and now I can only hope to keep working and playing hard in order to improve and build on this achievement," said Jose Girah Macedo. "I will keep on playing anyone at any stakes up to $200/400 so if you want some action, come find me at the tables (that goes for you too Durrrr )."

LOCK

Lock is the world's most innovative online gaming brand. Lock launched their first masterpiece, Lock Poker, over two years ago and recently launched their ground breaking Casino. They exploded into poker industry by introducing the Bluff Online Poker challenge, becoming the first company to develop a Mac download casino and hiring Eric Rizen Lynch as their Poker Room Manager. Lock continues to bring a fresh perspective to this exciting industry and its mandate is to drive innovation through superior design and initiative. http://www.lockpoker.com & http://www.lockcasino.com

MERGE GAMING

Merge Gaming is the fresh new face in the online poker world, growing rapidly and providing a solid, secure, gaming platform for its partners. We are dedicated to providing users with the best possible online gaming experience, and providing our operators all the tools necessary to run a successful poker business. Merge Gaming accepts players worldwide and is focused on catering to all player groups through active promotions, game variety, quality software and security.

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Sng Challenge

Date: Mon, May 2, 2011 Live Professional Internet Tournament

So one of the things I realized in teaching my most recent WPT Boot Camp and analyzing some of my own play is that I've gotten away from some of the fundamentals. It can be easy to do, as you go up and play the higher levels meta game and advanced strategy become important and it can be easy to lose focus of basic fundamentals.

Now, I feel like I have a REALLY good grasp on the fundamentals. I teach them regularly at boot camps and I know it inside and out. The problem I realized when I was examining my play was that I wasn't always practicing what I preach. So in an effort to really focus on getting my fundamentals shored up I'm starting a SnG challenge. I'm going to take $100 and try and run it through all the levels of SnGs on Lock Poker, making sure i'm successful on each level before moving up. I'm going to do this using a semi-aggressive rolling bankroll system. Basically i will play SnGs at whatever level I have 20 buy ins, moving up and down as necessary.

Typically you're supposed to use 50 buy ins for SnGs as a part of good bankroll management, so this is a bit aggressive and potentially increases my risk of ruin, but by constantly moving down as I get lower it should mitigate some of that. By playing lower I can focus on just the fundamentals and then as I move up I should be able to start to layer more advanced strategy on top of that.

I will play a mix of traditional 6 mans, Double or Nothings, and Super Turbos. I will also play the 45 mans when they run. With my responsibilities as Poker Room Manager at Lock Poker, I don't play as much as I used to, but I will track my progress as much as I can here and try and post some hands as well.

If you want to join me in the challenge or just play on Lock Poker you can download it here:

http://download.lockpoker.com/rizenpoker

and you'll get 35% rakeback and 200% up to $1200 bonus using code 'LOCKPRO'

-Rizen

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Lock Poker - Next Generation - Players Rule!

Date: Sat, Feb 5, 2011 Live Professional Internet Tournament

As the new Poker Room Manager at Lock I wanted to share why, what and how.

The primary reasons I joined Lock Poker a few years ago was their unique vision and focus, that being the mandate of Player come first. Lock Poker has always been about taking care of the players first, and what better way to do that than to give a player the ability to be heard and influence the future of the room. Today, that is a reality. As the new Poker Room Manager for Lock I will have the unprecedented opportunity to make sure that the player's voice is heard, and used to impact positive change for the room.

Representing you all, the players, is not a responsibility that I take lightly. I want to make sure that you all are getting what you want and need from a poker room. With that in mind, I encourage anyone that has any feedback or ideas to reach out and contact me at pokermanager@lockpoker.com I promise to read each and every piece of feedback I receive, and while I cannot promise to reply to all of them, I will promise that every idea will be considered and at the very least reviewed by the executive.

I am really looking forward to all of the feedback (both positive and negative) and working with you all, the players, to make Lock Poker your room of choice. With help from you, we will be able to create an unparalleled online poker experience! You are the reason that this industry even exists. At Lock we understand and respect that.

All My Best,

Eric "Rizen" Lynch

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Lock Poker - Next Generation - Players Rule!

Date: Sat, Feb 5, 2011 Live Professional Internet Tournament

As the new Poker Room Manager at Lock I wanted to share why, what and how.

