I just wanted to say huge thanks to Rapid Evolution , I’ve been pestering him somewhat reliably about strat and a little bit of bitching about my shity time of things for awhile now, and he’s always been very helpful, furthermore for those that don’t know he his now a coach on DC , so next time your thinking of having a game checkup or are considering a coach please bare him in mind, you’ll be glad you did.
Play online poker and casino games at the only poker room endorsed by Doyle Brunson.
March 7th, 2010
Posted by
LuckyStraights |
Reviews, cash games |
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I’ve recently had some coaching from a good friend of mine, who’s doing a bit of coaching on the side, so I wanted to offer a few words to say thanks. He’s an experienced player, who now predominantly plays 6m nlhe.
We’ve discussed hand histories rather a lot in the past, and have just done a course of sweats with some theory to back up ideas. He’s prepared to tailor his approach to your needs and focus on what areas you are struggling with. After months and months of doing shit, our last sweat was amazing, he really touched on some key points regarding range manipulation, bet sizing and thin value.
He has a very good understanding of the game and helps you understand why certain actions are taken over alternative options and where the ev comes from, would highly recommend his coaching to anyone unl grinder.
Turn any table into a red hot poker arena with the PokerFleece tablecover!
January 11th, 2010
Posted by
LuckyStraights |
Reviews |
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LuckyStraights.com gets t-shirts, yes I am the new Hellmuth, and I want all my own bling :p I’ve been thinking about doing this for awhile, but nothing materialized until I bumped into High Roller Clothing. The have an ever growing collection of t-shirts and other items’ of clothing with various designs and product ranges to choose from. I am particularly fond of the Queen of Hearts T-shirt.
I wanted something specific for me though so I contacted them and we discussed my options, and for an affordable design fee I came away with 4 designs, which will be put onto my own t-shirts, you can see some of the designs in my cafe press store and I will post pics of the finished t-shirts when they arrive.
You can find High Roller Clothing at http://www.highrollerclothing.com and they also have a Facebook page found here
Here is an update from them:
High Roller Clothing has teamed up with Humberto Brenes to bring you the Poker Shark t-shirt. The shirts will be available starting November 15, from our site and other poker retailers. One hundred percent of Humberto’s profits will go to his favorite charities, PRETOMA.ORG
- protecting the ocean’s resources and Costa Rica YMCA. …The Poker Shark t-shirt is custom screen printed on a 100% ultra-cotton t-shirt in amazing colors. The Shark Poker chip also will be included free with every shirt purchased. Thanks for the support and remember the shark is hungry. Pre-order your shirt today.
November 9th, 2009
Posted by
LuckyStraights |
LuckyStraights.com, Reviews |
2 comments
Several of my friends have moved home recently, two of them into much larger homes, with very nicely sized dinning rooms complete with tables which would make an ideal improvised poker table, so naturally we are all hoping that our rate of home games will increase dramatically over the next year or so. Hopefully it won’t just be me begging for a game to get started now that some of my friends have got settled out of student life.
The only downside was that we needed something to protect the table, I’ve looked at table top’s before but never really felt great about them, and the piece of cloth we have used in the past is now cut up for war hammer lol, so I hit up Google again to see whats available, and Boom! the Poker Fleece, only had to glance at the home page to know it would be perfect lol, I love it when that happens. Only worry was whether they ship Internationally, but they do that too, looks like I run good at online shopping lol 
I’ve got one on order now, I will update this page further when it arrives and hopefully post some pics of it in use, but until then here’s some details from the website.
The Poker Fleece is a roll out playing surface, with a thin rubber backing to ensure it stays fixed to your table, and a cloth top layer to provide a smooth surface for your cards and chips. It is currently only available in black, but handily comes in 2 different’ sizes, one for 6m and one for full ring which u can order as a set for $49. Another awesome thing is that there is a 60 day money back guarantee, and they ship to US & Canada and Europe.
My Poker Fleece arrived the other day, I think it was within two weeks from ordering, which is very good, I’m assuming it came from the US, though I could be wrong about that. I still haven’t gotten around to playing on it yet, though hopefully I will do soon, but I have taken some photo’s and can share my initial thoughts on it with you.
This first photo, shows how it will arrive on your doorstep. The Poker Fleece is packaged in a clear tube, as shown in the next photo, which was neatly wrapped up in brown packing paper. For some reason I assumed it would come in a box, but this makes much more sense lol.
