If you want to win big and move up in stakes, you must be on your A-game as much as possible. But there are many vices that prevent players from accomplishing their poker goals, like drinking, binge eating, lack of exercise, etc.

Today’s article will give you health tips that you can easily incorporate into your life so that you can improve your health and mindset as a poker player. Let’s get started.

Note: This article was guest written by former poker professional TJ Jurkiewicz. He now works as a fitness/nutrition coach, and a majority of his clients are poker players, so he is uniquely qualified to give health advice that can directly relate to poker players.

What Usually Happens With New Year’s Resolutions?

With the Near Year beginning, I know many of you have resolutions based around health because 70% of all New Year’s Resolutions relate to people wanting to become “healthier.” The top 3 resolutions made by people year after year are:

1. Exercise more
2. Eat healthier
3. Lose weight.

After just one week, only 75% of people who make a New Year’s Resolution are still successful at keeping them. After 1 month, that number drops to 64%. And after 6 months, that number drops to 46%. On average, by the end of the year, only 9-12% of people kept their New Year’s Resolutions.

Does this sound familiar? You wake up on the first Monday of the New Year feeling bloated and disgusting after all of the holiday binge eating you just did. So naturally, you decide that “TODAY IS THE DAY” you are going to start an intense exercise routine and a super restrictive diet.

You’re able to grin and bear it for a few weeks before you ultimately find yourself out of tilapia and asparagus meal prep. Or you end up in a social situation that causes you to fall off the wagon.

Then you say to hell with your resolutions and continue the cycle of unhealthy living for a few more months until you inevitably try again to unsuccessfully lose weight by punishing yourself. Another intense exercise routine and a bland meal plan. Rinse and repeat.

Note: I have a free Facebook group aimed at helping poker players lose fat. You can join the group here.

My Story: From Crash Diets To Sustainable Habits

That’s pretty much how I lived my life from age 17 until around the beginning of 2021. So for about 15 years during this constant stretch of back-and-forth yo-yo dieting, I would lose a bunch of weight through super-restrictive dieting before gaining it all back when the diet was “over.”

Over the years, I have been as high as 295 pounds and as low as 200 pounds (and everywhere in between, dozens of times).

But in 2021, it all clicked for me: I figured out that the key to success isn’t about being “on” or “off” a diet. It’s about building a lifestyle that allowed me to regularly enjoy the foods I love while still being able to accomplish my health and fitness goals.

So, during the pandemic, I had an honest conversation with myself. I gave up my 8-year full-time professional poker player gig. I got a proper education and became a certified nutrition coach, and started my own business, All In Fitness Coaching, LLC.

Since 2022 I’ve helped dozens of people (mostly poker players) lose weight in a healthy and sustainable way without needing to kill themselves with cardio workouts or eat bland foods out of Tupperware every meal.

If you don’t believe that you can find a way to eat the foods you love while also losing weight, check out my before-and-after pictures:

I was regularly eating French toast, pizza, quesadillas, and protein ice cream during this time

2 Steps To Help You Follow Through With Your New Year’s Resolution

Given all of my experience, not only with myself but with my clients, I’m here to help you bend the win probabilities in your favor of accomplishing the resolutions we set out to achieve. In order to do that, you need to do a few things:

Step #1: Understand WHY You Want To Change

Most people will decide they want to lose weight because they know they’re heavy, and that’s as far as they’ll think about it.

Successful people will figure out their why, which will serve as the driving motivator behind their goals.

To figure out your why, try this exercise:

1. Picture yourself as having a conversation with the 3-year-old version of yourself. They ask you what your New Year’s Resolution is, and you tell them, “I want to lose 50 pounds.” Now, picture the 3-year-old asking, “Why?”.
2. You will now tell them something along the lines of “Because I want to be healthier.” And they will again reply with “Why?”
3. Now you say because you want to be able to move around better. You guessed it; they’ll ask “Why?” again.
4. Repeat this exercise for at least 5 “Why’s,” and you should find yourself getting to some core pains that you have around why you want to lose those 50 pounds. Write these last few “Why’s” down, and you will have them to look back on when things get turbulent.
5. Remember to dig deep here. Your answers should eventually become very personal and emotional. When you start getting emotional, you’ll know you’re getting close to finding your core desire for wanting to get healthier.

Step #2: Create a Realistic Plan

Most people will again say they want to lose weight and envision how they will look when they cross the finish line of the goal.

Successful people will create a goal and then reverse engineer from the finish line and see every step of the way that it will take to get there.

Research shows that the average person who followed through on their New Year’s Resolution suffered 14 setbacks throughout the year. So remember, if you slip up once, you’re one good day away from getting back on track!

4 Foundational Habits to Increase Your Poker (And Life) ROI

The best way to become a healthier version of yourself is to start with small, attainable habits that will ultimately lead you to where you want to get to. Here are some of those habits:

Habit #1: Increase Your Water Intake

Take your body weight in pounds and divide it by 2. That’s the amount of water (in ounces) you should aim to drink every day (people that weigh 300 pounds or more can aim for 150oz and cap it there).

However, if you’re trying to go from drinking 40oz of water a day to 128oz, that’s a drastic change that might not be sustainable. Aim to drink 64 ounces and once that becomes easy, make it 96 ounces, and so on, until you reach your ultimate goal.

Pro Tip #1: Download to WaterMinder app on your phone to help your water intake go smoothly.

Pro Tip #2: You can buy a 32 oz water jug and simply divide your goal by 32. Aim to drink that many water bottles per day instead of tracking every single glass of water you drink.

Habit #2: More Intentional Movement 

A great goal to aim for is 10,000 steps per day. If you have an iPhone, you can see your average steps per day by going to the Health App -> Browse -> Activity -> Steps.

