PKR Small Stake Championships

PKR’s Small Stake Championships tournament series has begun today.  The tournament series has 14 events each of which have buy-ins below $8.  This tournament series is one of the only small stake tournament series’ you can find and it gives small stakes players the chance to participate in a fun tournament series with a leaderboard and a tournament of champions.

The winners of all 14 events and the top 6 leaderboard finishers will compete in a 20 player winner take all tournament that will award a PKR major package that gives seats to many of PKR’s biggest online poker tournaments.  The Championships will also have a $2K freeroll tournament for all participants.  Every event you participate in earns you 250 chips in the $2K freeroll, so the more Small Stake Championship tournaments you play the greater your chances of cashing the freeroll.

This is another way PKR is trying to become more attractive to small stake players.  PKR has recently added a new PKR online poker bonus option where players can earn 100% matching on their first deposit for any deposit between $10 and $800.  PKR has also added micro stake beginner tables where only players who deposited within the last 30 days can play.  Use PKR bonus code NEWBONUS to receive the 100% matching bonus up to $800 on your first deposit.

The Durrrr Challenge Gets Very Tight after a couple of short sessions

Durrrr and Patrik Antonius played 2 short sessions over the weekend with very different results.  In the first session Patrik dominated Dwan finishing the session up $161K and pulling into the lead with a $107K advantage over Dwan.  The next session was the complete opposite with Dwan coming up on top by $123K and pulled back into the overall lead by just $15K.  The two have now played a total of 5928 hands.  It looks promising that the challenge is still going and the two are still meeting for sessions, but with 44000 hands yet to be played and the sessions seeming to get further and further apart, we can only hope that the challenge is completed in the next few months.

5 Tips to Beating Double or Nothing Sit and Go’s

Double or nothing sit and go’s are tournaments where half of the entrants double their money and half of the entrants lose.  For example if you play in a 10 player $10 buy-in double or nothing tournament, the top 5 finishers would win $20 and the bottom 5 would leave with nothing.  Needless to say this unique payout structure requires you to make some changes to your game in order to have the best chance of winning.

Tip #1 – Play very tight for the first few levels.

For the first few levels you want to play very tight and only play your premium hands.  Playing tight will allow you to preserve your stack for the later stages and will also give your opponents time to take each other out.  You should try not to risk chips in this stage and only play pots when you think you are ahead.

Tip #2 – Try not to call in the middle to late stages

It is important to try to maintain your stack through the middle and late stages when the blinds start to get bigger.  To do this you should raise your premium hands or even your moderate hands in good situations and hopefully take down some blinds.  One thing you should not do in these stages is call raises.  You should be pushing all-in or folding to most raises at this stage.  Once the blinds get bigger it’s not worth risking a tenth or so of your stack to see the flop because those chips may be the difference between doubling up and bubbling out.

Tip #3 – Try to get your chips in when you’re ahead

In double or nothing sit and go’s coin flips are not beneficial to your cause, especially in the early stages.  The amount of chips that you might win is not worth the amount of chips you could just as easily lose.  This is because you can only win a maximum of double your buy-in, so the added value of a double up doesn’t equal the 50% chance of losing your entire stack, because even if you double up you aren’t guaranteed to cash.

Sign up to Juicy Stakes now and play Double or Nothing sit and go’s.

Tip #4 – Play tight at the bubble

In order to make the top half of the field you should stay tight at the bubble.  In double or nothing sit and go’s there are more players at the bubble than in normal tournaments, which decreases your chances of being the bubble boy.  For this reason it is smart to just play super tight and hope that another player busts.  Fifth place pays the same as first, so there is no reason to risk being eliminated in 6^th to take the chip lead.

Tip #5 – Survive with smart all-in moves late

If you are getting short stacked at the bubble you should try to move in from good positions to steal blinds and survive in the tournament.  You should go after the middle stacks who have enough chips that they feel they can survive until the cash, but have few enough that they are worried about you doubling through them.

 

The majority of the profit that can be made from double or nothing sit and go’s comes from the few wild players who do not understand the structure.  The players who will be the most profitable are those who are able to adjust their games through the various stages of the double or nothing sit and go.

The Durrrr Challenge is back and Antonius pulls closer to Durrrr

The Durrrr Challenge finally had it’s sixth session after a long lull.  This session lasted for almost 3 hours and 914 hands were played.  After it was all said and done, Antonius was up a little over $87K for the day, which brings him back to within $53,640 of Tom ‘Durrrr’ Dwan.  Hopefully the challenge will continue and regain the hype that it had at the beginning before the long break.  The battle is as close as it has ever been and it will be fun to watch the next 45,000 hands play out.

