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3 betting in poker

Sunday, August 29th, 2010 | Poker Articles, Poker Cash Games, Poker Strategy | 2 Comments

Submitted by Cory, this article belong to the Poker Strategy series.

3 betting in poker by Cory the lead singer in corywilkinsband.com.

Poker goes through cycles and evolutions and the current state of no limit focuses a lot on pre-flop action.  Whether it’s tournaments with short stacks and fast blinds, or four bet bluffing 300BBS deep in a cash game how you’re playing pre-flop, notice I said, “how,” not, “what,” is going to set up your story for the rest of the hand.

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Right now, I just want to talk about 3 betting.  I know a lot of people watch shows like High Stakes Poker and just can’t figure out why Durrrr is 3 betting with Ten 7 off suit.  There is a rhyme and reason for different 3 betting strategies and the most important factors are stack size, position and opponent.

Importance of stack sizes

Let’s talk first about stack size.  If you’re 100BBS deep or less, your 3 betting range is going to include the top of your range, AA, KK, QQ, JJ as well as the middle of your range, hands like 88 and KQO.

When you’re deeper stacked, hands in the middle of your range become great implied odds hands, so you may not want to 3 bet them as often.  If you and your opponent are 200BBS deep, why 3 bet 88 pre-flop?  If you’re 15BBS deep, your shipping it.  Many people don’t account enough for stack sizes.  The problem with 3 betting a hand like 88 when we’re 200BBS deep is what do I do when I get 4 bet?  I have way more to gain and far less to lose by just calling a raise with a strong implied odds hand than I do by possibly getting 4 bet off of it or risk getting way too much money in the middle in a marginal spot.

However, when I’m deep I’ll need to polarize my 3 betting range so my opponents don’t know whether I have aces or not.  I’ve found that good hands to do this with are hands that I can throw away easily when I’m 4 bet, I can easily continuation bet and fold to a raise on the flop if I need to and when I do go to showdown I help my image be a little more crazy by showing that I 3 bet with jack 8.

Why 3 betting will make your decisions easier on later streets

Your next factor is position.  You’ll need a slightly different range based on your position.  I tend to three bet hands like AK, AQ, TT and 99 more often out of position than I do in position.  The two main factors I’ll need going to the flop are position and initiative.  Since I can’t have position, I’ll take the initiative and be the last aggressor pre-flop.  Also, sometimes my opponent will fold and I’ll take down the hand without any post-flop decisions.

By taking the lead with a 3 bet, I’m trying to negate my positional disadvantage as much as I can.  I can now continuation bet a lot more flops successfully since people play far more straightforward in 3 bet pots than they do in 2 bet pots.  If I just flat with Tens out of position and the flop comes Q, 8, 3, now what do I do?  Donk bet?  Check raise?  If I check raise, what do I do on the turn if my opponent calls?  Now the pot is getting huge and he could easily have a hand like AQ or KQ or QQ for that matter.

If I put in a reraise pre-flop the action might look like this.

1. Opponent opens from LP for 3X.
2. I reraise from SB to 9X with TT.
3. BB folds and original raiser calls.
4. Flop is Q, 8, 3 rainbow with 19BBS in the pot.  I’ll bet about 2/3 pot or 12BBS and generally take down a nice pot and my opponent’s range is much better defined if he should call.

The other huge upshot in this example is I was able to get the pot heads up and create dead money which is the best kind to have in the middle.

If I had just flatted with my tens, the hand may look like this.

1. Opponent opens from LP to 3X.
2. I call from the SB and the BB calls making a pot of 9X going to the flop.
3. Flop is Q, 8, 3 rainbow, I check and BB checks.
4. The original raiser makes it 2/3 pot or 6BBS to go and I raise to see where I’m at and get value against hands that I still beat.  I’m going to have to raise to at least 15X here which should fold out the BB.
5. The original raiser calls. Now the pot is 39BBS and I’m just realizing that I might be in a lot of trouble.  Do I lead the turn hoping he’ll fold?  That’ll need to be a pretty substantial bet now.  At least 25X.  Now I’ve got 43X in there and have no idea what’s going on.

Do I check the turn and let him just fire away?  Yes my opponent is betting queens here, but if he’s tricky he might have seen through my flop check raise and have floated the flop to fire at the turn.

Also keep in mind, I picked about the driest board possible for this example.  This hand just got pretty complicated without a flush draw or straight draw.

Choosing your opponents

The final consideration is who I’m up against.  I want to 3 bet players that open with a wide range and it’s even better if they tend to fold sometimes.  If I’m against someone who goes to showdown a lot I’ll need to 3 bet more on the top end of my range because though I may be ahead of his opening range I might be in trouble against his showdown range and he’s not folding enough to make it worth it.

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Unless you’re more of a smallball player, you need to work on your situational 3 betting.  It will help establish you as the table captain and will get you tons of action because your opponents won’t remember the times you 3 bet with AA because they would 3 bet with AA.  However, they’ll remember when you 3 bet with K9 because they’ll think you’re crazy and put you on air more frequently than they should.  To help you get more aggressive, play a bit of 6 max.  Good luck and happy reraising.