However, if you’re trying to increase from an average of 2,000 steps per day, we once again want to bridge the gap with more attainable amounts. So, every week try increasing your daily average goal by 1,000 steps until you reach that 10,000-step mark.

Habit #3: Get 7-9 Hours of Quality Sleep

This will be the most difficult thing to get under control, but I have some good tips to increase sleep quality after suffering for years to get 7-9 hours of quality sleep myself.

Pro Tip #1: Turn off 95% of artificial lighting in your house 2 hours before your scheduled sleep time. We evolved as a species to recognize the sun going down as being time to go to sleep. We have so much artificial light these days that it prevents our natural production of melatonin (the hormone responsible for making us sleepy). I usually set an alarm 2 hours before I plan to go to bed, and when it goes off, I cut off pretty much every lightbulb in my place.

Pro Tip #2: Invest in some blue light blocker glasses and put them on 2 hours before your scheduled sleep time as well. This will help cut down on the harmful light from computer monitors, TVs, cell phones, tablets, etc.

Pro Tip #3: Supplement with Magnesium. Most people are Magnesium deficient, so it could be a good idea to add some to your sleep routine. Always consult with a physician before taking any supplements.

Habit #4: Track Your Food Intake

If I could suggest one “skill” that people should develop to improve their chances of following through on their weight loss resolutions, tracking food would be that skill.

Until you know exactly what you’re putting into your body calorically, you will be at a severe disadvantage when it comes to optimizing weight and fat loss. Taking in fewer calories than you burn is the ONE non-negotiable law when it comes to creating fat loss.

To build this skill, I suggest using the MyFitnessPal app on your phone (and paying $80 to subscribe to their Premium membership so that you can use your barcode scanner as well as some other awesome features) and accurately tracking your food intake. I did a live training on how to do this most efficiently, so email me at tj@allinfitnesscoaching.com if you want that replay.

Some Bonus Advice

If you want to lose 50 pounds, you have to lose 1 pound first. Stop looking at it as this far-away goal. Instead, see the one step in front of you and pursue that. That makes the game a lot easier to win.

If you try to lose all your weight as quickly as possible and make the scale going down your sole focus, it would be akin to trying to win the WSOP Main Event on Day 1. You need to be patient, tactical, and mitigate your losses while capitalizing on small wins to eventually nail the big win.

One of my clients, Matt Affleck, told me how he relates his poker game with his fitness game. Everyone who plays poker regularly is familiar with the concept of playing your A, B, or C game. As we improve our games, our C, or “worst” games, improve to the point that they eventually become our old B or “average” games.

Then our new B game is our old A game, and we unlock a whole new A game. It’s the same with dieting and exercising. The harder you work on it and the more consistently you make good decisions, you do away with your old C game, and your new C game is your old B game. Your new “worst” is your old “average.” Your new average is your old “best.”

If you can redefine your best and worst efforts for your health and fitness, you will unlock abilities that you didn’t know you were even capable of. 

Wrapping Up

If you’re interested in working with me directly, I’m currently running a 6-month, 1-on-1 coaching scholarship where you can win a multitude of prizes, with the Grand Prize being 6 months of 1-on-1 fitness coaching totally free. All you need to do to apply is fill out this application form.

I hope that you found the information in this article helpful and you implement the strategies above to make 2023 the year that you finally stick to your resolutions.

If you have any questions at all, I can be reached at tj@allinfitnesscoaching.com, or you can shoot me a message on Twitter or Instagram.

Make 2023 the year you go all in on yourself.

Thank you for reading.

The post How Poker Players Can Accomplish New Year’s Resolutions appeared first on Upswing Poker.

Chinese poker is a card game in the poker family that plays quite differently from traditional game variants that most poker players are familiar with (like Texas Hold’em). Each player gets 13 cards in a game of Chinese poker, and is tasked with making two five-card hands and a three-card hand.

A player scores points based on making the best hands according to standard poker hand rankings. Here’s a look at how to play Chinese poker.

What is Chinese Poker?

Chinese poker is a poker game that uses a standard 52-card poker deck, as well as the traditional poker hand rankings. You can play the game with 2-4 players.

A round of Chinese poker sees each player get dealt 13 cards. Standard Chinese poker sees these cards dealt face down.

From those 13 cards, you must make two distinct five-card hands, as well as a distinct three-card hand.

By rule, you must put the three hands in order of strongest to weakest according to poker hand rankings.

The strongest hand must go into the spot designated as the “back hand,” the second-strongest hand goes into the “middle hand” spot, and the weakest hand goes to the “front hand” spot. The two five-card hands always go to the back and middle spots, while the three-card hand always goes to the back spot.

At the end of each round, players show their hands, and earn points for each hand that beats other players’ hands in the same spot. Once all points are tallied, the next hand begins.

Players can also earn bonus points for making strong hands, known as “royalties.”

Chinese Poker Rules and Gameplay

Let’s go through an example hand of Chinese poker. Suppose you’re playing a two-player game, and are dealt the following cards:

You must arrange these 13 cards into two separate five-card hands a three-card hand. The stronger five-card hand must go into the back hand position, the weaker five-card hand must go into the middle hand position, and the three-card hand goes into the front position.

The back hand must always be stronger than the middle hand, and the middle hand must be stronger than the front hand. Failure to abide by these rules results in a “mis-set” and automatically awards your opponents the maximum number of points possible against your hands.

With the 13 cards you’ve been dealt, the strongest possible hand you can put in the back is this:

This hand gives you a full house, nines full of tens.

With these cards used, the strongest possible hand that you can now out in the middle is this:

With twos full of fives available for the middle, you now have full houses in place for both the back and middle hands.