Package as delivered
When you open the packaging this is what you will see. The Poker Fleece set inside a clear tube, you can clearly see the logo on the front, and it is very light and easily transportable. The tube is sealed with a plastic cap on each end fixed with compression from the tube, and they pop off fairly easily. Its a little more of a hassle getting them back on as the tube flexes a little, but not by much. The small Fleece is rolled up inside the larger one, and they slide out of the tube fairly easily. The only trouble I had was getting them back in, you just have to be careful to roll them up small enough to take care not to let them separate when you are trying to push them back into the tube, otherwise the ends can stick out, and you won’t get the caps on. Though they do stay pretty well in the case without the caps on.
Poker fleece inside its case
The photo bellow shows both the small and large Poker Fleece side by side, I have placed a regular DVD case in the middle to provide a scale. My initial thought was that they where smaller then I anticipated, but getting over that, they are a really good size for a table top cover actually, I think subconsciously I was picturing them compared to full sized poker tables lol. The smaller one reminds me of when I used to play other a coffee table with a piece of cloth, playing HU with friends, and it would be totally perfect for that, though on an adequately sized table you’ll easily get 4 round it with plenty, 6 might be a big of a stretch, but its hard to visualize without it being on a table, I’ll see how it goes when I get a game on it. Both of them had a sort of leather smell to them when I first rolled them out, and they have a nice texture.
Scale of poker fleece set
I can’t get a true feel for them until I get a game on them, but my first thoughts are that they are very good. Just laying them down on the hard wood floor, you can tell they are way better then any of those simple cloth table tops, which always move about and ruck up. Both mats stayed pretty firm on the floor once laid out, and the top surface was smooth and soft so I can’t imagine having any problems sliding cards or chips on top of them.
September 2nd, 2009
Posted by
LuckyStraights |
Home Poker, Reviews |
10 comments
I am very happy to report my RSA key fob arrived today from Poker Stars, I have just set it up and besides now worrying about forgetting my pin lol, it is a great relief to finally have it set up, hopefully I won’t feel compelled to check my account balance every time I log on just in case I got hacked whilst I slept anymore.
I would highly recommend that you invest in one of these, you can only buy them with fpp’s which is a bit of a pain and it took me a few weeks of heavy grinding to pick up the 6k required being a few tabler, but it shouldn’t take you that long if your grinding 25nl or higher and it is well worth it.
If you’ve never heard of this before, or you want to know how to set it up there is more information on the Poker Stars security page.
July 24th, 2009
Posted by
LuckyStraights |
Reviews, Uncategorized |
no comments
I have recently come to the end of the my “Leak Finder Service” with split suit and mpethybridgh from the 2+2 Micro FR forum and thought I’ll share my experiences with you.
Its something that I had been intending to undertake for several months and after completing 20k hands at 10nl, I decided to get it booked prior to moving up to 25nl. Prices range from $55 for stakes up to 25nl, $75 for 50nl and $95 for 100nl+, so it is very affordable regardless of what limit you play.
The process is split into two parts. The first is a thorough database analysis undertaken by mpethybridgh , I use PT3, but I believe HEM is also catered for. To begin with we hooked up using Team Viewer 4 and Skype, just as you would when doing a sweat , so that mpethy could see my database and let me know what filters to apply to isolate the required information. I believe the analysis took 2 hours and was very thorough, including a general stats checkup, how profitable I was in the blinds, win rates with specific hands and loads more. I was left with a very clear idea of what I can do to improve and it was very rewarding to have a clear indication on where to focus my energy in improving my game.
The second part of the service, was a one on one coaching session with Split , who after countless “technical problems” with skype and my internet connection displayed infinite patience with me. After the 3rd attempt of trying to navigate around my problems with the audio on skype we eventually managed some live discussion whilst I was at the tables, but with the audio still breaking up consistently we eventually accepted that it wasn’t going to work. There was however a plan b, so instead of the live session, I recorded a session the next day and uploaded it for “offline analysis”. This was my first real video I had created and I enjoyed the process, I will definitely by doing more in the future.
In summary, the Leak Finder service is a very enjoyable and rewarding experience that will almost certainly give you some return on your investment and with prices starting at $55, it is very much +EV.