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Running bad in poker

Monday, August 16th, 2010 | Poker Articles, Poker Cash Games, Poker Strategy | 1 Comment

Submitted by Cory, this article belongs to the Poker Strategy series.

Cory wrote the article below about running bad in poker….something I’ve experienced myself lately. If you have time check out his band’s website at corywilkinsband.com.

We’ve all been there before, it’s called running bad. What is running bad though? It’s actually a combination of a few things.

First, never picking up hands. Remember, in low stakes cash games your opponents are calling too much, so your goal is to make strong hands and get maximum value. If you don’t get strong hands, your bluffs are not going to be effective enough to keep you winning. The last thing you want to do in a low stakes game is bluff off all of your money.

The second part of running bad is getting cold decked. You have KK and he happens to wake up with AA the last three times. Oh and the last time you had AA against KK, he flopped a King.

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Then you have running bad in the form of never getting your good hands up against strong second best hands. You raise pre-flop with Aces and everyone folds. The flush draw finally comes home, you bet and everyone folds. This can be particularly frustrating in low stakes cash since you expect to get action almost every time you hit big.

Another kind of running bad is when you have a lot of small and medium pairs and go a long time without flopping a set. Or you have open ended straight draws, flush draws, or even big combo draws that don’t ever seem to come home. There hands you need to play and put some money in the pot with, but you need to catch a card or two to rake the big pot.

Now that we know what running bad really is, how do we deal with it? It can be very difficult, but too many otherwise winning players either blame bad luck too much when they make mistakes, or they change their game too much when they’re just running below expectation.

All winning players analyze their hands after losing sessions and winning sessions, but if you’re honest with yourself, way more analysis happens after a big loss. This is because if you are a long term winner, you have an expectation to have more winning sessions than losing sessions. While this may be true, it doesn’t stop even the strongest players from running bad for a while. The worst thing a good player can do is start to make drastic changes to their game.

My local card room runs a promotion where any time you have a flush or better you fill out a little ticket that gets submitted in to a drawing which takes place every half hour Friday through Saturday nights. The winner of each drawing gets $200, so the more flushes, boats, quads or straight flushes you get, the better chance you have of winning one of the drawings. I recently went through a run where I played two times a week, for five hours or more per session for about a month and never qualified for a single ticket. That means I went something like eight, five hour or more sessions without making a hand as strong as a flush. Let’s face it, beating low stakes cash is very difficult when you never hit hands. I did not find a way to somehow come out ahead over this sample size, but here are some things that helped me get through it with my bankroll intact and never going on tilt.

First, I know I’m a winning player. I needed to keep my confidence up. There’s a huge difference between losing because I played badly and losing because I had ten pocket pairs and never flopped a set and had four missed flush draws in two hours. If I let my confidence drop, I’m going to start playing sub-optimally and start losing even more.

The second thing is to avoid trying to make something happen. I found my best fix was just to stay patient and stick to my standard game plan. Eventually the cards will come to me and the action will come along with it. I didn’t start trying to bluff more to make up for the pots I was losing, if I saw a bluffing opportunity I would take it, but I didn’t force the action any more than I would if I were running hot. In fact, maybe even a little less since my table mates know I’m losing and since most people try to push harder when they’re stuck, that is exactly what many of my opponents would expect me to do.

The third thing I do is what I like to call a line check. I have a couple of friends who I feel comfortable discussing strategy with, who think on my level or higher and I go over some hands with them without giving away the result before they check my line, or the actions I took in the hand. They tell me if my line is good, or not without having the meaningless results of the hand to influence their opinions. I also will do line checks when I’m winning, so my friends don’t know if they’re analyzing a hand that I won or a hand that I lost.

The final thing I do is I leave it at the table. When I have a losing night, or week, or month I don’t take it home with me. I don’t worry about it, I don’t lose sleep over it, I don’t bore my friends with bad beat stories. Sometimes the best thing to do for your poker game is get as far out of your poker head space as possible for a while.

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Remember, you will run bad. You’ll be bad beat, you’ll finally hit the nuts and not get action, you’ll be cold decked, but only you have control over how much it effects you. Keep this in mind during a down swing. Someone with the most elementary understanding of poker will win close to the same amount as you, a known winning player will when they’re running hot. The only way to tell a good player from a bad player is by how much they lose back when they run bad. You find out just how good you are when you’re not getting hands. It’s pretty hard to not win when you’re getting nut flushes against second nut flushes, or top set against bottom set etcetera. The poker skill really comes in when things aren’t working and you can still keep your head above water.

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Playing against drawing hands in online poker

Monday, August 2nd, 2010 | Poker Articles, Poker Strategy | No Comments

Submitted by Chris, this article belongs to the Poker Strategy series.

Chris submitted the article below on playing against drawing hands when the draw hits.