That leaves this queen-high hand as your front hand:

While this way of arranging your 13 cards makes a lot of sense, it might not be the optimal solution based on Chinese poker scoring. Let’s see why:

Scoring System in Chinese Poker

A Chinese poker game can use a few different scoring types. One of the most common types awards one point for each position in which your hand is better than your opponent’s.

For example, in a two-player game, you earn one point if your back hand is better than the opponent’s back hand. If your middle hand beats the opponent’s middle hand, you get one point, and the same if your front hand beats your opponent’s front hand.

If you sweep all three hands against an opponent, you get a three-point bonus (known as scooping).

In a game with 3-4 players, you tally points individually against each opponent, then add those points together to get your final score for a round.

Suppose you’re in a two-player game and have arranged your 13 cards into three Chinese poker hands as shown above. You and your opponent turn over your cards face up:

Back

Your Hand: 999TT

Opponent’s Hand: AQT93

You win the back hand and get +1 points.

Middle

Your Hand: 22255

Opponent’s Hand: 76543

You win the middle hand and get +1 points.

Front

Your Hand: QJ8

Opponent’s Hand: Q88

You lose the front hand and get -1 points.

You win the back and middle hands, but lose the front hand to your opponent. This tally earns you a total of one point for the round.

Could you have arranged your cards in a different way and scored more points? The answer is yes, and let’s take a look at the optimal solution for your hand:

Back

Your Hand: 55222h

Opponent’s Hand: AQT93

You win the back hand and get +1 points.

Middle

Your Hand: QJT98

Opponent’s Hand: 76543

You win the middle hand and get +1 points

Front

Your Hand: T99

Opponent’s Hand: Q88

You win the front hand and get +1 points

You scoop all three hands and get a +3 bonus

While your back and middle hands aren’t as strong in this configuration, both are still good enough to best your opponent. Your front hand wins in this scenario as well, as you have a better one-pair hand than your opponent.

You get a total of +6 points for winning all three hands (combined +3) and getting the scoop bonus (+3).

Chinese Poker Bonuses (Royalties)

In addition to scoring points for putting together better corresponding hands by position than your opponent, you can also score bonus points in Chinese poker. These bonuses, known as “royalties,” are generally awarded for assembling a particularly strong holding.

Royalty bonuses can vary from game to game. Some royalties award points for putting a strong hand in a certain position, while others give points for certain conditions of your 13-card hand overall.

Some Chinese poker royalties could include the following, based on the most commonly used bonus format in the game:

Single Hand Bonuses

• Back Hand – You score three extra points for making a straight flush, and two points for a four of a kind in the back hand position.
• Middle Hand – You score four extra points for making a straight flush, three points for a four of a kind, and two points for a full house in the middle hand position.
• Front Hand – You score three extra points for making a three of a kind in the front hand position.

13-Card Hand Bonuses

Some royalties award for points when your 13-card hand meets certain conditions. These one-hand bonuses are known as “naturals.”

Naturals could include the following (most common bonus score assigned in parenthesis):

• Dragon (36 points) – Drawing a 13-card straight from high-card ace through low-card 2.
• 12 Royalties aka all broadway (32 points) – Drawing all cards jack or higher.
• Three Straight Flushes (24 points) – Drawing two distinct five-card straight flushes, along with a three-card straight flush. (Royal flushes count as straight flushes).
• Three Quads (20 points) – Drawing three distinct four-of-a-kind hands with one additional card.
• All Low 2/Highs 1 (12 points) – Drawing a hand where all 13 cards are eight or lower, or eight or higher.
• Full-Colored (10 points) – Drawing a hand where all 13 cards are red (hearts and diamonds), or all 13 are black (spades and clubs).
• Four Triples (8 points) – Drawing four three-of-a-kind hands with one additional card.
• Six-and-a-Half Pairs (6 points) – Drawing six pairs and one additional cards (four of a kind counts as two pairs).
• Three Straights (4 points) – Drawing two five-card straights and a three-card straight.
• Three Flushes – (3 points) – Drawing two five-card flushes and a three-card flush (an eight-card flush counts as two flushes).

Surrendering

In some formats, a player can choose to “surrender” their hand, without trying to assemble their 13 cards into separate hands. This play is equivalent to folding in a standard poker game, but comes at a cost.

A surrender allows your opponent to collect more points than they would if they one two of three hands, but less than the amount of scooping.

Some Chinese poker games don’t allow surrendering, however.

Chinese Poker Variations

Open Face Chinese Poker

Traditional Chinese poker sees all players receive all 13 cards at once, face down, and turn them face up when they’ve assembled their three hand.

A game variant called Open Face Chinese Poker (OFC) deals each player the first five of 13 cards to begin the game. Each player takes those five cards and starts assembling their three hands, with all cards face up.

Once a player sets a card into one of their three hands, it can’t be moved. When the first round is complete, each player takes turns drawing one card at a time, and placing that card into one of their hands.

The object of Open Face is the same as traditional Chinese poker, with the object of scoring a better back, middle, and front hand than your opponent.

Royalties usually pay higher in Open Face, as it’s much harder to make strong hands because you don’t know which cards are coming. Mis-sets are also much more common.

Fantasy Land Bonus In OFC

If a player makes a pair of queens or better with their front hand, that player enters Fantasy Land in the following round.

When you’re in Fantasy Land, you get all 13 cards at once, and don’t assemble them until all other players have set their hands. You can remain in Fantasy Land in the following round if you meet the following conditions:

• Make trips in the front hand
• Make a full house or better in the middle hand
• Make quads or better in the back hand

Pineapple

Pineapple plays much like Open Face Chinese Poker, but differs in the way the cards are dealt. Each player begins with five cards, and begins assigning them to their hands much like OFC.

