Getting The Most Out Of Suited Connectors

When I watch YouTube videos of the pros playing it never ceases to amaze me how many players will open or raise with nothing more than a couple of suited connectors.  Statistics have shown that suited cards only increase your chances at showdown by about 3%, so I could never understand the fascination.

But just because suited connectors aren’t as powerful as some players believe, it doesn’t make them unplayable.  While suited connectors only provide a slight edge over non-suited cards at showdown, there are some advantages they provide earlier in the hand.  First and foremost is the power of the semi-bluff.  Suited cards open up the opportunity for you to semi-bluff at hands you wouldn’t normally bet if they were non- suited.  For example, if you are holding the J and 10 of spades and the board falls Qh, 8s and 6s, you have a great opportunity here to semi-bluff for a flush draw.  A semi-bluff will always give you the opportunity to win a pot with nothing more than a draw. And anytime you can pick up chips with a weak or drawing hand is a good thing!  Picking up small pots on a continuous basis will eventually turn your short stack into a large stack, especially in tournament settings when you are in it for the long haul.

Another advantage suited connectors can provide is when they give you the opportunity to win a big pot, when you do make your draw.  When you’re holding a straight and/or flush draw,  you can call a decent sized bet and complete your hand.  With only a straight draw, more often than not you are usually forced to fold.

The following guidelines will help you play your suited hands based on stack size considerations:

If you have 15 big blinds or less, which is considered short-stacked, especially in tournament play, the more aggressive move is to move all-in with two suited cards provided that you are the first player to act, you are in late position and you still have fold equity.  Some players may disagree that this play is too aggressive, but the new poker mathematics show that this is the right move.

When you are in the 50 big blind range you shouldn’t be looking to play a big hand if you flopped a flush draw.  Your primary goal in this case should be to manuever the betting so you can give yourself a couple of ways to win, either by hitting your hand or by getting your opponent to fold.  In other words, you should try to be the one who gets the last bet in.  A good aggressive player will be the one who is doing the betting or the raising, because you really don’t want to find yourself in a spot where you’re calling off your stack with nothing but a draw.

If you find yourself playing with a stack size of 100 big blinds or more, you should be very careful about playing a huge pot with a medium flush draw or even a “made” medium size flush.  Be cautious if your opponent is willing to go ‘all-in’ because if you are not holding the big hand, the odds are that he probably is. Play smaller flushes as calling hands rather than betting them more aggressively like you would if you are sitting in front of a smaller stack.  This gives you a couple of advantages.  One, you keep the pot size small in case you aren’t holding the nuts and two, you end up trapping your opponent who may hit top pair on the river because he doesn’t think you have the flush.

Defence on the Poker Felt

One tricky betting scenario is when you are able to entice your opponent to call or raise your bet.  Consider the scenario where most of the players at the table are evenly stacked and the blinds are at $15/30. You look down and see pocket 88’s and decide to raise from middle position.  You get called by the big blind who you think is riding high with an A-9.  The flop falls:  As, 8d and 3d.  What a flop!  Middle set, but you don’t want to give away the strength of your hand, so how do you bet to get the most out of your opponent?  You really want to try and make your hand look weaker than it actually is and there are a few ways to do this.  If you are acting first and your opponent isn’t overly-aggressive, you can make a relatively small bet, maybe half the pot, and hope that he calls.  Assuming he doesn’t raise, we can bet again on the turn or check and hope he takes the lead thinking his ace is good.  If he does raise on the flop, you should call and re-evaluate on the turn.

If your opponent is likely to lead out on his own, you should check your hand in the hopes that he bets for you.  Depending on how strong you think his hand is, you can either just call his bet to see the turn, then put in a raise of your own, in order to build the pot even more.  If your opponent is first to act and checks to you, bet your hand and hope for a call, but maybe a smarter play would be to not bet here and check behind him so your opponent  feels more confident about betting his ace on the turn.

