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Olympian Casino Bonus Codes No Longer Working

Hey Tilt Monkeys!
We are no longer promoting or supporting Olympian Casino.
We had some great deals worked out with Jason Griffin of Olympian Casino for all our members, but after endless delays, broken promises, buggy software, poor customer service, and cashout problems, we have no choice but to walk away.
We wish them and Jason Griffin the best of luck.

Events coming up:
Saturday: Headsup Championship 2 seats open
Sunday $15 Rebuy Tournament
Monday Horse Leagues!
Local Tampa Poker Leagues

What is a Tilt Monkey?

Urban Dictionary Lists a Tilt Monkey as so.

1. monkey tilt

Used most often used at the poker table, or in reference to a poker game.

An extreme form of tilt, often caused by a series of bad beats, excessive table banter from donkeys, or otherwise *bleep*-ass luck in a poker game. The player experiencing monkey tilt may experience one or more of the following syptoms: 1) complete and utter disregard for money (in fact, other players may even claim that the player in question "hates money") 2) frequent bluffs and all-in moves before the flop in a no-limit hold-em game 3) calling bets with complete disregard for the cards or the odds being offered 4) jumping up and down screaming "oooh oooh aah ahh" while shoving a banana down your own throa, (Also frequently known as somebody that frequents this site, plays surprisingly well and is a tampa poker player!)

Homeboy makes good

I'm pleased to announce the creation of the Tiltmonkey Poker library.

Here are the blinds structures from Silk's Card Room (Tampa Bay Down Horse Racing Tracks):

Here is the blinds structure from Lucky's Mega Deep Stack tourneys at the Tampa Greyhound Track:

Here are the standard blinds structures that Hard Rock in Tampa uses for their MTTs:

Here is the standard blinds structure that Derby Lane In St. Petersburg uses for their MTTs:

Local Tampa Bay Area Casino Tournament Schedules

Stages Of A TAG

Three Simple Things An Average Small Stakes Live Game Regular Can Try To Make More Money

How to win a Sit & Go Poker Tournament

I’m going to let you all in on my secret on how I win, that’s right, here it is, if you want to win a “sit n go” you need to remember my mantra..

“LET THE IDIOTS KNOCK THEMSELVES OUT!”

That’s it, I’m serious, sng’s aren’t about outplaying everybody every durn hand, it’s about survival and table image, I play solid starting hands and I play them hard. If by the 3rd round you’ve voluntarily entered over 20% of the pots, your playing too loose PERIOD. Any hand that’s worth playing in an unraised pot, is worth raising in an unraised pot, if you cant raise with that mediocre crap, don’t play it. If I ever come into a hand not raising, there’s a good reason for it, I’ve got a crap hand but one that’s priced into a call in the blind because of the 7-1 or 5-1 odds I’m getting, that’s when I’ll play a 7-9 os or something like that, or when I’m disguising the strength of my hand because I got a lag I’m targeting in position, the rest of the time, I’m putting in 3-4x the blind raises and I’m showing quality hands. I know what your thinking, Wow, that’s so weak man, I’d walk all over you in your blind, yep you might, but I’m willing to bet your going to bust yourself in the process, because when I do go into a pot with you, your probably not going to like how it ends up, because if I’m seeing a river card, I’m probably already ahead in the hand or priced into an easy call on the turn to make a monster. I play tight, I play aggressive and I fold. That’s the key. I have more credibility than you, so I can steal more than you can, I’m more patient than you, so I will often be around longer giving myself a chance to get lucky, and when I do start pushing the table around, it’s because the table is begging me too, I love the bubble, because while everyone else is worrying about busting out of the money, this is when I start cementing first place by opening up and stealing pots, (remember I’m the guy that’s been showing quality hands the entire game, so when I raise in the later rounds, people notice and tend to give me more credit than my cards may truly deserve) and once I accumulate chips in 4th, I’m arming myself to go to the next level, while everyone else is concerned about surviving I’m nibbling away at the blinds and picking up lots of chips that I’ll need to keep pushing later on. Now that said, you have to be selective aggressive and you can’t just keep hammering on the same guy, even slow people tend to notice this after a while. Yes, you have to go after the sheep, and the easy money, but you also have to remember we are representing strong hands and we are going to get them equally, in other words, nibble away at all of them, just not the weakest one that always lets you do it, some people might find this weird, but I don’t want to bust that 4th guy out, I want him to stay in as long as he can, and keep my other 3 opponents chips stacks about equal, because the longer everyone is playing to avoid going busted, my lead will increase, which means when the 4th guy finally does gets out, people will go nuts because they are all short stacked, and they’ll start pushing with any cards with a point value of 20, any Ace, any Suited King. I want to be ready for this with lots of chips so I can afford to make a slip and double somebody up and still have a nice chip lead. I want you to play like a rock in the beginning and a shark in the end. If you’re going to make a bet that involves close to half your stack with more betting rounds to come, say 4th street, you should just go ahead and push; it’s all going in anyway since you’re now pot committed that raise might be just the edge you needed to win the pot uncontested. Trying to blind yourself into the money is almost always a sure fire way of not getting there.