After the first round, each player takes turns drawing three cards, placing two into their hands and discarding one. The discards are only seen by the player that drew the card, which can be used as an advantage to deny your opponent of high-scoring cards that they’re looking for.

Final Thoughts

While you’re not going to see Chinese Poker played in major tournaments, in most poker rooms, or at the World Series of Poker, the game can be a fun diversion.

You can find plenty of places to play Chinese Poker online and hone your skills. While you can develop a game theory optimal strategy for traditional Chinese poker, that’s much harder to pull off in OFC and Pineapple.

Check out some the following article from Upswing Poker:

Poker Hand Rankings & The Best Texas Hold’em Poker Hands

The post How to Play Chinese Poker: Rules, Strategy & Variants appeared first on Upswing Poker.

The term “2-bet” might seem familiar if you regularly play poker. Compared to related terms like 3-bet and 4-bet, however, 2-bet isn’t used all that often in practice.

If you’re new to poker, understanding what 2-bet, 3-bet, 4-bet, and 5-bet means is critical to absorbing poker knowledge. Let’s take a look at what a 2-bet is in poker:

2-Bet Definition

Preflop 2-Bets

A 2-bet (aka a two-bet) is the second raise or bet in a round of poker. In the preflop betting round of community card games like No-Limit Texas Hold’em or Pot-Limit Omaha, a 2-bet is the first bet that increases the amount required to make a call.

For example, let’s say you’re playing in a live $2/$5 No-Limit Hold’em cash game, and are sitting in the button position. In this game, the blinds (mandatory bets that rotate from player to player after each hand) are $2 for the small blind, and $5 for the big blind.

After the cards are dealt, the first player to act has the option of calling the big blind (matching the $5 amount), raising (increasing the amount of the active bet), or folding (surrendering their cards). In the preflop betting round, the big blind functions as the first bet (or a 1-Bet).

The first raise that occurs in the preflop round is known as a 2-bet.

In our $2/$5 game example, suppose six players are in the game. The first two players to act fold, and the action moves to the player in the cutoff position.

That player calls the $5. Calling the big blind amount preflop is also known as “limping.”

The action is now on you, sitting in the button position. You choose to raise to $25.

That $25 raise constitutes a 2bet. If nobody has called the big blind before your turn to act, and you raise, that’s known as an “open raise,” as your opening the betting action with a raise.

An open raise, or any raise that increases the active bet from the amount of the blind, is known as a 2-bet.

3-Bets, 4-Bets, and 5-Bets Preflop

Let’s continue with the above example, where the cutoff limps, you put in a raise (a 2-bet) for $25 total, and the player in the small blind is next to act. That player raises to $100 total.

That $100 wager constitutes a 3-bet. The $5 big blind is the 1-bet, your raise to $25 is the 2-bet, and the small blind’s raise to $100 is the 3-bet (aka three-bet).

Note that if nobody raises the big blind amount preflop, there isn’t a 2-bet in that round.

Continuing from the small blind’s 3-bet to $100, let’s say the big blind folds, the cutoff folds, and the action is back on you. You decide to raise to $250, which in this case constitutes a 4-bet (a raise against a 3-bet).

If the small blind then raises again, that player is making a 5-bet (a raise against a 4-bet).

The terms “3-bet” and “4-bet” will come up often if you study poker. It’s important to understand that 2-bet, 3-bet, 4-bet, and 5-bet are all sequential terms from the same concept.

Postflop 2-Bets

The definition of a 2-bet stays the same in all round after the flop, but keep in mind there’s no big blind that counts as the first bet (or the “1-bet”).

In any postflop round, the first bet any player makes is a 1-bet. If a player raises that wager, that counts as a 2-bet.

If another player then reraises, that raise counts as a 3-bet. Postflop 3-bets are fairly rare in No-Limit Hold’em.

For example, let’s go back to our example from above. We’ll pick up where the small blind 3-bet you to $100. Let’s say the action folds to you, and you call.

After the flop, the small blind is first to act. Suppose they bet $125. That $125 bet constitutes a 1-bet.

If you raise the $125 bet, you’re making a 2-bet. If the small blind reraises, that counts as a three-bet.

If you’d like to go through a more advanced search on 3-betting, check out the article below:

What is a 3-Bet? Why (And How) You Need to 3-Bet More Often

The post What is a 2-Bet in Poker? appeared first on Upswing Poker.

A misclick can happen when you’re playing a video game, or a game involving a computer in any way. You could misclick when trying to download a podcast, or attempting a Google sign-in.

Misclicks can apply to online poker as well. Even live poker players will sometimes use the term “misclick” to describe an unintended action.

Here’s a look at the term “misclick” as it applies specifically to poker:

What is a Misclick In Poker?

Wiktionary lists this as the misclick definition:

Misclick (noun) – A click of a computer mouse that is inaccurate and therefore fails to perform the desired action.

Misclick (verb) – To perform an erroneous click with a computer mouse.

For online poker players, a misclick can carry disastrous consequences. The entire online poker experience depends on using a mouse to input a desired action.

Imagine the implications, then, of clicking on “fold” instead of call with a big pot on the line. Even the most seasoned pros can fall victim to a misclick, especially considering that most professional online players play multiple tables at once.

In poker cash games, a misclick can cost a player their entire stack, which can equate to thousands of dollars at the high-stakes tables.

A misclick can carry even more devastating consequences in poker tournaments, where one wrong move can wipe out a deep run with potentially life-changing money on the line. Even if you’re trending toward a final table finish, one misclick can completely reverse your fortunes.

Poker Misclick Example

Even at the micro stakes, an errant click can derail an entire session. Let’s take a look at what a poker misclick might look like.

When playing online poker on any site, the typical setup looks like this:

Doug Polk playing on WSOP.com during his $100 to $10,000 bankroll challenge.

