"If you have won a free Sit N Go entry please send an email to SudburysUltimatePokerLeague@hotmail.com with your Rail screenname and your account will be credited.”

Starting on October 21, the Sudbury’s Ultimate Poker League will play online tournaments beginning at 1:00 PM for 6 consecutive Sundays.  Buy-ins are $10 USD and the top finishers for each of the weekly tournaments will receive their share of the tournament prize pool.  The 2 players who do not finish in the money will receive the Bubble Prize which is a token into RailPoker’s Weekly $100,000 Prize Pool Guarantee Tournament.

 

If you register for the Sudbury’s Ultimate Online Poker League before October 9, 2007 you can receive your first two Sudbury’s Ultimate Poker League buy-ins for FREE when you make your first real money deposit of at least $20.  (Your initial deposit on RailPoker is yours to do with as you please.) To receive your first 2 Sudbury’s Ultimate Online Poker League buy-ins for FREE, just  download the software by clicking here

 

Open an account with at least a $20 deposit and on the RailPoker Cashier Page fill in your User Name, select "Card" in Bonus Type and then insert "SUDBURY" in the Card Code field.  Your initial deposit is yours to do as you please so you can use it to practice to get ready for the first Sudbury’s Ultimate Online Poker League.  When you complete the registration 2 Tournament Tokens (value $22 USD) will be placed in your account for you to use as your buy-in for your first 2 Sudbury’s Ultimate Poker League.

 

Sudbury’s Ultimate Online Poker League

Online League Schedule

Date			Time	Event	Buy-in
Sunday	October	21	1:00 pm	Week 1	$10+1 Buy-in
Sunday	October	28	1:00 pm	Week 2	$10+1 Buy-in
Sunday	November	4	1:00 pm	Week 3	$10+1 Buy-in
Sunday	November	11	1:00 pm	Week 4	$10+1 Buy-in
Sunday	November	18	1:00 pm	Week 5	$10+1 Buy-in
Sunday	November	25	1:00 pm	Week 6	$10+1 Buy-in

 

As an added benefit to all of our Sudbury’s Ultimate Poker League Players in your first live poker league tournaments, , the top 2 finishers at each of our season’s first live  tournaments will receive a $22 RailPoker token to play a ten person online tournament live on RailPoker where the prize pool is $100.  All you have to do is finish in the top 2 at your kick off tournament and your entry into a RailPoker $100 ten person tournament is yours just because you are a Sudbury Ultimate Poker League Player!

 

SUDBURY ONLINE

POKER LEAGUE

 

Online Poker Can Be A Long-Term Career

 

As a SUDBURY POKER LEAGUE live league player you may not have much experience in online poker.  Not only is that not a problem, but it in all likelihood it is an advantage because if you haven’t played a lot of online poker you probably don’t have any bad online poker habits to change.

 

Learning how to win consistently at the beginning of your online poker career is a lot easier if you let us help you develop good strategies and techniques in the beginning. All of the information the SUDBURY POKER LEAGUE is offering is for those of you who would like to play online poker long-term and to win some serious money over the long haul.  If you are playing online poker just “to have a little fun” and don’t care about winning or losing, you don’t need to bother reading the following information. 

 

This is not intended to help you advance to an expert player level because that is something that each of you will develop at your own pace and in your own way. The very good news is that you don’t have to be an expert poker player to become a long-term winning online poker player.  You just need to become a disciplined player who knows how to manage your money.  If there is one truth in online poker it is that winning is not difficult, but managing your money takes skill and discipline.

 

Differences Between Online Poker and Live Casino Poker

 

It is important that you understand why playing poker online to generate continual income is superior to playing poker at brick and mortar casinos.  There are certainly many reasons why millions of people play online poker daily as compared to the mere thousands who play poker at brick and mortar casinos, but some of the most important reasons are:

 

• Accessibility to RailPoker is much easier than any brick and mortar casino because all you have to do is turn on your computer and go to RailPoker instead of getting in a car or airplane and spending countless hours “traveling to work”
• The rake charged per hand by brick and mortar casino poker rooms is significantly higher than the rake charged by RailPoker.  This is extremely important if you intend to play thousands of hands because it adds up to a lot of money which in your online poker business is a one of your few costs of doing business
• The pace of an online poker game is much faster than a brick and mortar poker game allowing you to play more hands per hour which will allow you to maximize and monetize your superior poker skills
• You can play in free money games if you wish to practice before playing for real money
• There are fewer “tells” involved with online poker as compared to live poker so over the long run your poker skills, not your facial expressions, will decide whether you are a long-term winner

 

 

Create a Plan with Realistic Goals

 

Every successful business begins with a business plan. Even though your online business plan is very simple, you still need a plan based on what is reasonable given your developing poker skills; commitment to treating this as a money making business rather than a source of entertainment; financial resources; time available to devote to the business of online poker; and most important your ability to manage yourself without having a boss tell you what to do every hour of every working day.