Big thanks to split and mpethy!
June 12th, 2009
Posted by
LuckyStraights |
Reviews, cash games |
2 comments
After a video series recommendation during a thread on 2+2, I eventually directed my browser to the Deuces Cracked , DC site, and I was very excited with what I had found, the titles and brief descriptions where mouth watering on their very own lol.
I needed to get hold of some of this stuff. Thankfully, for those of us on a micro budget, DC offer a very generous 7 day free trial. In an odd way I think such a generous free trail is (unrestricted downloads) worse then a a more restricted one, because it forces the potential member to spend some time exploring the site and they are going to be more focused on comparing their offering to the competition, etc rather then just downloading as much content as they can.
I’ll confess I was firmly in the second camp, being on a very tight near no existent budget, I couldn’t afford not to grab what I can whilst I had the opportunity. I do feel a bit guilty though lol, hence the review.
I really like the layout of the site, the home page is very inviting and is easy to navigate via the menu system at the top of the page. Similar to Poker Savvy Plus, DC offers a wide selection of DRM free video’s, articles and a forum. All video’s are downloadable in an MPEG-4 format, with many also available for the Ipod. I haven’t done much beyond a test play with the video’s yet, so a review of certain video’s may appear later on, but the audio and video quality was exceptional in all that I tested.
Also similar to Poker Savvy Plus, you can view the video’s within the site (using Flash) or download them. I had one issue with the details page for each video, and also with the articles, where a “reply window” would float above the main page and forced me to scroll a lot to read the articles. I am told however that this a problem with my flash installation. Viewing the site from another computer was fine, so to get the best out of the site make sure you have the most current version of flash installed.
DC, also offer a podcast called DeucePlays with Bart Hanson, coaching (including several coaches / mods from 2+2) and rake back.
June 2nd, 2009
Posted by
LuckyStraights |
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Poker Savvy Plus is an instructional online poker video site, aimed at making you a more profitable player, sounds just what I need, so I’ve put together a bit of a review for you.
There is a host of information such as news and recent blog post titles on the main page, so you can quickly identify whats new, all of which is well laid, and helps you to quickly find out if there is any new content that you are interested in without you having to login, which is a nice feature.
After logging on you are redirected to your own “my account” page, with a news tab, links for referring friends and other account related options as well as a recently viewed items pane. Which I think is a really good idea, say for instance you watched a video on 6max a few day’s ago and after a few sessions you want to re-watch it for a recap, all you have to do is login and you can access it straight away without you having to search for that particular video.
There is a lot more to the site then simply coaching video’s though. As a member you get access to 5 new coaching video’s per week, a members only forum where you can interact with the pro’s, pro blogs and strategy articles, on topics such as thin value betting and re-raising from the blinds. You also get access to special members only promotions, including a monthly freeroll.
The video’s are obviously the meat of the deal however, so I’ll go into some more detail about the video side of the site.
When you navigate to the video page, you are presented with two views, an academy view with the following sub-headings; Featured Series, Staff Picks, Cash Games and Tournaments, you can also view the entire library via the “view by date” view.
The Video’s can by displayed within the web page, or can be maximized similar to You Tube. Underneath the video window, links are provided so you can download the video in either Windows Media (WMV) or iPod (MP4) format, and sometimes Quick Time format. There is also a link to the download FAQ, which offers some answers to common questions you may be wondering about, such as DRM (Digital Rights Management), where it says “We believe you should be able to watch videos on a plane, on your iPod, or any time you’re not online.”, which is another great point zero DRM downloads.
Unfortunately “for various reasons” not all video’s will be available for download, but the download FAQ explains that around 90% are expected to be made available for download. Trial members can download up to 3 video’s per week and paying members can download up to 30 videos’ per week, I think that is a very fair restriction.
A lot of the video’s are part of a topical series, with multiple video’s covering different sub-topics of the same area, such as how to adjust from 6max to full ring, etc, because of this nature of having collections of video’s, I think it would be useful to have a link where you could download a particular series or video collection in one step, rather then downloading each video individually. That is a very small quibble though, considering you can download most of the video’s without the hassles of DRM, and you can watch them all via the website as well.
Beneath the download links you are given a description of the series and a description of the particular video your are viewing, or have opened.
