Karmakrazy13 Online Poker Blog

2011-01-03T10:30:00.001-05:00

Fold Equity

2010-06-06T10:53:00.001-04:00

Fold Equity

Andy Bloch

1st June 2010

During the final table of Event #1 at the 2008 WSOP, the $10K Pot-Limit Hold ‘em Championship, I encountered a hand where I had a very tough decision to make. We were about midway through the final table with the blinds at $20K/$40K. I had about $2.2 million in chips when I picked up pocket 10s in middle position. I raised the pot to $110K and was called from one of the blinds by Mike Sexton, who had about $100K less in chips than I did.

The flop came 8-6-2 rainbow, Mike checked and I bet $125K with my over-pair and gut-shot straight-draw. He called, and the turn brought a 7. After thinking for a moment, Mike bet out $365K, and I was left with a very difficult choice. He could have me beat with a bigger over-pair like pocket Jacks or two pair even, or he could just have a draw or something like pocket 9s. So what should I do in this situation? Do I just call now and be faced with another big decision on the river if he bets out again? Do I get away from the hand altogether and fold? The real question is this: if I raise, is there any chance he’ll fold his hand?

All of which brings me to the concept of fold equity. For our purposes, equity can be defined as your chance of winning the pot, or how much you expect to make out of the pot. Therefore, fold equity is the chance you could win the pot because your opponent will fold.

A classic example of fold equity is really any time you attempt a semi-bluff. Say you have a flush draw and one over-card on the flop. Your opponent might not call you without top pair or better, but there’s a good chance that you’re nothing more than a coin flip against almost anything he’s holding. In this case, moving all-in gives you fold equity because you know that your opponent is only going to call you part of the time. Semi-bluffs are so powerful because of fold equity.

You also have a lot of fold equity when you play aggressively pre-flop. Some novice players don't like to raise pre-flop with a hand that they won't call a re-raise with, but an expert player will be raising (and sometimes re-raising) with many hands that aren't a favorite to be best when re-raised. The fold equity can make these marginal hands profitable. Keep in mind, there will be situations where you should fold some of these same hands if there's little chance that you can steal the pot.

Fold equity is also an extremely important concept in tournament play, especially as you approach the bubble. A lot of players tend to play way too tight as they wait for the bubble to burst; many will just try to fold their way into the money. At this point, there may be enough fold equity to play any two cards because your opponents are going to fold such a high percentage of their hands. This concept also applies once you’re in the money (though to a lesser extent), and people are playing tight as they try to make their way up the money ladder to a bigger payday.

This brings us back to my hand against Mike Sexton at the final table of Event #1. Do I call, fold, or raise? Calling will most likely lead me to the same tough spot on the river if he bets out again, especially if an over-card hits. Folding doesn’t seem like the best option because there’s a good chance that I’m actually ahead in the hand (Mike could have a pair with a straight-draw), and even if I’m not ahead I have a decent number of outs and I’m getting better than 2-1 pot odds to make the call. I'm only in really bad shape if I'm up against a straight. If I'm against an over-pair or set, I have 6 outs. If I'm against two-pair, I have 12 outs. So because this is a tournament, because he probably doesn’t want to go broke in this spot, because it’s a very aggressive play with a good amount of fold equity, I decided to move all in. And it worked. After thinking about it for a long while, Mike decided to fold his hand.

Mike made it sound afterwards like he had my hand beat, and I found out later that he did indeed make two pair on the turn with his 7-6. I knew I couldn’t make that play if there was no chance he would fold. If that were the case, I probably would’ve just called or folded. But this bet had a lot of fold equity, so it was a move I just couldn’t pass up.

Fold equity is a very important concept in both ring games and tournaments, but especially in tournament situations like the one I just described. When you consider the fold equity you have in any given hand, you can really start to play some power poker.

2010-05-27T11:45:00.000-04:00

225

Medium Stack Bubble Play

Allen Cunningham

May 24, 2010

To view this video, you need to install the latest version of the Adobe Flash Player, and have Javascript enabled in your browser.

Medium Stack Bubble Play

When you get down to the tournament bubble, it’s often going to change your play. Perhaps you’ll play more aggressively to try and take advantage of some of the tighter players aiming to sneak into the money, or perhaps even play tighter yourself to make the money. Watch the above video to get Allen Cunningham’s advice on how the tournament payout structure can help inform your game when you reach the bubble with a medium-sized stack.

Mini Series of Poker

Get a taste of this year's WSOP* action and play for your share of more than $3 million guaranteed with the Mini Series of Poker.
Featuring buy-ins at 1/100th of the corresponding Series event, you can buy in directly starting from $5.50, or satellite your way in for as little as $1 or 50 Full Tilt Points.
You can also win a completely free seat at the 2011 WSOP* Main Event by finishing first on the Mini Series of Poker leaderboard.
Click here to learn more about the Mini Series of Poker.

Iron Man Mid-Year Bonus

Qualify for any of the four Iron Man status levels in June to receive your Iron Man Mid-Year Bonus of up to $600 in July.
To take on the Iron Man Challenge, go to My Promotions in the game Cashier and click on the Iron Man Challenge link.
Click here to learn more about the Iron Man Mid-Year Bonus.

