In an increasingly demanding poker world it can often seem like there’s no way of gaining an edge on your opponents. Indeed, with so many players now proficient in the fundamentals of the game it’s becoming tougher and tougher to eke out a profit at the poker table.

However, while others are wasting their time looking outside themselves and at the actions of others, it’s those players who’ve cast an analytical eye over their own thinking that are starting to shine. At the forefront of the advancement in poker’s mental game is Jared Tendler.

Having migrated from the world of golf and sports psychology, Jared has now established himself as the poker industry’s leading authority of all things mental. His seminal publication, The Mental Game of Poker, has reshaped the way the poker community thinks about issues such as Tilt, focus and motivation.

The book came into being through Jared’s own knowledge of psychology and his experience with some of the world’s best poker players, and it’s now become the go to resource for any poker player who wants to steal a march on their competitors.

So what brought Jared to the poker world and how does he feel about pioneering a new era in poker’s technical development?

We caught up with him to find out:

How did you first get into psychology?

I first got into psychology because of my own mental hang ups because I was trying to become a professional golfer. I had a friend give me a book called Golf is Not a Game of Perfect by Dr. Bob Rotella and it was my first eye opening experience in psychology. I saw it was a whole new avenue to try and improve.

I dove into it and my game improved a lot but only to a certain point, so I reasoned that I probably wasn’t the only one who had problems in the area of sports psychology. Following that I went and got a masters degree in counselling psychology and spent 2 years doing that. I then spent two more years getting licensed before I quit and started working with golfers.

So what prompted your move from golf to poker?

I worked with golfers for 3 years, working with a lot of great players, but I didn’t innovate as much as I wanted to until I got into poker. I got into the game because some dude call “leatherass” (Dusty “Leatherass” Schmidt is one of the best online poker players in the world and known for his ability to play an insane amount of hands in a single session).

He introduced me to Stocks Poker – a well know poker training site – and things went from there. Dusty won $640k in the 4 months after we started working together and while some of that was because he was running good, the work we did together helped him to capitalise on his positive run. Indeed, he was able to play more hands and longer sessions which undoubtedly helped him make more money.

After working with Dusty and other top players you decided to write The Mental Game of Poker. What was your aim when putting the book together?

I basically wanted to take what the other poker psychology books had done and go deeper. Kind of in the same regard that I’d hoped the sports psychology books that I had read would have done.

When I put the book together I wanted it to go deeper into the biggest issues; something I think I accomplished. I tried to organise the issues into sections, which is something that had previously not been done in poker psychology.

For example, previously tilt was a broad category for every time you did something stupid at the table. However, if you’re trying to solve problems you really need to have a more narrow definition of the problem and so I defined tilt as only being caused by anger. Once I did that it brought fear, anxiety and pressure under the definition of tilt. Indeed, these were emotions a lot of poker players were experiencing but they didn’t have a name to put on it.

The reason I think it was important to do this was because to solve an anger issue you need a different strategy than you need to solve fear. There are parts of it that are similar but I think a lot of poker players were trying to solve mental game problems badly because they weren’t properly identifying the real problem.

Looking back on the material you produced, is there anything you would change?

Everything that’s in there I wouldn’t change. The only thing that might be out dated is my reference to Phil Hellmuth in the section concerning entitlement tilt. He was the poster child for this emotion but he’s gotten a lot better at controlling this in recent years.

Beyond that I stand by everything I put in the book, so much so I’m working on the audio book right now. Basically I’ve been going through the book over and over and there’s not one thing I would change.

There are certainly things I would add having learned more since writing it, but I think that’s always the case with books.

What things would you add?

The things I would add would be more practical examples of the concepts. I’d also include more strategies for how people could use the material. I would possibly clarify a few things as well. Overall though I’m very happy with how it turned out.

Are there any plans for a follow-up book?

Yes. I’ve got a bunch of new material that will go into a second volume. I’m planning on putting that together within the next six months to a year.

My new book won’t be building on the material in the first book, though; it will be a whole raft of new material. If the first book said: “here are the problems and here’s how to get rid of it”, then the second book is going to say: “here’s how to consistently play at your best.”

