The Powerful Semi-Bluff

While bluffing can sometimes be one of the most thrilling plays in poker, it can also be one of the scariest.  Especially for cash game players who are risking real money when they put their chips into the middle with nothing but air.  Semi-bluffing can provide many of the same rewards that bluffing can, but with the added benefit that you still may be able to make a winning hand even if you get called.  Semi-bluffing means that you are betting with a hand that would currently lose at showdown, but the hand also has the potential to improve.

For example let’s say you are holding the 10H and JH and the flop falls 7H, 8H and A-D. Even though you are technically behind if you bet, your hand still has a chance of winning at showdown if you catch a heart or a 9. Even better, you could win the pot immediately if your opponents aren’t carrying an Ace.

You can semi-bluff your hand either in or out of position, and each option offers different risks and benefits.  The first benefit of semi-bluffing from out of position is that sometimes by leading out, you can take the pot right away by forcing your opponents to fold.  In cases where your opponent does not fold, a semi-bluff can work as a defensive bet. You take control of the game by enticing your opponent to call for a smaller amount that he would have eventually bet on his own.  Also, semi-bluffing from out of position can be very deceptive since your opponents will often give you credit for having a made hand rather than some kind of draw.  If your opponent raises your semi-bluff on the flop, you may want to call and reevaluate your hand on the turn, but occasionally you can continue your semi-bluff and put in a big re-raise.  You can do this either when your draw is very unlikely to hit or when you suspect your opponent does not have a huge hand.  If you think your opponent is very strong, you can check-call hoping to make your hand on the turn.  If you think he’s weak, you can lead out with another semi-bluff on the turn.

Your semi-bluffing options are slightly different when you are in position.  In this case, betting your hand when your opponents check to you can often be enough to just take the pot down right away.  Remember though that by doing so you are re-opening the betting and giving a tricky opponent the chance to check-raise you into folding a hand that could have improved with a free card.  With this in mind, take careful note of who you are up against in the hand.  If you are up against a weak or predictable opponent you can semi-bluff without much fear.  Against a tricky or more aggressive opponent, then you need to think about whether or not your hand can stand up to a check-raise before you bet.

Preying on the Tight Players

If a loose player gets involved in too many hands pre-flop, a tight player doesn’t play enough.  That’s how you can tell the difference between your opponents at the table.  This can make determining their range of hands fairly easy as tight players are often unwilling to play with anything less than a premium holding.  Because tight players are opposite of loose players when it comes to their playing strategies, it only makes sense that you will need to alter your approach when playing hands against these tight players.

When you play tighter against a loose opponent, you stand to profit by playing more aggressively against tight opponents. During pre-flop play this means that you should raise more hands against tight opponents.  For example, if you have an opponent in the blinds that is playing really tight, and you are in late position, you will probably want to raise every single time.  If you see an opponent who likes to limp into the pot with marginal hands, like Q-10 suited or a medium pocket pair, you can often push them off their hand by offering a pre-flop raise. By the same token, if you see a tight player who doesn’t defend his big blind with anything other than a big hand, don’t be afraid to open up your game and steal the blinds by raising pre-flop.  Many players like to raise with weak hands like 10-7 or 6-4 in these spots rather than mediocre hands like Q-J or 10-9, because they are easier to get away from if they are re-raised.  If by chance you do call a raise from a tight player while holding a mediocre hand, be careful if you flop top pair and your tight opponent is putting in a lot of money. It’s probable that your opponent has you beat with an over-pair or a set, or even with a better kicker.

Another key to this strategy is to watch how a tight player reacts once they become involved in hand before the flop.  Some tight players will open-raise the pot with a good hand, but fold to a re-raise because they are not willing to risk their chips with anything less than a premium hand.  Other tight players will become ‘sticky’ once they’ve opened a pot and their stubbornness will force them to not want to lay down their hand to anything less than a huge re-raise. Only re-raise tight players who will show that they can lay down a hand that they really wanted to play.

After the flop the best way to profit against tight opponents is to bet or raise them off their hands or in other words, bluff them!  While this is a very effective play against a tight and timid opponent, you need to be careful when you are facing a tight and talented player.  The tight and talented player is very skilled in trapping aggressive opponents and inducing them into bluffing off their chips in bad times.