Being primarily interested in cash games, I have spent most of my time browsing this area of the site. Within the cash games section the video’s are further categorized under, full ring, heads-up 6 max, limit Hold ‘em and Omaha and mixed games.
One feature that may be missed by users is a search by title feature, this could be particularly useful if a user wishes to refer back to a video they haven’t downloaded or a new video was recommended to them by title. Though they are extensive filters to get around this, and recently watched video’s are displayed in your my account area so it certainly isn’t necessary, but as the video library catalog expands it may become more useful.
One feature that may be missed by users is a search by title feature, this could be particularly useful if a user wishes to refer back to a video they haven’t downloaded or a new video was recommended to them by title. Though they are extensive filters to get around this, and recently watched video’s are displayed in your my account area so it certainly isn’t necessary, but as the video library catalog expands it may become more useful.
Another small quibble is that there doesn’t appear to be a way to go from one video to a view of all of the video’s of that same series; for example I came across a 2 part, member submitted video by browsing the cash game section in the “view by date” view, I could see part 2 but not part 1. I was forced to search for all video’s by the author’s name and it was found easily enough after that, but if that author made rather a lot of video’s it would have been more of an annoyance. A simple and effective solution would be to provide a link back from each video to a view with all the video’s from that series.
The first video I tried was part 1 of a 3 part series called “10’s a Crowed” viewed within the website, where you are given the option of whether to continue streaming from the US which appears to be the default or to stream from Europe, I used the default on what I believe is a 2meg connection and had no problems. This video is an introduction to no limit full ring aimed at micro stakes players and beginners.
The first thing that stood out was the exceptional sound quality, it was very clear, you just couldn’t fault it, so too was the video quality.
As for the content, there were rather a lot of bullet points but they where all very clear, even for my strained eyes lol and any particularly important points where frequently highlighted by the author for added impact. The differences between full ring and 6m is continually reinforced as your are talked through basic opening ranges over view of a 10 max table.
I enjoyed the video, and felt it was a rewarding watch, it was easy to remain focused on the author’s points, the audio and video where clear and crisp and it was a great alternative to supplement other learning methods. I would highly recommend it to anyone new to Full Ring.
I also tried the same video in VLC after downloading it to my desktop, and experienced the same quality without any problems or delays with the download, I was very happy with it.
For a limited time you can sign up for a free 7 day trial, which I couldn’t recommend more, if you then decide its for you, you can pay via all the standard credit cards, paypal, money bookers, by using Savvy Points purchased from the Poker Savvy shop and even by player transfer from Full Tilt. You can sign up for either 3 months at $75, 6 months at $140 or a year for $250.
You can also get a 6 month or a 1 year membership by signing up to a poker room via Poker Savvy , in addition you can get free gifts by making additional sign-ups. More details can be found in the sign up FAQ.
In summary, I am really pleased with whats on offer at Poker Savvy Plus , the video’s I have seen are of exceptional sound and video quality and are all a really rewarding watch with well presented ideas and concepts.
January 9th, 2009
Posted by
LuckyStraights |
Reviews |
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Poke Prospector is a hand analysis tool from the creators of Poker Academy.
http://www.poker-academy.com
By importing your hand histories it allows you to analyze your game by providing you with various stats about how you play, as well as generating reports with specific information for either cash games or tournaments which you can use to highlight areas you are struggling with or particular weakness, such as being too passive, too aggressive, seeing too many flops, etc.
I can’t comment much on the stat and report side, as I don’t use that side of the software. What I do use it for is to record accurate details of my play, such as buy-in’s, session lengths, number of hands, stakes and profit and loss, and the big benefit is that I can then create graphs of my bankroll.I like the software, it is very easy to use and as an array of features that most users will find of benefit, it is also designed to work along side Poker Academy’s training application Poker Academy Pro, so if you don’t play online you can practice your game with Poker Academy Pro and then analyze your play with Poker Prospector which is a nice addition.
The downfalls I see with Poker Prospector is that it is no way near detailed enough on the bankroll management side, but no other offering I’ve seen comes close to what I am looking for either, so it actually does a fine job.
Here’s a few links you may find helpful :
Poker Academy Prospector is a Powerful Must-Have
Poker Academy Launches Poker Prospector
January 6th, 2008
Posted by
LuckyStraights |
Reviews |
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