Everyone loves to count other people's money. It is bad taste, but that is human nature. Poker is all about money, after all, so little wonder. Let us cut to the case. Do you want to know what bankrolls the world’s top live and online players command? Do you want to know how much they make a year? We will use the help of Douglas Polk, one of the world’s top online high rollers.

This is by far not the first time we have talked about the earnings of MTT and cash players. We have tried to figure out if it is hard being a tournament player, compared potential profits in the two disciplines, and once even tried to find out who won the more money in a given year, live or online high rollers.

Cash festival format, unlike traditional tournament series – was always in minority. Poker tour stops are always provided with cash games, but the tournaments are always in the center of attention. It turned upside down recently.

Cash Game Festival – this is a simple name for cash festival, which started several years ago in Estonia. The festival specializes exclusively on cash games and has stops already in Bulgaria, UK, and Malta. In November, it will have the biggest stop in the capital of Estonia Tallinn.

Belarus Poker Tour ready for launch on November, 4-13 2016. Minsk will become the capital of poker for 10 days. As always, the partner of the series –“Zeus” poker club, will organize cash games.

For many years, poker and Minsk go along. Nowadays it is not necessary to wait for another series to enjoy the spirit of the competition and victory. “Zeus” poker club is always ready to offer the best cash games in Minsk.

Most of today’s books teach to be tight playing at the low stakes in casinos or poker clubs. Being TAG is profitable but it is also profitable to crush the stakes. To destroy your opponents and get your win rate to the maximum you must act in other way. Some of the principles are good for small stakes in live poker, the others are universal for all stakes.

How often do you see tight players with big stacks (6+ times bigger that the buy-in)? Usually people with most chips are the most aggressive opponents; sometimes they get them with several coolers.

But the point is still the same. Aggression is always better than passiveness, especially at the low stakes ($1/$2, $2/$5). Aggression in position is the key to success. That is an obvious live poker strategy.

Golden rule: play as many pots as you can in position. Bunch of limpers and you have J-10o on the button? Raise! You’ve got Q-8s on CO and limpers keep limping? Raise! Set of treys? Raise!

Last summer Aria held big cash game with many famous “whales” and the toughest pros participating. The person who draws maximum attention with his entertaining non-standard and incredibly loose game was an Australian Matt Kirk, who, by his own words, was just warming up before the real game.

It is quite hard to discreet name of the top online and live regulars. Sooner or later hype grows that big, the personality of this or that pro becomes practically public.

Almost nothing was available on the Australian Matt Kirk. His style reminded us of the one of Viktor Bloom or Ilari Sahamies. Fist name of famous live players that come to mind as an example is young David “Viffer” Peat.

Kirk is 28 and unlike many he never played online. He visited casino at the age of 18 for the fist time and soon joined under-the-table games in Australia.

“My usual stakes I play at are much higher,” said Matt (Aria stakes were $400/$800/$200+).

Poker is a world full of personalities. Some of them are altruistic, some are clever and educated, and many can’t live without the game. However, most of the players are famous for playing poker in the first place. Our today’s hero is not only one of the noble cash players, but is well known for his temper.

“My father left my mom when I was 3 years old. She has married another man two years later. My stepfather got sick when I was 8 and died when I was 10. I don’t communicate with my father for over 20 years and I don’t see my mother as well.

I’ve been living alone since I am 15…”

This is a very brief description about his childhood from Viffer himself. His nickname sounds better than his real name, isn’t it? All his friends call him that.

It is only 2-hour flight from Macau to the Philippines capital Manila.  But there are no fewer differences between these places than between any twin brothers – that means plenty. At least if we’re talking about poker development. Ivey, Dwan, Cates, Yong, Mo and many others started to visit Manila more and more often.

October last year new poker room of Solaire Casino in the city Paranac (Manila agglomeration) hosted World Poker Tour stage for the first time. There were two tens of quite huge tournaments, including $2,200 Main Event and $25,500 High Roller.

In this first part of series of theoretical articles “Poker Notepad” we are going to talk on one very significant topic for those who play live: being pot-committed. This is especially important for those playing cash games as they have absolutely no clue about it.

Let’s get through the “terms used” as all the nerdy articles seem to start like this, aren’t they?

It is very common to hear or see the following logic in cash game: the player invest more than a half of his stack into the pot and calls on the turn and river just because he is “pot committed”, or “too much involved”. And the main focus is the invested money, not pot odds.

Weird.