As the game gets short-handed, you will need to become a little more careful against some tight opponents.  Some of those tight players will not be able to adjust to a shorter table, which means that you can continue to play aggressively against them without fear.  But the talented tight player will be changing up their game as the situation changes and they are likely to loosen up their ranges, just as you are. Pay close attention to these players and exercise caution if they start to play back at you more frequently in short-handed situations.

Finally, remember that position is always your friend.  If there is an all-in raise during a particular hand, make sure you are the one making it!  Where a loose player will often fold because they have a weak hand, tight players are likely to fold in these spots because they fear they have an inferior hand.

Stealing in Poker Tournament Play

To be a successful tournament player you need to learn how to steal pots from your opponents in order to increase your chip stacks.  There are moments at every table, where the opportunity to steal presents itself and a good poker player will become adapt at picking the best spots to steal. As the blinds and antes go up in a tournament, you need to keep increasing your chip stack in order to prevent yourself from getting short-stacked. Obviously if you are on a lucky streak you can increase your chip stack by just winning a big hand against another player who may also have a hand.  But that doesn’t happen too often and the blinds and antes don’t wait for you to get a hand against hand situation, so that means that you’re going to have to steal to survive in a tournament.

As the blinds and antes keep going up, stealing allows you to buy time until you do get the lucky moment of having a big hand and winning a large pot.  Successful players certainly understand this concept, and more importantly they recognize that there are plenty of spots in a tournament that you can steal pots with a very high percentage of hitting success.

The most obvious spots to steal in a tournament are at the bubbles.  The final table bubble is a great opportunity to steal because players want to say they made it to the final table. Of course any money bubble is also a good opportunity, because this is when players start to tighten up their games as they want to ensure that they walk away with some cash.  An experience poker player will agree that this is not a good strategy because the ultimate goal is to win the tournament, not just walk away with the minimum cash.  More importantly you don’t want to make it to the final table with the smallest chip stack and then be the first one out.  There are lots of players out there that do consider making the cash almost as good as winning the tournament.  So this makes the bubble an excellent opportunity to just sneak in there, open up your game and steal pots to exploit your opponents’ tight play.  These tight players will be playing way too conservatively and they will be reluctant to give up any of their money right before the bubble bursts.  When you start to open pots they will be less likely to play back at you, unless they have very strong hands.  When they raise, you can re-raise them because they will not want to put any more chips at risk right before the bubble.

You should also be looking for very tight opponents who are reluctant to defend their blinds with anything less than a really good hand.  You should attack these types of player’s blinds as often as possible.  Remember, you may not be the only one at the table who is figuring out these types of blinds strategy, so if you see other players, particularly players to your right who are also attacking those blinds, sometimes you can re-steal with a well-timed three-bet.  Also, look for players that raise too many times from late position, and look for spots where you can re-raise them out of the pot since they will fold with most of the range they’ve been opening or raising with.

You should also be looking for very tight opponents who are reluctant to defend their blinds with anything less that a really good hand.  Attacking these types of player’s blinds as often as possible is another great stealing strategy.  Remember, you may not be the only one at the table who is figuring out these blinds strategy so if you see other players, particularly players to your right who are also attacking those blinds, sometimes you can re-steal with a well-timed three-bet.  Also, look for players that raise too many times from late position, and look for spots where you can re-raise them out of the pot since they will fold with most of the range they’ve been opening with.

Your steal plays will be more effective if you don’t play like a maniac.  Always maintain a solid image at the table, because it will always end up working in your favor.

What To Do When You Reach The Final Table

Even though tournaments tend to get “loose” once the money bubble bursts, things tend to tighten up again as players approach the final table.  A lot of the pros will say that you should consider the late stages of the tournament as a “new and smaller” tournament and adjust your play accordingly.

Just as making the money is overvalued by many players, so is reaching the final table.  This means that players will tend to tighten up their games and become more susceptible to pressure applied by more aggressive opponents.  The best time to really step up the pressure on your opponents is when the multi-tabled tournament reaches about 15 players.  This is when the final table is fast approaching and is so tantalizing close!  Think about it!  There are just six players left that have to be eliminated before the remaining players take center stage.  And even more importantly, with just 15 or fewer players left, the remaining tables are short-handed, and this can be important for two reasons.  First, when the play becomes short-handed, you will start to see the blinds come around much faster and you can’t afford to sit back and wait for premium hands.  You need to play a wider range of starting hands to maintain your stack. Secondly, it is a fact that many of your opponents will naturally be tightening up their game at this point, so you need to begin to re-establish your ‘maniac’ table image which will help you when you do actually reach the final table.