That’s it.

To summarize, Play top 20 hands only until its 4 handed and as a rule come in raising, do not call big raises unless you’ve got a big hand, then you probably should just push if you have a big bet in front of you. Open up just slightly as the table shrinks, but just slightly, stay aggressive, DO NOT GET CAUGHT BLUFFING EARLY, (I think bluffing early is probably one of the biggest if not the biggest mistake most players make in a sng) Unless your going to quit bluffing at all and just capitalize off of it by getting paid off with your nut hands later, good luck with that, because I've actually won a tournament and the best hand I had the whole tournament was a pair of nines. So your much better off just playing solid and picking up blinds here and there.

When the table tightens up, you loosen up and capitalize off your table image, not huge all in’s, just standard 3x the blind raising, if you get action, make your standard continuation bet, (around ½ the pot) if that bet get’s called, you slow down and quit the hand unless you improve with a good draw or big pair. You want to be selective aggressive, if you feel the table opening up, you need to gear it down and play slightly tighter and pick a solid hand and go with it. Scared money rarely wins. Get in there and take over that table when it gets to 4 or 5 handed, and make everyone else play for 2nd. The key here is SELECTIVE AGGRESSION, you can’t steal every blind, and if you try, you’ll be the bubble boy.

That’s how I win an online SitNG. Live SNG’s are another similar but not quite so mechanical, so I play them somewhat differently. You can play a little more poker now, as you have much more information to work with about your opponents as you can now pick out the lags and fish and isolate them. In other words you open up quite a bit, and play a just slightly more passive pre flop in position and see if you can turn a big hand cheap. Oh yea, and when you have a big hand, out of position. Try to end the hand right there unless you’ve got AA or KK. Then proceed from there. Always re-raise at least a pot size bet pre flop out of position with big hands like AK or JJ to try to end it right there, unless your in there with a rock that wouldn’t enter the pot unless they had a top 5 hand.
I wont get into Squeeze plays, re-squeeze, re-steals, etc. fold equity, ICM, etc. Just play tight and be aggresive, the payout structure absolutely demands it. For more resources on playing tourneys, sign up for our forum, we have an entire topic area dedicated to tournament strategy along with great resources to help your game.

Caveat: This is a gross oversimplification of what goes on in my mind during most games, but usually at the lower stakes, all this over thinking is not neccesary, you can do well in most of the smaller games by just playing solid and not do anything silly like trying to bluff the fish. I hope to see you at one of our local home games soon if you are a tampa poker player or anywhere in the bay area!
Cash Games are much different than Tourney Games and in my opinion cash poker games are more complicated. In tournaments, many of your decisions can be based on math based scenarios versus probably hand ranges vs your opponent, this is often called Independent Chip Modeling and Basically comes down to stack sizes and projected players ranges in shoving/calling situations.

