Texas Holdem Poker

Webpage last updated: 13th Septmber 2008

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Maximising Your Profit At Titan Poker

I am now playing poker at Titan poker and have found it to be an easy place to make money. Here are some tips:

1. If you use the above or below link, the bonus is up to a huge $500! However there is a 3 month time limit for clearing this bonus. This shouldn't be a problem if you play most days, however if you can only play once or twice a week you should clear the bonus faster by either playing more than one table at once or by playing the higher limit games. You pick up Titan points as you play and 100 points is worth a dollar.

2. Also, Titan poker often give you extra money STRAIGHT into your account for making the deposit on the same day as you install the program. My friend was given an extra $20 when he signed up a few weeks ago. I was given an extra $10, so the offer is subject to change.

3. The small stakes Hold'em games are usually pretty loose and easy to beat, especially the 6 max tables. Just play your usual solid game to beat them.

4. Your Hand Histories are stored at C:\Program Files\Titan Poker\History\\Table as xml files. Poker Tracker will be adding support for Titan poker pretty soon, however I have found that most players at the site don't pay much attention to how you play. You can use this to your advantage by bluffing and slowplaying a bit more than you usually would.

5. If you live outside the USA I recommend setting up a US dollars account with an e-wallet such as Neteller. This saves you getting screwed by exchange rates between US dollars and your local currency.

6. Another good thing about Titan poker is your deposit earns you entry into the Weekly Depositors Freeroll on Saturday - either at 4pm EST or at 9PM EST. You will be able to choose whether to participate in the tournament the week following your deposit, or the following week. The prize pool is $800 and there are between 30 and 1000 players, so while the EV of the average player might only be $0.80, the EV of someone who doesn't play like a maniac has got to be a couple of dollars or more. Because there tend to be so many opponents to play against in freerolls, some people go so far as to say you shouldn't play them at all even though they are free. I don't agree with this, but I don't think you should take the tournament too seriously to start off with - to maximise your hourly rate you should be playing a profitable cash game on another table at the same time and most of your focus should be on this game rather than the freeroll. At the beginning stages, a kill phil basic plus or kill phil expert strategy should give you a great chance of surviving to the later stages of the tournament while causing only the minimum distraction to your cash game. If you are getting near, or into the money, you can quit your cash game to focus purely on playing the tournament well.

7. It is crucial to make good notes on all the players, especially for no-limit cash games. Consider coming up with a shorthand notation so that you can quickly type notes and be able to read them without scrolling down.

8. Titan has a player search facility. There are two very important reasons for using this. Firstly for finding the fish (see below for some examples) but also for seeing if players are playing at more than one table at once. Players who multitable aren't really agonizing over a decision for a long time, they are just concentrating on another table. These players miss a lot of the subtleties happening at your table and tend to play in a more formulaic way because they can't remember all the hands that you have played before. They usually place less emphasis on people's image, so don't expect to get the same amount of credit for your earlier tight/loose plays.

9. Now I want to talk specifically about the 6max $5 NL games with either 1/2c or 2/4c blinds. These are so easy! There are some players who are not just fish, they are literally dead money. You want to use the software to make them your "buddies" so you can find them easily. Here I present the "dead money hall of shame":

Amanda11 - Likes winning pots not money. Goes all-in (deep) on a 8c pot with very good hands, but not just aces. Calls all the way to the river with bottom pair. Also, when she's not sure if she is ahead or not on the river, she makes only a 2c bet even the pot is large. I just call these tiny bets even when I know I've lost because I want to keep her happy so she doesn't leave the table. If I have the best hand I raise. You can now find her playing at the 0.25/0.50 10 player tables. I guess she's realised 6max isn't her bag.

Dentdelion - This guy was raising to 50c with almost every hand. I make sure he stays at the table by limping with hands I know I will have to fold. Then I get a good hand and stack him.

Bryan0082 - Board is 5 different hearts. A random player says "I've got a flush" and bets 2c. Despite the pot being 10 times larger than the bet to call, Bryan FOLDS! Random player says "tough laydown?". I figure he's going to tilt soon and start raising into him. He goes all-in with a 4 and 3 of clubs on a flush draw. I call with Ace and 9 of clubs and stack him. Then he rebuys and I stack him again when he goes all-in preflop with A2s.

And many many more!

