Poker bankroll management, building and strategy – online poker guide

Strange dreams

Tuesday, July 13th, 2010 | Mark | Off topic | No Comments

For some unknown reason I have extremely strange sci-fi dreams and most of the times I can remember them the next day. The dream I had yesterday was stranger than usual, so I thought I would write it down and share it. Interpretations are welcomed.

The dream starts on a holiday to Egypt with my girlfriend. In a parking lot we discover an entrance to an ancient tomb where we find two buried people wearing elaborate bracelets. We grab the bracelets and other valuable items from the tomb to get them evaluated – perhaps they could be sold to pay for our holiday. It turns out that the tomb along with all the items inside were fake. What a bummer.

Anyway the bracelet episode leads us on to a nearby mine where miners have gone missing under suspicious circumstances. My girlfriend, being an expert in ground radar analysis (which was completely new to me), suggests that we check it out to see if we can solve the mystery. We arrive on scene underground together with the miners, who inform us that terrifying mutant rhinos started appearing in the tunnels a few weeks ago when they started blasting into a new area of the rock.

On the way to the control room we barely escape a particularly nasty looking mutant. Inside the control room my girlfriend sets up her ground radar equipment and soon finds an abnormally large density of amino acids directly underneath the floor of the control room. We all start digging frantically and soon discover the remains of what looks to be an alien skeleton. It appears this skeleton infiltrates all the rock in the new blast area. We start excavating the area with the help of a giant laser. The work proceeds rather slowly in the beginning because we constantly have to dodge the mutant rhinos. Now here’s where the dream takes a strange twist. At some point the laser unearths a huge skull like feature in the skeleton with an opening in the top. Suddenly the mutant rhinos start jumping into the skull one by one. As they do this, the laser picks up speed and we find ourselves throwing everything organic we can find into the skull.

In no time the laser has excavated the entire skeleton and within seconds it morphs into a pink convertible Cadillac and Elvis. It turns out that the entire mining incident has been part of the grand opening celebration of a new underground casino. End of dream.

Tags: Off topic

Top 10 reasons why you shouldn’t play poker

Sunday, July 11th, 2010 | Mark | Poker Articles, Poker Top 10 Lists | 7 Comments

I was in a particularly foul mood when I wrote this “top 10 reasons why you shouldn’t play poker” list so bear with me.

1: Poker is a game of luck

You shouldn’t play poker because if you’re as unlucky as me, you will never win in the long run. Poker is almost entirely a game of luck which means that you will be better off spending your money on the lottery….or saving it up.

2: Online poker is rigged

You shouldn’t play online poker because it’s extremely rigged. The only people winning in the long run are those who work for the poker sites.

3: Sitting down is bad for your health

You shouldn’t play poker because 1 hour of sitting in front of your computer each day, increases your risk of heart disease by 7%. Your time is much better spent going for a run or spending quality time with your girlfriend

4: Poker isn’t cool

You shouldn’t play poker because being a pro poker player isn’t cool at all. It will never work as a pick up line in bars. If you’ve seen any kind of televised live poker you’ll know I’m right. The average male poker player has not been blessed by good looks. Do you really want to be associated with these people?

5: You are destined to become a poker blogger

You shouldn’t play poker because you will probably start blogging about it to compensate for you lack of success at the tables. Poker bloggers are a despicable breed of attention hungry, greedy and essentially boring people who’s only goal is to sign you up to rakeback deals.

6: You will become a porn addict

You shouldn’t play poker because it will turn you into a porn addict. Let’s face it, the only really interesting thing to do while waiting for your turn is to watch porn.

7: No social life

You shouldn’t play poker because your social life during weekends will be screwed. You will spend your weekends grinding cash tables and MTTs.

8: Decision making from a BB/hour perspective

You shouldn’t play poker because you’ll develop an annoying tendency to base decisions on a BB/hour vs time spent comparison. Yes, I could get a sandwich myself or I could have a taxi pick one up to avoid leaving my tables. You might also start relieving yourself in a bottle. Disgusting!

9: Depression

You shouldn’t play poker because the human mind tends to remember bad beats and bad decisions and forget the times you were lucky or did something right. As a result you will constantly feel unlucky and question your skills.

10: Lack of respect

You shouldn’t play poker because the people close to you will eventually lose all respect for you. Time and time again you will proclaim that you’re never playing poker again only to reinstall your poker clients and start up a new game the next day.