Full Tilt Poker Fight Train

Full Tilt has joined forces with UFC and is bringing 10 lucky winners to UFC 97 Redemption.  All of the winners join Full Tilt pro’s Howard Lederer, Erick Lindgren, Gavin Smith and Perry Friedman on the Full Tilt Fight train from Toronto to Montreal on Feb 17^th.  The main fight of the evening will feature Anderson Silva defending his middleweight title against the challenger, Thales Leites.  The other feature match of the evening will be UFC legend, Chuck Lidell vs Mauricio Rua.

The ten winners will also be attending two UFC-themed parties and will be able to meet the fighters and chill with the UFC ring girls.  This package is a must have for any MMA fan and it can be yours from Full Tilt today.  Full Tilt will be running three Fight Train Freerolls daily, with the top 18 finishers in each advancing to the Fight Train Weekly Final each Sunday until Feb 12^th.  The top 2 finishers in each weekly final win the prize packages, which include tickets to the fight, a ride on the Fight Train and 2 nights’ accommodation in Montreal, all for you and a guest.

Online Poker Tells

In online poker you don’t have as much information as in live poker to determine whether your opponent has a strong hand, but there are still some things you can look for when it is your opponents turn to act.

• In general if a player thinks for a while and then decides to raise he is not bluffing.  The player likely thinks they have the best hand and they were deciding how much you would call.
• In limit poker a quick raise preflop will usually mean the player has top pair.
• In limit poker a quick call with two flush cards on the flop will usually mean a draw.
• If a player raises very quickly it will generally mean they are either bluffing or have only a moderate hand.

There are many other tells that are unique to individual players that usually have to do with the amount the player bets or the time it takes the player to act.  If you can watch these two things and find some tendencies of certain players you should be able to beat them consistently.

Get rakeback now and test out some of these online poker tells yourself.

Huck Seed defeats Rousso in NBC Heads Up Finals

Huckleberry Seed was able to string together 7 heads up victories in a row and came out on top in this yeas NBC Heads up Championship.  Seed had to defeat Little, Gus Hansen, Chorny, Oppenheim and Farha before playing Vanessa Rousso in the finals.  Seed was able to beat the surprising finalist Vanessa in two straight matches.  This is just another win that Seed can add to his already very nice resume.  The episodes will air on NBC later in the year.  There were some good matches including a rematch between Phil Helmuth and Tom Dwan, where Hellmuth was able to get his revenge.

The episodes will be exciting and I am looking forward to watching some.

PKR’s Springfest 2026 Poker Series

PKR is holding their Springfest 2026 in a few days and it looks as though it will be an exciting event series.  There is over $350,000 in guaranteed prize pools to be won, as well as a tournament of champion’s tournament to win a WSOP main event seat and a $10K freeroll for everyone who participated in at least one Springfest tournament.

Sign up for PKR Rakeback Now and receive 30% rakeback on all buy-in fees from PKR Springfest 2026.

Here is the schedule for PKR Springfest 2026:

Feb 14^th – $12,500 guaranteed no limit hold’em rebuy with a $12 buy-in
Feb 15^th – $15,000 guaranteed springfest classic no limit hold’em with a $65 buy-in
Feb 16^th – $10,000 guaranteed 6-handed no limit hold’em with a $20 buy-in
Feb 17^th – $5,000 guaranteed pot limit Omaha with a $20 buy-in
Feb 18^th – $15,000 guaranteed with $600 added Deep stack bounty tournament with a $25 buy-in
Feb 19^th – $7,500 guaranteed 6-handed rebuy with a $8 buy-in
Feb 20^th – $10,000 guaranteed terminator bounty tournament with a $20 buy-in
Feb 21^st – $12,500 guaranteed 6-handed deep stack with a $30 buy-in
Feb 22^nd – $30,000 guaranteed no limit hold’em with a $100 buy-in
Feb 23^rd – $12,500 guaranteed pot limit hold’em with a $30 buy-in
Feb 24^th – $3,000 guaranteed pot limit Omaha rebuy with a $6 buy-in
Feb 25^th – $15,000 guaranteed with $600 added second chance bounty tournament with a $20 buy-in
Feb 26^th – $5,000 guaranteed limit hold’em with a $15 buy-in
Feb 27^th – $7,500 guaranteed heads up terminator two with a $20 buy-in
Feb 28^th – $100,000 guaranteed deep stack with a $250 buy-in
Feb 29^th – $50,000 guaranteed no limit hold’em with a $65 buy-in

The tournament of champions will be held after the series is complete on Feb 5^th.  The winners of all 16 events, as well as the top 4 PKR Springfest leaderboard finishers will compete in a winner take all tournament for a seat in the WSOP main event.  The $10K freeroll will also take place on the same day and each player will start with 250 chips for each Springfest 2026 tournament that they participated in.  For example if you played 4 series events you will start with 1000 in chips.