$1 Main Event Seat

Turn $1 or 30 Full Tilt Points into a $12K WSOP* prize package by playing our $1 Main Event Seat tournaments. Running at 13:30 ET each Sunday until June 27th, at least five prize packages will be awarded per tournament.
Click here to learn more about $1 Main Event Seat tournaments.

* World Series of Poker and WSOP are trademarks of Harrah's License Company, LLC ("Harrahs"). Harrah's does not sponsor or endorse, and is not associated or affiliated with Full Tilt Poker or its products, services, promotions or tournaments.

Full Tilt Poker is licensed by the Alderney Gambling Control Commission.
© Copyright 2004 - 2010 FullTiltPoker.com. All Rights Reserved

Heads-Up PLO

2010-05-19T15:05:00.002-04:00

Heads-Up PLO

Brandon Adams

May 17th, 2010

Because Pot-Limit Omaha is a game where the nuts can – and often do – change on every street, many players can’t go too wrong by playing a super tight strategy at a full table. This means being highly selective before the flop and limiting your range to something like the top 15% of starting hands, and then only continuing after the flop if you have a very strong draw or a made hand.

When the game gets short-handed or heads up, however, this strategy simply won’t work. In these situations, you can go very wrong by playing too tight and giving your opponents too many easy opportunities to steal pots through pre-flop raises and post-flop continuation bets. In short, you’ve got to play more hands overall, more marginal hands, and play them more aggressively, in order to succeed in heads-up play.

Let’s look at a situation where someone may be holding a hand like 10-8-A-2 double suited and the flop comes 10-8-2. At a full PLO table, this is a spot where many inexperienced players are likely to go broke because their instinct is to put as many of their chips as possible into the pot with their "big hand". The thing is, while top two pair may in fact be the best hand in this situation, it’s unlikely to hold up against multiple opponents because there are just too many ways to get beat from sets or big draws to straights, flushes and full houses.

Heads up, on the other hand, is a completely different situation. Say you’re holding the same hand and see the same flop described above. Because aggression is such an important part of heads-up play, getting your chips into the middle with what’s likely to be the best hand now makes sense. Because you’re playing Omaha, it’s likely that your opponent may still have a big draw so getting your chips in accomplishes two things – it pumps up the pot when you’re likely to be ahead and prevents your opponent from improving his hand for free.

Of course, there’s more to an aggressive heads-up style than just jamming when you’re holding a made hand. In Omaha, especially, you need to play a much more aggressive pre-flop game when you’re heads up than you would otherwise. Because of the size of the blinds when you’re heads up, experienced players will often raise relentlessly from the small blind (the button), simply because the pot odds are so good. This becomes especially true against opponents who don’t open up their games and who are just looking to peddle the nuts with premium hands.

If you’re willing to raise consistently from the small blind against a tight opponent and then back that up with a pot sized continuation bet after the flop – whether you connect or not - you can show a profit as long as your play works just half of the time. If your opponent does play back at you before the flop, you can assume he’s got a big starting hand like Aces or something like 9-10-J-Q double suited, which helps you define the strength of your hand after the flop. If, on the other hand, he calls you before the flop and then calls or raises after the flop, you can again assume he’s holding a big hand and proceed with caution.

Against tight or scared opponents, it’s not very hard to succeed with an aggressive style once you’ve gotten comfortable with the concept of pushing the action with what, at many times, is likely to be a marginal hand. Against more experienced and aggressive opponents, however, this can be a more intimidating proposition. While these players are more likely to play back at you before the flop, this doesn’t mean that you need to give up your aggressive approach, though you should probably consider tightening up after the flop if you haven’t connected or haven’t connected very strongly.

Say you flop two pair on a board of A-4-7 with two clubs. Your opponent checks, you bet, and then get check-raised. What do you do? The answer really comes down to your read and your previous experience with your opponent throughout the course of the match. Do you think he’s drawing? Bluffing? Would he re-raise with nothing or is he looking to get you to make a bad call when you may already be drawing dead?

With nothing stronger than two pair here, the question becomes, "What hands can I beat that play this way?" Unless you put your opponent on nothing better than a draw, the answer is probably "Not much", and the safest course of action is probably to fold and look for a better spot. Again, though, the decision here really comes down to your read of your opponent and how strong you really think he may be.

In short, the key to succeeding in heads-up PLO is to loosen up your game and play more hands both before and after the flop while also keeping track of how your opponent is playing in relation to you. Remember, tight is right at full tables, but aggression is what pays off when you’re short handed.

Small Buy-Ins, Big Scores

2010-05-14T21:07:00.003-04:00

Small Buy-Ins, Big Scores

Team Full Tilt

May 10th, 2010

With MiniFTOPS XVI in full swing and the Mini Series of Poker set to begin, Full Tilt Poker offers a variety of ways for you to turn a small tournament buy-in into a huge payday.