As for me, look for the nick pokerbrb, mepusia or pokerbrbblog and you’ll find a mentally unstable player who doesn’t have the willpower to quit and won’t commit the time to advance from his current level of mediocracy.

Tags: Poker Articles, Poker Top 10 Lists

Top 10 poker strategy tips for limit cash games

Thursday, July 8th, 2010 | admin | 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.

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

Top 10 limit poker cash game strategy tips

Sunday, July 4th, 2010 | Cory | 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

Learning Limit Texas Hold’em

Monday, June 28th, 2010 | Cory | Poker Articles, Poker Cash Games | No Comments

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

Cory wrote a great article on why it’s a good idea to start by learning limit Texas Hold’em if you’re a cash game poker beginner.

If you’re just beginning to learn cash game poker, you should start by getting a solid grasp of limit games.  Sure, limit poker isn’t as exciting as no limit, it’s not as glamorous and they don’t show it on TV, but before you jump in to no limit cash games, you’ll want to have a strong limit game.  This is for a few reasons.

First, it’s easy to take a successful limit player and turn him or her in to a winning no limit player.  This is not true the other way.  People who start with no limit tend to have a much more difficult time adjusting and adapting to a fixed limit betting structure.  As we’ve discussed before, it’s important to have a working knowledge of as many of the games as possible, so since it’s easy to turn a fixed limit player in to a no limit player later down the road, start your poker cash game career in limit hold ‘em.

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The second reason is limit hold ‘em forces players to be far more competent with the mathematics of poker than no limit.  With implied odds being the main factor in big bet games, pot odds are often times a secondary consideration when you’re deciding whether or not to make a call with a drawing hand.  Fixed bet games have little to offer in the way of implied odds, so the main focus is on the pot odds of any call, or the pot odds you might be laying an opponent if you bet.

Another reason limit games are good to start with is in a small bet game you’ll need to learn quickly how to get that one extra bet of value with the best hand and how to avoid giving away that one extra bet when you’re behind.  Getting max value in a limit game can be a lot tougher than in a no limit game, that’s why plays like check raising are over rated in no limit, but essential to winning in limit.  In no limit, with you’re whole stack behind you and in play on any given hand it’s like trying to extract value with a chain saw, but in limit you need to get every little bit of extra money in the pot that you can, so it’s more like getting value with a razor blade.  You’re just chipping away at your opponents.

The best part is, when you’ve developed the ability to accurately read situations in a fixed bet game, once you start playing no limit, people’s obvious betting patterns become so much easier to exploit.  In limit games you have to train yourself to pick up on subtlety, in no limit games, most low stakes players aren’t savvy enough to use subtlety in their strategy, so their betting mistakes are large and obvious.  If you’re used to reading what each fixed bet means, when you play no limit, the betting tells will be so easy to see that your opponents may as well just turn their cards face up often times.

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I was a winning no limit player for a while, but not exactly a big steady winner.  I took some time off playing no limit and spent over a year just learning and playing fixed limit.  When I returned to the no limit game I couldn’t help but crushing.  It was like I always knew when I was ahead and when I was behind just because I had trained myself to watch for all of the small signs and switching back to no limit all the signs of how strong or weak my opponents are got magnified exponentially.  My next couple of articles will give a basic strategy to beat low stakes limit Texas hold ‘em, then how to apply the concepts that you’ve developed from small bet poker to a big bet game like no limit hold ‘em.

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Poker Bankroll Blog’s Betfair poker bonus and rakeback deal

Wednesday, June 23rd, 2010 | Mark | Poker Articles, Poker Bonus | No Comments

This article belongs to the Poker Bonus series.

Poker Bankroll Blog’s Betfair poker bonus and rakeback deal

If you sign up for a Betfair poker bonus and rakeback deal through the Poker Bankroll Blog you will get the best Betfair poker bonus and rakeback deal available on the market:

• 10$ up front no deposit bonus
• Your own choice between a 50$, 500$ or 1500$ sign-up bonus
• Up to 40% rakeback

Introduction to Betfair poker

Betfair is the largest online betting exchange in the world with over 2 million clients and a reported weekly turnover of 50 million pounds sterling. As most other online bookies. Betfair also offers poker. What separates Betfair from the vast majority of other online betting sites is that their poker client runs on their own independent network. Betfair’s headquarter is situated in London and their game servers are located on Malta

The Betfair poker network comes in 17th place out of 32 networks on Poker Scout when it comes to player traffic, and since the bulk of Betfair’s customers are punters you can expect to find good soft games.