Once the final table bursts, be prepared to tighten up your game again.  Just as many players loosen up their game after making the money, those players whose goal it was to make the final table will start to gamble again, especially if they are short-stacked.  This means you are going to want stronger hands when you decide to get involved in a pot.  You also need to remember that once you reach the final table, you are no longer short-handed, and the blinds will be coming around at a much slower pace, so you can afford to sit back and wait for those stronger hands, or even the speculative hands, if you are in position.

Remember that the loose aggressive image that you developed during the time of short-handed play just before the final table, will be working in your favor once you are playing a tighter game.  Because you were playing so aggressive just a short time earlier, your opponents will tend to over-play weaker hands against you because they won’t give you credit for having a good hand.



How to Play the Turn

We’ve all heard someone say how their fate changed on the turn of a card.  One card here, one card there, a card away from a championship….in poker, sometimes the fate of your hand often changes with the turn card. 

The key to playing the turn is to understand when you want to shut down any further betting and knowing when to leave the betting open.  Closing the action simply means that your opponent can’t bet again on that round.  For example, if your opponent checks to you and you check behind him, then you’ve closed the action and you will both see the River card.  On the other hand, if your opponent checks to you and you bet out, the action is still open and you are giving your opponent a chance to call or raise you. Likewise if your opponent bets the turn and you call, you are closing the action, but if your opponent bets and you raise, you are leaving the action open, giving your opponent the opportunity to three-bet against you or maybe move all-in. 

The reason this is important is because many times you may be holding the best hand on the turn, but it’s not strong enough to withstand a raise or a re-raise from your opponent. This is often true if you’re holding something like top pair, which can be especially vulnerable.  If you only have one pair on the turn then opening up the action to your opponent is dangerous because if you get check-raised, you are most likely going to have to fold AND you may well be folding the best hand.

Here’s an example.  Let’s say you have KC and JH and the board is KS, 9D, 4C and the turn is 7H.  If your opponent checks to you, checking back isn’t bad because the board isn’t dangerous and giving your opponent a free card isn’t likely to hurt your hand.  In other words, it’s unlikely your opponent has a straight draw and the board isn’t textured to show a flush draw. However, betting here may cause you trouble if you already have your opponent beat. They are probably intending to do one of two things after you bet, fold or check/raise.  If your opponent folds, then your bet will earn you nothing, of course you do win the pot, but you don’t make any more money from the hand.  If your opponent decides to check/raise you, your original bet will have made you loose the entire pot, because you would probably fold KJ, which is even a worse outcome.

If you are up against a better hand than yours, then betting isn’t good either.  If you check,  then you lose absolutely no money on the turn, but if you bet, you lose the amount of money that you bet in addition to whatever money was already in the pot. Betting marginal hands can be costly on the turn and raising them can be profitable, because when you raise on the turn you are putting the pressure on your opponent. For example, you may raise with a 9-10 on a K-9-4-7 board and by raising you could potentially force your opponent to fold the K-J hand.  You can raise by either check/raising out of position or by just raising when you are in position.  Either way it is a very strong play because it makes it very hard for your opponent to call, even if they are holding a hand like KQ. 

So remember, raising on the Flop can often signal weakness, raising on the Turn will usually signal strength, which is why it is a more effective play. In short, closing the action on the turn with a marginal hand is generally a smart move.

Playing Poker Professionally

I’ve been reading so much about poker lately and finally had to ask myself, “Why would anyone want to become a professional poker player?  I know so many people that envy the life of the professional poker player, and why not?  Who wouldn’t want to set their own hours, play a game they love for a living, and if they want, travel around the world playing in high-stakes tournaments?

There is no Poker Pro College that poker players graduate from and even players who lose money playing poker will tell you that they have turned professional for one of two reasons:  they can make more money playing poker that they could at any other job, or they simply enjoy the poker lifestyle so much that they will take losing over winning just to be a part of it.  Only a small percentage of players will view poker-playing as a career for life.  I suppose you could get lucky and win enough at a tournament, something like the main event at the WSOP, but consider your odds and then consider buying a lottery ticket.  I’m talking about becoming the type of player that you can actually make a solid living at it and that is not so easy to do.