This image comes from a micro stakes bankroll building challenge embarked upon by Upswing Poker co-founder Doug Polk. In this hand, Doug is in position, holding trip nines with a spade flush redraw.

Doug’s opponent puts in an overbet, and Doug’s next move is a clear call or shove. If Doug accidentally hit the fold button, however, that would constitute a misclick.

While losing a $15 pot doesn’t carry much consequence for Doug in the long run, imagine an erroneous click happening in a spot like this with $15,000 in the middle.

At another point in the challenge, Doug did, unfortunately, fall victim to a misclick that at the time accounted to a major setback.

With around $1,200 in the bankroll, Doug earned a free ticket to a $320 tournament. After busting out, a menu appeared giving Doug the option to rebuy back into the tournament, or quit.

With the free ticket already spent, a rebuy would cost $320 in real money, a significant portion on the bankroll. Doug meant to quit the tournament, but instead this happened:

The “Misclick” In Live Poker

The term “misclick” is sometimes used in live poker, as a synonym for an intended action.

For example, let’s say you raise to $15 in a $2/$5 game. An opponent means to call, intending to do so with a trio of $5 chips.

Instead of $5 chips, however, your unfortunate opponent puts out three $25 chips instead. What was intended as a $15 call is now a $75 raise.

Your opponent might refer to that mistake as a “misclick,” even without the presence of a computer or a mouse.

No matter what the poker format, it’s always a good idea to take an extra few seconds and make sure the click you’re about to make is the one you intended.

The post What is a Misclick in Poker? Explanation & Examples appeared first on Upswing Poker.

Then a teenager on a hiking trip, Tim Jenkins didn’t fare well in his first poker game. The match sparked a new interest in poker for the New Zealand native, however.

When Jenkins returned home from that trip, he started playing micro stakes poker online. After losing a pair of $20 deposits, Jenkins put $30 more in his account and began to take the game more seriously.

“After this point I never looked back,” Jenkins says.

Tim Jenkins’ Road to Poker Success

Jenkins began to run the $30 into a legitimate bankroll, beginning with heads-up sit & gos online. He transitioned to 10NL Zoom cash games from there.

After initially struggling with the 10NL Zoom games, Jenkins joined Upswing Poker as a student and began to study the game more thoroughly.

“I joined Upswing in 2016,” Jenkins says. “Kept climbing through stakes until I found my place battling in 500 Fast Forward rake races on partypoker. Played about one million hands (a lot was untracked) in the last years of uni, generating a small win rate to go with huge rakeback from the leaderboard (often >100%).”

Jenkins graduated from university with a degree in physics and computer science. He chose a career path as a professional poker player, however, and crushes some of the toughest online games in the world in 2022.

Here’s a look at Jenkins’ online stats from the past 12 months:

“Growing up I was always very competitive and loved my sport but was never good enough to play at a very high level,” Jenkins says. “Poker became my arena for competition particularly after I left school and stopped playing sports.”

“The more I understood poker the more I admired its complexity and to this day love that aspect of the game.”

Approach to Poker and Joining Upswing as a Coach

Jenkins brings his solver-based approach to Upswing, which aims to implement a simplified strategy to some of the game’s toughest spots.

“My studies tend to focus on describing complex spots as simply as I can with a focus on understanding (not memorization),” Jenkins says.

“I try to explain why different parts of strategies are important (in a solver) and look to build frameworks for different spots which describe how ranges should be constructed in certain situations.”

“This is a fairly unique approach to the game which allows me to describe spots simply,” Jenkins says. “Coaching for Upswing is a new and exciting challenge and I hope to explain the complexities of poker in a way that adds value to players of all levels.”

Jenkins produced six-figure winning in tracked online cash games over the previous year. The now 24-year-old crusher contends that results like his are still very much possible in the modern era of poker.

“Poker in 2022 is still amazing,” Jenkins says. “I never got to experience the true glory days of online poker but you see countless mistakes every day even playing in very competitive games.”

“Personally, I have had my best results to date this year and think that the rate at which the games are moving is often exaggerated.”

Learn from Tim in the Upswing Lab!

The post Tim Jenkins Joins the Upswing Poker Coaching Team appeared first on Upswing Poker.

Victoria Livschitz won the $10,000 buy-in Aria High Roller #13 on July 8, cashing for $162,790 in the process. The win marked a new high for Livschitz, who began venturing into the world of live high stakes multi-table tournaments late last year.

The high-roller tournament circuit features a lineup of regulars that includes the world’s top players. The Aria High Roller #13 drew 68 entries, and the ten players finishing in the cash included names like Justin Bonomo, poker’s all-time money leader with $57.5 million in cashes and counting.

Bonomo finished third in the High Roller, while accomplished pro David Coleman finished second. Other top players finishing in the money included Rainer Kempe and Ole Schemion.

Upswing Poker Study Pays Off Big

Names like Bonomo, Kempe, and Schemion frequently show up in the money at the end of high-roller events. The top spot on the money ladder, however, went to a player that only began studying multi-table tournaments at Upswing Poker within the last year.

Livschitz shared the news of the big win with the Upswing Poker Engage community, a Facebook group that allows Upswing Lab subscribers to post hands, ask questions, and, in Livschitz’s case, share career-high tournament finishes.

“This has been an amazing week. Just playing these legends is a dream,” Livschitz wrote in the Engage Group. “Given that I started to study MTT at Upswing less than a year ago with Doug Polk and Nick (Petrangelo’s) courses, I am sharing with the community to show that hard work and study pays off. And of course, to thank the coaches.”

Livschitz’s short time on the high roller circuit already includes a pair of high-stakes tournament wins. Her first title came in May, with a victory in the PokerGO Tour Venetian High Roller #7 for $60,000.