Tampa Poker Players Take Note! We have a New Orleans Update

Got Holes?

I was thinking of some common mistakes we all make and thought I’d share em.
The biggest holes I see in peoples game is cold calling raises with marginal hands at a full table, ESPECIALLY OUT OF POSITION, (Usually this means the blinds) KJ looks pretty, but your behind A2s, worse than that, your probably dominated with AK-AJ in these situations, you might hit your hand and go broke.

Another big hole and one the Doyle mentioned in an interview in the 2005 WSOP is too many people ignoring the guy raising from UTG, if someone comes in to a pot UTG for a raise, he’s announcing, I’ve got a hand, and I don’t care that 9 people are behind me, ignoring this information is a major downfall for the average player. You should familiarize yourself with Sklansky’s gap concept, which simply is, you need a bigger hand to call a raise from that position than you would need to make that raise yourself. An example, if you would make this same play UTG with AK AQ AA KK QQ JJ and some other solid player does it, you probably should only call with AA AKs KK and even then you should Re-Raise with AA KK. You should probably just call with QQ JJ AK (debateable); You have to fold these hands like AT AJ KQ 88 TT, etc unless stacks are huge and your deep. I know this sounds overly tight, but unless you know your opponent is capable of betting KJ utg like its AA you have to assume he’s not a total idiot until proven otherwise, lets stick around a find out, and how you do that is folding marginal hand when there’s big raises out in early position, but especially if it’s already been called by another player in front of you.

A couple of not so hard and fast poker rules I try to live by, but break regularly, depending on the players involved and the situation.

1. Never draw to straight when there’s a flush out on the flop UNLESS it’s heads up and then proceed cautiously.

2. Don’t go broke in an unraised pot, if 5 people limp in and you catch top pair or maybe even two bottom pair and someone pushes, you probably should fold it, you’ve got a minimal amount invested in this pot. Chances are you are up against a set already or maybe even drawing dead if the flop is coordinated in way that he could flop a straight or flush. I’m not saying play scared, just be cautious, if a loose maniac does it and you’ve got 2 pair, you probably SHOULD call his all in, and especially if you’ve got him well covered. But if your playing against a guy that’s not been very active and he’s done a lot of preflop folding, he’s a conservative player, and you damn well better respect his bet when he makes a move like that. You may be wrong, you may be right, but pick a better spot. Your tournament life depends on it. Remember, being aggressive is NOT CALLING RAISES. It’s making them, if you’re willing to call a bet out of position, then you should bet it yourself, as this gives you an additional way to win, because you are putting pressure on your opponents, he may be betting simply because you checked. Now on the other hand, if your opponent is a known bluffer you can make a play on him by checking, letting him bet and you come over the top of him and push him off the hand with anything.

3. Don’t slow play top pair when your heads up... I've learned this the hard way. You’re in the lead, charge em to run you down, the exception to this is if your headsup with a maniac, then you should definately check to him and let him bet for you.

4. Don’t play a set (3 of a kind with a pair in your hand) slow in a multiway pot, UNLESS there are NO draws out, this means no 3 cards that are one away from making a straight, or 2 of a suite, and I like this check better if I know I have an aggressive player behind me or better yet a couple of them. I hate being out of position when I catch a big hand because I almost never win as big a pot as I would if I was in position. Don’t get cute and check the river if your first to act unless you feel certain your opponent will try to bluff at the pot, and even then, its something you dont want to make a habit off.