The primary reasons I joined Lock Poker a few years ago was their unique vision and focus, that being the mandate of Player come first. Lock Poker has always been about taking care of the players first, and what better way to do that than to give a player the ability to be heard and influence the future of the room. Today, that is a reality. As the new Poker Room Manager for Lock I will have the unprecedented opportunity to make sure that the player's voice is heard, and used to impact positive change for the room.

Representing you all, the players, is not a responsibility that I take lightly. I want to make sure that you all are getting what you want and need from a poker room. With that in mind, I encourage anyone that has any feedback or ideas to reach out and contact me at pokermanager@lockpoker.com I promise to read each and every piece of feedback I receive, and while I cannot promise to reply to all of them, I will promise that every idea will be considered and at the very least reviewed by the executive.

I am really looking forward to all of the feedback (both positive and negative) and working with you all, the players, to make Lock Poker your room of choice. With help from you, we will be able to create an unparalleled online poker experience! You are the reason that this industry even exists. At Lock we understand and respect that.

All My Best,

Eric "Rizen" Lynch

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I'm the new Poker Room Manager for Lock Poker!

Date: Mon, Jan 31, 2011 Live Professional Internet Tournament

Lock is excited to announce the new role that Eric Rizen Lynch has accepted! Since the launch of Lock Poker, developing a superior online player experience is the company mandate. Bringing such a world class poker player into the daily management and operations of Lock will really enable them to continue to innovate and and get true insight into what the the players really need and want. Eric with the LockPRO team by his side will be driving all decisions around the product, promotions and player communication. He will personally be welcoming each and every player and looking for insight into what Lock needs to do next.
"I am personally looking forward not only the opportunity to continue to work with the outstanding LockPRO team," says Eric Lynch "but also to interact with the Lock players and really explore what we can do to improve on all levels. My dream has been to really get involved in the daily operations and have a serious impact on how things are done. I'm excited have the opportunity to bring my unique insight as a professional poker player to the table to help Lock continue to innovate.

"We are determined to lead this industry in product, service and player experience," says Jennifer Larson, CEO of Lock Poker. "Eric brings the insight, passion and personality that we really need and that this role demands. I cannot think of a better way to take Lock to the next level than with one of the world's best online poker players at the helm!

LOCK

Lock is the world's most innovative online gaming brand. Lock launched their first masterpiece, Lock Poker, over two years ago and recently launched their ground breaking Casino. They exploded into the poker industry by introducing the Bluff Online
Poker challenge, becoming the first company to develop a Mac download casino and hiring Eric Rizen Lynch as their Poker room Manager. Lock continues to bring a fresh perspective to this exciting industry and its mandate is to drive innovation through superior design and initiative. http://www.lockpoker.com & http://www.lockcasino.com

MERGE GAMING

Merge Gaming is the fresh new face in the online poker world, growing rapidly and providing a solid, secure, gaming platform for its partners. They are dedicated to providing users with the best possible online gaming experience, and providing their operators all the tools necessary to run a successful poker business. Merge Gaming accepts players worldwide and is focused on catering to all player groups through active promotions, game variety, quality software and security.

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Lock Partners With SharkScope

Date: Wed, Dec 1, 2010 Live Professional Internet Tournament

I'm really excited about this partnership and what we can do with it going forward, here is the press release:

MILAN, Italy - December 1st, 2010 - Lock Poker Launches SharkScope Integration! Innovation continues!

Lock is excited to announce the launch of the new Player dashboard with integrated SharkScope advanced player stats. You can view your own stats, search for your opponents stats, shop at the Lock store, and much more all within the same secure application. Lock is the first and only Poker room to develop a unified tool like this. Lock Poker's entire philosophy is built on player experience, and challenging status quo, truly taking things to a new level.

"One of our mandates as a company is to provide a superior online poker experience" says Jennifer Larson CEO of Lock Poker. " We are determined to take this industry by storm and innovate in every possible way we can. The player comes first at Lock and that will always drive our business development."
"SharkScope is delighted to be working with Lock Poker in a groundbreaking partnership that brings our years of expertise in the display and analysis of poker statistics directly to Lock Poker players" says Steve CEO of SharkScope "Players will be able to track their tournaments results, examine their statistics in great detail and so find new ways of increasing their profits, all directly on the Lock Poker site"