What I like about Betfair, is that they offer the whole range of gambling from sports betting to casino to games to poker. And they have integrated their bonus systems through Betfair points which are accumulated through any of the gambling disciplines mentioned above. This means that bets you place on sport games also generate Betfair points towards clearing your poker sign up bonus.

Here’s how you sign up for the Betfair poker bonus and rakeback deal:

1. Clear all cookies on your computer
2. Create a Betfair poker account through this link: Betfair poker sign up

10$ up front bonus details

To receive the $10 poker bonus a player has to:

• Open a Betfair account through the Poker Bankroll Blog

• Fill in bonus code: CYOX50, CTX500, CYX150″ on the registration form

• Download Betfair Poker client.

• Create Betfair Poker alias

• Register a payment processor and go through the age verification check

You have to complete each of the points above to get the 10$ free bonus.

If you are eligible to receive the $10 cash bonus, your account will be credited within a maximum of 72hrs of creating the Betfair account and Betfair Poker alias.

Sign up bonus details

• You are free to chose a 50$ (bonus code CYOX50), 500$ (bonus code CTX500) or 1500$ sign-up bonus (bonus code CYX150)
• In order to qualify you need to make a minimum deposit of 20$
• Bonuses are cleared in steps through accumulating Betfair Points (10 Betfair points per $ raked or paid in fees)
• The 50$ bonus is cleared in 5$ steps – for each $ cleared you need 30 Betfair Points
• The 500$ bonus is cleared in 50$ steps – for each $ cleared you need 24 Betfair Points
• The 1500$ bonus is cleared in 150$ steps – for each $ cleared you need 20 Betfair Points
• You have 90 days to clear the bonus
• Your sign-up bonus is deducted from your gross rake

Rakeback

• 40% rakeback until 31st of August 2010 for all new players signing up in June
• The standard rakeback percentage is 30%
• Your rakeback percentage increases to 40% if you rake more than 1500 pounds sterling each month
• Your rakeback is automatically paid into your account twice every month
• Your sign up bonus is deducted from your gross rake
• Tournament fees count towards your rake

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How to play poker best

Wednesday, June 16th, 2010 | Cory | Poker Articles, Poker Bankroll Building, Poker Cash Games | 2 Comments

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

How to play poker best is an article written by Cory where he gives advice on how to determine your poker A game. Obviously, the best way to play poker is when you’re beating the game and winning in the long run. Read on to learn more with regards to identifying your best poker game.

Finding your best poker game can be a little tricky, but it’s something you need to work on and be honest with yourself about.  Your best poker game is the poker variant at which you have the highest hourly profit with a minimal risk of ruin.

Sometimes with variance being what it is, finding your best game can be a long and costly process, but the upshot is, you’ll get plenty of experience playing other forms of poker that you can use later.  Remember, just because you’ve had three big winning sessions in a row at no limit hold ‘em, it doesn’t necessarily mean that no limit is your best game.  You’ll need to get in thousands of hands before you really know how well you understand the finer points of no limit and how your level of understanding matches up against your regular competition.

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I spent over a year and a half just playing limit hold ‘em to see if my win rate would be higher than no limit and for a while it was.  However, I found around my hundred thousandth hand online, plus another thirty or forty thousand live hands I kind of hit a wall in my thinking of limit hold ‘em and had a difficult time progressing from that point.  The best part was, I got to learn a lot about limit poker and can hold my own in that game, so if the occasion arises where a limit game is my best choice for a particular night, I can take a break from what has become my best game, no limit and still have a positive expectation in limit.

Everyone has an opinion on whether a not poker players should specialize and I say yes and no.  I think it’s important to know what your best game is, play that one most often, learn everything you can about it and be the absolute best you can be at that particular variant.  However, neglecting the other games entirely can be a big mistake as well.

If the biggest fish you know wants to play Omaha Eight or Better and you’ve only ever played no limit Hold ‘Em, you’re giving up some pretty good money.  You don’t need to be the best Omaha player to beat someone who’s terrible at it, but having a solid understanding of it will sure help give you the best chance to separate them from their bankroll in whatever game they wish to play.

