Stake Jeff

I've actually been on holidays all week. Needless to say I spent a good deal of it playing poker. Online mostly. Tomorrow I intend to play live at Cascades Casino in the earlybird tournament.

Come see me there.

Until I have some content, I leave you with this.



See you at the tables.

As a sidenote, in my ongoing scouring of the internet for various resources available for improving my game, I have come across a great option.

For free.

It's at Truly Free Poker Training. And it's quite simple. Cardrunners, in tandem with Full Tilt Poker, are giving free access to the Cardrunners site on a month by month basis.

The promotion is simple. First, sign up for a Full Tilt Poker account and make your first deposit. You can do so by clicking the banner below:


Play Online Poker

Second, click on to Truly Free Poker Training. Click through to either create a new Cardrunners account or link to your current account.

Third, just earn 5,500 Full Tilt Points on a month to get a free month of membership. These points required will not be deducted from your Full Tilt Poker account, nor will there be any effect to implemented rakeback or similar programs. Partial monthly memberships are also available, in quarter (weekly) increments. See the Truly Free Training site for full details.

Good luck and see you at the tables.

In the last few days, the real world seems to have reared it's ugly head. I haven't even played any online poker between Thursday to Saturday. Yes, I have a day job. And yes, trying to build a bankroll from near scratch while having so much time committed elsewhere is definitely a challenge. Luckily, online poker is so vast in terms of games being played, your next hand can be in a minute, hour, day, or week. It doesn't matter, just log in and go.

I did finally have a chance to try 888poker.com, and I actually had a reasonably enjoyable experience. Despite playing in a flash window (there is no Mac specific software) and a really annoying time buzzer, I did actually find that the players on their site seemed to take the game a little more seriously, which I find leads to a more advanced style of play. My major recommendation to players, particularly Mac users, would be to NOT multitask while playing, as I found multiple windows along with 888's flash based, maximized window can be quite tedious.

Still, with my $50 free bankroll from PokerStrategy.com, I was able to make a little over $2.00 from a two hour cash game. I'm happy enough with 888 to keep playing. And I've devised a bit of a plan.

For the better part of the last two months, I've been trying to get some progressive growth from my Full Tilt account. I had been following a rudimentary but effective Sit N Go strategy on Full Tilt, but in the last couple of weeks hit a wall. So, I did change the gears to try and shake things up and shake me out of whatever funk and bad luck spell I felt I had been in. I started playing the deep stack, $1.00 + $0.10 buy in, 90 player Sit and Go MTT. And I've managed some decent, short term success with my results.

Furthermore, as I am in the process of looking for potential backers, it's good to have some proof of my skills available for all interested. Officialpokerrankings.com is usually regarded as the standard for tracking online poker players. But this year they have chosen to disregard tournaments with fewer than 30 players. Like all those 1 seat Sit N Go's I had been playing.

As such, I am following this guideline for my short term online poker endeavours.

A minimum of one hour cash games on 888poker.com, in an effort to track and build some bankroll there. In addition, I will do my best to play the aforementioned $1.00 + $0.20 on Full Tilt daily to give a better spread of tournament results to potential backers.

Stay tuned for my overall progress, as I will document it on this site.

See you at the tables.

The last few nights online playing poker have felt really rough. To avoid a tumultuous explaination, I've been seeing a lot of bad beats. I don't feel I really misplayed hands, more that the cards just don't seem to be in my favour.

Normally I switch the type of game I'm playing. I'll go from sit and go tables to cash tables (or vice versa). Tonight I intend to do something different.

I'm going to play in a new poker room. 888poker.com to be precise. As a poker player striving hard to turn pro, I'm scouring the internet, libraries, bookstores, cardrooms and the like for more resources to improve my game. Soon I came across PokerStrategy.com. Not only is there a wealth of articles on their database, I saw something very new, very fresh. The site owner is staking anyone who can pass their short poker strategy test. Yup, if you can read a few sections, on their site, and then pass a test (which you can cheat by opening multiple windows, by the way) they will make your initial deposit.

Based on which sites I already have accounts, 888poker.com was my best fit from the list. I am also somewhat limited as some poker sites do not support Mac.

Essentially, PokerStrategy.com is providing the stake from a portion of their referral fee. So starting tonight, I will be bankroll building with my new found money on 888poker.com.

Want to try the same? Click through the banner to start your cash poker journey.

Welcome to the official blog of staking me, Jeff Vickers, into premier poker tournaments, most notably the World Series of Poker. As both a poker player and filmmaker with an entrepreneurial spirit, I have NOT put up this blog looking for a handout. I am looking for backers. People willing to invest in me, looking for serious returns.

I am choosing to be staked for a few reasons.

First, I regard poker first and foremost a business. A business that is very fun and exciting, yes, but a business none the less. Many notable pros do advocate a strategy of playing with no more than 5% of your bankroll for a cash game buy-in, and no more than 2% of your bankroll for a tournament buy-in. Applying that model to WSOP tourneys, to buy in for the Main Event, for $10,000, I would need a minimum bankroll of $500,000 to justifiably enter. I have been progressively, yet slowly, building my bankroll, almost exclusively on Full Tilt Poker, and will one day build the bankroll to that amount. I just don't want to wait several more years.

As such, and thinking in an entrepreneurial manner, most business are built with the help of investors. Most entrepreneurs start fresh with ideas, short on cash. I myself am much the same. Joe Cada, last year's WSOP Main Event Champion, was staked, and with his backers split $8.5 million. Peter Eastgate, Jerry Yang and Chris Moneymaker made it into the tournament through qualifying satellites, leveraging a much smaller buy-in into a gigantic payoff. I am pro-actively playing through online satellites, but considering that Full Tilt Poker's Main Event satellite (yes, the one that puts you through to the Main Event, not a satellite to said tourney) required me to outlast 31984 entrants, I definitely need some luck on my side to push through.

So it boils down to either waiting out the methodical bankroll building process, or using leverage. As business uses the economic equivalent of this mechanical principle, so shall I. Leveraging, in a poker sense, allows one to play in tournaments beyond their normal means, and share in jackpots (if successful).

And I do intend to share. Which brings me to the penultimate purpose of all of this. Looking at poker as a business, there's another end. There is the business model of investment and ROI. The dollars and cents of the poker game. But the other side is far more obvious, once you consider it. Branding, marketing, promotion. Consider probably my favourite player to watch, Daniel Negreanu. Aside from my personal bias as Dan is Canadian, I think of all the poker players around he's branded himself the best. By far. Many people I know who are far from fans or players of poker almost instantly recognize him. His table demeanor is fun, positive, and very conducive to TV. He has a fan base.

Now for myself, I am not looking for a fan club. I am not involved in the game of poker just to make some quick cash and walk away. My interest in poker and earning a living playing the game comes from my desire to be paid to do what I love. I have played poker and many other card games literally ALL MY LIFE. And I hope to share my love and interest in the game with an intrinsic few who genuinely share my passion and are willing to invest in me.

My hope is to foster these relationships I will soon develop into lifelong business partnerships.

If you're ready, come and Stake Jeff!