LOCK

Lock is the world's most innovative online gaming brand. Lock launched their first masterpiece, Lock Poker, over two years ago and recently launched their ground breaking Casino. They exploded into poker industry by introducing the Bluff Online
Poker challenge, becoming the first company to develop a Mac download casino and hiring Eric Rizen Lynch as their VP of Product development. Lock continues to bring a fresh perspective to this exciting industry and its mandate is to drive innovation through superior design and initiative. http://www.lockpoker.com & http://www.lockcasino.com

SHARKSCOPE
SharkScope is an industry leader in tracking and analyzing online poker tournaments, with a database of nearly half a billion tournaments accumulated over 6+ years. Sharkscope's tracking accuracy and efficiency are unparalleled, processing virtually every online poker tournament on every site within minutes of completion. Because of its comprehensiveness and powerful set of data analysis tools SharkScope is used by well over 20% of all online tournament poker players and considered essential by the serious players.

MERGE GAMING

Merge Gaming is the fresh new face in the online poker world, growing rapidly and providing a solid, secure, gaming platform for it's partners. We are dedicated to providing users with the best possible online gaming experience, and providing our operators all the tools necessary to run a successful poker business. Merge Gaming accepts players worldwide and is focused on catering to all player groups through active promotions, game variety, quality software and security.

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Back From Cruise

Date: Thu, Nov 18, 2010 Live Professional Internet Tournament

Sorry about the lack of updates. I was on an 8 day cruise without any internet access. I thought I would have some access while I was out and was planning on posting then, but I didn't. I was out on a cruise doing training with the WPT APL (World Poker Tour Amateur Poker League). Maybe I'm a bit paranoid, but I don't like to post when exactly I'm going to be out of town except for major events like the WSOP etc.

Anyways, I had a great time on the cruise. We went to Grand Cayman, Belize, Isle of Roatan off the coast of Honduras and Cuzamel, Mexico. I really didn't know what to expect because this is the first time I've gone to a teaching event where I literally knew only one person (Lee Childs, the other instructor) before I stepped on the boat. It was a lot of fun though. It was a great group that knows how to have a good time, that's for sure.

Because of that I've had a lot less time to play poker this month so far than I normally would, so I don't have a lot of results or play to share. In my last post I'd talked about focusing on cash games all month and I've already kind of abandoned that and played some 6 max sit n gos. I couldn't help myself, there isn't always a lot of cash game selection earlier in the morning and sometimes I like to be able to just shove chips around.

I don't have another obligation for around a month and even that one is only for a couple of days with internet access, so I should be back to updating a couple of times a week at least again, I hope everyone is doing well and for those of you in the states, have a great Thanksgiving in case I don't update again before that!

-Rizen

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New Month!

Date: Mon, Nov 1, 2010 Live Professional Internet Tournament

Well, I dabbled in a lot of different things last month. I talked about playing some of the new 6 max turbo and super turbo sit n gos on Lock Poker, but I think for November I'm going to play purely cash games. I enjoyed the 6 max SnGs but I hit a downswing at the end of the month and after getting a decent sample size I really think I make more money playing the cash games than the SnGs.

In the past I've always kind of dabbled around in different games depending on my mood, going from full ring to 6 max no limit hold em to 6 max pot limit omaha to heads up sit n gos to 6 max sit n gos just playing whatever I felt like that day. It's been a LONG time since I really focused on just playing one game as well as I can for an extended period of time though. I've got one week this month where I'm going to be on a WPT APL cruise doing some teaching but the rest of the month I'm really going to be focused on doing the best I can in the no limit cash games. If I find that keeping myself focused on one thing at a time improves my win rate I might do it in future months too.

The weather is finally getting cold here, which kind of makes me sad. I prefer warm weather to cool weather but I do enjoy the changing seasons. One of the pluses about being a pro poker player though is I get to do most of my work from the comfort of my own home and in the coming months I'll be traveling to places like Daytona Beach and Las Vegas, where the weather is nice and warm :)

October was a great month, but I'm looking forward to making November even better. I hope it is great for everyone reading this as well!

-Rizen

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Lock Poker Welcomes the World

Date: Wed, Sep 16, 2009 Live Professional Internet Tournament

ABERDEEN, New Jersey (September 14, 2009) – Lock Poker, a rapidly growing and innovative online poker room on the Cake Network has expanded its Pro Program yet again. Following last month’s promotion of Eric ‘Rizen’ Lynch to Director of Product Development and the addition of 10 top North American players, Lock is expanding its roster internationally.