One of the most annoying things in poker is when a draw (that you’re not on) hits.  This brief article offers suggestions to help make the experience less annoying and more profitable.

In General, Exercise Caution
If you’re betting a made hand into a drawy board, and the draw comes in on the river, you need to take the time to analyze the situation at hand. Look at the texture of the board and the actions of your opponent through the hand, and see if the two correlate. If your opponent three bet preflop, and checks the flop and turn of a 34k5 board, then bets when the 6 hits, it doesn’t add up. Likewise, if your opponent limped preflop, then called bets on a 45K2dd board and the 8 of diamonds peels off on the river, a bet from him should probably be given a lot more respect than normal.

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When the Draw Hits on the Turn

If the flop has a obvious flush or straight draw that comes in on the turn, position is paramount. If in position, base your play on your opponent’s reaction to the drawing card and your relative hand strength.  Like most hold em tips, this is easy to say but not quite as easy to execute.   If your hand has potential to outdraw a drawing hand; you have the nut flush draw when the third diamond hits, the draw to a better straight when the straight hits, it may be best to take a free card and try to peel the winner, without leading out again and getting check-raised to an amount that prevents you from calling. Out of position, or with a non improvable hand, the decision is trickier, but betting out and reevaluating is the best normal line; if your opponent doesn’t have the draw, he’ll generally duck out of the way, and if he does, you’ll find out in the form of a call or a raise.

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When the Draw Hits on the River

When the draw comes in on the river, in position, these decisions are much easier; you don’t have the looming threat of another street to deal with. If your opponent checks, you can probably safely bet your good hands, unless you think the player is capable of check raising with a hand that connected. If your opponent bets, use judgment, pot odds, and your relative hand strength in making the call or fold.  For example, in Rush Poker, players are not as likely to get to the river with a backdoor draw. Good players recognize when draws come in that they can represent; be aware of that when a tricky player fires into you on the river when a draw makes. If you’re out of position, it’s pretty hard to fire again when the draw hits, so checking and calling or checking and folding, depending on those factors listed, is usually the best option. The last thing you want to do is bet out and get raised. If you don’t have the draw yourself, most of the time you’ll be hard pressed to find a call.

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The Perfect Bluff in poker: Telling a believable story

Saturday, July 24th, 2010 | Poker Articles, Poker Strategy | No Comments

Submitted by Fubusama, this article belongs to the Poker Strategy series.

There are several situations that will frequently present themselves where you have the option to represent a huge hand, even if your holding is very marginal. In this article, we will discuss some spots where you can profit by taking a very strong line with your opponent when you suspect that their holdings are weak.

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In our first example, we will look at the best way to represent a set and get our opponent to fold a pair, including top pair. Suppose you are in the big blind with a marginal hand, like 78 suited. The button raises, you call and are heads up, out of position against the button. The flop comes Kxx, you check, your opponent bets. How can we represent a set?

First and foremost, consider your opponents c-betting frequency. Do they cbet a lot or infrequently? If they cbet a lot, you have an opportunity to take this pot away on later streets by floating out of position with the intention to take the pot away later. The important thing to note is that our opponent is cbetting a lot, meaning that most of the time he has in fact missed the flop. We will use this information against him to get another bet out of him and take down the pot with what is likely the worse hand.

Back to our example: The flop comes Kxx, you check, your opponent bets, you call.

Turn comes Q. You check, your opponent bets again. You check/raise for a pot sized bet.

This line is the standard line most people take when they have actually hit a set. The best thing about this move is, even without a set, your opponent has a tough decision to make if his holding is even as good as two pair, as he is likely going to face an all-in decision on the river if he makes the call. In many cases, your opponent will fold on the turn and you will have squeezed 2 bets out of him with 8 high.

Let’s have a look at another example, where we represent a flush.

Suppose you’re on the button with KT and open the pot. The big blind calls. You know the big blind is a tight, solid player and is likely only calling with pocket pairs, or hands like KQ, AJ, AQ, etc.

The flop come A23, two clubs. Your opponent leads into you, representing the Ace. What should you do?

You should definitely float in position here. Your opponent has lead into, meaning he is most likely trying to protect a weak made hand, like a pair of aces. There are many bad turn cards that can come, like a 4, 5, or any club. If one does come out, you can bet big on the turn and go all-in on the river and the one pair of aces will almost always have to fold.

In our last example, we’ll look at a spot where we can beat bluffs with bigger bluffs.

Suppose you in the big blind with 54 of clubs. The button raises and you call. You are heads up and out of position to the button.

The flop comes A 3 6, with 1 club. With your open-ended straight draw and backdoor flush, leading into the button might be a good idea. He calls.

The turn comes the 8 of clubs, giving you the flush draw and straight draw and close to 30% equity against a one pair hand. Another good spot to bet into your opponent. He calls.