 

To begin preparing your simple plan you need to be honest with yourself as to how much money you want to commit to online poker.  If you only want to commit $500 don’t expect to win $1,000,000 unless you get lucky in one of RailPoker’s big money tournaments. Not only should you decide at the outset how much you want to invest in your own online poker business, but you need to stick to that amount.  If you lose that amount, treat it like any other business investment that didn’t work out.  Don’t risk money you can’t afford to lose!

 

There is no one formula for success at online poker, especially No-Limit Hold’Em, so the best advice is for you to decide on your start-up bankroll, divide that amount by 5 so that you have created 5 distinct sessions to play.  Your bankroll should always have 5 sessions worth of play because without that you will be making betting decisions based on not having a sufficient bank roll instead of making decisions based on your poker skills.  After you have computed what you want to invest for each of the 5 sessions, then divide that number by 100 to determine at what level of play you should begin playing which should be at a table where you have 100 times the big blind. For example, if your initial bankroll is $500 divide that amount by 5 playing sessions which equals $100 and then divide that amount by 100 which will produce the decision to begin play at a $.50-$1 No-Limit game with $100 worth of chips. 

 

Now that you have decided on your initial bankroll and the level of play, you should create levels of wins and losses that will trigger you leaving a playing session.  Every player is different so there is no one formula to determine how much you should be up or down before leaving a table, but especially at the beginning of your online poker career, you should set some winning and losing limits for each of your online poker sessions. 

 

You will almost certainly read and hear the gambling philosophy of “not limiting your winning sessions only limiting your losing sessions,” but that strategy doesn’t help a beginning online poker player.   A beginning player may not have the internal management skills to stop playing during a winning session and, as we all know, over time the cards even out so that all winning sessions eventually come to an end.  It is recommended that, at least at the outset of your online poker career, that you limit each session to winnings of 1.5 times your initial session bankroll and 1 time each session to losses equal to your initial bankroll.  For example, if your initial bankroll for a session is $200, then you should leave the table if you have won $300 and leave the table if you have lost $200.  This will force you to be a much disciplined online poker player while you are learning the game and becoming a better player.  After you have reached an intermediate level of play you can vary when you leave a table.

 

It is also recommended that you only play one session per day at the beginning of your online poker career.  This is imperative because you can’t afford to have a losing session and immediately sit down at another table and try and “get it all back”. Instead of getting it all back, a new player will probably be making bad decisions to try and make up for the loss at the previous table instead of making good poker decisions with the likely result being to dig a bigger financial hole from which to crawl out.  Please, never forget that online poker at RailPoker will be here for you today, tomorrow, and next year and probably for the rest of our lifetimes.  There will always be another game for you to play at RailPoker so you don’t have to try and win all the money in the world in one day!

 

Guidelines for Beginning Strategy

 

As long as you are a beginning level player, you should play a very tight/aggressive strategy meaning that you should be very selective when deciding what hole cards are good enough to play the hand and betting aggressively when you have those good cards in good situations. Tight/aggressive is crucial for a beginning player because you will be able to avoid most of the problem situations that you would be otherwise be involved in if you were to play a loose style of poker.

 

The biggest mistake new online poker players make is to play at levels too high for their skill set.  Therefore, the first step in launching your online poker career is to create realistic goals.  The important word is “realistic.”  Most people playing online poker are playing for fun and entertainment.  That is the key to your success.  Those people seeking fun in online poker are not serious enough to be a challenge to you in the long run because they won’t be treating online poker like a business.

 

Starting Hand Requirements are the Beginning of Successfully Playing Online Poker

 

This is a starting hands chart that you can use to determine what hole cards are good enough to play a hand.  Although there is no such thing as a perfect starting hands chart because there is no one chart that is absolutely right for every situation, but if you use this chart as a beginning guideline as to which hands are good enough for a starting hand you will immediately have a big advantage over those players at your table who are playing for fun and who believe that he or she should be seeing every flop.  You don’t need to memorize this starting hands chart, you just need to become very familiar with the concepts of different starting hands at different table positions.  Even when you become a very seasoned online poker player you probably won’t, on average, be playing more than 15% of the hands in a 10 person game.  Patience is not only one of the keys to your success, but it is the downfall of your competition when they don’t have patience to wait for good starting hands in favorable situations. 