This most recent round of signees features 12 elite online pros from around the globe. Leading the way are Stephen ‘allinstevie’ Devlin (Ireland, UK), Bjorn Andre ‘bjolla’ Hovden (Norway), Dan ‘Ladbrokes/danloulou’ Smyth (Ireland, UK), Vincent ‘Diamond8’ Gabel (Belgium), Elmar ‘EmmiV’ Masson (Iceland), Joe ‘Conno!!y’ Connolly (UK), Francisco Costa (Portugal), Robert Jan Hoogendoorn (Netherlands), Brendon "brendoor" Rubie of Australia, Maximilian Bassil (Norway), Bolivar Palacios (Latin America) and Jose Raul Severino(Latin America)

"Online poker has no borders. It is a global community, we are very excited to reach out to the entire world with our product,” remarked Jennifer Larson, owner and CEO of Lock Poker. “We have a true partnership with these players and understand the value of each one of them. With Eric "rizen" Lynch and Lock PRO driving our product we are confident we will have the best online poker experience worldwide"

Lock VP of marketing Derrick Maloney was quick to add “We have a very different approach, not only with respect to the partnerships we have formed, but in the way our pros will reach out to our customers. As we roll out our Pro Program initiatives, we believe the poker world will be intrigued and find many compelling reasons to play at Lock.”

All 12 players, as well as Eric ‘Rizen’ Lynch and the 10 American signees are clients of Poker Players International, the world’s largest poker agency. PPI founders Eugene Castro and Randall Kasper once again expressed their enthusiasm with respect to the signings as well as the direction Lock Poker is headed.

“We are proud to Lock arms with a room that is passionate about the player experience and is willing to explore uncharted waters . Lock and PPI are clearly of similar mindset, and we together hope to bring some new lifeblood to the poker world. Time for change” remarked PPI’s Agency Leader Randy Kasper.

For additional information, please contact:

Randall S. Kasper, Esq.
randy@pokerplayersinternational.com
732.522.1627
www.pokerplayersinternational.com

DerrickMaloney,VP, Lock Poker
derrick@lockpoker.com
778.772.6328
www.lockpoker.com

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Ask Rizen

Date: Mon, Sep 14, 2009 Live Professional Internet Tournament

I've still been playing lots of Pot Limit Omaha lately. I got off to a GREAT start for the month but have since gone on a downswing. Oddly, i've been having more success at 2/4 than 1/2 this month. All told I'm down like 4 buy ins, which in PLO isn't too significant. In fact several times yesterday I was actually back up to break even for the month. I've been doing a lot of end of day study, going back and looking at all my big pots and I think i've found and plugged a few leaks. I suppose we'll find out as time goes on :)

Q: I saw Phil Helmuth crying on TV about losing to ten-queen offsuit like its a bad hand that the person should not have ever called, but statistically, is ten-queen a good hand or not? It ranks higher than most of the cards in the deck, an 11/13 + 9/13 is the way I look at it for a total of 20/26 despite being unsuited, it still runs hard against 8 pocket pairs... sure its not the greatest, but it ranks pretty good, doesn't it? Why was he crying? Is Phil on drugs? Does he have emotional psychological issues? Or is he right about 10Q being bad?

A: I'm not a psychologist or even remotely qualified to talk about Phil's emotional issues or potential drug use :) That being said, QT can be a good or a bad hand, it's all pretty relative. If you played QTo from UTG in a full ring MTT, it's a pretty poor hand in a lot of situations. If you raise in early position with it the most likely hands you get action from are ahead of you and you'll be out of position most of the time, which in and of itself makes life difficult. In late position though, QT is a fine hand if it's folded to you, and most players I know would definitely play it. Like most poker questions, 'it depends' is the right answer here. In certain situations, QT is a great hand, in other situations, it might as well be 27o.

Q: Do you focus on Poker Equity (Call and Fold) situations for tournament play more than say other factors like agg/loose, pot odds, and stack sizes?

A: Hopefully I understand this question correctly. For tournament play there are many things I take into consideration. I'm not sure I could give a specific order to it. I mean obviously I focus on my relative hand strength, but I also focus on table dynamics, stack sizes, pot + implied odds, players already involved in the pot or yet to act, and probably other factors I'm leaving out. No one particular factor outweighs all others, but I personally focus a lot on table dynamics, stack sizes, and who is in the pot probably more than the rest (including relative hand strength).