Generally speaking a player would have to log in over 500 hours of poker to come up with some type of measure to consider their hourly rate.  There are plenty of websites out there with tools that will help you figure out what you are actually making when you are playing.  A solid poker professional will be able to figure out how to use poker to maximize their income, and poker pros understand and accept that their bread and butter is based on skill, the size of their bankroll, guts and luck.

It’s not always fun and games though. If you are playing online at home, there is no human interaction and poker can become very monotonous very quickly.  Since a poker professional is primarily interested in making money, he will probably concentrate on the one game that provides his highest hourly rate.  This can become very boring, very fast.  Also, and this is probably the most important thing to consider, poker can have a highly variable income.  Based on my own data, my standard deviation per hour is 6 times my hourly rate.  What this basically means is that if I made a $100 an hour, there is about a 68% chance that in any one hour I’d make between $500 and $700.  And if the odds change and the luck drifts out the window, I could make much less than that, but I have to be able to cover myself.
What a true professional worries about is not the luck of the cards but the changes in the poker market. Professionals need to play against poor players, the fishes. If a pro is playing against a bunch of pros, then very little money might be made.  But luckily, (no pun intended) there are more online sites offering brilliant bonuses and the virtual casino is so lifelike, that you really feel as if you are in a real brick and mortar casino.

It is probably a good thing for poker professionals that being a full-time poker player is not too appealing of a job. If many people became pros, then the competition would be too tough to make much money at poker!

Some Great Online Poker Tips from Nigel Goldman

I’ve read quite a few books about online poker and one of my favorites is Nigel Goldman’s “Make a Million from Online Poker”.  Just a short little hand guide really, but it helped me learn the basics of playing online poker in a very short amount of time.  In the book Mr. Goldman list’s his top 15 tips for playing great online poker and I thought I would post them for you, the player who wants to play like a champion!

1. Only risk 10% of your bankroll in any one game.

2. Never play when drunk or tired. (Why do you think Vegas casinos serve free drinks to their punters?)

3. Insure you are always comfortable by investing in a decent size monitor and wireless technology.

4. Consider a bogus identity.

5. Create false alliances with other players.

6. Play two or more games at once; the bulk of your hands in any game will be poor, so this gives you more action and a better chance of hitting decent cards.

7. Watch out for instant action from other players – it probably indicates that they are using pre-select buttons.

8. Most online players [especially in low-stakes games] are bad players, so there is no need to play too fancy.

9. Don’t let other players bully you into playing or making decision faster than you need to.  Ignore “zzzzzzz” comments in the chatbox if you are legitimately thinking through a hand.

10. Look out for value satellite competitions – many large prizes are won by online qualifiers.

11. Ensure that any credit card you have logged on with to play is up to date.

12. Enroll with an online financial service agency such as NetTeller to help you process big wins.

13. Take a break, especially after a big win or heavy loss.  Don’t be shy about sitting out for a few minutes.

14. Remember, good players do most of their gambling on the flop.

15. Most of your profit will come from making the most obvious correct moves.

Taking The “Blinds” Strategy Seriously

In Texas Hold’em there is no ante, instead there are blinds that serve the same purpose. Big and small blinds are forced bets that rotate around the table getting the action started. Without the blinds, everyone would just wait until they had a perfect hand to play, which would bring the action to a screeching halt.  There are two blinds: a small blind and a big blind.

The big blind is typically set as the amount of the pre-flop bet and the small blind is usually half of the big blind. For example, in a $10-20 limit poker game, the big blind is $10 and the small blind is $5.

If you want to win at poker, it is important to understand the blinds and take the notion of blind strategy seriously. Every round you’re forced to play both a big blind and a small blind. In online poker, you’ll receive between 60 and 70 hands per hour. (More if you’re multi-tabling.) At a full table, this means you’ll be posting blinds 6 or 7 times per hour. In a $10/$20 game, that’s between $90 and $105 each hour.

Use the simple poker blinds formula below to try and figure out how much money you put in the pot for blinds each hour:

(Rounds per hour x big blind post amount) + (Rounds per hour x small blind post amount) = Total dollars put in the pot from blinds.