For most NL players, the $10 games with 5/10c blinds will be your first actual challenge, but there are strategic differences between the $5 and $10 games because in the $10 games the max buyin is only 100BB whereas it is 125BB at 2/4c and 250BB at 1/2c. The deeper stacks at the $5 games mean many more small cards become playable because of the increased implied odds if you had a concealed straight. Suited aces are also very strong hands in these deep stack games.

Maximising Your Profit At Ultimate Bet

I also play at Ultimate Bet. This is another good site to find the fish, but there are some strategic differences to playing at Titan Poker. At Ultimate Bet it is very easy to data-mine hands that you have not played. I recommend using Poker Ace HUD wth Poker Tracker to find out the playing styles of all the players at the table before you sit down. You can quickly mine the last 200 hands that the players have played. This will give you a BIG edge.

However, you need to bare in mind that other players can do the same thing to you before they sit down in your game. In fact they would be stupid not to. You can protect yourself against this in one of two ways:

Don't stay at any one table for long. This way, if they only mine the table they want to sit in, they'll have only a few of your previous hands before they sit down with you.

Mix up your game by playing tight for a while, then loose, then back to tight again.

No Limit cash games are high risk and high variance. If you want to get your feet wet playing them while only risking minimal money, the $2 buying games with 1 cent and 2 cent blinds are for you. These games are very loose and easy to beat, but you need to adapt your strategy from the advice given to beat bigger games. Because the blinds are so tiny, players tend to do a lot of overbetting and also a lot of calling big bets. You can rarely win a pot with a big bluff. When bluffing, you should just make a small bet because these players are usually as likely to fold to a small bet as a big one. As for preflop strategy, you should play tight aggressive and be raising for value a lot and rarely just limping in. Players tend to call raises of 5x or even 10x the big blind with all sorts of medicore hands, so get your money in with the best hand, not a so-so hand.

As an example of the wild play that can go on in these games, the under the gun player raised all-in ($2) and was called by a middle position player. Thinking at least one of them must have aces or kings I folded my pair of queens. The under the gun player showed Jack Ten offsuit and the caller showed a pair of sevens! The UTG player caught a jack on the board to win the hand.

The $10 NL 6 max hold'em game with 5c/10c blinds tends to be much more aggressive than at Titan. I think this is because of the pot bet button which makes it very very easy to make a pot bet. Consequently a pot bet is less meaningful than at Titan.

The hand history shows the cards that were mucked at a showdown. Get into the habit of checking the hand history after each showdown to learn more about your opponents.

Starting Hand Rankings

This section has been removed but you can just look here.

Holdem Inspector Profiles

Before I start showing the simulation results I want to talk briefly about simulation results vs real internet results.

Simulations have the massive advantage over real play in that you can do over a million simulations in a minute.

If this was real play it would take about 10 years to do. During that time the game of Internet poker would significantly change - I don't think Internet poker games even existed 10 years ago. There will defintely be better profiles out way before then. You would know if you won or lost overall but not be certain if the profile performed better in the loose/tight/passive/aggressive/full ring/shorthanded games.

In reality you would probably give up after less than 1000 hands if the profile was losing money, and carry on after 1000 hands if it is winning money.

Unfortunately the results after 1000 hands are not always the same as those over the longer term, so you never find out that the "losing" profile that you stopped using was actually a long term winner. Or maybe only after about 10,000 hands do you realise that you were lucky on your first 1000 hands and that the profile is actually a long term loser.

The use of simulations show in advance the areas that profile is likely to do better in. We can also use the statistical techinique "standard deviation" to show the short term variance that a profile has.

There are of course limitations with simulations - you can only test it against other profiles that aren't completely realistic. If the other profiles are weaker than the real players it can give a false impression about your expected winnings, so it could cost you a lot of money if you trust these simulations completely on "blind faith".

I believe we should use simulations results in conjunction with analysis of real hands and intelligent thought about the types of opponents we face in our games.

Now, to sort out the best from the rest, we define a number of simulation test to be run:

The "Easy Typical No Rake" test is a million simulated hands of the profile in seat1 against the OHI typical table with 9 opponents.

"Real Typical" has the fish profile replaced with the maniac profile and the rock profile replaced with the solid profile.

Some microlimit tables don't take any rake, such as 2c/4c and 5c/10c at pokerstars. Each test shows whether it has rake. I use the abbreviations NFND for no flop no drop, and NFD for no flop drop.