Make sure to use a PKR bonus code when you download PKR to ensure that you receive your initial deposit bonus.

3 Tips to Help You Beat Bounty Tournaments

Bounty tournaments are the same as regular tournaments, except for the fact that part of every players buy-in becomes a bounty on their head.  If you knock someone out of the tournament you receive their bounty and the same thing goes that the person who knocks you out of the tournament gets your bounty.  Of course if everything goes perfectly and you win the tournament, you get your own bounty back.

The majority of bounty tournaments have half of your buy-in go to the prize pool and half become the bounty, but this can be different at different rooms.  For example at Carbon Poker half of the buy-in becomes the bounty, whereas at Cake Poker 1/3 is the bounty and at PKR it starts off as half of the buy-in, but when you knock someone out you only win part of their bounty and part of it is added to yours.  Regardless of what structure the bounty tournament is, there are a few changes you should make to your strategy in order to increase your profits in these tournaments.

1. Knock out the very short stacks and win their bounties

When a player has very few chips it’s the perfect time to try to win their bounty without risking many of your chips.  If the short stack player goes all in from early position or is forced all-in from the blinds his bounty is up for grabs.  If you find yourself in the best position of having a strong hand when this happens you should try to isolate the short stack so that you are the only player with a chance at his bounty.  You do this by raising the pot fairly high so it is not worth it to others to play the hand unless they actually do have a strong hand as well.  You do not want players to get a free or cheap look and end up out drawing you and winning the bounty money.  You should probably try to isolate if you have a big pair or a big ace, as long as you don’t put yourself in too much danger.  A raise of maybe 5 or 6 times the big blind should be enough to keep the borderline hands out of the pot.  You don’t need to push all-in over the top and risk your stack.

If you are in the more common position of having about an average hand when the short stack is all-in you should do your best to see a flop and try to hit something.  If you have to call a raise you should take the bounty amount into account when calculating your pot odds.  This means you should call a slightly higher raise than you normally would in order to try to hit something on the flop and take down the pot and the bounty.  It is also important to remember that players will not be checking it down when there is a bounty in play, so just because someone bets after the flop doesn’t necessarily mean they have something good in this situation.

2. Double up through the big stacks

If you end up being short stacked bounty tournaments allow you a better opportunity to double up and get back into the tournament.  Since players are looking to collect your bounty they will be much more likely to call your all-in bet with a worse hand than they would in a normal tournament.  You should use this fact to your advantage by playing tight when you have the short stack and only pushing with very strong hands.  You can even start pushing a little earlier than in most tournaments; around the 15 big blind range would be a good spot to start pushing with premium hands.  Once you drop below 10 big blinds you should of course look for more opportunities to push and this may mean you have to push with a less than premium hand.  It’s just important to remember that you are more likely to be called when you push all-in in a bounty tournament and if you use this to your advantage you can move from short stack back up to average very easily.

3. Don’t go out of your way to win a bounty

Bounties are nice to win, but a first place cut from the prize pool is much larger than anybody’s bounty.  Your main goal in bounty tournaments should still be to win the tournament.  It is good to try for bounties when the opportunity presents itself, but you shouldn’t go out of your way, risking too many chips to win your bounty.  You should play the tournament similar to how you normally would play a tournament, with just the two minor adjustments listed above.

Vanessa Rousso Signs on With godaddy

PokerStars poker professional Vanessa Rousso has just signed on as a sponsor for godaddy.  GoDaddy who has also recently signed race car driver Danika Patrick said that “Vanessa is smart, she's aggressive and she's hot [and] she's competing successfully in what has been a man's sport. She is definitely Go Daddy material.”  Vanessa has a lot of supporters as well as a lot of haters in the poker world, but she is definitely capitalizing on her new found fame.

She may not be the best poker player around, but if she keeps finding deals like this, she will have a huge bankroll for poker even if she keeps losing online.

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