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.

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.

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.

Who is Updating the Money Lists?!

Recently Erik Seidel moved up to 3^rd from 11^th on the Poker All-Time Money List after taking down the $250,000 buy-in Super High Roller’s Event at Aussie Millions.  After that happened, a debate erupted in regards to the validity of today’s current list.  The #1 source for tracking the all-time  money winners is Hendon Mob’s website and they’ve recently added three new lists to help better determine who really is on top.

The three new lists essentially filter out particular results based on certain criteria.  One list counts only the open events, regardless of the buy-in amount.  Another list excludes the events that are greater than $50,000, but counts non-open events.  The third new list excludes both non-open events and any event over $50K.  An open event is defined as an event that has no restrictions on entry.  Events such as Poker After Dark, Women’s Events and made for TV events will fall under this category.

As most of you may know, Daniel Negreanu is in the top spot for the original All-Time Money list.  On the new lists however, Negreanu tops the list that includes all events under $50,000 and the list for all open events under $50,000.  On the all-time list that includes all open events regardless of buy-in, Erik Seidel has taken over the top spot with $13.53 million where Negreanu trails with a meager $13.34 million.

We understand that these lists only track the gross proceeds from tournaments and do not factor in buy-ins, bust-outs, etc.  Some people feel that in order to really see who is making the most money in tournament poker, all of these particulars should be tracked.  In an effort to keep attracting new players with the promise of huge payouts in tournaments, the likelihood of that happening is pretty slim.  For instance, poker tournament officials probably do not want people to realize facts such as Bill Edler winning $2.7 million in 2007, a big fat zero for 2008 and has won only $42K since.

But the lists just keep on coming and we keep on reading them.

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.

Building Your Bankroll, Then Managing It

The whole purpose of playing poker online is to make money.  Visit any poker website or read any poker blog and you will learn that if you are unable to manage your bankroll, playing poker online will not be a profitable experience for you.  And if you are not making any money, that experience is no longer a fun one either.

It’s easy to manage your bankroll if you are able to develop some discipline in following the rules of bankroll management.   We are going to lay out a few simple rules and if you are able to stay within these simple guidelines, you should be able to deposit a certain amount of money and never have to deposit money again!

If you are a cash game player, your bankroll should have a  minimum of twenty buy-ins, regardless of your level of play.  Should you get to fifteen buy-ins or less, you should consider moving down a level until you can get back to a twenty level buy-in.   One buy-in is considered 100 big blinds. For instance, at .01/.02, a buy-in is $2 (100 x .02 = $2) and that is why .01/.02 is called $2NL.  So, if you deposit $50 and are determined to use good bankroll management, you should start out playing $2NL until you can work your way up to $100. When you get to $100 you can then start playing $5NL. If your play starts to spiral at the $5NL and your bankroll drops back down to $75 (15 buy-ins), then you might consider dropping down to $2NL and work it back up.  Remember, the only people that don’t move down are the the players that eventually go broke.

If you are able to develop some good bankroll management skills, soon these skills will become second nature and it doesn’t have to be difficult!  Managing your bankroll will only help your game as you grind from one level to the next.  The above scenario may be seen by many as a minimum ‘guideline’, but experts will agree that for a micro-stakes player, it is an acceptable way to gain an edge in a competitive environment where skill, patience and luck are the name of the game.

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!