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Ask Rizen

Date: Fri, Sep 4, 2009 Live Professional Internet Tournament

Played some PLO yesterday for the first time this month. So far a good start to the month. Been giving 2/4 a try for the fourth time, but this time got off to a good start with a 3 buy in upswing and felt like I was playing pretty well. I'm still keeping the 5 buy in stop loss on for 2/4, but hopefully this will be the month 2/4 'takes' although if my win rate isn't at least half of what it is at 1/2 then it really doesn't matter. Provided I keep at it the entire month I'll have to compare win rates at the end of the month and see which is more profitable.

I also played the first WCOOP event yesterday on Stars. Played really well, staying at around even for quite some time, then flopping a set of 8s and getting up to 7k. I then flopped a straight vs a guy with bottom two pair who didn' t know how to fold and went up to about 12k. I was stuck there for quite a while until a very poor, aggressive player raised the button with TT. I had JJ and 3 bet, he 4 bet all in and it was quite an over bet. After some thought I called but the river was a ten and that took me back down to ~3k. Ran AK into AA shortly after that and didn't manage to get there. Luckily there are A LOT more events so looking forward to playing well and making some deep runs! Now for the questions.

Q: I do a lot of reading and prefer MT tourneys. I'm 74 years young and in good health. Poker is my passion, though I don't aspire to turn pro. What suggestions can you give me to improve my game? I would like to compete in MTs up to 1,000 buy-ins at AC or elsewhere.

A: Honestly it sounds like you're already taking what my biggest suggestion would be to heart, and that's always be looking for avenues to improve. A lot of it depends on what kind of learner you are. If you are a book learner there are lots of good books out there. If you've already read Harrington on Hold Em Vols. I and II and my book, then next ones I usually recommend are 'The Poker Tournament Formula' (both 1 and 2) and 'Kill Everyone'. 'Tournament Poker for Advanced Players' is good as well, but some of it is a rehash of what's in Harrington on Hold Em. If you're a visual learner the video training sites are all GREAT tools, and obviously I recommend the one I teach at, PokerXFactor.com, but there are a lot of really good ones out there. Poker forums can be very helpful as well if you can sift through a lot of the riff raff.

Q: My question is how do you cash out your online poker winnings if it is still illegal to play online in the US? I play quite a bit and have been pretty successful but since the laws changed i am leary to play for higher stakes. I don't want to get to deep into it and win a lot and find out that I can't cash out. It is obviously possible, I would just appreciate some information on subject.

A: First, let me preface this by saying I'm not a lawyer and law is not my specialty. That being said, PLAYING poker in the US is not illegal. The law change in effect makes it illegal for the banks to process money to and from gambling institutions, is the way I understand it. At the very least, if my profession were illegal there is no way I would publicize myself so much, and neither would any of the other US players. As far as cashing out goes, I've never had any significant issues. It can take a while, and I've occasionally had a check bounce when a payment processor goes down, but by and large I've always gotten my checks and been able to cash them within 2-3 weeks, often faster. I often request a check every week, so I've had plenty of experience with it.

Q: I am posing a question which no doubt will be met with blanket denial by those who have the ability to address such matters. The majority of the responses will tell me that I must have terrible "leaks" in my game. Others will tell me that I am imagining things. I have played online (at several different sites for years now), and I have played live for far longer than that. I have been aware for some time now, through my own experiences, and through word of mouth (from countless players more experienced than I) that online software is designed to create larger pots for larger “rakes”, and to favor larger stacks as a means of keeping the tournaments moving at a good pace. This bias toward the large stacks becomes more apparent as the level of play decreases as one is more often faced with challenging the larger stacks where they have already put you all in (if one chooses to call) or almost certainly will call you if you push in simply because they have more chips than you. This becomes a very frustrating situation when I have to not only play the opponent but the SOFTWARE as well. This severely limits my options. In many cases I wind up folding hands where the odds are heavily in my favor regardless of what the opponent might be holding because experience tells me that the hand has virtually no chance of holding up. I am not only speaking of situations where I have the smaller stack. I will use my experience to my advantage when I have the edge in chips as well, but I then feel bad for the other player(s). Point is, I'm totally tired of the disproportionate number of times I see people getting knocked out, or lose a cash pots, by runner runner straight, runner runner flush, the miracle “one outer”… or one of my favorites – when four cards of the same suit hit the board; which, quite frankly, happens with a frequency I have never EVER seen in all my years of live play. One guy online once joked that the four suited cards on the board happen about every four hands. And he wasn’t far from the truth. I joked backed “The only thing that hits more than four suited cards are QUADS”. And I wasn’t kidding. I see multiple quads every day. Even today I saw quads 3 times, and yesterday I saw quads an amazing 8 times.” I wish I was exaggerating, but I’m not. And any online player will know exactly what I’m talking about. The thing is, I can go a half a year or more playing live and not see quads.