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At this point, your opponent either has one pair or some kind of a draw as well. If the river bricks off, like maybe the 2 of diamonds – if you bet, you are likely going to get called by 1 pair hands and get missed draws to fold. But what happens if you check? If your opponent was drawing to a hand that missed, there is a good chance he will bet his missed draw. If your opponent has top pair, he might put out a small value bet in-case you missed your draw. Now that he’s bet, you have an opportunity to check/raise him off that hand, getting almost all hands to fold except for a set or better. It is almost impossible for a one pair hand to stand the heat of a check/raise all in on the river.

When you bluff, you have to tell a story that is believable. In other words, don’t take a line with a bluff that you wouldn’t take with your value hands.

Good luck at the tables.

@Fubusama

Fubusama is an online professional poker player and poker writer. Visit Pro Poker Blog | Fubusama Poker for more tips and strategies, poker coaching opportunities, poker book reviews, poker training videos and exclusive rakeback deals.

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Top 10 poker strategy tips for limit cash games

Thursday, July 8th, 2010 | Poker Articles, Poker Cash Games, Poker Strategy | No Comments

Submitted by Cory, this article belongs to Poker Cash Games series.

This is the second article in an article series where Cory sums up the top 10 most important limit poker cash game strategy tips. Enjoy! If you haven’t read the first article yet, go to top 10 limit poker cash game strategy tips.

Tip #6.  Counting all of your outs.

Most people when they have a draw only count outs to their primary draw.  Since limit hold ‘em is based so much on the math, we’ll need to be a little more precise.  In this example we have AD KD and the flop is QD, 8D, 3S.  Most people will easily see that we have a nut flush draw, but we also have a backdoor straight draw and two over cards to make top pair.

We have the nine outs for our flush draw, but we also have six over card outs and a running jack ten.  However, our over card outs don’t give us the nuts, so we can’t count them as full outs as we could easily lose to two pair, so count them as half outs, we have three outs to make top pair.  Counting a back door straight draw works like this.  If you have an open ended backdoor straight draw, 8, 9, T, or 5, 6, 7, count that as one and a half outs.  If you have a one gapper like 4, 5, 7 count it as one out.  If you have a two gapper like A, K, Q, like in our above example, you need exactly J, T, count it as half an out.  So in our example with AD KD we have nine flush outs, three outs to top pair and half an out to a backdoor Broadway straight, for a total of twelve and a half outs.  Counting all of your outs can transfer a marginally correct fold to a marginally correct call and remember limit is all about precision.

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Tip #7.  Big pots, long shot hand.

If the pot is very small we are losing money by calling with weak draws.  Since we don’t have the implied odds of a big bet game, gut shots and backdoor draws are sucker hands in a small pot.  However, when the pot is very large and multi-way, we can allow ourselves to call with a very low likelihood of winning as long as our draw is to the nuts.

Let’s have the AD KD hand again and the flop comes QS, TC, 6D.  We capped it for four bets pre-flop against three opponents putting sixteen small bets in the pot.  The first person bets and both other players call adding three more small bets making a pot of nineteen small bets, we’re getting 19:1 with 2 overs, a gut shot straight draw and a backdoor flush draw.  Our straight will make us the nuts and our backdoor flush will make us the nuts, so we’re raising here for value.  We’re making up a very small percentage of the pot with a hand that has about a 9% chance to make the nuts on the turn, but if the turn is another diamond we’ll be close to 25% to make the nuts on the river.  We can stay aggressive on this flop, we’ll have the odds to call on the turn, even if the turn eliminates our flush draw.  We won’t win this pot often, but on the few occasions we do, we’ll win more than enough to pay for all the times we called and missed.  When the pot is very large, see the next card with any chance of making a nut hand.

Tip #8. If you call on the turn be prepared to show down.

The vast majority of the time, if our hand is strong enough to call a bet on the turn, we’ll be almost forced by the pot odds to call on the river.  So remember, when we’re deciding if we can really call this bet on the turn our real decision is if we can call a bet on the turn and on the river.  The only reasons to call the turn and fold the river really is if we have a draw that missed and we don’t think our hand has showdown value, or if the worst possible card comes.  An example of this would be if we have AS AC and the flop comes 9H, 8H, 2D.  We’re betting and raising this flop.  The turn is a 3H and our opponent leads.  We’re at least calling or maybe even raising here  planning to call down on the river if our opponent leads, but then the river is the 7H and he leads again.  We can’t beat anything our opponent could have, so we’ll probably have to fold our AA.

However, these are rare cases and most times that call on the turn means a call on the river.  Don’t forget this when you’ve bluff check raised the flop and lead the turn.  If we’re bluffing and don’t improve if our opponent calls a bet on the turn, he’s probably calling a bet on the river, so we shouldn’t dig ourselves in too deep of a hole by bluffing.  If our opponent suspects we’re bluffing he knows exactly how much he’ll need to pay to call down and it isn’t much, so be careful.

Tip #9.  Getting max value and getting thin value.