Livschitz added the Aria High Roller #13 to her collection of wins on July 8, then followed with a 4th-place run in the $10,000 buy-in Aria High Roller #17 on July 13. Her career tournament earnings now stand at $371,564, and that total appears to be on the rise.

The Upswing Poker Lab includes a wealth of materials on multi-table tournaments. The Lab’s MTT curriculum features coaching from proven tournament crushers like Polk, Hristivoje “AllinPav” Pavlovic, Moritz Dietrich, and other world-class coaches.

Nick Petrangelo, a regular on the high-roller circuit with more than $24 million in career earnings, also teaches a pair of standalone courses featuring advanced tournament strategy. Petrangelo’s Winning Poker Tournaments and High Stakes MTT Sessions courses offer some of the highest-level multi-table tournament coaching materials available anywhere.

The post Upswing Lab Member Victoria Livschitz Takes Down $10k Aria High Roller for $162,790 appeared first on Upswing Poker.

The database still remains a vital tool for modern-day online poker tournament players. The following review aims to answer a couple of vital questions:

What is Sharkscope, and is it worth the price?

Sharkscope Online Poker Database

Sharkscope contains a comprehensive database of multi-table tournament and sit & go (SNG) results. You can look up a poker player’s results from numerous online poker rooms, even some that no longer operate.

The Sharkscope database includes results from PokerStars, PartyPoker, GGPoker, 888Poker, Winamax, and several other international poker networks. Sharkscope also includes player statistics from U.S.-facing sites like BetMGM, the PokerStars USA network, Global Poker, Americas Cardroom, and many others.

When you’re playing an online poker tournament, you can input a player name on the Sharkscope website and bring up all tournament and sit & go results for that screen name on a given site.

Some sites require players to opt-in to allow Sharkscope to display their results. If a player doesn’t opt-in on these sites, you won’t be able to view their player statistics.

You can look up and view statistics for the majority of opponents you’ll encounter, however. You can make five free searches per day, or you can opt for a Sharkscope subscription at various price points.

Features

The five free searches offer access to Sharkscope’s “Basic Search” parameters. Paying for a Sharkscope subscription is a much better way to go, however.

The paid versions unlock access to one of the best poker tools available in the modern game. Paid subscriptions open the door to the advanced search feature, which breaks down online poker players‘ multi-table tournament (MTT) and sit & go results across several categories.

The advanced search includes metrics like a player’s average profit, average buy-in, total profit, ROI, and a player skill rating based on results. You can filter for No-Limit Hold’em, Omaha, and several other poker variants.

Image couresy of Sharkscope

The search also displays graphs of sit & go and tournament results. If an opponent has put in any kind of volume on the online poker streets, you’ll get a great idea of the true skill level that the player brings to the table.

Sharkscope offers three subscription levels for player searches, tiered as Bronze, Silver, and Gold. The Bronze tier is offered at $6 per month, but only offers 10 searches per day.

The Silver tier expands your possible searches to 150 per day, and also includes the Sharkscope HandTracker feature. The Silver package comes for $12 per month and should be enough for most players to receive incredible value from a Sharkscope subscription.

If Silver isn’t quite enough, the Gold tier expands to 1,000 daily searches and includes all of the benefits of the Silver tier. A Gold subscription costs $26 per month and also includes the Sharkscope HUD and Sharkscope Sync add-ons.

Is Sharkscope Worth The Price?

Are the paid subscriptions to Sharkscope worth the monthly fee? The answer is yes.

The value of knowing what you’re up against in terms of skill level at a poker table is enormous. If you go into a poker situation against a lineup of unknown players, you’re forced to evaluate the talent level of each opponent on the fly.

With Sharkscope at your disposal, however, you can see each opponent’s tournament results right when you’re seated at a new table. The SIlver (in most situations) and Gold tier packages allow enough searches to look up every opponent you’ll face in a multi-table tournament.

If you’re serious at all about achieving success at online poker tournaments, Sharkscope is a must-have tool in your arsenal.

The post What is Sharkscope & Is It Worth The Price? appeared first on Upswing Poker.

As an Upswing member, you can post to the Engage group and get feedback from Upswing’s roster of world-class coaches and top players.  Upswing coaches Ryan “PokerWithRiske” Riske,  Gary “GazzyB” Blackwood and Doug Polk frequently answer member questions, as do some of the most successful players in the Upswing family.

April 2022 yielded plenty of intriguing hands and poker discussion. Let’s take a look at the best posts from the Upswing Poker Engage group in April 2022:

Multiway on the River at 1000NL

Upswing Lab member Bruno L., himself one of the Engage Group’s best players, asked posted this interesting hand from the 1000NL online game that he regularly plays:

Bruno opens from under the gun with AK and gets calls from the button and big blind. Action checks to Bruno on a monotone 67A flop, Bruno checks, and the button outs out a small bet. Both the big blind and Bruno call.

The turn comes Q, the big blind leads out for a half-pot bet, and both Bruno and the button call.

The river brings the 4, and the big blind (who Bruno describes as a whale) continues the aggression, putting $173 into a $345 pot. Action is on Bruno, who has top pair/top kicker with the button still left to act behind.

What’s Bruno’s best move in this unusual hand? Upswing coach Gary Blackwood weighed in:

“I’d make a disciplined fold here with the BTN behind to act; I expect BTN to fastplay flushes on the turn given he’s vs a whale but I expect him to still have sets/2p in his range,” wrote Blackwood. “Whale’s turn lead/sizing doesn’t exactly scream nutted hands but I very much doubt he’s bluffing into two people here either, I think I’d just call my 2p+ here and sleep happily at night!”