5. Always save your online hand histories and critically analyze your play after every session, you will make mistakes, we all do, there is not a single game where I didn’t miss a bet, or call when I should have raised, or worse overplay a hand, or pick a horrible time to bluff. I used to think I was a horrible player and was really hard on myself, (As we should be, that’s how you get better) but after hearing Phil Ivey say that he makes a mistake every single game he plays and he is always learning from it, you and I both can take solace in the fact that if the most feared player in the world makes mistakes that often, its ok that we do too, remember this, a mistake is only a mistake if we learn nothing from it. The key is, minimize your mistakes, because he who makes the least, wins the most. The easiest way to minimize your mistakes, is to stay focused, and don’t play tired, or bored. This game will reward you if you give it the attention it deserves. You will find most of your money earned is not from the brilliance of your own play, but the misplay of your opponents.

6. One of the most important ones, don’t turn your premium hands in to a hand like 72 offsuit. Think about it, you get QQ and your in late position, with a small raise from mid position from a lag, and a call in front of you, yes you want to raise, for value and to knock out the players playing weaker hands but having the ability to out flop you. KQ A9 Axs, AJ etc. so you want to put in a nice Pot Size bet or Maybe even a little more if the table is loose aggressive, and charge them to chase you down, you probably will get one caller and that’s not a bad thing, you’ve got a great hand, you want to get paid for it, but you need to remember, this is not a hand you want to bet so much that only a better hand can call you. If you have 2k in your stack and the blinds are 50-100, if you lead out with a 800 bet, you’ve just effectively turned your QQ into a 72 os, because yes, you can win the $150 in blinds by pushing everyone out, which isn’t horrible, well actually it is, because that’s what you want to do when you don’t have a great hand, but what you’ve effectively done is SCREAM I HAVE A MONSTER, and I’m willing to bet it big, and the only hands that would call you is AA KK or at best AK, and even with that, your 52/48 to win if they call. You want to create opportunities for people to make mistakes, by over betting like this your not allowing them to, you are making it extremely hard for them to make a mistake.

7. Don’t tap the glass, Ok, your going to get bad beats, and I got worse news for you, your going to get MORE than your fair share of them for one simple reason, if your following my advice so far, your going to be putting your money in with the best hand the vast majority of the time, when this unfair unfortunate incident happens, take a breath, take a break, stop and think logically, did I do something wrong? Did I price him into a call? Did I make a mistake? If you can honestly answer no, then it’s just variance, it happens. If you answered yes, well you just learned a valuable lesson about controlling the pot odds or whatever your mistake was, (sometimes what we view as a mistake in the short term can actually be a profitable play in the long term, so never forget poker is one long game) . If you find yourself getting sucked out a lot at your game you play at, you are in the right game! Remember, Luck never gives, it just lends.

You will win in the long run playing people that call with a 3 outer. Shrug it off, say nice hand and do not berate them, why not? They are donkeys after all, and they deserve ridicule! Perhaps, but the thing is, you want them to keep playing just like that, when you berate a bad player, at first, he may try to justify it to you or the table, but what really happens is he says to himself Oh crap, I got lucky and he’s right I’m gonna play "right" now. When you anger them, you give them the resolve to do just that. You want him to stay happy go lucky and act like you didn’t even know how bad he was beat. Poker is one big game, you can get away with a mistake for a session and not get punished, heck you might even get rewarded because of it, but in the long run, mistakes cost money. If your playing with guys that make a lot of them, your in the right game, if you find yourself making more than the other players your in the wrong one. When it happens, Say “nice hand,” or don’t say anything. The ability to control the emotional swings in NL is what separates the fish from the sharks. To quote a great orator, Homer Simpson- “Hey, if you're going to get mad at me every time I do something stupid, then I guess I'll just have to stop doing stupid things!” Do we really want that?