Getting value in no limit games is often pretty easy.  Make bets that your opponent can justify calling with a hand weaker than yours.  In a limit game getting maximum value on your hand can be a little tough.  This is why check raising the flop is important, or in position we might just call a bet on the flop with a very strong hand since our opponent is likely to keep control of the hand by betting on the turn, then we can raise the turn.  If we’d have raised the flop, our opponent is probably going to check the turn and even if he calls our turn bet, we’ve still lost one small bet that we would have won by calling the flop in position.

Getting thin value is betting on the river with a weak hand hoping that the pot is big enough to induce an even weaker hand to call.  Here is where we need to talk about a play that is the best friend of all low stakes limit hold ‘em players and it comes in to play mostly on the turn and river.  It’s betting out hoping for thin value and folding if our opponent raises.  The thinking is, our opponent could call down with a hand weaker than ours, but most low stakes players aren’t putting in a raise on the turn or river without a pretty big hand.  So we bet for value, but our opponent’s raise alerts us that we’re beat and we can fold, saving ourselves two small bets, the bet we’d have to call now and the bet that pot odds would require us to call on the river.

Most times if we have the betting lead in the hand and at least some showdown value, we’ll want to maintain the betting lead, but be ready to give up the hand if our opponent takes it away from us, especially on the last two streets.  Most low stakes players are much more comfortable just calling on the big bet streets.
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Tip #10. Keeping it in perspective.

Most no limit players hate limit because they can never force a hand to fold.  They can never push anyone off a pot, so they think it’s impossible to win.  This is just simply silly thinking.  If we have a hand that is a statistical favorite to win, we want a call.  Even if our opponent draws out sometimes, we still want the call over the long run.  Sometimes though, when we get a case of the run bads it seems like we’re always getting drawn out on, no matter how big a favorite we are.  We need to keep this in perspective, limit hold ‘em might make us want to throw up sometimes, but just think about how profitable our plays are when opponents are calling down with the worst of it just to hit a lucky two pair or trips on the river.  Don’t let yourself get discouraged even though it’s tough sometimes.  Just play solid, remember that every hand is just one hand, every session is just a small part of a poker career and dropping thirty big bets getting it in good isn’t fun, but if our opponents never drew out, we could never get a game going.

Ok, now you’ve got ten tips to help you begin your limit hold ‘em journey.  Have fun, don’t worry about getting drawn out on.  If you play better than your opponents, especially post flop, you’ll start to win.  Next we’ll talk about how to transfer some of the limit hold ‘em skills to no limit games.

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Top 10 limit poker cash game strategy tips

Sunday, July 4th, 2010 | Poker Articles, Poker Cash Games, Poker Strategy | 1 Comment

Submitted by Cory, this article belongs to Poker Cash Games series.

In this article series, Cory sums up the top 10 most important limit poker cash game strategy tips. Enjoy!

In the last article we talked about learning limit hold ‘em cash games before jumping in to no limit cash games.  I hope you all understand why this is really a good idea and are ready to start the min-bet craziness.  If so, here are ten tips I’ve gather to get you started on a successful journey to beating low stakes limit hold ‘em.  Of course, this isn’t everything, but, it’s a good start.  If you just learn these things you should be turning a profit at the $.25-$.50 cent on line, or any $3-$6 live game you might jump in to at a casino.  Have fun.

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Tip #1.  Pre-flop hand selection is important, but…

It’s not the be-all and end-all of winning limit hold ‘em.  Too many books focus on starting hand charts and how you should always play tight aggressive no matter what.  A tight aggressive style might be your best bet to putting yourself in a position to win low stakes limit poker, but pre-flop is just one round of betting; it’s also a round of small bets, so the most you’re going to lose due to a pre-flop mistake is four small bets or two big bets.  Of course you don’t want to be making mistakes for four small bets, but making a mistake on the turn for four big bets will eat away your bankroll much faster.

So no, I’m not going to give a stupid starting hand chart.  This is what you need to know about pre-flop limit games.  Big cards are more valuable in limit games than in no limit games.  That is because top pair good kicker can go to showdown a lot cheaper and you can draw to a Broadway straight a lot cheaper.  However, small pairs and suited connectors go down in value because limit hold ‘em is more of a pot odds game than an implied odds game.  So in no limit a hand like KJS from UTG is an easy throw-away, in a limit game it sounds like two bets to me.  In a no limit game when you’re 100BBS deep and an opponent raises to 3X, calling with 22 is pretty standard.  In a limit game, often times you’ll be folding the 22 because you can’t stack him if you hit a set.  Play big cards more aggressively and try to get heads up.  The only time you’re playing suited connectors is on the cheap in a multi-way pot.

#2.  Creating dead money and buying some outs.

This is a very important concept both pre-flop and on the flop.  Let’s say we’re on the button with 55 and the cut off raises and makes it two bets to go.  We could call with position, but we’re pricing in both blinds and we’re allowing four more over cards to take a flop against us.  We can generally assume that the cutoff has 2 overs to our hand, so we could take this flop hoping to hit a set or dodge six overs, or we could raise hoping the blinds will fold to three bets and take a flop against just one opponent with only two overs against us.

