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3 betting in poker

Sunday, August 29th, 2010 | Poker Articles, Poker Cash Games, Poker Strategy | 1 Comment

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 | 2 Comments

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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Limit concepts in a no limit poker game

Saturday, July 17th, 2010 | Poker Articles, Poker Cash Games | No Comments

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

This is the third article in series written by Cory on limit cash games and how lessons learned here can be applied in no limit cash games as well. If you haven’t already read the previous articles in the series check them out here.

• Top 10 limit poker cash game strategy tips

• Top 10 poker strategy tips for limit cash games

So I can safely assume that after reading my last three articles you’ve learned the importance of having a solid limit hold ‘em game, the basics of winning loose passive limit hold ‘em games and have put in many hours and thousands of hands at limit hold ‘em and now you’re ready to see what this has to do with helping your no limit game. I want to show you a few key issues that are highlighted in limit hold ‘em, that are slightly less important in no limit, but a superior understanding of these ideas will help you win a little more and lose a lot less.

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Pot Odds

In limit, pot odds dictate nearly every decision when you’re faced with a bet. If you have a draw are you getting at least the minimum odds to call? If you have a made hand, what kind of pot odds are you laying your opponents? If you have a monster draw multi-way, what kind of pot equity do you have if the betting gets capped on the flop?

In no limit, you’ll be faced with many implied odds decisions, but always keep the pot odds in mind. Implied odds are guess work at best trying to calculate how much your opponents are likely to call should you hit. For this reason, immediate pot odds are less important when you’re looking at a small pair pre-flop, since if you hit your hand it will be very hidden and you should have very high implied odds, but you had better be getting close to 3:1 immediate pot odds on a flush draw since the 3rd flush card is often an action killer, thus shrinking your implied odds.

Since you have a much better understanding of how to use your pot odds, just add your implied odds to your decision making process. Every time you’re faced with a decision with a drawing hand, think of what immediate pot odds you’re getting and what future implied odds you’re likely to get.

The Free Card Play

Remember the free card play from the limit articles? Try this in your no limit game sometime. Most low stakes no limit players often adopt the same, “check to the raiser,” mentality. If you’re faced with a bet on the flop, try sometimes putting in a raise with a draw so you have the option of checking back if you miss the turn.

In no limit I’m more likely to try a free card play with either a hand with a smaller chance of getting there, a gutshot, or a hand with lower implied odds like a flush draw. With the gutshot I also don’t want to try a free card play if my opponent under bets the pot laying me a pretty good price. I don’t get a good price on one way straight draws much, so when I do I need to take advantage of it, but if my opponent bets half or 2/3 of the pot, I may try raising for a little fold equity and for my possible free card. Make sure this play is done with a read that this opponent is less comfortable with pressure. That bit of extra fold equity is very important in a no limit situation.

With a flush draw, I don’t mind occasionally trying the free card play since often times my action is going to be killed when my gin card comes. This way if I make it, I’ve built up a bigger pot for my opponents to try and fight for and they’re less likely to put me on a flush draw because they would have expected me to just call. There’s at least a possibility that I can improve my implied odds with a position raise on the flop.

Patience

I’m sure you figured out through your limit hold ‘em experiment that you really need to be showing down the best hand most times. Bluffing opportunities are far more common in no limit games, so hopefully you’ve learned patience through your limit experience. Too many no limit players tend to just fire away at pots, thinking they have far more fold equity than they really do. It should be much easier for you to see when nobody wants a pot and collect the dead money since it’s so much harder to see with a fixed limit betting structure. You should also have a clear picture of when someone intends to play the hand down. Remember in your limit games where you’d bet the turn and your opponent would snap call without even thinking about it? What did that tell you? It always tells me that 95% of the time he’s just calling the river no matter what. Now I know I can value bet the river with good hands and I can just check losers. Start thinking about that in a no limit context, it’s often easy to tell when someone decides they’re going to showdown no matter what. Play your hand accordingly.

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Thin Value

This is something you always hear talked about with fixed betting games, but not often with no limit games. However, similar concepts apply. Money left on the table by not betting winning hands on the river is the same as money lost. When you have position in a no limit game, your value can’t be quite as thin as you don’t always want to give up your button, but you still need to be betting if you think there’s a reasonable chance that you get called by worse.

These are just a few ways you can integrate what you’ve learned from limit in to a no limit betting format. You’ll find other interesting details that carry over as you play more. Now you’re ready to play no limit against people who are less prepared with their fundamental poker knowledge and if you see a big time fish in a limit game, you can comfortably sit in that game and crush as well.

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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.

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Learning Limit Texas Hold’em

Monday, June 28th, 2010 | 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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How to play poker best

Wednesday, June 16th, 2010 | 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 poker bankrolls 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.

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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.

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Beating the rake in cash games

Friday, May 21st, 2010 | Poker Articles, Poker Cash Games, Poker Rakeback | 2 Comments

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

If you play in low stakes games, you need to be more aware of how the rake effects how you should play.  My bread and butter game is currently $1-$2 no limit.  One of the major reasons I’m able to come out ahead consistently in this game is because I’m always cognizant of how I need to adjust my strategy with the rake as a factor.  Rooms vary significantly on how they get their cut, but if you’re playing in a low stakes live game, the rake is often going to be as much as 10% of the pot and this should help you beat it.