Download free profiles

HeadsUp

HeadsUp profile

Vixen Family

Download the whole Vixen family: Vixen62 through to Vixen 70 plus VixenSix, HilgerVixen and SuperVixen

NO LIMIT: Basic Preflop strategy for early in No Limit Tournaments

Do not use this profile unless you own "Harrington on Hold'em Volume 1". If you don't own it you won't understand where the strategy is applicable and where it isn't applicable. If the pot is raised or raised back it will say "fold" - you don't necessarily fold here, instead you need to make a human assessment. All the postflop play will say "fold" for the same reason. For the called pot, I have used my own interpretrations in places - you might want to edit the profile a bit before you use it.

Harrington Basic early tournament strategy

Latest Simulation Results - 1st April 2007

2006 stats: If you have Excel 2002 or later you can see a comparison of the different Vixen profiles (and other top profiles) at 3% and 5%: Download Excel Chart
To see this data as a web page go here. You will find some of the stats are more up to date there than on this page.

Easy Typical No rake, max 3 raises, 500k hands

Players	BB/Hr (60 hands)v2.36 Typical Table
Vixen63new	5.34
Vixen63	5.15
Vixen62	5.16
VixenSix	5.28
GeeWhiz6	5.17
VTight2	4.73
GeeWhizz2.1	3.68
PerfectStone	3.61
Perfect6	4.21
PerfectShort	3.69
TTWhizzyHot1.1	3.42
PerfectPoker1	3.66
PlatinumEagle2	3.27
Solid	3.11

The next test is the "Tight no rake"

Players	BB/Hr (60 hands) v2.36 Tight Table
GeeWhiz6	5.42
Vixen63	4.24
VixenSix	5.33
Vixen62	4.25
Perfect6	4.16
VTight2	3.35
PerfectStone	2.41
PerfectPoker1	2.69
GeeWhizz2.1	2.62
Solid	1.40

The 3rd test is "Typical, Raked"

NFND: No flop No drop, NFD: No flop drop

Players	v2.36 3% rake NFND max 1BB, max 3 raises	v2.36 5% rake NFD max 1BB, max 3 raises	v2.36 5% NFND max 2BB (0.25/0.50 party/pokerstars), max 3 raises	v2.36 5% NFND max 5BB (0.10/0.20 pokerstars), max 3 raises	v2.36 5% NFND max 0.5BB ($1/$2 pokerstars), max 3 raises	10% NFD max 0.5BB ($0.5/$1 party)*, max 3 raises
Vixen63new	5.00	4.00	3.26	3.52	4.74	4.14
Solid	3.24	2.42	2.50	2.41	2.14

* Doesn't include rake for pots over $5. See http://www.partypoker.com/games/how_to_play/rake.html

4th test is "Tight, Raked":

Players	$BB/Hr v2.36 tight 3% NFND max 1BB	v2.36 tight 5% NFD max 1BB	v2.36 5% NFND max 2BB (0.25/0.50 party/pokerstars)	v2.36 5% NFND max 5BB (0.10/0.20 pokerstars)	v2.36 5% NFND max 0.5BB ($1/$2 pokerstars)
Vixen63	?	?	?	?	?
GeeWhiz6	?	?	?	?
Barney1	?	?
Vixen62	?	?
VixenSix	?	?
VTight2	?	?	?	?

Wild games - All against 9 Maniacs!

Players	v2.36 3% rake NFND up to 1BB	5% rake NFD max 1BB
Vixen62	1.38	0.69
Vixen63new	?	?
Vixen63	?	?
VTight2	?	?
Solid	1.83	1.70
GeeWhizz2.1	?	?
TTWhizzyHot1.1	?	?
GeeWhiz6	?
VixenSix	?
Rock	1.02	0.54

Special full ring test for best performing profiles: "Tough table (raked)" - This is against 9 solid profiles. You're likely to have opposition at least this tough at $3-6 or above.

Profiles	v2.36 3% rake NFND max 1BB	v2.36 5% rake NFD max 1BB
Vixen63new	?	?
Vixen63	?	1.12
Vixen62	?	1.10
VixenSix	?	3.26
Perfect4	?	0.89
Perfect6	?	1.88
PerfectPoker1	?
VTight2	?
PerfectShort	?
GeeWhiz2.1	?
?

Pseudo Real Table

I consider these the sort of opponents you might meet in an actual full ring game.

