Poker bankroll management, building and strategy – online poker guide

The Perfect Bluff in poker: Telling a believable story

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

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

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

We recommend these poker bonus deals

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We recommend these poker school and poker tools

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

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

Good luck at the tables.

@Fubusama

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

Tags: Poker Articles, Poker Strategy

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.

We recommend these poker bonus deals

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.
We recommend these poker school and poker tools

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 | 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.

We recommend these poker bonus deals

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.

We recommend these poker school and poker tools

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

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

Poker as a business

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

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

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

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

We recommend these poker bonus deals

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.

We recommend these poker school and poker tools

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

Go get ‘em!

Tags: Poker Articles, Poker Strategy, Poker Tools

Observing poker opponents

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

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

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

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

We recommend these poker bonus deals

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.

We recommend these poker school and poker tools

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

Tags: Poker Articles, Poker Cash Games, Poker Strategy

Goals in Poker; adjusting your expectations

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

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

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

We recommend these poker bonus deals

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

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

We recommend these poker school and poker tools

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

Tags: Poker and Life, Poker Articles, Poker Bankroll Management, Poker Cash Games, Poker Strategy, Poker Tournament

Strategy against short stack

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

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

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

Strategy against short-stack cash players

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

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

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

ABC TAG poker

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

Strategy against short-stack tournament players

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

You could be posting your articles on the Poker Bankroll Blog. Read all about it here.

Check out our Poker Freeroll and Tournament League.

Tags: Poker Articles, Poker Strategy

Poker losing streak

Wednesday, March 24th, 2010 | Poker and Life, Poker Strategy | No Comments

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

Poker losing streaks represent the incarnation of necessary evil in poker.Regardless of how good and lucky a player you are, you will hit a snag in the road sooner or later, and you can take that pretty much for granted.

Poker is a game of variance. You win some and you lose some, and your goal as a successful poker player is to balance things so that at the end of the day, when you add up your wins, your losses, your rakeback, your sign-up bonus and who knows what else, you should be above the dreaded red line. If you can achieve that, you’ll be a successful player.

Dealing with poker losing streaks seems pretty simple on paper, however, due to the emotional intricacy of the human race and to the often perverted ways poker finds to put one to the test, it is not nearly as simple in practice.

That would explain why some of the top poker professionals (and I’m thinking about Phil Hellmuth and Mike Matusow here) have such a tough time handling poker losing streaks. If these guys can’t do it, what chance do you – a mere commoner – stand?
Successful poker and bankroll management hinges on one thing and one thing alone: knowing when to quit. If you become adept as quitting in the right moments, you’ll be able to handle your losses better than anyone else. As a general rule, as long as you play well, and as long as you keep piling up those “Sklansky dollars”, you shouldn’t quit.

Some people set themselves session goals. Such practice is counterproductive from several angles. Suppose you say you need to log a profit of $100 before you call it the day. You start playing and you play extremely well indeed. You reach your goal before you know it, then you quit. What you’ve done is that you’ve minimized the time spent playing while on your A-game. The following day, you log in again, once again set to reach that same $100 profit mark. You get hit by
bad luck though and as your set succumbs to a straight, followed by your A-high straight being knocked cold by a boat, you find yourself $100 in the hole. You begin to tilt and to make foolhardy moves, but you can’t stop: after all, you have $200 to make up for now.How does that translate? You maximize the time you spend playing while on your worst game. So the key to
managing poker losing streaks is to just stop playing once you realize your judgment is clouded.

Being able to stop at the right time though, means that you need to be able to manage your emotions. Often when hit by losing streaks, players fall into a sort of mental rut, which ends up prolonging their suffering.

Tell yourself that it’s all math, and as long as you’re still amassing Sklansky dollars, you’re going to come out a winner on the other side of the tunnel.

It is interesting to see how many players manage their emotions badly. They let despair take over when hit by bad beats, and they begin to fear that every time they shove those chips into the middle, they’ll end up watching them shipped in the other direction. Just take a look at the posts in a poker forum, you’ll see what I’m talking about. This kind of thinking brings about more trouble as it interferes with the optimal decision making process. Staying upbeat is easy when things are going well. Keeping a stiff upper lip is much more difficult when under assault by Lady Luck though.