 

AGAIN, DON’T WORRY ABOUT FOLLOWING THE SUGGESTED  STARTING HANDS EXACTLY, YOU SHOULD USE IT ONLY TO GET THE IDEA OF WHAT HANDS TO PLAY IN WHAT POSITION.  AS YOU DEVELOP YOUR POKER SKILLS AND FEEL FOR THE GAME, YOU WILL BE ABLE TO VARY WHICH HANDS TO START WITH BASED ON A LOT OF FACTORS SUCH AS SIZE OF BET, OTHER PLAYERS AT THE TABLE’S SKILLS, YOUR CHIP STACK ETC.

 

 

STARTING HAND TO PLAY IN EARLY POSITION

Pairs in the Hole: Aces through Sevens
Suited Hole Cards: Ace with a King, Queen, Jack, or 10
King with a Queen, Jack, or 10
Queen with a Jack or 10
Jack with a 10 or 9
10 with a 9
Unsuited Hole Cards: Aces with a King, Queen, Jack, or 10
King with a Queen or Jack

 

STARTING HAND TO PLAY IN MIDDLE POSITION

All hands in Early Position and:
Pairs in the Hole: Sixes and Fives
Suited Hole Cards: Ace with a 9, 8, 7, or 6
King with a 9
Queen with a 9 or 8
Jack with an 8
10 with an 8
9 with an 8
Unsuited Hole Cards: King with a 10
Queen with a Jack or 10
Jack with a 10

 

STARTING HAND TO PLAY IN LATE POSITION

All hands in Early and Middle Position and:
Pairs in the Hole: Fours, Threes, and Twos
Suited Hole Cards: Ace with a 5, 4, 3, or 2
King with an 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2
Jack with a 7
10 with a 7
9 with a 7 or 6
8 with a 7 or 6
7 with a 6 or 5
6 with a 5
5 with a 4
Unsuited Hole Cards: King with a 9
Queen with a 9
Jack with a 9 or 8
10 with a 9 or 8
9 with an 8 or 7
8 with a 7

 

 

 

Actual Play

 

Contrary to what you might hear from commentators during televised poker tournaments, poker is far from just a mathematical game.  It is a game that depends more on psychological considerations than it does on math.  Over time, math certainly will help you win, but the success of playing each individual hand will be dependent on your “read” of the entire situation.  The truth is that there are quite a few successful poker players who couldn’t tell you the odds of catching a flush, but they are successful because they have played enough hands to know when to risk and when to fold.

 

Any discussion concerning math and the psychological aspects of poker is meaningless if you are playing in a game where the participants are not playing for enough money to really matter.  For example, if you are playing in a $.25-$.50 No Limit game and the people at the table have over $500 each, many of those players are going to call you down to the river card if they have anything worthwhile in their hand.  Only when you are playing against people where the pot size matters will you be able to utilize your superior skills.

 

Although bluffing and semi-bluffing receive the most television coverage in tournaments, don’t get too caught up with making the perfect bluff.  The important point about bluffing and semi-bluffing is that your goal is to continue to build your skills and table awareness so you learn when to bluff and semi-bluff.  Like everything else in life, it is about balance.  By balancing your entire online poker game to include bluffing and semi-bluffing you will continue to become a very successful player.

 

Changing pace during a long poker session is tremendously effective because the other players will eventually be absolutely unable to predict what you are doing because rarely do the players see your hole cards so the other players won’t know when you are bluffing or when you are just betting a strong hand.  Changing pace by changing how much you bet in certain situations, changing when you bluff etc. will make you unpredictable.  

 

Knowing When to Leave a Playing Session

 

It is very likely that if you are playing at the stakes game that is right for you and you continue to develop your poker skills, you will be winning at a 60% or higher rate of those sessions.  In order to make sure that that rate of winning produces money in your pocket, though, you have to treat online poker like any other business and take the profit when it is available and cut your losses when they occur.  It was previously suggested that new players quit a session of No-Limit when they are up 1.5 times their original bankroll or when they have lost their original session bankroll.  Please stick to that plan when you are a new player.  There is nothing more discouraging in online poker than to be ahead a lot of money, stay around too long, catch some bad luck and lose the day’s winnings and your daily starting bankroll.  You don’t ever need to be a poker player on tilt; you need to be a disciplined online poker who views that day’s winnings or loss as just another day at the office.

 

 

Moving up to Higher Stakes Games

 

Once you settle on your initial playing level do not jump from level to level just because you experience success.  If you are successful at the original level of play stay there for awhile.  You need to become very good at a certain level before you can try and move up to a higher level.