To help you succeed, we’ve gathered some of the best advice about playing tournament poker from ourcollection of more than 200 Pro Tips. From before you even sit down at the table, to the moment the cards are in the air, to the final river card being dealt, we’ve got you covered:

Before you begin playing, keep in mind that bankroll management is vital to being a successful poker player; be sure to read 2000 World Series of Poker** Main Event Champion Chris Ferguson’s classic tip, Starting with Zero, and remember not to play a tournament that is above your bankroll
Get warmed up for a big tournament by playing a Sit & Go; two-time bracelet winner Howard Lederer writes about using Sit & Gos to bolster your tournament skills in Sit & Gos Made Easy
Once the cards are in the air, it’s time to put your strategy into effect; five-time WSOP** bracelet winner Allen Cunningham suggests that newer players keep it simple when it comes to Early Tournament Strategies
As the money bubble approaches, the climate of every tournament changes dramatically; Chris Ferguson offers advice on how to handle this crucial stage of the tournament in How to Win at Tournament Poker, Part 2
Once you’ve made it to the final table, the end goal is finally in sight; two-time bracelet winner John Phan discusses the importance of making tough laydowns and never giving up as part of Learning to Win at Final Tables
If you’re one of the final two players remaining in the tournament, get ready for a whole new ballgame; learn about the significance of playing position and making solid reads in Team Full Tilt’s tip about Playing Heads Up

While reading these tips won’t win a tournament for you, they provide valuable insight that will prove useful at every turn and help you along your journey from zero to hero.

With that in mind, we have one last tip which, despite its title, we think you should read. Take the advice of the best player in the world, seven-time WSOP bracelet winner Phil Ivey, and remember that who you are as a player comes from the inside, not the influences around us. Whatever you do, Don’t Read This Tip!

** World Series of Poker and WSOP are trademarks of Harrah's License Company, LLC ("Harrahs"). Harrah's does not sponsor or endorse, and is not associated or affiliated with Full Tilt Poker or its products, services, promotions or tournaments.

Play Online Poker

Tight-Aggressive Is Always Chic

2010-04-29T12:34:00.002-04:00

Tight-Aggressive Is Always Chic

Stephan Kalhamer

April 26th, 2010

If a poker player wants an edge, he must move with the times. Today, a style which was successful only a year ago can already be outdated; tomorrow, he could be the sucker.

However, in the poker world (as in the fashion world), there are timeless classics: the little black dress for a woman; the pinstripe suit on a man; tight/aggressive play at the table. Admittedly, this type of player is less likely to knock somebody’s socks off, but he is also far less likely to be knocked out of the tournament himself.

Dan Harrington described this style in his tremendous book, “ Harrington On Hold ’em” and, as a result, it quickly became the worldwide standard. Today’s truly smart tournament players, however, were soon tearing up the rule book and, as a result, modern poker has no dominant strategy. Loose/aggressive is currently in fashion and playing out of position has become the Holy Grail. But again and again the strategies turn back to what poker is all about: bet on a good hand and give up a bad or hard-to-rate one.

As soon as one reflects on it, by focusing his own bets solely on “value” instead of bluffing, a good player wins again and again with safe, tight/aggressive play. Why ever not?

Good players do not make plays simply because they want to or to show that they can. They make plays because they represent the optimal decisions. Poker is ultimately a contest of decision-making; he who consistently makes the best decisions, wins - all the same in which outfit he enters the party.

Riskers gamble, experts calculate.

Bluffing In Big Pots

2010-04-20T19:23:00.002-04:00

220

Bluffing In Big Pots

Brandon Adams

April 19th, 2010

The ability to bluff big pots effectively is one of the key skills that separate good players from great players. It is no accident that the games played at the highest stakes feature some of the most daring bluffs: big bluffs are a central part of the game.
Most players mix up their play well for small bets – they’ll bet out or raise with nothing on the flop with about the right frequency – but most players don’t mix up their play well on big bets. Some players never mess around when they put in really big money on the turn or river. Other players can never resist the big bluff when they see a lot of money in the middle. Striking the right balance between value bets and bluffs when you are putting big money in the pot is crucial to playing top-level poker.
When you are playing against world-class competition, bluffing too often is a bigger mistake than not bluffing enough. You will get called very often and you will look to everyone like you are spewing chips. You will wonder why they are calling you so often, but the reason will be somewhat simple: your opponents will be getting 2:1 odds on a call (if you are betting the size of the pot) and they will infer based on your betting frequency that you’re bluffing more often than that.
How can they infer that you are bluffing too often? Roughly speaking, if you are balancing your big bluffs properly, you will be betting for value about two-thirds of the time and you will be betting as a bluff about one-third of the time. Hands that you will bet big for value on the turn or river come up quite rarely. It’s not often that you make a straight, a flush, a set, or some other huge hand that merits a big bet on the river for value. If you’re betting big on the turn and river very often, your opponents will correctly guess that you’re bluffing too often.
Bluffing too often can be a huge mistake, but I think that not bluffing often enough in the truly big spots is one thing that prevents great players from becoming world-class. You’ll never hear someone say of Phil Ivey, Tom Dwan or Patrik Antonius "he’s never messing around in that spot." They can be bluffing in any spot. As the pot gets very big, their bluffs will be less frequent, as they will be trying to represent very thin ranges, but their bluffing frequency will never be zero in any spot (other than some trivial ones where it’s only appropriate to raise with the nuts).
Most of your big bluffs will occur when you have position on an opponent. This is especially true for big moves on the river. If an opponent checks to you on the river, it’s likely not a check of strength. With one pair hands, people will often call on the flop and turn, but not on the river. Their "check-call, check-call, check" line often tells you that they have a big pair but no better. Some inexperienced players will fold to a pot-sized bluff way too often in this spot, and will not adjust their behavior even when they begin to suspect that you are bluffing them often. Against these players, you are obligated to keep stealing until they adjust.
Once again, the ability to pull off a big bluff is a crucial element in poker. Do so with the correct frequency, and you’ll raise your game to the next level.

