Discuss poker this week with vonki

Find out how you can climb the stakes faster with vonki and win extra by discussing hands in this weeks Summer Challenge

You're a familiar face in the community, do you remember your first hands played online? How did it go in the beginning?

Way before I even knew about PokerStrategy.com or that you could play profitably for real money I used to play with play money on partypoker. It wasn’t until a friend of mine told me that her boyfriend had won money two weekends in a row that I got into real money games myself! I mean I had done well with my play money chips, so winning at the real money tables would be just as easy, right? Wrong.

I lost a few deposits of $20 because I was playing with a one buy-in BRM and had no idea what I was doing. Fortunately for me, another friend of mine was a long time member here at PokerStrategy.com and he helped me get a free starting capital, showed me all the learning material and started teaching me how to play profitably.

You are now streaming the Summer Challenge live on Twitch - how important is the fun factor for you in Poker?

The fun factor is definitely one of the most important to me! When you have fun the time flies, and it gets easier to put in more hours! Twitch is a great way to add a social factor, which increases the fun as well. I’m a very social person and Twitch allows me to communicate live with the viewers, so I’m really enjoying it so far!

Who is your poker idol and why?

I’ve always looked up to Vanessa Selbst. She is just insanely smart and surely has had to work really hard to achieve all that she has. She also really seems like a down to earth and friendly person!

How to get out of the microstakes

You're our expert for the microstakes - what three mistakes do people do most often?

• Lack of patience: One thing that I see often is that players switch formats when they don’t get the instant results that they’d expected. Patience is a necessity and expecting too much too soon will often lead you in the wrong direction.
• Wrong use of stats: Another very common thing I see is that stats are used incorrectly. Stats can definitely help you understand your opponent, but they can also deceive you. I often see players make plays based on samples that are too small to matter. Another typical mistake is to look at for example an opponents WTSD (went to showdown) and justify a river call based on that alone, whilst overlooking the fact that the opponent is very nitty pre flop. I find population reads more reliable than stats in these instances.
• Overplaying overpairs: The biggest and most common mistake I see is without a doubt is calling overpairs and top pairs vs reraises post flop, particularly on the turn or river. We expect to make a profit with these hands and folding them seems a hard thing to do. But folding when opponents signal even stronger holdings by reraising you can do miracles for your win rate. If you are still in doubt, just ask yourself how often YOU bluffraise the turn or river against other people! If you don’t, how can you expect others to?

...And your three tips to make the best out of the micros?

• Play the format you like the most. Just make sure it doesn’t tilt you too often! Because in the end, no matter what format we play, it usually turns out that winning makes the most fun of all!
• Prioritise quality over quantity! We’ve all had that moment where we thought we could triple our volume and by doing so triple our winnings, only to fail miserably. I’d always prefer to play one hour with a profit over playing three hours breaking even (or worse) because I took it too far.
• We often realise too late that we are in our C-game and end up making costly mistakes towards the ends of our sessions. So my third tip is to implement frequent breaks and to cut down your playing time! Spend those extra hours reviewing your game or study some more theory instead!

Thanks very much vonki, good luck in week two!

Join the Summer Challenge

It's week two of our quest to get your poker improved while the rest of the field is taking a break. Join vonki who throughout July will be taking on The Summer Challenge!

Each week we will be issuing you with a special Summer Challenge. You will earn a raffle ticket for every challenge you complete, which could get you the following prizes:

1. $100
2. $50
3. One Month Status Upgrade

It's not to late to start because the winner will be determined by a raffle. The remaining challenges will be as follows:

• Week 2: Sharpen your game - post five of your hands for discussion and help other users by replying to five of their hands
• Week 3: Become a range-guru - go through a training with our Equilab software

For moral support, guidance and entertainment, vonki will be doing the challenges too, and streaming live on Twitch on Mondays, Thursdays and Fridays. 

All the details, including how to enter and complete the challenges, can be found in this thread. 

Finally, make sure to subscribe to our Twitch channel, so you never miss one of these free webinars again. 

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