Seat	Players
1	HERO
2	Typical
3	Typical
4	PlatinumEagle2
5	Typical
6	Solid
7	Boss Hog 1.0
8	Rock
9	LDNL1.1
10	Typical

There are four weak players (Typicals) and five average to strong players. The test has a 3% rake up to 1 BB.

Profiles	v2.25 $BB/hr (60 hands)
Vixen63	+2.49
Vixen62	+2.16
VixenSix	+2.02
GeeWhiz2.1	+1.50
PerfectPoker1	+1.18
Perfect6	+1.15
PerfectShort	+1.10
TTWhizzyHot1.1	+0.99
PerfectStone2	+0.75
LDNL1.1	+0.74
LDNLp1.1	+0.65
PlatinumEagle2	+0.73
Solid	+0.28

Vixen63 is like Vixen62 but is less aggressive with mediocre starting hands like 33,44,K9,Q9,A7,A5. Vixen62 is a heavy loser with those hands in tight games. Details about Vixen63new are shown just below the starting hands guide (above all the profile analysis). Vixen64 has further preflop improvements on Vixen63new.

Profile Deathmatches - Top Profiles fight it out with a 3% rake up to 1BB

Avg Rake per Hand $0.11

Seat	Players	Flop %	SD %	WSD %	$BB/hr
V2.25d5 test 3% rake	Avg Rake per Hand $0.15
1	TTWhizzyHot1.1	19.90%	9.74%	59.30%	$-1.66
2	GeeWhiz6	34.61%	18.18%	53.63%	$-0.44
3	LDNL1.1	18.89%	8.94%	65.40%	$-1.33
4	PerfectPoker1	20.09%	9.86%	64.83%	$-0.82
5	LDNLp1.1	17.52%	8.16%	65.68%	$-1.12
6	Vixen62	28.28%	15.13%	55.57%	$-0.26	2nd Place
7	VixenSix	34.28%	18.63%	53.12%	$0.49	Winner
8	PerfectStone	19.05%	9.10%	65.44%	$-1.53
9	GeeWhiz2.1	19.24%	10.13%	58.41%	$-0.67
10	PerfectShort	20.77%	9.32%	66.22%	$-1.80	Worst

Standard Deviations in results

There will be some differences in results between these simulations and the real tables.
This is partly because the real players play differently than simulated the bot opponents.
But the main reason is short term luck. This can be shown by running lots of 500 hand runs comparing the results.

I ran the "tough table test" using LetsDanceNL. The expectation value of LetsDanceNL is 0.88 BB/hr.
The 500 hand results varied from 9.4 BB/hr right down to -6.44 BB/hr. At 60 hands per hour 500 hands takes 8.33 hours. So you after over 8 hours testing ths profile you be down 6.44 BB/hr which is 53.6 BB. Or you could be up 9.4 BB/hr which is 78.3 BB. The Standard Deviation of this test was 4. I have found that games with looser players tends to have an even higher standard deviation (bigger swings).

12.48

Profile	Type of Test	Number of 500 hand simulations run	Highest BB/hr	Lowest BB/hr	Average	Standard Deviation	% less than 0 BB/hr
Rock	v2.25d5 10 player Tight 3% rake 1BB max	100	3.46	-6.08	-1.15 (1m:-0.66)	2.2	64%
LDNL1.1	v2.24 10 player Tight 3% rake 1BB max	100	11.8	-5.84	1.91	3.6	36%
Vixen62	v2.25d5 10 player Tight 3% rake 1BB max	100	-10.39	2.94	4.2	20%
-
Rock	v2.25d5 10 player Typical 3% rake 1BB max	100	9.4	-8.52	1.21 (1m:1.12)	3.8	43%
PerfectStone	v2.24 10 player Typical 3% rake 1BB max	200	22.66	-10.61	3.46	5.6	27%
PerfectPoker1	v2.24 10 player Typical 3% rake 1BB max	100	18.29	-6.96	3.99	5.2	21%
PlatinumEagle2	v2.24 10 player Typical 3% rake 1BB	100	16.23	-4.77	3.90	4.59	18%
LDNL1.1	v2.24 10 player Typical 3% rake 1BB max	100	15.92	-9.06	2.66	5.2	30%
PlatinumEagle2	v2.24 10 player Typical 3% rake 1BB	100	13.89	-7.13	1.68	4.03	35%
-
LDNL1.1	v2.24 10 player Tough (9xSolid) 3% rake 1BB max	100	8	-5.72	0.77	2.7	43%
-
Rock	v2.25d5 against 9 maniacs 3% rake 1BB	100	16.22	-13.01	1.19 (1m:1.32)	5.6	45%
PlatinumEagle2	v2.24 against 9 maniacs 3% rake 1BB	100	15.29	-13.37	0.76 (1m:1.49)	6.0	41%
-
LDNL1.1	v2.24 6 player Typical 3% rake 1BB max	100	8.6	-6.12	1.40	3.2	32%
LDNL1.1	v2.24 6 player Loose (2xfish,2xSolid,1xTypical) 3% rake 1BB max	100	13.75	-7.88	3.06	4.2	20%
-
LetsDanceNL	pre v2.24 Tough Table	60	+9.40	-6.44	+0.88	4.0	?
Poki	pre v2.24 Tough Table	100	+7.74	-6.17	-0.22	2.3	60%
LetsDanceNL	pre v2.24 Tight 3% rake 1BB max	100	+7.31	-8.13	1.1	3.2	37%
Poki	pre v2.24 Tight 3% rake 1BB max	100	+13.66	-6.14	0.07	3.2	48%
superslow	pre v2.24 Tight 3% rake 1BB max	100	+6.42	-9.94	-1.166	3.2	64%
Poki	pre v2.24 Typical 3% rake 1BB max	100	+16.46	-6.53	+2.8	4.2	28%