Real Deal Poker Beta Test

2010-04-16T19:08:00.000-04:00

Real Deal Poker

2010-04-15T11:47:00.000-04:00

Running Bad

2010-04-06T14:11:00.002-04:00

219

Running Bad

Joe Beevers

April 6th, 2010

Wherever you go in poker, you hear plenty of poker stories, usually of the bad beat variety and various claims of individuals running bad. But what is running bad?

Most people say they are running bad when, for instance, their top sets are constantly beaten by straight and flush draws or when their pocket Aces get beat by pocket Kings when a King hits the flop. The stories are often accompanied by "he hit a gutshot", "he hit his one-outer", etc.

Did you know though, that there are actually two or more different ways of running bad? It is important to understand the differences.

You can also run bad with the cards you find – and this is relative. Finding Kings three times in an hour would be considered running good. But if every time that happened an opponent found Aces, then that would be running bad, right?

Getting it in with a set against a flush draw and losing is running bad, but making a flush against a better flush is running bad too. If you’re using a tracking system, your EV will show that you should be winning in the first instance but losing in the second over a lifetime.

It is situational. You can play perfect poker, find big hands and still lose because:

You get sucked out on.
You find someone with a better hand; this is not running bad, as getting outdrawn is situational.

There is also potentially a third "running bad": besides the hole-cards you’re dealt and the river cards you hit, there are the cards your opponent has and the actions they take.

By contrast, running good can be that you find big hands and they win or it can be that you get it in with the worst of it and suckout on your opponent. It’s important to understand the difference. You can play perfect poker and make all the correct plays but still lose – that’s running bad.

You may have heard players talk of variance. This is the statistical measure of the dispersion of your results. Running good or running bad does affect your bank roll, but you should try and look at poker as a lifelong poker session and not look at sessions individually. I realise this can be difficult; this is often because you are playing bigger than you should be and the result can hurt if it goes against you.

Try to think of it as a game – no more, no less – and try not to get emotional. What is important is that you continue to make the right decisions day in and day out, session after session.

My new intro, love it? or hate it?

2010-03-31T12:37:00.001-04:00

Starting Hands in Small Ball Poker – Part II

2010-03-29T15:16:00.002-04:00

Starting Hands in Small Ball Poker – Part II
by Daniel Negreanu
Premium hands are simply few and far between when large pots are at stake. Tournaments are won by aggressively going after smaller pots with a range of starting hands. The trick is learning how to do that without becoming reckless.
In small ball poker, you’ll need to widen your starting hand requirements beyond pocket pairs and A-K. Here’s how to do it.
This may surprise you: In deep-stack tournaments, ace and paint hands like A-J, A-10, K-Q, K-J, K-10, Q-J, Q-10 and J-10 are significantly stronger when they are suited. So much so, in fact, that it often makes the difference between calling and folding these hands.
K-10 offsuit, for example, is a hand that ends up making top-pair hands rather than hands like straights and flushes. That result doesn’t mesh with the small ball poker approach. One pair hands, you see, rarely win big pots. But when you play them incorrectly, they’ll often cost you big ones.
One hand in particular, K-J, is known as the rookie hand. It looks tempting but it’s nothing but trouble. This hand has mowed down more hometown heroes than any other. You’ve been warned!
With any ace and paint hand, however, it’s more than okay to throw in a raise if you’re the first player to enter the pot. Proceed with caution; your goal is to win a small pot. Be prepared to fold if someone raises ahead of you – unless you are suited.
The extra outs that suited cards give you allows you to win pots either by making a flush, giving you the chance to semi-bluff, or even flopping a flush draw and catching a pair at the river to win.
Now, ace-rag suited hands, like A-3, A-4, A-5, A-6 and A-7, only have value in their flush potential and if they make two pair. Flopping a pair of aces is a good thing, too, but don’t commit yourself to a big pot with top-pair and a lousy kicker.
Go ahead and attack the blinds with an ace-rag suited hand if you are the first to enter the pot. However, if you get any resistance, calling a reraise with a hand like Ah-6h is suicide.
Watch me play and you’ll see me play suited connectors, like 5c-6c and even 4d-7d. These hands are ideal for the small ball approach.
Remember, the goal of small ball is to make straights and flushes against top-pair hands. Suited connectors deliver this potential, plus the opportunity to make two pair and trips.
The key to the success of small ball poker, and in particular, suited connectors, is that your opponents won’t be able to put you on a hand. Think of it in terms of fishing. You’re putting a little worm at the end of a pole and looking for a big fish to bite.
The other benefit to playing these types of hands is that they are generally very easy to get away from. You might decide to take one more stab at the pot if you don’t hit the flop, but if you still don’t get lucky, well, suited connectors just aren’t worth much more.
Finally, trash hands, like Q-3, J-2 or 9-4, should only be played in a few very specific situations, for example, when you’re trying to steal a pot with a pre-flop reraise. When attempting this play, however, you must have the discipline to take your one shot before the flop and play with caution thereafter.
Only look to play small pots with trash hands and lose the minimum if you are beat.

Excerpted from Daniel Negreanu’s newest book, Power Hold’em Strategy, from Cardoza Publishing, on sale now at www.CardSharkPokerStore.com.