Defensive betting is when you try to entice either a call or a fold from an opponent while preventing them from leading out or raising your hand.  Why bet defensively?  Usually you are making these kinds of bets when there is a draw, and you haven’t made your hand yet.  For example, let’s say you’ve loosened up your game and decide to play 7s-8s in middle position.  You get called by the button and now you are looking at a board of Ks, 10s and 5c.  You really have nothing more than a flush draw, and while checking here is okay, it may not be the best way to play it because you may be giving up some potential profit in the event that you hit.  Then, at the same time you are giving your opponent a chance to make a bet that may force you to fold your hand.  You may also want to bet here because 50-60% of the time, you are going to win the pot.  The trick to betting defensively is to find a number big enough to provoke either a call or a fold from your opponent, while keeping the bet cheap enough that it is not costing you too much to hit your draw.  Often times a bet of about 1/3 the pot is the right size bet to accomplish this goal.

Luck and the Loose Table

As you develop your skills and strategies by playing and practicing at the tables, you will find very quickly that a lot of money can be made at the tables that are considered “loose”.  In this article, we are going to try and explain how some loose games differ from others.

Before a discussion can begin regarding strategies, you should know that there are different types of loose games that you are likely to encounter.  The first game is called a loose/passive game.  In this situation you will find a lot of players who like to limp into the pot pre-flop.  Most players in these games will not raise before the flop without a solid starting hand.  Because there tends to be so many limpers in loose passive games, often you can enter the pot for very little money, which means that you can play loosely yourself since generally there is little fear that there will be an opponent that will raise behind you.  As a result, you will find yourself playing in a lot of multi-way pots.  These games often provide good opportunities to limp in early position with speculative hands like small pairs and suited Ace’s, where you are hoping to hit a set or make a flush, since your initial investment is minimal.

In a loose/aggressive game, you will find that players will be making a lot more pre-flop raises, often with a much wider hand range.  Since most pots are raised, you are less likely to have a lot of players seeing the flop in these kind of games.  Because there is more pre-flop raising in loose/aggressive games, you should be looking to play more high percentage hands like big pairs, AK, and AQ.  Playing speculative hands can also be profitable in these types of games, but only if you are in position.  Playing speculative hands out of position will often become too expensive to justify.

In either type of game you can expect to see a wide variety of hands at showdown which makes it harder to steal pots in loose games because an opponent is more likely to hit the flop, especially in a multi-way pot.  Don’t ever feel like you need to get caught up in the action or build a pot in a loose game.  It only takes a key hand or two to bring you some nice profits and turn things around.  In loose/aggressive games especially, your opponents will tend to overplay hands such as top pair which means that you will have the opportunity to sit back and trap them with your big 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.



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!

Doyle Brunson’s Tournament Tips

Doyle Brunson’s Poker Strategy Tips

Doyle Brunson, poker legend and fearsome opponent in all forms of the game has a reputation built on aggression – he wins pot after pot because his opponents know he is happy to get all his chips in without so much as a draw!  It may then come as a surprise to some that, for tournaments, Doyle Brunson’s poker strategy advice is to play very tight, at least in the beginning levels. For the first couple of blind levels Doyle is happy to sit back and be content with the pots that the cards allow him to win.

This type of survivalist poker tournament strategy allows professional players to survive the ‘minefield’ of amateur players found at the start of tournaments. The strategy involves raising with medium strength cards (mid-pairs / unsuited high cards etc) but never calling with them. Taking small stabs at pots, but backing off when resistance is encountered.

When you are entering mid-stage of the poker tournament, Doyle’s strategy involves careful assessment of many situational factors. These include the tendencies of opponents, but more importantly their stack sizes. Small and Large stacks are far more likely to call your big bets (though for different reasons) so caution should be exercised with them.

Aggressive and positive poker, which is Doyle Brunson’s trademark, kicks in later in the middle stages. This takes the form of gradually increasing aggression levels in order to put pressure on your opponents who will be afraid of busting out. According to Brunson, the key tournament strategy here is to keep accumulating chips – staying ahead of the blinds and antes will enable you to choose when to bet big rather than be forced to play without solid values.

Doyle’s poker tournament strategy for the final table involves careful evaluation of your opponents and their chip stacks. While Brunson advises always playing to win, there are times when a number of short stacked opponents mean that tight play would guarantee you one of the higher playing places. If your goal is to win and you are second in chips, Doyle advises that you target the chip leader, play aggressively and try to overtake him.