Profile	Type of Test	Number of 5000 hand simulations run	Highest BB/hr	Lowest BB/hr	Average	Standard Deviation	% less than 0 BB/hr
PerfectStone2	Pseudo Real 3% rake 1BB max (moderately tough)	100	3.56	-1.57	0.84	1.1	22%
PerfectStone2	Typical 3% rake 1BB max (easy game)	100	7.33	-1.69	3.19	1.6	4%
PerfectWater	Typical 3% rake 1BB max (easy game)	100	6.67	-1.15	2.5	1.4	4%

8 player tests

Tight Table

Players	BB/hr (60 hands) v2.36 tight table 0% rake	v2.36 3% rake NFND max 1BB
VixenSix	7.11	?
GeeWhiz6	7.09
Vixen62	4.47	?

Typical Table

Players	$BB/Hr v2.24 typical table 0% rake	3% rake NFND max 1BB
GeeWhiz6	5.08
VixenSix	4.99
Vixen63	4.92	3.45
Vixen62	4.88	3.22
Vixen63new	4.83	3.51
PerfectShort	4.02
Perfect6	4.01
PerfectPoker1	3.98
PerfectlyLoose	3.96
GeeWhiz2.1	3.92
PlatinumEagle2	3.46
TTWhizzyHot1.1	3.31
LDNL1.1	2.87
LDNLp1.1	2.60

Profile Notes: LooseBetty has the same post flop as BettyBotv1.0 but raises with any pair and plays many hands from the small blind.
LooseBetty2 has even looser and more aggressive pre-flop strategy than the original
PerfectlyLoose has the same preflop strategy as LooseBetty2 but the PerfectShort post flop strategy.

6 player (shorthanded) tests

6 player against all typical players

Players	v2.24+ no rake	v2.24+ 3% rake up to 1BB
VixenSix	5.21	3.41
GeeWhiz6	5.13	3.34
Vixen62	4.27	2.74
Perfect6	3.85	2.42
PerfectlyLoose	3.40	2.29
PerfectShort	3.10	1.83
PerfectPoker1	3.09	1.71
PlatinumEagle2	2.10	1.10
LDNL1.1	1.93	0.76
TTWhizzyHot1.1	1.84	0.92
LooseLDNL	1.19	0.79
LooseBetty2	1.16
LooseBetty	1.19

Heads Up tests

I am currently developing the "Super Maniac" profile for heads up play. You can download an early version of Super Maniac below which already plays better than any of the other profiles heads up.

AlwaysRaise: raises all the way to the river with the top 68 starting hands. Folds others.

Download profiles

Download all Way2Loose profiles

Available for download are 3 good profiles (poker_champ, poki and new guy) from a guy who goes by the name promateus.
Download promateus profiles

Download poki profiles

Download GameBreaker's BettyBot profiles!

Download the Phil Gordon NL open raise profiles

These are based on the starting hand charts found at http://lgb.philgordonpoker.com/index.php?q=node/15
If someone else has already voluntarily put money in the pot these profiles can't make the decision for you; you're on your own.

CYBER LOONIES