Thinking about strategy in rush poker

2010-03-17T11:46:00.000-04:00

217

Thinking About Strategy In Rush Poker*

Brandon Adams

March 16th, 2010

Rush Poker* is an innovative new form of poker offered by Full Tilt Poker that allows players to see up to four times as many hands as they would see in a normal game.

There is not much of a learning curve with Rush Poker*; it plays pretty much like a regular poker game, but faster. There are, however, certain idiosyncrasies to Rush Poker* that suggest a slightly different style of play.

In a normal poker game, your personal speed of play has little effect on the number of hands you will see in an hour. In Rush Poker*, this is far from true; it’s possible for a very speedy player to see twice as many hands per hour than the average player.

Rush Poker* has an innovative feature that allows a player to fold out of turn: the Quick Fold button. If you are dealt, say, 2-3 offsuit on the button, you have the option of folding the hand well before the action gets around to you. Once you fold, you will immediately be taken to a new table and dealt a new hand. The players will not know that you opted to fold the deuce-three offsuit out of turn, because they will not observe your fold until the action gets around to you.

Most of the unique strategies associated with Rush Poker* stem from the Quick Fold feature. Although players can’t see that you have opted to fold out of turn, they can reliably guess that you have done so based on the speed in which you act. A very quick fold is a reliable indicator of an out-of-turn fold. Both recreational players and experienced pros are folding out of turn: the recreational player so he can see more playable hands per hour, and the experienced pro does so in an attempt to increase his hourly win rate.

The pro is willing to take a small drop in per-hand win rates in exchange for seeing many more hands per hour. Folding out of turn, by my estimation, causes only a small drop in per-hand win rates. Some pros will play many hands of Rush Poker* each day and will become somewhat familiar with the player pool. These pros might know who is folding out of turn a lot, and they will recognize that these players are probably making few moves and are probably paying minimal attention to the actions of the other players.

You should only fold out of turn when you know for sure that your hand will be unprofitable. Suppose you have 5-6 offsuit on the small blind. The first instinct is to fold and quickly move to the next hand. You might have a situation, though, where almost everyone at the table limps; in this situation, you should call and try to hit your hand.

If you play at these tables, you will realize that most players are folding out of turn quite a bit. To me, this suggests that some strategies that are bad or terrible in a normal ring game might be good for Rush Poker*. For instance, in Rush Poker*, strategies involving limping go way up in value. Sometimes you will limp and everyone at the table but the big blind will have folded out of turn! A good strategy for Rush Poker* might involve limping from early position with a mix of super premium hands and speculative hands that you would normally throw away.

With Rush Poker*, as in every other form of poker, your best strategy is to go against the flow of the table; play fast when everyone else is super tight, play super tight when everyone else is playing fast. Rush Poker* seemingly gives players the opportunity to play only super premium hands without being easily detected by other players as a super-tight player. If it seems like players in your player pool are doing this, you should go against the grain. You will be able to achieve high win rates by simply stealing blinds. Against a super tight Rush Poker* player pool, you should have a strategy of min raising a lot of different hands, especially when you are in late position. You will steal a lot of blinds this way. The caveat to this strategy is that, if you are raised, you should only proceed with your very best hands, and, if you are just called, you should only become active on the flop if you hit it especially hard.

Best of luck at the tables!

I can haz? Challenge 2

2010-03-12T17:45:00.001-05:00

Challenge 1 - Complete!

2010-03-11T21:07:00.001-05:00

Poker Challenge Update

2010-03-10T20:14:00.001-05:00

Keeping The Pot Small

2010-03-03T13:23:00.002-05:00

216

Keeping The Pot Small

Jennifer Harman

March 2nd, 2010

Poker is a game of decisions. Some decisions are very easy to make, while others will keep you awake all night if you choose poorly. In my experience, the larger the pot size, the harder the decision you’ll be faced with.

On the other hand, the smaller the pot is, the easier the decision. Which is why, especially in tournament play, you want to keep the pot small when you’re holding a marginal hand. You don’t want to be facing a decision for all of your chips in a situation where all you’ve got is something like top pair with a medium-strength kicker. You want to avoid that scenario as much as possible. It’s better to keep the pot small by checking and calling rather than building a huge pot, even if you do hold an advantage in that hand.

Let me give you an example from a hand I played at a World Series of Poker event last year. We were still fairly early in the tournament, and I was in the cut-off (the seat before the button) holding K-J. The action folded around to me, I put in a raise and was called by the button. Both blinds folded, and we were heads-up going to the flop.

The flop came J-9-3 with two diamonds. Yes, I had top pair with a strong kicker, but with straight and flush draws on the board I was in no mood to go crazy with my hand. So I checked, and the button bet about two-thirds of the pot.

A check could also tempt my opponent to bluff in this spot, especially if he put me on something like A-K or A-Q. With a bluff or a drawing hand being the button’s most likely holding, I made the call.

The turn was a harmless 5, not a diamond, and very unlikely to help out the button in any way. Once again, I decided to control the size of the pot and keep it small by checking. If I’d bet and the button had a monster draw, there’s a good chance he’d come over the top of my bet to try and push me off the pot. I liked my hand there, just not enough to go broke with it.