You could be posting your articles on the Poker Bankroll Blog. Read all about it here.

Check out our Poker Freeroll and Tournament League.

Tags: Poker Articles, Poker Strategy

3 bet poker strategy

Sunday, March 7th, 2010 | Poker Articles, Poker Strategy | No Comments

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

There are countless amounts of spots at the online  poker tables where utilizing the three bet properly will allow you to chip up hopefully without going to showdown. When I say without going to showdown I am talking about making a bluff move with a nothing hand like 45 offsuit preflop. Before I discuss this theory in detail I’d like to explain what a three bet actually is.

We recommend these poker bonus deals

3 bet stealing preflop

Here’s a few more ways to get chips when you are deep in a tournament. I recommend using these moves ONLY when you have acquired reads on your table and adjusted to your opponents tenancies. If you are at a super aggro table, you might want to skip using these steal moves. But lets face it, if you’re a good player, you can tell when players are just trying to fold to make the money and protect their stacks. Now have you ever sat at the table with that guy that always repops you when you raise taking the action away from you preflop, always seems to be raising your blinds and your folding because you pick up 29 suited. But lets face it here, poker tournaments aren’t won by sitting back and waiting for pocket AA’S. Turning your nothing hands into a situation where you can potentially represent that you have a hand even when you don’t, and get your opponents to fold.

Well what is a 3 Bet resteal ? The word pretty much dictates the action that you must take. You are stealing a pot from your opponent by reraising his raise when the situation allows you to do so . These moves are usually used deep in the tournament once you build your stack.  This is where the fun starts! The antes are high, the blinds are going up and this means you are closer to the money!! So now is the time all the weak donkeys who went crazy in the beginning should shine right? Wrong! Deepstack poker with the pressure on is about playing without any pressure on you and making sure you put the pressure on the other players by raising and reraising. You must also be fully aware aware that you want to control the table. There are things that you can do such as 3bet, under the gun steal, button steal and reraise a raiser in an attempt to defend your big blind. Listing these moves you need to understand that performing tricky moves like this leaves you vulnerable postflop. Players have a tendency to tighten up and make a lot of mistakes when the tournament is deep and they have invested a time commitment. Throw in the fact that this might be their first deep run in a tournament . Keep the pressure on! If you use your best judgment and be a selective aggressive poker player, you will succeed.

Utilizing the 3 bet is a necessity and a huge part in advancing your tournament game. So what exactly is a 3 bet? When someone raises the pot and you reraise their raise, you are three betting your opponent.  Now three betting can spark a tournament players creativity because you generally don’t always need a hand to three bet. Using the 3 bet as a steal move is a way to get chips in a tournament hopefully without going to a flop. Three betting gives you a lot better of a chance to take down the hand whether its preflop or postflop. Since you took the initiative to put the pressure on your opponent, if they call you but miss the flop, you can continuation bet and have a good chance to take down the pot right there without showdown. Now Three betting light is when you are reraising your opponent with any two cards and use the three bet as a steal. Now when I say light I mean any two cards. You have to make sure there are no short stacks at the table that are capable shoving on you because they are getting desperate. This move is based on the thought process that most people raise when its folded to them and they will raise fairly light in an attempt to get in the action. Keep in mind it takes a pretty strong hand to raise and call a reraise as long as your three bet is sized properly. There are a few solid positions at the table that the three bet can be used to your full advantage.