Straights and flushes hit so often that I sometimes have to look down to make sure I’m not at a Omaha table. No joke. And you need only to play close attention to the “chat” to see how many countless people are complaining about the same thing. Today at a hold ‘em table I saw some guy say “You gotta be kidding me, three flushes in 6 hands?!” And that same guy won with ONE of the flushes.

After a while, one can see things coming. People say "I saw that coming"; at the tables all the time. How else do you explain someone going all in 6,7 8 times in a row with garbage getting called by people holding real cards and winning every hand? I also realize that the way the online software functions at present presents an attraction to those who like lots of big hands and big pots. And poker sites love loose players… the higher the pots, the higher their rake, the higher their profits.

I once had a representative from one site tell me that they get “so much player traffic” that it doesn’t make any logical sense for them to program the rng (random number generator) to generate higher rakes.” To which, I replied “You’re joking right? Online gaming is a business and the number one objective of any business is to MAKE MONEY.” I then mentioned that the LUXOR in Vegas is a very poplar casino that sees an amazing amount of foot traffic every year. But you don’t see the LUXOR tweaking their slot machines so that they all payout fairly and evenly. By the way – slot machines?? Also run off of a random number generator. The LUXOR knows (like every other casino in Vegas) that the slot machines are huge cash cows and, despite how much traffic their casino gets, design their slot machines (and everything else in the casino) to suck as much money from it’s players as possible.

So here’s my question, and I think the entire poker community is crying out for an answer. What is the collective professional opinion of online rng’s? Are they realistic? Are they fair? And do the pros also question the “true” randomness of the cards they’re being dealt?

No one would know better than a pro, and no one could contest the skeptics better than a group of pros stating their honest opinions on “online rng’s.” In fact, my friends and I wish there was a “pro” survey of all the sites online and a collective list of sites that had the most realistic and fair rng’s on the net. One can dream.

Being an online player yourself, I really hope you answer my question… not just for me, but also for the many players out there with the same concerns that I have.

A: I debated if I should post this one or not, but I hear this sort of thing a fair amount. I know when the poster asked the question he was truly hoping I was going to say 'YES, it must be rigged!'. The truth is though, I've been playing poker online and live for nearly 6 years now and I've actually seen CRAZIER things live than online (quads over quads, quads beat by straight flush, etc). Let me address a few points specifically though.

First, you say that the software is designed to create larger pots for larger 'rakes'. Pot rakes are capped, so at a certain point they don't rake any more money, which somewhat debunks the idea that that would be a good thing. It would statistically be best for the sites for more pots to be small, but still big enough to be raked. The problem (at least from the poker room side) for sites is that you really don't want large sums of money moving from one player to another, because if a player goes broke that's bad for you. In an ideal world every player would pass small amounts of money back and forth until they were all slowly bled by the rake. While it seems as if there would be incentive for the sites to create large pots to generate rake, in the long run, artificially creating large pots would actually be a money losing endeavor by sites because the huge swings would cause players to go broke too quickly creating a smaller player pool for less games and eventually less rake. There really is very little incentive for a site to do this. I can't say without 100% certainty that no site has ever done this, but it just doesn't make financial sense.

Second, you mention that larger stacks always win in tournaments. I've actually heard most people argue the shorter stacks always win to keep the bad players alive! I've heard tons of variants of this story, and the fact that they're all different probably means in reality it's pretty balanced. I will admit there would be a general incentive to end tournaments earlier, but from what I've seen I seriously doubt shorter or bigger stacks are favored in all in confrontations.

I think one thing you're noticing (and I'm sure you've heard this before) is that you simply see more hands online than live, so you're going to see more things. When I play live, a good dealer can get in 30ish hands per hour, maybe 40 if the entire table is moving quickly and tight. Online, I can get in 60/hr pretty easily, and I can play 4+ tables at once too. So 30 hands/hr versus 240 hands/hr I should be seeing crazy things happen about 8x as often.