After I checked, the button put in another bet, which I called. The river was a non-diamond 2, meaning that neither the flush draw or the straight draw got there. Confident that I had the best hand at this point, I still decided to check the river.

Why? Well, there was a small chance the button had made a set or two pair somewhere along the way, and it’s better to check-call in that spot rather than face a tough decision for a lot of chips if he raises. Also, if he did have nothing but air, checking might induce a bluff on the river.

As it turned out, the button checked behind me and I took down the pot with my K-J. I didn’t win a big pot with that hand, but I also didn’t lose a huge pot. The decisions I faced on each street were made much easier by the fact that I kept the pot small.

Starting Hands in Small Ball Poker -- Part 1

2010-03-01T12:42:00.002-05:00

Starting Hands in Small Ball Poker -- Part 1

by Daniel Negreanu

The world’s most successful tournament competitors, like me, Phil Ivey, Erick Lindgren, Phil Hellmuth and countless others, like to play small ball poker. It’s a style that we use to steadily increase our stacks in no limit hold’em tournaments without having to assume significant risk.
The first thing you’ll notice when you watch a player who uses the small ball approach is that he appears to be in total control of the table, yet at the same time, seems to be playing with reckless abandon. It also might appear as if he’s giving little thought to the strength of his own starting hand.
Indeed, that is the case.
That’s because the theory of small ball poker dictates that you need to focus more on what your opponent doesn’t have rather than the strength of your own hand.
That being said, let’s take a look at some basic starting hand guidelines that should be considered before entering a pot.
Obviously, you’ll want to play big pairs like aces, kings, queens or jacks from any position. Also note that pocket aces and kings are good enough to play for all of your chips.
That’s not necessarily the case with pocket queens or jacks, though. Play these hands a bit more cautiously before the flop. Don’t feel compelled to reraise with these hands, either, especially against a player who already raised from early position.
Playing middle pairs like 10-10, 9-9, 8-8, and 7-7 can be difficult but only if you overvalue them and mistakenly play them as you would premium hands.
If you are the first to enter the pot with any of these hands, make a standard small ball raise – that is, bet slightly less in hopes of winning a lot more. Your goal with middle pairs is to win a big pot by flopping a set. Use caution, though, if you miss on the flop. In that case, be prepared to muck your middle pair if the action gets too hot and heavy.
Treat small pairs much the same way as middle pairs. Some players like to reraise with these hands before the flop because it suits their style. That, however, is not what small ball players do.
Now, A-K and A-Q might be sights for sore eyes in low buy-in, fast-paced tournaments but not in big money, deep-stack events.
While Big Slick is clearly more powerful than A-Q, trust me, you still don’t want to get all your money in pre-flop with this hand. More often than not, you’ll be on the wrong end of a coin toss. You can certainly raise pre-flop with A-K but it’s just not the type of hand that plays very well after the flop.
Suppose the flop comes A-9-6 and you bet your A-K. Frankly, you don’t want even one caller! Any player who tosses in chips could easily have A-9, A-6, 9-9 or 6-6, and you’d be dead on arrival. Unsuited A-K is simply a hand that will win small pots but is generally a dog if there is any significant action.
A-Q is much worse in every way possible. Not only are you almost certainly beat if you decide to play a big pot before the flop, there’s even more to worry about if you do get to see the flop. You’ll have the same worries you’d have with A-K except, in this case, you’ll have to worry about an opponent’s A-K too!
Stay tuned as I’ll cover additional small ball starting hands in upcoming columns including aces and paint, ace-rag suited, king-rag and queen-rag suited, suited connectors and trash hands.

Poker Books

2010-02-28T00:11:00.001-05:00

Shut up donk! Poker is a skill game!

2010-02-22T11:42:00.000-05:00

Shut up donk! Poker is a skill game!

   I have been playing poker since 2004, I have been playing poker full time since 2005. I play all kinds of poker, hold em, horse, razz, stud, badugi, Omaha, 8 game. I have played hundreds of hours in ring games, and thousands of tournaments and sit and gos.

   I have encountered thousands of bad beats, I have encountered thousands of good plays. Each day playing poker is different from the next. Some days I run good, some days I run bad. Some days I bluff a lot, and some days I do not.

   One thing that remains the same each and every time I play poker is, the skill it takes to play. I am so sick of people saying poker is a game of chance, a game of luck. If it were a game of chance and luck, would I be able to make plays based on numbers and math? Would I be able to read my opponents and determine what my next move is based on them?

   Luck will only get you so far in poker, you have to have skill, you have to be able to make the big decisions when it really counts. Being able to pull the trigger, go all in with a hand that is weak, that takes skill, and some guts. There is no easy decision in poker, and that is because of the real skill involved. If poker was a luck game, there would be no poker pros.

   Going all in with 63 suited and going up against AA and winning. The skill involved in that is being able to push with the 63 not winning with it.

This is is why playing poker is clearly a game of skill”

Dancing with JC Tran

2010-02-22T10:55:00.002-05:00

Dancing with JC Tran

JC Tran is truly a great poker player. In fact, I'd call him a natural-born Texas Hold'em player. He's a two-time WSOP bracelet winner and was the World Poker Tour Season Five Player of the Year.

In my opinion, there just aren't that many Hold'em players of his caliber among the top professionals in the world today. Don't get me wrong, there are a bunch of natural talents in the game today, but many of those specialize in other games, like Seven Card Stud or Pot Limit Omaha. For some reason, Texas Hold'em just doesn't come that easy to those other guys.