Three betting to defend your big blind

How many times in tournaments have you gone completely card dead and someone consistently raises your big blind and you fold because you’re not calling with 45 offsuit. Instead of just folding in those situations you can pick a good time to three bet your opponents open raise. The ideal situation would be when its folded to someone in late position and they raise your blind . The button and small blind fold, leaving you heads up with your opponent preflop and a rag hand. Now faced with a raise most people might just throw their garbage hands away which most of the time is correct. But if you are mixing up your play and taking chances you want to be picking up these pots to increase your chipstack. Again remember, this move is a steal move so your cards are irrelevant. You are not playing the strength of your hand you are playing the situation. Another benefit of three betting your opponents out of the big blind is of you do it enough players might stop raising your blinds light since you are defending them and this might lead to more walks. You are just playing the fact that you are taking the lead in the hand and being aggressive preflop, allowing you to take down pots without going to a flop. The best situation to resteal is when you are pretty deep and your opponent has a medium sized stack and is raising into you. You don’t want to resteal someone who is desperate and will most likely come over the top of your reraise. Try to pay attention to who is raising a lot and if the person raised and folded to someone else’s reraise. You can pick up valuable pots and turn a hand that most people will fold into a hand where you can ship chips into your stack.

We recommend these poker school and poker tools

Defending button

There are a few things to pay attention to when trying to defend your big blind. Before you decide to reraise your opponent make sure he has enough chips left behind if he makes the fold. The same thought process goes for reraising your big blind. The value of three betting your button with any two cards as a steal move is the fact that you have position postflop and if you get called u can possibly continuation bet or check-raise the flop and take down a pot with a nothing hand. The problem with three betting on the button is that it’s sometimes and obvious steal move. Good player might pick up on it but you generally don’t have to worry about it if you have are good with your postflop play. The beauty about three betting your button is the simple fact that if you have position on your opponent for the remainder of the hand. Think about the hand your opponent must hold for him to continue the hand. Sit in your opponents chair for a second and look at the situation you are putting him in. Its folded to him and he puts in a raise with any standard opening hand let’s say for instance he’s raising with KJ. Now he’s probably thinking I can take down the blinds with this hand. But now someone reraises him making him think about the strength of his hand. When faced with a reraise most opponents will downgrade the strength of their hand. Now a good player will fold the KJ just because they don’t want to play put of position but the donkey calls you to “see a flop” which is an excuse used by donkeys from the beginning of time. Flop drops 2 5 Q rainbow. He checks and you continuation bet. Little does he know you hold the 78 off suite and he’s actually ahead! If your opponent hits the board, most of the time they will check to you so if he check calls or check raises you, obviously dump your hand. But this is a little trick that can be used in your tournaments. So go try it out and see how many nothing hands you can turn into opportunities to ship chips to your stack.  Get more Information on No Limit Texas Holdem Tournament Strategy at www.pokerbetter.com.

Tags: Poker Articles, Poker Strategy

Playing poker against weak players

Tuesday, February 23rd, 2010 | Poker Articles, Poker Strategy | 1 Comment

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

It is a well known fact that you will make the vast majority of your money at poker from weak players. It should be common sense that weak players are going to make more mistakes and as a result donate more money to the other players at the table.

Whether you are at the casino or playing poker online you should keep an eye out for players from countries where poker has only just started to become popular, places such as Romania and Hungary and watch out for people asking how to play poker card game. The broken English alone should be enough to have you rubbing your hands together with glee.

Although weak players are a joy to play with, they do need a special approach in order to maximise your profits against them. Firstly, never try to bluff them, ever. Even if you are thinking of representing a possible full house or stronger, your weak player will still call you often enough with second or third pair to make bluffing unprofitable. The reason bluffing does not work is they simply do not understand what you are trying to achieve by bluffing so they call anyway.

When playing against new, weak players you should value bet your hands to the maximum. Hands as weak as top pair are good enough to bet on all three streets against a typical poor player as they will simply call all the way with a wide array of draws, overcards or small pairs.

Listen to what their betting is telling you and act accordingly. They will lack both the knowledge and skills to make a decent bluff so if they have check/called the flop, done the same on the turn and then fire out a substantial bet on the river when the third flush card hits then they will have the flush almost 100% of the time so do not be making any hero calls!

Finally, although they will often suck out on you during a typical session you should try your utmost not to berate them at any point. Moaning about how poorly they played a particular hand will do one of two things, it will either let the player know he made a mistake, a mistake that he will be less likely to make in future or he may simply leave the table to find a less hostile one. Either way you will lose out.

Tags: Poker Articles, Poker Strategy