Lastly I would also like to mention that I've honestly seen more blatant cheating live than I ever have online (mostly in the form of collusion and chip dumping), and I have personally never seen this, but I've heard lots of stories of dealers palming chips or dealing from the bottom of the deck in certain instances (although rarely in actual casinos). I personally trust the online game more than the live game in terms of actual game integrity, although honestly I believe both to be honest enough I won't hesitate to play either.

I realize that what I'm saying is not going to convince you to change your mind, but I share this based on the person experience of someone who has played professionally, with success, both live and online. I do not adjust my game any differently be I playing against a live dealer or an RNG, I only adjust based on the different players. If you don't trust the game than you shouldn't play online, but I see no reason to believe in any of these conspiracy theories I often hear because most of them make little sense from a longer term business perspective, even if some of them might make some sense in the shorter term.

-Rizen

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Hello from Vancouver

Date: Wed, Sep 2, 2009 Live Professional Internet Tournament

Well, I'm saying goodbye to Vancouver in about an hour. Sorry for the lack of updates, but I've been north of the border in Vancouver for a while now working on some things for Lock Poker. I can't really talk about them right now but I'm hoping that all of you will get to see them in the somewhat near future. Definitely a lot of exciting things going on and I'm really happy to not only get to be a part of it but get to have some input as well.

Since I've been doing a lot of work up here I haven't really had a chance to play any poker at all since last Saturday. I'm still primarily focused on PLO. Once I get home and have my Omaha Manager handy I'll post some statistics for the month. Over the last couple of months I've been really crushing the 1/2 games, but every time I move to 2/4 I just get hammered. I'm really not sure if I'm playing differently, the competition is just that much tougher, or if the sample size is too small. I've tried to move up about once a month since I started giving myself a 5 buy in stop loss, which isn't NEAR enough in PLO to really do much, but going down much more than that would be somewhat demoralizing and I like to keep my bankroll as close to all time highs as possible so dropping more than 5 buy ins before moving down then having to grind back 20+ buy ins at 1/2 just to get back to even isn't that appealing to me.

I'll probably take another stab at 2/4 this month and see how it goes. It's kind of odd because after I took second in the PLO SCOOP event in March i splashed around in lots of PLO between 1/2 and 5/10. I was a winner at every level (over a small sample size) except 2/4! I think part of it is there are just some really good mid stakes grinders playing at that level, some of it is sample size, and some of it is that I still have a lot of room to improve in my PLO cash game.

I'm probably going to make some 1/2 PLO vids on PXF real soon. I'm in the process of learning how to record myself 4 tabling then dub in audio after the fact that way I can pause the action and really go over concepts. I feel confident enough in my game that I could make some good instructional videos on how to beat the games up to that level, but it's not quite as fluid and natural to me as NLHE is yet so I'd prefer the ability to go back and go more in depth and not record in real time. For those of you who have ever asked, yes ever video I've ever done 'live' has been one take, no audio dubbed in afterwards real time thoughts into my brain. Every time I've ever recorded live with the exception of once where I ran AA into KK and lost a MTT in 3 hands has gone up too, so I don't just pick and choose the ones that work out well.

At any rate, I have my fingers crossed that we're going to be able to offer rakeback to North American players on Lock real soon (non North American players can already get it). I'm really not normally a guy who does this, but I would definitely encourage everyone to sign in and check it out over the coming couple of months if that happens. There are a couple of changes I am hoping will go into effect real soon, and the games start to get really good in the fall as the weather turns cooler, more people spend time indoors, and since there are a few sports books attached to the network, football season is upon us.

'Ask Rizen' will be back this Friday and I have about 12 questions still in the queue so plenty of people to get to. Feel free to submit new questions as well, just fair warning there is a 5-6 week lag time between asking and answering right now. I was also thinking of resurrecting my old 'hand of the day' post into a 'hand of the week' post. Let me know if that is something you all would be interested in. I would basically take one user submitted hand each week and break it down into what I would be thinking about and do on every street. The key to doing that really is getting feedback and hands from you all. It died out last time because I stopped having enough hands submitted, but if I brought it back and did it once a week it might work, and if I get a ton of submissions I could do some bonus ones or start to do it twice a week. Let me know if that's something you guys would be interested in and if it is I'll bring it back. If I don't hear much on it then I'll assume no one is that interested.

-Rizen

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