So, here's this week's hand.

JC and I were playing in the Premiere League IV playoff tournament in Las Vegas last week. We were facing off against each other in our second heat when this sick hand came up.

With six players remaining and the blinds at $3,000/$6,000, JC limped in with 5s-4s. Two other players folded and I made it $30,000 to go with 10-2 offsuit from the small blind.

Let me digress for a moment. It's important to note that there had been some recent playing history between JC and me.

First, I had reraised JC four times with absolutely nothing within the prior twenty minutes and never once showed a single bluff. Second, JC had reraised me only a few minutes earlier. Third, I had raised or reraised eight out of the last ten hands that were dealt. And fourth, JC and I both started this hand with around $300,000 in chips.

Okay, back to the hand.

JC called my raise with his 5s-4s and the flop came Ad-9h-2s. I bet $35,000 and JC called.

The 7h fell on the turn and I bet out $48,000. JC, following through with his bluff, calmly counted out a big raise to $109,000.

I paused for a while, considering all my options. I was thinking that there were no draws on the flop so he probably had me beat. I also had a vague feeling that he could have had a hand like J-10, in which case I had him beat, but I couldn't beat any sort of real hand. One more thing, he had another $150,000 remaining in his stack.

My conclusion: I had to either move all-in or fold. I decided to fold.

Believe it or not, I don't really mind the way I played this hand although it could be argued that a more conservative approach would have been better. When I busted out in sixth place and received a mere three points in the league standings, I certainly had to reconsider my super-aggressive play.

I could have easily ramped down my aggression and cruised into at least a fifth place finish but that's not what I decided to do.

I like my $35,000 bet on the flop and I like my $48,000 bet on the turn. The turn bet should have forced JC to fold - it would have worked against 97% of the players in the world, but not JC. I give him a ton of credit for his strong play in this hand. No wonder he's the defending Premiere League Champion.

If I had thought that JC was capable of making such an aggressive raise at the end, perhaps I would have made the super-hero move and shoved all-in over the top which would have forced JC to fold his hand. Now that would have been an amazing personal highlight reel play!

The fact is, either JC or I could have won this hand. It was just a matter of who blinked first -- and this time it was me!

-Phil Hellmuth

I am hosting a Full tilt Poker tournament

2010-02-16T12:08:00.001-05:00

Cashout Tournament Strategies

2010-02-15T14:31:00.002-05:00

214

Cashout Tournament Strategies

Eric Froehlich

February 16th, 2010

Full Tilt Poker’s Cashout Tournaments provide players the option to leave the tournament at any time before the final table and get the cash value of what their stack is worth. With the options of cashing out part of your chip stack or your entire stack and exiting a tournament, we players are presented with a whole new variety of options to consider.
In Cashout Tournaments, half of the buy-in goes into the Cashout prize pool, and the other half into the tournament prize pool. The ability to cash out in 10% increments of the starting stack (for example, if you start with 3,000 chips, you can cash out as little as 300 chips and keep cashing out in increments of 300) can drastically alter the way you approach these tournaments. With most pros, the goal in a tournament is first place. Cashing in a tournament or lowering variance is not a major concern the vast majority of the time. If that’s your only goal, removing chips from your stack is not going to be an option you employ very often. For most players, however, while first place is certainly always going to be the number one goal, there are other factors involved.
Often times, the best opportunity to cash out is going to be early in the tournament. You can get back some of the money you put up in the buy-in and navigate a slightly shorter stack while the blinds are still small and chip away to get back to where you started and beyond. The real key to knowing when to implement the Cashout option is how much the money means to you. There’s certainly a real advantage in a poker tournament when you triple up very early and have that bigger stack, but for a lot of players, securing that automatic Freeroll in a tournament is going to be even more advantageous (remember that with the 3,000 chip starting stack, should you increase your stack to 9,000, each 300 chips will allow you to cash out for 10% of what you put into the Cashout pool – 6,000 chips will get your full buy-in back and still leave you with a starting stack!). The ability to give peace of mind, guaranteeing that you can’t lose any money in the tournament, might allow you to play a stronger game as you go on.
The Cashout Tournaments also provide a few other opportunities poker players have never seen before. There isn’t a player out there who hasn’t been playing their tournament and just had something “come up” or something they absolutely had to do. Maybe you were already on a time crunch with just a few free hours to spare and were looking to play a little poker. I would advise any player in this position to join a Cashout Tournament rather than risk running out of time in another MTT. The full Cashout option allows you to play and still get money out of the work you did, even if you can’t complete the whole thing!
My strategy going into Cashout Tournaments would be to cash out little by little. I might take a little off the top here and there, while trying to retain a relatively decent stack. I always like to have the biggest stack at the table so I can get maximum value out of my hands, but in the cases where I have quite a bit more chips than anyone else, getting a little bit of money for my chips becomes quite appealing. Later on in the tournament, I would consider cashing out a little bit here and there, while still trying to keep my stack above 15 big blinds, and preferably above 20 big blinds. Maintaining this stack size makes sure that I’m not so short that my hand is forced while still having enough chips to re-raise all-in and have enough chips that someone can fold.
The full Cashout option is one I would reserve for mostly emergencies and other such events that come up unexpectedly. Tournament life is such a valuable thing that I would never give up my last chip in a Cashout Tournament unless I had to leave, but cashing down to a shorter stack and trying to double up can be highly effective and fun as well. Many people like to start with short stacks in cash games and take away a lot of the decision work. Cashing out to 10 big blinds or less and beginning to play shove or fold poker is something many people hate, but many others love.
One final tip to keep in mind is that you will also have the ability to practice valuable tournament skills by utilizing the Cashout option. If you need more experience playing a shorter stack effectively, you can cash out a portion of your stack. This allows you to make additional money without having to actually dump off chips, and you can work on improving that portion of your poker game, as well.