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This is how the rake in my favorite room works.  If a flop is seen $4 gets dropped.  It doesn’t matter if the pot is $10 or $100.  Plus if you win a pot most times you’re going to tip $1.  So, it costs you $5 to win a pot.  Let’s say you lose $10 in a pot, you’ll need to win $15 to get even.  This can be kind of tough.  Here are some ways that will help you climb that mountain.

Play even tighter from early position.  Often times in cash games it’s pretty standard to limp from middle position with suited connectors and suited aces.  Watch out though, in a small game this might not be a great idea.  Even if your dream happens and you see a six way flop with 87S for just $2 you’re thinking that you’ve got $12 in the pot, remember you actually only have $8 in the pot and if you win and tip, it’s only $7.  So even given your immediate pot odds 7:2 or 3.5:1 is just over half the price you were getting if you were in a game with no rake or tip.

The even bigger problem is if you limped in with this hand from early or middle position, it’s going to be much more difficult for you to get the maximum value if you should flop big.  If you flop the nuts, do you lead out?  Do you check raise?  Do you check call and lead the turn?  Do you check call and try to check raise the turn?  It’s very difficult not to completely polarize your range when playing out of position.

On line the rake is more player friendly, generally running at about 5%.  If you’re playing $1-$2 live, in order to match the 5% rake and tip, each pot you win will have to be $100 or more.  If you can get the pot over $100, you’ve maxed out the rake and the additional money you win is free.  That’s why if you’re going to play drawing hands, you must be in position so you have the best chance of building that huge pot when you flop the joint.

The next thing is don’t worry so much about the small pots.  If you’re playing $5-$10, taking down a small pot can pay for your gas and dinner.  At $1-$2 taking down a small pot is just allowing the casino to make their four or five bucks off you and get to the next hand quicker.  Of course sometimes you’re going to win a small pot when you flop big and don’t get any action, but don’t go after them.  If the pot is $6 and your opponent bets $2 you probably don’t have to call with that gut shot and over.  The pay off just isn’t going to be big enough as often as you’d need it to be.

Make sure you win more than your fare share of big pots.  If you play tight chances are you’re going to have the best of it more often than not when a big pot develops.  If the majority of pots that you win are $100 or more, you’ll beat the rake.  Keep in mind that you’re not going to be taking down monster pots very often, but if the game only costs $3 an orbit; you’ve got time to wait.  If you can average about a big pot every hour or so, you’ll be in good shape.  Remember, this is average, you’re not going to win a big pot once an hour, just like you’re not going to get aces on every 221st hand exactly, but sometimes you’ll drag two or three pots in an hour, other times you’ll go two or three hours without playing a hand.

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The casino is taking about a rack off the table every hour.  Think of them as your tenth opponent who is guaranteed to take $100 an hour.  How would you play this opponent?  Very tight and very aggressive.  You’d build huge pots when you have the best of it and fold when your hand or the pot isn’t worth contesting.  If you do this you’ll see a nice little win rate start to develop and you won’t be throwing away money to the house.

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How to deal with poker fish

Saturday, May 15th, 2010 | Poker Articles, Poker Cash Games | No Comments

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

Cory wrote this great article on how to deal with poker fish in order to maximize your winnings against them. Basically it’s all about treating poker as your business and the poker fish as your customers. Great stuff Cory!!

A few of the biggest super stars in poker have made a name for themselves by insulting other players at the table during televised tournaments.  Unfortunately the general public who gets in to poker via TV broadcasts thinks this is just how good players should treat bad players when the bad players get lucky and win.  However, these poker fans, turned rounders are forgetting some key factors.

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First, the TV players are almost always playing tournaments where the poker fish can’t ask for a table change, or just get up and cash in their chips.  Most other poker players are likely playing cash games where they benefit from keeping the easy money at the table.

The second thing is the rounder at the local card room isn’t performing for a television audience.  Whether or not you enjoy the antics of these opinionated players, it raises the profile of the sites they represent.  Thing is, you and I aren’t representing poker sites.  Poker is our job and the card room is our office.

Just think of how house games at casinos work.  The casino spreads a game like blackjack which has a very small edge for the house, so the player might win some hands, maybe even have some big winning nights.  However, the casino knows that regardless of how much a blackjack player wins, the house will get it all back and then some.  Why else do you think the casino comps the big table game winner’s room and meals?  They want this guy to stick around and keep playing blackjack, because it’s just a matter of time before they win all of his money back.

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If you’re the better poker player, you need to have this same approach.  When a poor player draws out on you, tell him nice hand, don’t quote the odds and tell him how bad he plays, it’s bad for business.  If you beat the fish in a large pot, tell him how he played it right and you just got lucky.  It is your responsibility to make sure that your opponents are having a good time and enjoying losing their money to you.  I’ve even gone as far as buying a round of cocktails for the whole table to get a couple guys who were racking up to stay longer.  This little trick has paid dividends.

Most poker players are coming and losing.  Give them the entertainment they are paying for and they’ll come pay you to give them a fun night out more frequently.

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