Barefoot's Holdem

Barefoot's Holdem

Rob Barefoot's poker style embodies the "new breed" of a professional poker player — combining experience and intuition coupled with relentless aggression and subtle gear changes to keep his opponents guessing and in turn, maximizing his profit potential.

Having played poker for over 10 years Rob has garnered a reputation as a tough high-limit poker player specializing in all poker games from No-Limit (NL) Hold'em, Limit Hold'em, Pot-Limit (PL) Omaha, Omaha 8-or-better (8/b), aka Omaha Hi-Lo to 7-Card Stud and competes in twelve or more high buy-in poker tournaments each year and has earned the respect and friendship of fellow touring professional poker players.

Rob Barefoot has been featured on Sky Sports, Sky Poker, Challenge TV and in many online publications. Rob Barefoot has parlayed his success at poker into an affiliation with online poker site JamJuicePoker.com. In addition, Rob can can be viewed daily in tournaments on Full Tilt Poker currently undertaking his "Zero to Hero" challenge for charity under the screen names of "Boston Barefoot", "biggsroco" or "Jam Juice Poker".

Known for his aggressive, unpredictable style of play, Rob Barefoot is regarded as a poster boy for a new generation of online players. Rob plays a very aggressive, wide-open, pedal-to-the-metal kind of poker. He likes to put a lot of pressure on his opponents and really puts them to the decision. Rob Barefoot's propensity to trash-talk combined with timed-aggression makes him an extremely dangerous player.

Feeling Charitable? - The Jam Juice Poker.com Zero to Hero challenge...

CURRENT TOTAL $11.00

Unless have been burying your head in the sand in the poker desert for the last year or so - many of you will have heard of Chris "Jesus" Ferguson's challenge on Full Tilt Poker. Chris has won over $10,000 for charity starting with a bankroll of just $0...

Well with the help of my sponsor jamjuicepoker.com and in association with Full Tilt - I have undertaken a similar challenge. On 29th October 2007, I'll start playing freerolls with a target of £2,000 by New Years Eve 2007. Whatever I raise, the very generous guys at Jam Juice will double! The only difference between my challenge and Chris' is that I will also be allowed to accept player donations.

So lets talk about why I'm doing it...

In March 2008 some friends of mine will be taking part in the 12-day “Eden trek” through Costa Rica. This coast-to-coast challenge will involve them traveling from the Pacific to the Caribbean coast on foot and raft!! Their route will take them through coffee plantations and into dense tropical rain forest. They will also have the rare opportunity to work within one of the local communities.

Leading them in this challenge will be Tony Hadley, former singer of Spandau Ballet and star of the West End hit Chicago, Martin Fry (ABC) and Richard Drummie (Go West)

All of the money raised will be given to the charity Action Medical Research who have organised this and other challenge events:

~Around 70,000 babies in the UK each year - that’s over 10 per cent - require some sort of special care when they are born. ~

~Tragically, over 3,000 babies die within the first year, and premature birth is the single biggest cause.

Action Medical Research are working towards life-saving research programmes to help find answers to premature birth and other life-threatening pregnancy complications.

As I am sure you will agree this is a truly worth - while cause and we thank you in advance for your kind contributions and support. If you have a Full Tilt poker account and you would like to donate to the cause, transfer your donation to username: Jam Juice Poker. If you would like to contribute by another payment method please visit; http://www.action.org.uk/~sarahsally1

Tournaments

Gallery pictures coming soon. If you have any of Rob that you'd like to submit, then please Email them to: support@jamjuicepoker.com, quoting "Barefoot's Holdem" in the subject line.

"Should I quit my job and play professionally?"

I get these questions all the time and I always give the same answer: "Unequivocally, absolutely not. No way."

Clear enough?

If you want to explore being a professional poker player, you have to start out doing it part time. Spend your off hours thinking about poker and studying the game. Read and play and learn.

Before you even think about quitting your job to play full time, you should be making more money at poker than you are in your current employment. Don't think that one big tournament win provides all the evidence you need that you're ready to play professionally. You should be showing consistent profit over a period of at least six- months. Only at that point should you even entertain the idea of becoming a full-time pro.

Even then, you should be wary about taking such a step. Poker is a great pastime, and playing it casually is a lot of fun when you love the game. But when you become a pro, you have to play poker five or six days a week. In time, playing cards will start to feel a lot like a job. I happen to love every occasion I get to play, but for many people, it can become a grind.

On the tournament circuit, you can play well and still go months - or even years - without a big result. In ring games, the hours can be brutal. When you're a pro, you want to be playing when the other players are off their game. This means you should start late, when people are getting tired and gambling a little more than they should. So you might play from 11PM through the morning, and sleep most of the afternoon. Keeping these kinds of hours can be difficult for those who want to maintain a more traditional social life.

Another risk is that you may not play enough. It can take a lot of self-discipline to put in enough hours at the table. With no boss on your tail, you might find it tough to put in the hours that you need at the times that are most profitable.

Before you make drastic changes to your life - before you even ask the questions posed at the start of this article - you should know that poker will work for you. You should have long, profitable periods that serve as evidence of your abilities. You should have put in enough hours to know that you can really enjoy the game, even when it becomes the center of your professional life. You should know that you can endure some long, tough, unlucky stretches.

If you're really sure you've got what it takes and poker does become your career, I look forward to meeting you at the table.

Rob Barefoot