This is also important on the flop.  The other night I was playing $3-$6 hold ‘em when I called one more bet from the big blind with AS 5S.  The flop came down 4S, TS, 2H.  We’re four handed and I check.  The original raiser checks and someone in later position bets.  When it gets back to me I raise to two bets and got the original raiser to fold what he told me later was A J.  This means I just created dead money and bought extra outs.  Before I made it two bets my Ace was dominated, so hitting a pair of aces would have been bad for my hand.  I had 12 outs to win the pot.  By forcing the bigger Ace out I turned my hand from a 12 out draw to a 14 out draw.  If I would have lead out at this flop with my big draw everyone would have called for one more small bet and I wouldn’t have gotten those extra two outs.

Tip #3.  Pay attention to the texture of the flop and play your hand accordingly.

I can’t say enough about board texture in both limit and no limit hold ‘em.  In limit though it’s one of the best ways to make sense out of your opponent’s bets.  For example let’s say we have AD KD and we’re out of position.  The flop is AH, 9H, 3S.  We lead at this flop and our opponent makes it two bets.  This can mean a few different things.  Either he’s drawing and is trying to induce us to check to him on the turn, he’s got a hand that he thinks is good like A Q, or A J, or he’s got a set or two pair like Aces and nines.  We’ve just narrowed down his range a lot.

Now let’s take another example where we have AD, KD and the flop is AH, QS, JC.  This board has a few more scary combinations out there if we get two bet on the flop.  He obviously can’t have a flush draw, but AQ, AJ and QJ as well as, QQ and JJ are all easily in his range, not to mention KT.  We could be in a lot of trouble on this flop.

For a more extreme example, we have AD TD and the flop is TH, 9H, 8H.  We still have top pair top kicker, but four pocket pairs still beat us, we could be drawing very slim up against a flop straight or flush or dead against a straight flush.  Not to mention that 12 different over cards could hit the turn that are likely to improve our opponent’s hand, but don’t improve ours.  Our relative hand strength is terrible.

Tip #4.  Free card for sale, learn to buy it.

In the last section you remember we talked about someone trying to induce a check on the turn with a flush draw by making it two bets on the flop.  This is called the free card play and it can be extremely effective against low stakes limit hold ‘em players.  Here’s how it works.

We have AD, KD in position and the flop is QD, 8D, 2C.  We have a flush draw and our opponent bets in to us.  We could call to see the turn and maybe our flush comes home, but if it doesn’t our opponent, who already has the lead in the hand is likely going to maintain the lead by betting the turn.  We can save ourselves one small bet by making it two bets on the flop and taking the lead ourselves.  Most players adopt a check to the raiser mentality without even realizing it, so since we took the last aggressive action on the flop, our opponent is going to be far more likely to check to us on the turn.  When the turn comes and does not complete our draw, we can check behind and we get to see the river for free for a net savings of one small bet.  However, if our draw comes home we can go ahead and bet out at it since our opponent is already expecting us to bet since we had the last aggressive action.  We can also bet if we spike a pair.

Tip #5.  Check raising for value, check raising to bluff and defending against the check raise.

You probably recall me saying that check raising is over rated in no limit hold ‘em, but it’s essential to winning at limit hold ‘em.  Here is why.

Check raising is most often used for value.  In this example we’re in the big blind and the button opens for two bets.  We defend with JS TS and the flop is JH, 9S, 4S.  If we go ahead and lead out with this hand, we’re probably only going to get the button to commit one bet on the flop and he very well might fold on the turn and we have top pair, a flush draw and a back door straight draw.  We want action on this hand.  Our better play is to check, since the button had the last aggressive action, he’s likely to try and maintain the lead in the hand by continuation betting then we can raise and low stakes players are rarely folding in this spot even if they completely missed the flop.  We’ve just doubled our money by check raising.

If you notice a player continuation betting every time he gets heads up, you can also check raise bluff if you’re out of position.  The reason this works so well is he’s likely to have a very wide range and while he might not fold on the flop, he’s folding the turn a very high percentage of the time.  So sometimes, in the right situation, with absolutely nothing you can check raise the flop and lead at the turn and against the right opponent you will get a lot of folds and take down pots without a showdown.  You can really only do this heads up against players who continuation bet the flop by default.

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If you’re the one getting check raised too much you’ll need to learn how to defend against it.  The first thing you can do is don’t automatically continuation bet against someone who check raises a lot, or when you hit the flop, or feel you have the best hand, go ahead and bet and when your opponent check raises, just call.  Remember, his default play is to try and bluff you off the pot with a bet on the turn if you let him have the last aggressive action on the flop.  When he bets the turn expecting you to fold, raise.  If you use this play against someone enough they’ll think twice before bluff check raising you.

Tags: Poker Articles, Poker Cash Games, Poker Strategy, Poker Top 10 Lists

Poker as a business

Monday, June 7th, 2010 | Poker Articles, Poker Strategy, Poker Tools | 1 Comment

Submitted by Cameron, this article belongs to the Poker Strategy series.