Sidney B., another of Upswing’s strongest players, agreed with Blackwood’s advice to fold. Bruno did end up folding, and made the right play as the button player showed ace-queen for two pair.

Bet Size Strategy

Melissa C., yet another well-respected player in the Engage Group, posted the following situation from the 100NL streets on PokerStars:

After calling a preflop three-bet with JT, Melissa flops a good amount of equity on a 479 flop. The preflop aggressor proceeds with a half-pot c-bet, and Melissa calls.

Both players then check the 4 turn. Melissa arrives at the 5 river with just jack-high, out of position. What’s her best bet sizing strategy in this spot?

This hand created plenty of discussion in the group, with many agreeing that Melissa’s block bet on the river should be included as part of an effective strategy.

“Firstly, I think having block as your smaller bet size here is completely fine,” commented Blackwood. “We get to block our 9x and our 88, which is a relatively decent chunk of our value range. These hands can’t really support a bigger bet size, so we do need a smaller bet size for these hands.”

Turning Second Pair Into a Bluff Shove

Online crusher Keith M. posted this ambitious river shove, which he made from the big blind against three barrels of aggression from an under-the-gun raiser:

Upswing Poker’s Mike Brady approved of Keith’s river jam:

“I love this shove,” Brady responded. “Exploitatively his turn sizing seems to me like a hand that wants to charge draws/get called but isn’t super strong. Might be a theoretical call but my intuition says it’s a better bluff. Curious what our coaches think of this one.”

Coach Blackwood obliged with his thoughts on the hand:

“Firstly, villain’s turn size, as we all suspected, it’s really poor,” Blackwood wrote. “He’s got a very clear overbet on this brick turn, and it’s not even close. As Mike says above, when regs choose this size in a spot where they KNOW they should be overbetting, they aren’t as strong as they should be.”

“If he has 99 or AA here for example, he is absolutely overbetting. So if hero perceives this player to know he should overbet, when he doesn’t overbet, we should perceive that as a sign of weakness.”

The post Must-See Strategy Discussions from the Upswing Lab Community (April 2022) appeared first on Upswing Poker.

By definition, a c-bet happens when a player raises preflop, then continues with another bet on the flop. A player that raises first in preflop (RFI), or makes the last raise preflop and gets called, usually has an opportunity to c-bet when the flop hits the board.

Let’s take a look at the c-bet poker concept, one of the most crucial fundamental moves to master in the game.

What is a Poker C-Bet?

The preflop aggressor doesn’t always get the chance to c-bet. The majority of the time, however, the player that makes the final bet/raise preflop also finds themselves with the opportunity to make the first bet on the flop.

Let’s look at an example of a c-bet from this Upswing Poker article on how to play against aggressive c-bettors:

Hand Recap

Background

The location: High Stakes Poker in the Aria Casino, Las Vegas

The stakes: $200/$400 with a $400 BB ante.

Stack sizes:

• Daniel Negreanu – $110k
• Kim Hultman – $79k
• Doyle Brunson – $110k

Preflop

Daniel Negreanu is in the hijack and raises to $1,600 with 6 4. Phil Ivey folds from the cutoff (after having posted $1,000 in dead money). Kim Hultman calls on the button with Q J. Doyle Brunson calls in the big blind with 9 8.

Flop

The pot is $6,400 and the flop comes out T 9 6.

Brunson checks and Negreanu bets $1,500. Both Hultman and Brunson call.

In this hand from High Stakes Poker, Daniel Negreanu opens to $1,600 from the hijack, and gets called by Kim Hultman on the button and Doyle Brunson in the big blind. The flop comes, Brunson checks, and Negreanu bets.

Negreanu’s flop bet qualifies as a continuation bet, as he made the first preflop raise, and continued with another bet when checked to after the flop.

Had Brunson led out with a bet on the flop, Negreanu wouldn’t have a c-bet opportunity in this hand. Leading out (aka donk betting) happens when a player that called a preflop raise makes the first bet on the flop.

Donk betting doesn’t happen often in modern Texas Hold’em, however. If you’re the preflop aggressor, the action will check to you on the flop more often than not.

Let’s take a look at another example of a c-bet, this time taking a theoretical look at the same hand if the preflop action went a bit differently:

Preflop

Daniel Negreanu is in the hijack and raises to $1,600 with 6 4. Kim Hultman three-bets to $5,000 on the button with Q J. Doyle Brunson folds in the big blind and Negreanu calls the $5,000 bet.

Flop

The pot is $11,000 and the flop comes out T 9 6.

Negreanu checks, Hultman bets $3,500, and Negreanu folds.

In this case, Hultman was the last preflop aggressor. Even though Negreanu raised first in, Hultman made the last preflop raise. By just calling the three-bet, Negreanu is no longer the preflop aggressor.

As the preflop aggressor, Hultman now gets the opportunity to c-bet. In this theoretical example, Hultman’s $3,500 c-bet prompts a fold from Negreanu, and Hultman takes the pot.

Basic C-Bet Strategy

In-Position vs. Out-of-Position 

In general, you can c-bet much more frequently when you’re playing a pot in position (IP), and you should proceed with caution when c-betting while playing out-of-position (OOP).

For example, one of the most common c-betting opportunities you’ll encounter happens when you’ve open raised preflop from the button, and the big blind calls. You’ll play the rest of the hand with a positional advantage when you’re the button preflop raiser, and can therefore c-bet aggressively in many situations.

Let’s say you open raise from the button preflop, the big blind calls, and the flop comes T 5 3.

As the in-position preflop raiser, you can c-bet with most of the hands in your button preflop opening range. The big blind has a very wide preflop calling range against the button, and as the button you can take advantage of that by c-betting wide, from in-position, and forcing the big blind to fold the weak hands in their range.