A Nub plays rush poker 3 - FINAL

2010-02-13T11:51:00.001-05:00

Pokerticians

2010-02-11T17:58:00.001-05:00

213

Two High-Stakes Pokerticians

Jim McManus

February 9th, 2010

A year before Barack Obama launched his presidential campaign, a reporter asked him if he had a hidden talent. “I’m a pretty good poker player,” he said. That talent, nurtured by his maternal grandfather and then in a low-stakes weekly game with Illinois politicians, is one Obama shares with a host of previous presidents. Yet, only two of them played for serious money, and both were remarkably successful.
Dwight Eisenhower played Stud and Draw for sizable stakes as a young army officer because he needed the money. But he got so good that by the time he reached the higher echelons of the military, he decided to give up the game because he was leaving so many of his tablemates broke.
Eisenhower had learned to play as an eight-year-old in Abilene, Kansas during hunting trips with a guide named Bob Davis, who made him memorize the odds of completing various draws. “He dinned percentages into my head night after night around a campfire,” Ike recalled, “using a greasy pack of nicked cards that must have been a dozen years old. We played for matches and whenever my box of matches was exhausted, I’d have to roll in my blankets and go to sleep.” As an upperclassman at West Point in 1915, he attended “cadet dances only now and then, preferring to devote my time to poker.” He used poker winnings to pay for his dress uniform as well as gifts for Mamie Dowd, a wealthy Denver debutante. Those gifts included her engagement ring, which she accepted on Valentine’s Day, 1916.
Eisenhower was not only a strong player, he was dedicated to keeping the game honest. While stationed at Camp Colt in Pennsylvania, he learned that a well-connected junior officer had used a marked deck in a Stud game. Capt. Eisenhower told him to resign or face a court-martial. When the cheater’s father and Congressman requested that he be allowed to transfer to another unit, Eisenhower firmly explained that no officer could be effective in the field without personal integrity. Even though a more senior officer eventually greased the way for the transfer, Eisenhower never backed down.
While stationed at Fort Meade under Col. George Patton, Capt. Eisenhower continued to dominate the action among his fellow officers. Their highest-stakes game was reserved for bachelors and married men who could comfortably afford to lose. One player who ignored this rule wound up losing so much to Ike that he was forced to cash in his wife’s war bonds to make good on his I.O.U. Eisenhower reluctantly accepted payment, but he felt so guilty afterward that he conspired with others in the game to lose the money back to the man. “This was not achieved easily,” said Eisenhower. “One of the hardest things known to man is to make a fellow win in poker who plays as if bent on losing every nickel.” He then persuaded Col. Patton to ban poker at the fort, if only to keep the same fellow from squandering any more money. The sour experience was enough to convince Eisenhower that, as an officer, “I had to quit playing. It was not because I didn’t enjoy the excitement of the game – I really love to play. But it had become clear that it was no game to play in the Army.”
Any kind of gambling was an anathema in East Whittier, the Quaker suburb of Los Angeles where Richard Nixon grew up. But it didn’t take long for Nixon to become a ruthless poker player when he joined the Navy in World War II. “I found playing poker instructive as well as entertaining and profitable,” he wrote in his autobiography. “I learned that people who have the cards are usually the ones who talk the least and the softest; those who are bluffing tend to talk loudly and give themselves away.”
While serving in the Solomon Islands, Lt. Nixon was invited to a small dinner party for the celebrity pilot Charles Lindbergh, who was testing prototype planes for the Air Force. Instead, he attended a poker game he had previously agreed to host. “In the intense loneliness and boredom of the South Pacific, our poker games were more than idle pastimes,” he wrote, “and the etiquette surrounding them was taken very seriously.”
Nixon liked to compare notes with other strong players, and persuaded one expert, Jim Stewart, to coach him on Five-Card Draw strategy. Nixon’s term for such preparations was “war-gaming.” He began to make serious money playing tight-aggressive poker. He was “as good a poker player as, if not better than, anyone we had ever seen,” said one fellow officer. “I once saw him bluff a Lieutenant Commander out of $1,500 with a pair of deuces.”
By the end of the war, Nixon had won $8,000, a genuinely whopping haul in the forties. Upon discharge, he used it to bankroll his first congressional campaign. In November 1946, he defeated the popular Democratic incumbent Jerry Voorhis, in part by accusing him of being a draft-dodging communist. Four years later, he defeated Helen Gahagan Douglas, a three-term congresswoman, in a mudslinging race for the U.S. Senate. After Nixon claimed the attractive former actress was “pink right down to her underwear,” she retorted with a nickname that stuck: “Tricky Dick;” an unfortunate handle for a politician, of course, but one that any poker stud would be proud of.