Cougars4444 Interview with PokerSoftware

Date: 2011-07-25
Author: Paul Ellis

Deciding where you’re going to play online poker post-Black Friday can be a difficult choice.  The decision between playing live and depositing a small amount on a U.S.-friendly website has been one that American players have struggled with since April 15th.  We caught up with Tournament Poker Edge instructor Shaun “Cougars4444” Hendrickson to see what he’s been doing since the U.S.-facing sites shut down their Stateside operations.

PSW: Do you think that U.S. players should be depositing money on sites like Carbon Poker to run up a bankroll?

Cougars4444: With the current climate of things with the Department of Justice, it’s hard to recommend that any U.S. players deposit a lot of money onto any site, but recreationally, there is still a lot of money to be made.  It might not be the same as when things were going full swing, but there are some really profitable tournaments out there.

A lot of the games you’re seeing on sites like Bodog and Lock Poker have players who are making plays reminiscent of a few years ago.

PSW: Is it still possible to build an online bankroll on the operating U.S.-facing sites?

Cougars4444: Absolutely.  There are plenty of areas to increase your bankroll.  The MTTs tend not to get the same field sizes they used to get, so it’s tougher to get the big scores together to run up the bankroll faster.  And for the sit and gos, they just tend to take longer to fill up than you may be accustomed to.  But for players who want to play recreationally, there are some really excellent tournaments and ways to run up a bankroll.  Game selection is key and if you find the right games, you can definitely find spots to increase your roll.

PSW: What’s the biggest difference you see between the games today and the games pre-Black Friday?

Cougars4444: Mostly the volume of players.  There are a lot of players who are just afraid to put money online, and for good reason.  As a result, you’re not going to see a very large player pool at the higher stakes games anymore.  But for the games that are between $1 and $50, you still see a fair number of regulars as well as a lot of people who are just playing for fun.  It’s hard to recommend playing online tournament poker as a living if you’re a U.S. player any longer, but if you’re looking for recreational play, the games still exist.

PSW:  Your recent Tournament Poker Edge series on bankroll building on Bodog highlights some of those games.  What do you think players can take away from that?

Cougars4444: I shot that shortly after Black Friday and, honestly, most of the info in it still holds true.  The lower stakes MTTs and rebuy tournaments are great places to start looking if you want to build your bankroll quickly.  Even though the fields and prize pools are smaller, the tournaments often take less time to complete.  The biggest thing that players will take from it is the adjustments that need to be made in order to play those games profitably.  If you’re a regular at those stakes on the other sites, the games will operate differently.

PSW: Do you think that the videos available on TPE translate to the games that are being played at brick-and-mortar casinos?

Cougars4444: There is a lot that you can take from TPE to the casinos.  You’ll need to learn to adapt to things like being able to get a range from a live player that is completely different than that of an online player, but the basic principles you’ll find remain the same.  Sure, you’re going to have less volume playing live than online, where you can multi-table and get so many more hands in, but if you’re taking the lessons and applying them to your game, you’ll notice that they still hold true.

The variance will tend to be higher playing live because you can’t log the volume you can online, but there are ways to combat that.  Don’t be too surprised to see a series of videos on Tournament Poker Edge on the ways to apply the lessons from TPE into the live game sometime in the near future.

Check out our Tournament Poker Edge review today.


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