This is a guest post written by AceUnchecked, read the blog here.

Let’s face it. We play poker to make money. We play because we want to turn a small amount of money into a larger part of money. Now, I understand that there are many reasons that we play poker, but I believe that pretty much every player can agree with the fact that we play poker because we, at least in part, want to make money.

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This basic assumption means that poker is business, and we need to start treating it as such.If you don’t look at poker as business, let’s look at some of the jargon used in both worlds of poker and business. The first and most obvious is profit. When we walk away from the poker table, we look at our net profit. Sometimes we have gains and other times we count our losses. Another common term in poker is pot equity (which is the relative value the pot has to your chances of winning.) Often times we look at our poker winnings as ROI or Return on Investment, which is obviously from the business side of things.

So, if poker is business, what does that mean to our playing? What is the practical application here? Well, if we treat our playing like business we can do a few things.

First, limit your liabilities. As we have discussed in this blog at length, bankroll management is the key to minimizing risk. When you minimize your risk and regularly perform above 50% of the time, your bankroll will grow.

Second, we can analyze our strengths and identify niches. Playing online poker is all about finding the table that you play the best at. With so many options you have to find the game that suits your style. I cannot tell you how many sessions I have fouled up by moving from 9 handed tables to heads-up. If you are in a rhythm that is going well at a certain table, changing the game you play will only hurt you.

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Finally, if all goes well, we can treat poker as an hourly job (or profession). I’ll admit it, even though I have been up at the tables lately, I am not to this level yet. But rest assured, I am analyzing and re-analyzing my game so that I can become a more disciplined player so that I can rely on poker as a source of income. We all start at the hobby level but moving to that intermediate level of profitability is a long and arduous road.

Go get ‘em!

Tags: Poker Articles, Poker Strategy, Poker Tools

Observing poker opponents

Thursday, May 27th, 2010 | Poker Articles, Poker Cash Games, Poker Strategy | 1 Comment

Submitted by Cory, this article belongs to the Poker Cash Games series.

Observing opponents is one of the key skills to hone as a poker player.  You need to notice what hands your opponents are showing down from which positions, how they bet, and their standard bet size etcetera.  The best time to make these observations is when you’re not in the hand.

When you’re in a pot, you have a personal vested interest on what you want the results to be.  If you’re trying to make a read in this situation, you’ll tend to put opponents on what you want them to have, in other words, any hand that you can still beat rather than what they really might have.  However, if you’re not in this pot, the outcome of the hand has little effect on you, so you’re better able to make a non-biased, logical assessment of what each player might hold.

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When you fold is the perfect time to engage yourself in the hand.  You might pick up a key body language tell that might help you when you are faced with a call for all of your chips with a marginal holding.  You may pick up a betting pattern where an opponent bets half pot when he wants a call and ¾ pot when he wants you to fold.  Players let far too much information just pass by after they fold because the football game on the big screen demands their attention once their hand is in the muck.  If they could only see how much money it costs them later on.

The tricky thing with tells is that the same reaction could mean the complete opposite when one person does it than another.  Many people who are weak tend to talk a lot more than normal.  I call this the nervous babble and it tends to happen in periods of high stress, the police pulled you over and you ramble on about how you were speeding because your mother is in the hospital and proceed to want to tell your whole life story, or going out on a date with the prettiest most popular girl at school.  However, with other people, they just like to talk a lot, so the nervous babble is less reliable and some people who normally talk a lot completely shut down when they’re bluffing.

Another great tell is the way people place chips in to the pot.  However, so many people know about the strong is weak and weak is strong system of tells they are often reversed or reverse reversed, but against novices it is still very effective.

One of my all-time favorites is when a player bets, it’s up to me to act and the player behind me is cutting out a big raise when it’s still my turn.  This means he’s almost never raising and is likely calling if I call and almost 100% of the time folding if I raise.  I see this so much on my live tables that I make it a point to get this player on my left because I know when he cuts out chips while the action is on me I can safely call with a draw and raise with a hand I want to isolate.

Observation is also paramount online.  Sometimes with the distractions of home and six tables, picking up on things can be a little more difficult than not watching the cocktail waitresses or sports on TV at a live casino, but is still required nonetheless.  Though body language clues are absent from the on line game, you still need to be paying attention to bet sizing and getting an idea of how your opponents value their hands.

Online tells become more of a question of based on your previous history with this player are they capable of showing down specific hands in a certain spot.  If a very tight player raises from UTG are they capable of having K9D, probably not, so if the board comes out K, 9, 2, you don’t really need to worry about them having two pair against your Ace King.

If you practice your reading skills on line just trying to narrow down your opponent’s possible range in each hand, when you play live you can use this same information and also add in the prospect of physical tells and opponent observation becomes a huge edge that very few players are taking full advantage of.