In my opinion, there are two perspectives to consider when thinking about the blinds:

• Defensive – You want to protect your blinds when you’re in the blinds.
• Offensive – You want to steal the other players’ blinds when you can.

Being able to steal blinds is necessary to be a winning player in a tough game. Stealing blinds in the tough games become more important because players are usually playing tighter.  Take advantage of your table position and play aggressively, raising pre-flop.  If you succeed and the blinds fold, you’ve won a free hand of poker. And of course you have the advantage of stealing a blind from any position if you’re holding a premium starting hand.

You’ll need to defend your blinds from this strategy from other players as well. Good poker players know when to be selective about the hands they play. But if your blinds are stolen every round by a raise, then you’re losing a significant amount of money. The bottom line is that dealing with the blinds is something you’ll have to learn how to do to be a successful player. Especially in tournament play.

Winning Big Money In An Online Poker Room

When I first started gambling online, my whole intention was to learn more about the game of Texas Hold’em and gain more experience for live play.  I knew that I could play  low limit tables and practice with ‘free money’ for as long as I wanted in order to gain experience and confidence. I needed all the confidence I could get before playing with my own hard-earned cash!  It wasn’t long before I felt ready to deposit money and start building my bankroll.

One night a week turned into a couple of nights a week, then every time I could get online, I’d log into my favorite poker room.  When I was at my virtual online poker room, I didn’t think about work, family issues, the kids or anything else that entered my mind during the course of the day.  It was relaxing, fun and exciting  to think about the possibility of winning big.   I started to read poker articles online and couldn’t believe all the blogs and websites dedicated to the subject of Texas Hold’em.  The more I read, the more I learned and I realized that if you are a dedicated player, and really enjoy the game, you have the chance just as anyone else to win big.  Just check out the article below and you will see what I mean!

From Poker.net:

After winning $287k on his first day as a sponsored pro on PokerStars, Isildur1 drops down $300k. Isildur1, which rumors says he is the Swedish poker player Viktor Blom, almost lost his whole stack playing $100/$200 PLO against the pro Phil “MrSweets28” Galfond.

His losses in the PLO game are not a surprise because he is usually considered to be a superior No-Limit Hold’em player.

Swings like this are not a strange thing when it comes to Isildur1, last year Isildur1 won over $4 million on Full Tilt Poker and then lost it all and more.

For other player this day went a little better, the Full Tilt Poker pro Patrik Antonious was the big winner of the day with a win of $147k at the $200/$400 Six-Max PLO tables.

The new player KobeYard85 won $140k, Gus Hansen with $104k, the limit specialist O Fortuna PLS with $115k and harrington25 with $113k.

One of the big losers this day was Phil Ivey who’s been on a downswing recently, lost $117k more in only 169 hands.

Players that also lost quiet much were DrugsOrMe who went down $88k and Andrew Feldman who lost $87k.

An ‘All In’ Strategy and a Short Stack

If you ever play tournament poker, you are more than likely to find yourself short-stacked at some point or another.  That is, unless you win every tournament you play, or have a habit of busting out when you still have a lot of chips.  So, if that’s you, please move along to another article.  For the 99.9% of you who will play short-stacked at some point or another, here is just one ‘all-in’ strategy on wielding a short stack in a No-Limit Hold’em tournament.

When I first started playing tournaments, I had a very basic short-stack strategy—when I had less than ten times the big blind, I only had one move: all-in when I was the first one in the pot.  The idea here is to try to steal the blinds.  Depending on how short-stacked you are, you can be more or less selective with the types of hands that you try to steal with.  For example, with 8 times the big blind, you might wait for any ace or pair (or even KQ), but with 4 times the big blind, you might want to go all-in on your first chance to be the first one in the pot, with any cards.

In general, the more chips you have, the more you want to play your cards and the shorter your stack, the more you want to look for the right opportunities to go all-in.  Of course, if you have a premium hand (AK or pocket Jacks or better), then you may want to go all-in even if someone has come in before you, but if there is significant action before the action gets to you, then you may still want to stay out of trouble. This is a good strategy for the newbie tournament player, but for more advanced play, I wouldn’t recommend restricting yourself to this one play unless you have less than six times the big blind.

Of course, everyone has their own strategy for going all-in, and this is just one of them!