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One of the best things about online poker is for just a few bucks you can get tons of hands in playing games that you’ve never or rarely played before.  PLO is probably one of my worst games, but today I played for 1 cent and 2 cent blinds and managed to hold my own.  This is a chance I couldn’t take if the only PLO games available to me were the $1-$2 PLO game that my local card room spreads.  That’s a pretty expensive way to learn.

So start your journey to find the most profitable game for you and along the way enjoy learning all of the games for very little investment.  That way, you make your bread and butter at your best game, but you can be flexible to collect easy money when it shows up somewhere else.

Tags: Poker Articles, Poker Bankroll Building, Poker Cash Games

Poker as a business

Monday, June 7th, 2010 | admin | 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

Calculating poker odds – Don’t misuse the rule of 2 and 4

Friday, June 4th, 2010 | Cory | Poker Articles, Poker Mathematics | 1 Comment

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

One of the first things we learn about the mathematics involved in poker is figuring out our chances of winning by using the rule of four and two.  For those of you who may not be sure exactly how that works, if you have an open ended straight draw for example, you count your outs, the unseen cards that make your straight, which is 8 and multiply your number of outs by 4 on the flop and 2 after the turn.  So on the flop you’re about 32% to make your straight with the turn and the river yet to come and on the turn you’re about 16% to make your straight with just the river to come.

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Basically is what this means, is the odds of you completing your straight are just over 2:1 against it with 2 cards and just under 5:1 against it with 1 card.  This information is used to measure the likelihood of you hitting your draw against the price you’re getting on a call compared to how much is already in the pot.

If I’m playing a pot with $80 and my opponent bets $20, he creates a pot of $100 and it costs me $20 to potentially win that $100, or I’m getting 5:1 on the call.  We’re all good so far right?

The problem is, I’ve recently run in to a lot of players who are completely misusing the rule of four and two to try and justify some pretty bad calls.  You really need to be thinking about what your chances are of hitting your draw on the next card because very often, you’re going to be faced with another bet.  The rule of four and two was designed for when you’re facing an all in bet on the flop or turn and you have a draw.  If you go all in, you’re guaranteed to see all five board cards, but if you and your opponent still have chips behind, it changes the math drastically.

Let’s say you’re in a $1-$2 game.  You and your opponent each have $200 stacks to start the hand.  Your opponent opens from middle position to $8 and you call with 8C7C from the button and take a flop heads up.  The blinds have probably been taken out for rake, so we have a pot of probably $15.  The flop comes 9H, 6S, AD.  You have no clubs, but you have an open ended straight draw.  Your opponent bets $10 creating a pot of $25 and you’re getting 2.5:1.  Using your rule of four and two the odds are 2:1 against hitting your hand so this is a profitable call… if you can guarantee that you’ll see both remaining cards.

You can’t forget about how much you’re probably going to have to call on the turn.  If you call this flop bet there will be a pot of $35, so if you miss the turn, you may have to call a bet somewhere between $20 and $30 to see the river card which you counted on with your rule of four.  So really, your flop decision has to be whether or not you’ll be willing to call somewhere between $30 and $40 to see both the turn and river.

This is where implied odds come in to play.  Since you and your opponent are both playing $200 deep, it makes sense to call his bet on the flop and call a reasonable bet if you miss the turn.  Let’s say you call this $10 on the flop creating a pot of $35 and your opponent bets $20 on the turn and you missed.  Now you’re getting $55:$20, or 2.75:1 pot odds, which is not a good price, but if you call, the pot will be $75 and your opponent will have $162 to pay you off with if you hit the river.

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If your opponent should decide to bet the river when you hit, it’s going to be somewhere around $50 in to a pot of $75, in which case you’re going to be able to stack him enough of the time to make the call on the turn where you were getting slightly the worst of it profitable in the end.  Big bet poker games are more about implied odds than pot odds.  Limit games focus more on pot odds since implied odds in a limit game are reduced to maybe one or two extra bets.

Never forget when deciding whether or not to call on the flop to factor in how much that call is really going to cost you.  Always be aware of the effective stack size in the hand so you can calculate your implied odds.  Don’t make calls where you’re taking the worst of it if either you or your opponent has a shorter stack.  Stop using the rule of four and two to justify flop calls when you can’t call a bet on the turn and get that river card that you promised yourself on the flop.

Tags: Poker Articles, Poker Mathematics

Observing poker opponents

Thursday, May 27th, 2010 | Cory | 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