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Try it next time you play.  Block out all other stimuli and you’ll be amazed at how easy that fold was when you just know your opponent is showing strength based on your impartial observations.  Just see how many pots that you thought were easy folds become great stealing opportunities because you noticed that bet has always meant weakness.  Tells and betting patterns are not meant to be noticed just when you’re in the hand, but their meant to be picked up on when you’re not in the hand and taken advantage of when you’re money is at stake.

Tags: Poker Articles, Poker Cash Games, Poker Strategy

Goals in Poker; adjusting your expectations

Sunday, May 2nd, 2010 | Poker Articles, Poker Bankroll Management, Poker Cash Games, Poker Strategy, Poker Tournament, Poker and Life | No Comments

Submitted by Cory, this article belongs to the Poker and Life series.

It’s every poker players goal and dream to drag the million dollar pots in the biggest cash games or to be sitting at the final table of the World Series with the TV lights shining.  While this is a cool goal and the dream is possible, you can’t expect to go from novice player to big time winner all in one night, one year, or probably your entire lifetime.  It is important to set goals for yourself in poker, but you want to set goals that, though challenging, are also likely to be accomplished with some work.

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Many players will never develop their abilities beyond the level of occasional hobbyist, which is fine, especially if they realize where their skill level lies.  If you can admit that you’re playing for fun, then a $200 losing session doesn’t hurt that bad.  It’s the price of a night out and the fun you got to have making jokes with your table mates was worth the price.  However, if you only have the ability of a novice and expect to win like a pro, you’re in for a lifetime of frustration.

If you develop your skills to the point where you’re a winning player and can supplement your day job with some poker earnings, it is probably not the time to quit the day job because you may have made a big score or two.  Rather, you might want to see how things go over the next year before you even entertain the idea of going “pro.”

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If you keep your expectations in step with your talent level you will always be getting better, but you won’t be nearly as frustrated with the game.  It’s important to have a healthy relationship with poker and an honest assessment of where you stand is the basis for this relationship.

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Strategy against short stack

Wednesday, April 7th, 2010 | Poker Articles, Poker Strategy | No Comments

Submitted by Steve, this article belongs to the Poker Strategy series.

If you’re interested in poker strategy against short stacks, you might also be interested in an article I wrote about Poker buy in strategy – full vs short stack.

Strategy against short-stack cash players

When we discuss playing strategy against a short-stacked player, we need to specify whether it’s a tournament or a cash game we’re talking about. The difference is quite tremendous and I’ll get into why that’s the case shortly. Cash game short-stacks are of two types: players who don’t know better, and players who try to capitalize on the fact that they can destroy their opponents’ implied odds-based strategy by taking a short stack to the table. When you play against a short-stack, you’ll enjoy a certain advantage over him, an advantage given to you by the size of your stack. There are certain disadvantages to this one-sided match-up too, which means that you will have to adjust in order to optimize your chances. The first adjustment you need to make concerns your starting hands. Against fellow large-stacks, implied odds hands like small pocket pairs, suited connectors and suited one-gappers are great. Such hands can make you a ton of money over the long-run, even though putting chips into the middle on such hands may not seem like a great idea from a strictly mathematical perspective. Because of the fact that the few times you improve your starting hand you stand to make much more money than what you lose over the hands in which you do not improve, the implied odds bail you out and give perfect sense to playing such starting hands.

Implied odds are irrelevant when you’re up against a short stack

In the case of a short-stacked player, your implied odds are killed. The whole point of playing starting hands like the ones I listed above, is to hit a set/straight/flush with them and to get your opponent all-in. If you get a short-stacked opponent all-in though, all that you’ll win is satisfaction, because his stack will simply not be large enough to make up for the money you lost playing implied odds hands. To find out more about the implied odds, take a look at some strategy articles or a poker forum. For the purposes of this article, knowing this much is well enough.

ABC TAG poker

You need to make your reads on your short stacked opponent, and what you can do basically is just to play good old ABC TAG poker against him. Try to get him to commit on hands in which you have the edge. Starting hands like high pocket pairs and A,K, A,Q should be fine, but you have to be prepared for flipping a coin with him for his stack. The reason why you need such solid starting hands against the short-stack is that in a cash game, the short stack can afford to be extremely tight, and that you will not play a whole lot of post flop poker against this guy. If he commits preflop, chances are high he’ll end up shoving all in, that is he doesn’t do it from the get go.

Strategy against short-stack tournament players

Against a tournament short-stack, the situation is as different as can be. This guy will be under constant pressure from the ever escalating blinds, and therefore, he will not be able to play it as tight as he would like to. He will eventually be forced to shove all-in on a sub par hand, and you should be there to pick up the proceeds. Tournament short-stacks (especially in SNGs) are often ganged up on, so they really need to get lucky several times to turn things around. Your starting hand selection against a tournament short-stack should loosen up. Sometimes, you want to make the call, if for no other treason than to just add another hand that goes up against the short-stack’s do or die one. Sign up for a rakeback or a poker prop deal too. Whether you’re playing short-stacked players or large stacked ones, rakeback will help you make the most of the time you spend at the poker tables.

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