That same T 5 3 flop requires a very different strategy when contemplating a c-bet from out-of-position. For example, let’s say you open raise from the cutoff, and the button calls.

On any ten-high or lower flop in a CO vs. BTN single-raised pot scenario, you should mostly check the flop. The button’s calling range against the cutoff is quite narrow and can include many middling-to-low pocket pairs that fare well on ten-high and lower flops.

The button’s preflop calling range connects very well with a flop like T 5 3, and also gets to play in-position against a preflop open from any other position.

Whether it’s a CO vs. BTN configuration, or any setup where you’ve opened preflop and gotten a call from a player that has position on you, it’s best to be very selective with your c-bets in general.

Range vs. Range

Whenever you arrive at the flop in a single-raised pot, think about how the board connects with your range, and how it connects with your opponents’ range. For instance, if you open from early position, and the flop comes Q J T, that flop absolutely smashes your range as the early-position preflop raiser.

Your EP opening range will include pocket pairs such as aces and kings, giving you a strong overpair on the flop. The EP range also includes queens, jacks, and tens, (all of which give you a set on the flop), and ace-king (giving you the nut straight).

If you open from EP and get a caller from any position, those positions will often three-bet ace-king, pocket aces, kings, and queens, and perhaps pocket jacks depending on the position and the player. When you open from early position and get called, your opponent won’t have as many very strong hands in their range as you do on a flop like Q J T.

Therefore, on flops like Q J T, you can c-bet often, as you have a range advantage and nut advantage.

On a flop like 9 8 7, however, the preflop caller takes over the range advantage. While both the EP opener and the preflop caller can have sets, straight, and draws on this flop, the preflop caller’s narrow calling range makes it much more likely that they’ve connected well with this flop.

When a flop like 9 8 7 hits the board, you should check often as the preflop raiser, especially when playing out-of-position.

Mutliway C-Betting Strategy

Multiway pots change the c-betting dynamic significantly. You’ll frequently run into pots with three or more players when playing live poker, which generally presents many more multiway spots than a typical online poker game.

In general, you’ll want to c-bet with strong value hands, high-equity draws, and hands that can gain equity on the turn when playing multiway. 

For example, let’s say you open from early position, and gets calls from the button and the big blind. The flop comes A J 5.

The big blind will often check to you, giving you a c-bet opportunity. You can c-bet this flop with strong Ax hands (like AK, AQ), spade flush draws, and perhaps hands like KQ/KT if those hands are in your opening range. Very strong value hands, like two pair and sets, should almost always be c-bets. 

If you opened from EP and got a call from only the big blind, you could bet a flop like A J 5 very wide. Hands like KK, QQ, and low pocket pairs could be good c-bet candidates on a double broadway board that favors your range.

Multiway, however, you should generally stick with strong value hands and high-equity bluffs as your c-bets.

For more on continuation betting strategy, check out some of Upswing Poker’s library of articles on c-betting:

The Range Bet: 10 Spots to Continuation Bet 100% of the Time

How to Win More Pots with Delayed C-Bets

What Flop C-Bet Size Should You Use in Cash Games?

Pro Tip: Don’t Always Continuation Bet

The post What is a Continuation Bet (C-Bet) & Why Does It Matter? appeared first on Upswing Poker.

Lab members can post hands and questions for discussion, and get feedback from other lab members and Upswing’s roster of world class coaches. Poker crushers like Upswing coaches Gary “GazzyB” Blackwood and Doug Polk frequently answer questions in the Engage group, as do some of the best players in the Upswing family.

March 2022 yielded plenty of interesting hands and general conversations about poker. Here’s a glimpse at some of the discussions that unfolded last month in the Upswing Poker Engage group:

Do You Want to be Seen as a “Shark” in Live Poker?

Lab member Coleman A.H. posed the following question to the Engage group:

Should Coleman be worried about other live players knowing that Coleman knows what he’s doing? Lab member Fraser G. contends that, shark or not, engaging with other players at the table is generally a good thing.

“Be lively at the table, engage in conversation, and don’t sit there on your phone or quietly waiting for spots,” commented Fraser. “The way I think about it is, recreational players are there to have fun and if they perceive you as only being there to make money, not only will they not want to play against you, they will also not like you. You need players at the table to like you so they engage in hands with you.”

Several other players in the thread agreed with Fraser’s take. Upswing Poker founder Doug Polk added his opinion to the matter as well:

“My strategy lately has been to lose all of my sessions,” joked Polk. “That seems to really get people pumped up to gamble with me.”

Hero Fold the River?

Upswing lab member Charles M. posted the following online hand, and pondered whether a fold on the river was the correct play:

Facing three barrels of aggression in a three-bet pot, Charles is put to the test for all of the chips on the river. Should Charles make the call with two pair, or let this one go?

Charles added that the opponent in this hand seemed like a good, aggressive regular, capable of bluffing in a spot like this. Polk replied that he would reluctantly make the call:

“Looks like he needs to be bluffing Qx here? Feels super unlikely that happens in-game,” Polk commented. “Regardless this spot sucks, I’m probably calling very unhappily.”

Charles’ original post added his own solver analysis. Blackwood responded with insights on preflop hand selection, and how critical that concept is when both playing and doing work with a solver.

“Your ranges look a little out; we shouldn’t have A9o, K9o, T6s, J6s, Q2s, etc that call a 3b,” Blackwood wrote. “These will drastically change the output so be sure when doing solver work your preflop charts are solid.”

Should I Ever Flat Call from the Small Blind in Live Poker?

The Upswing Poker Lab includes access to the Engage Group, which gives you the opportunity to get personalized feedback on hands, concepts, and strategy questions.

The post Must-See Strategy Discussions from the Upswing Engage Community: March 2022 appeared first on Upswing Poker.