 

Move up only one playing level at a time.  Regardless of how good and successful you become at one level, under no circumstances should you attempt to move up two levels at one time.  There are generally better players at each higher level and you need to make sure that you can compete with players at any level before you actually start risking your bankroll.

 

One of the most used justifications for moving up too quickly; “I want to avoid all of these bad beats by playing against better and more predictable players who play on higher stakes tables.”  There is no doubt that you will experience more bad beats at lower level tables because the level of play is generally low so that there are a lot of players who insist on hanging around through the river card for no good reason.  Occasionally, these poor players will catch that miraculous miracle river card and deliver a bad beat to you.  Although those bad beats hurt, please keep in mind that for every hand that those players pick up that miracle card on the river, there are 20 hands where they hung around, didn’t pick up that miracle river card, and contributed significantly to your winnings.  This is truer in No-Limit than Limit Hold’Em, but it is nonetheless a truth with a capital “T”.  Bad players who get involved in hands with poor starting cards might be heroes 1 in 20 hands when they pull the one card that gives them the best hand at the end of the hand, but the other 19 hands when they don’t pull that card, you and the rest of the table are benefiting tremendously. 

 

 

Keep in mind when you do try to move up a playing level, you need to completely readjust your bankroll, and every many other aspects of your play.  Do not try and move up thinking that you don't need to maintain your business approach and instead just play at a higher level and "see what happens."  For example if your level of play is a $1-$2 No-Limit and your bankroll for $1-$2 No-Limit is $1,000 with you investing $200 per session, and you want to move up to a $2-$4 No-Limit game, then it is suggested that you have at least a total bankroll of $2,000 so that you can invest $400 per session because a $4 No-Limit big blind game twice as much as $2 No-Limit big blind game.  Don’t move up to a higher level table until you can finance that new level with enough stake so that you are playing good poker, not desperate poker.

 

 

 

 

Playing in Sessions That Last Too Long

 

Your sessions should never be longer than the amount of time you are capable of keeping your focus on the game.  Unlike owning a business where you can't control the demands of your time from customers, vendors, accountants, lawyers etc. you are in complete control of all of the demands made on you because you are the only one who decides when you will be playing.  Why play an 8 hour session if you know that after a couple of hours it is difficult for you to remain focused on the game?  Don't decide to take that break when you notice you are getting tired; decide before you start the session that you are only going to play in two hour time frames.  Making those decisions on the run won't allow you to maximize your results because making a decision that you are tired and losing your focus while you are actually tired and unfocused might be too late.

 

 

Not Paying Attention to the Play of Opponents

 

At the beginning of your online poker career, you will have all that you can handle to just concentrate on your play.  You won’t want to observe the play of your opponents; specifically when they bet, fold, raise and bluff.  You will very quickly become confident enough in your own play that you will be able to observe the specific play of your opponents and that observation is essential to increasing your online poker skills and winnings.

 

Remember that you are treating this as a business.  You are not playing online poker for fun; you are playing online poker to generate income.  If you were writing a business proposal for any other business, you wouldn’t be surfing the Internet while writing that business proposal.  If you were having a business lunch with a prospective client of another business, you wouldn’t be listening to your iPod while that prospective client was trying to talk to you.  If you are really serious about online poker as an opportunity to make long-term income it makes absolutely no sense to be involved with other activities while playing online poker.  Surfing the Internet, reading a book, talking on the phone are all activities that many of your online poker opponents will be involved in while they are playing so they won’t be paying attention to their own play and just as important they won’t be paying close attention to your play.  You will have the advantage over your competition if you pay attention to your business while you are conducting business.

 

Tournaments Instead of Cash Games

 

It is a good idea to play in some tournaments as well as cash games.  Look for tournaments that offer you “good value” which means that the buy-in amount is comfortable for you, there are not going to be too many players, and the payoff will be relatively large.

 

You are Ready to Launch Your Online Poker Career

 

You now have the framework to begin your online poker career at RailPoker.  You should read this through a couple of times before starting to play.  If you have never played online poker, it is a very good idea, before you begin playing for real money, that you play for an hour or so on RailPoker’s free money games so you can become familiar with how the game is played. 

 

Please remember that… Luck determines who has the best hands while skill determines who has the most chips.  Poker is a game of skill, not luck.  It is like every other business you could pursue; those who are willing to work at it with a well-conceived strategy will prevail.  We at SUDBURY POKER LEAGUE wish you “Good Skill” not good luck.