7.a Since we just mentioned bad players, this situation frequently comes up, I want you to start thinking about the huge implied odds you get with bad players, if your fishy overly aggressive opponent has a big stack and you’ve got a big stack it’s correct to call a raise with a hand that’s you know is an underdog, if he’s the type of player that cant lay down AA when its beat and you know if you hit it your set on the flop, you can take his entire stack. Believe me, laying down AA or AK when the flop comes out K72 rainbow, is very hard for anyone. If you’re sitting there with 77 you’re in great position to take his stack, especially if you’re in position. Hands like AK AQ don’t really qualify as a good calling hand to do this with for this purpose, because if he’s got KK and an ace comes, he might call a couple of small bets, but your not going to felt him and no limit is all about setting up your opponents to do just that. BTW don’t get carried away with this concept as you’re an 8-1 dog to flop a set. But, if he has 8X his original bet, (AND YOU DO TOO) then it probably is correct to do that, especially in a cash game, but a tourney too, if you have plenty of chips to play with, but I repeat, don’t get carried away with this, you have to do this only with the players that cannot lay down big hands. A good player folds the best hand all the time, I know we don’t talk about it, because it seems weak, but you have to look at it from a ROI% point of view, ok, your bluffing, I have top pair, weak kicker, you make a huge overbet. I stop, look at the pot, look at your stack, look at my stack and put you on a hand. At this point right now, the only thing I have invested is my blind. The correct play here is to either FOLD OR RAISE 99% of the time. Don’t call if you’re uncertain about your opponent, because you learn nothing. But if they steal, it’s ok if you fold, it’s a nothing pot. But, if you feel certain they are bluffing, and they won’t give up on the hand and keep bluffing, just call and let them keep pushing it and take their stack when you do, why do the pushing when the donkey’s doing the pulling? This move is dangerous as even LAG’s get big hands too. That’s why usually it’s correct to either make a stiff raise or just fold while you have nothing invested but a blind bet.

8. Not allowing or preparing yourself to play your best. Never play only because you feel obligated, or your tired, drunk, under medication, or distracted by problems away from the table. Poker is a game that demands attention and focus, you will be better served to wait until you can truly focus all your attention on the game. Don’t ask me how I know this, Just trust me. If you find yourself getting bored or burned out with the game. JUST STOP. Do not play again until this has passed. It might take a day, a week, or a month, this game can be addicting, and I slept, ate, drank, read, talked about it, wrote about it, thought about it, and played poker for a solid year with no breaks for 4-6 hours a day, I had to take 6 weeks off just to fall back in love with it, I was playing so much I was getting tired of it and it wasn’t fun and starting to feel like my old chess days. If you find yourself getting burned out, you need to change something, switch to a new game, go play in ultra low limit games and just piss away a couple bucks to blow steam, start playing dealers choice but don’t play serious money games without being dead serious about playing your best. If you find yourself on a bad run, (you will have them, we all do) The best advice I can give you is this. Stop, take 2 weeks off. Read your favorite poker book, (ones above are great) look at your hand histories, (CRITICALLY) and start back fresh with renewed knowledge and resolve. It always works, losing has a psychological effect on everybody, and when you go on a bad swing where you hit your hand and run into the nuts for the 3rd time in a row, to bust you, its tough. Don’t do like Matusow and blow your bankroll because you got cold decked for 2 hands. This game is easier than people think, they just make it harder by playing without focus and discipline, and yes it takes real discipline to quit when your 2 buy-in’s down and your now playing worse rather than better, and it happens to all of us. Have the discipline to quit when you know its not your night. Authors say never quit if the game is good, If your playing great and your not on tilt, sure, keep playing, but what if we are now on tilt, or tired? Be honest with yourself when it happens, and it will, just be smart and quit when it does. Save your money, tomorrows a new day and something about a good nights sleep helps you come to grips with bad beats. A good nights sleep will not help your bankroll recover from blowing it in tilt monkey fashion though.

Remember Cards Do not have an absolute value. AK can be the prettiest thing in the world but when the turn card come and the flop is Q high. It's crap. Don't overplay your hands, unless your betting into me of course.

Keep an eye out, we will soon be running Full Tilt Online Leagues.
Also Live HORSE Leagues, Holdem, Omaha, Razz, Stud, 8 or better for all our tampa bay based local players who have an itch to play some live poker besides No Limit Hold em.