My second book won’t be me rewriting bits of the first book. The plan is for it to be like a graduation of the first; you need to work through the first one in order to benefit from the second. The main aim will be to help players play in the zone more consistently.

Once players have gotten rid of their issues with the help of The Mental Game of Poker, the second book will help them push themselves beyond their limits and into new levels of competence.

In your dealings with poker players, what’s the most common issue poker players ask you about?

Tilt is definitely the most common and not just their version of tilt, but my version – which is any anger issue such as: injustice tilt, hate losing tilt and mistake tilt. Wanting to increase focus is also a big issue.

Before your work on tilt the understanding of it in poker was very poor. Do you think your definition of tilt has now become the industry standard?

Yes and no. Yes because the people who have read my book or spoken to me have confirmed that it has been more effective than any previous definitions.

I was hopeful that that was going to happen, but my confidence now comes mostly from the feedback I’ve been given because people believe it’s true. Moreover, their results back up the mental positives they feel. Indeed, because of their new understanding of tilt they’ve been able to work through their problem and play in ways they couldn’t before.

I’m also going to say no though because there are still thousands of poker players who haven’t read the book; the material isn’t mainstream yet. So there’s a lot more people to reach. I think poker is caught between this new evolving way of thinking about tilt and the more entrenched ways of thinking about it.

It will be interesting to see what happens in the next three to five years in terms of what reshapes the industry and what doesn’t. I’m certainly going to be a driving force as it’s in my best interest and poker players’ best interests to be thinking about their games in this way. I’m not saying it’s for everybody but a majority of people will benefit from this way of thinking about their game.

To find out more about Jared’s work, visit: Mental Game of Poker

Few people play their first Texas Hold’em game at a Vegas casino. For most people it’s either at a social gathering or a friend’s basement tournament. Once you start getting pretty good, you may start hitting casinos and even trying to go professional.

Then the day comes when you go to a home tournament again and you are startled to realize that you feel out of place. The truth is that there are some very key differences between playing at a casino vs. playing at a friend’s house.

Here are some guidelines on the differences to help keep you from pissing off your beer buddies at a social game and still take home a win:

1. Trash talk is great at home



When you’re playing with friend and friends of friends, there’s a lot more you can get away with.


In your friend’s basement, you can say things like, “So you going to raise or fold? Which is it, are you a pussy or a fruit?” and people will laugh and have a good time.

If you do that at a casino, there’s a good chance you’ll get thrown out or at least warned by the dealer. More important than that however, even subtle trash talk at a casino robs you of your ability to see the situation, since you’re trying to be witty instead of coldly observe the behavior and reactions of people at the table.

Of course, with online poker sites, there is a lot you can get away with in terms of trash talk but it’s more likely to cost you your concentration as well, since the games move a lot faster online.

In a home game, trash talking is not only tolerated but a good strategic move as well. Everyone will be bonding over jokes and insults, which will distract them from the game at hand. The one thing you have to do is make sure you don’t get lost in the laughs and drama, as this is the quickest way to lose your competitive edge.


2. Alcohol rules all change


If you’re playing poker in a casino, you’re almost guaranteed to do better if you’re not drinking alcohol. This is one reason why you’re offered complimentary drinks while betting when you go to Las Vegas.

Now if you’re thinking I’m going to saying it’s better for your game to drink at a home tournament, you’re absolutely wrong. It’s true that it is less of a disadvantage to drink at a home game since other people are sharing the handicap, but any alcohol will still hamper your decision-making or awareness as you play.

On the other hand, not drinking at all during a home tournament will make you look uptight and overserious. I’m actually not a big fan of drinking out of social pressure, but the truth is that you are hurting the vibe if you abstain from alcohol, a lot of the time. If you refuse to drink, you may actually not be invited to future games. Of course, if you have any real problem with alcohol, that trumps everything.

The good thing is at home poker tournaments, you’re unlikely to be handled a bunch of shots, so there won’t be any real pressure to over drink. If you just nurse a beer or two, then you’ll blend in enough that you won’t be hurting the vibe.

3. Rules are more up for grabs at home

One benefit of online casinos and live casinos is that the rules are etched in stone. Whether you know the rules or not, they are not changing for anyone, no matter how persuasive you are and no matter how passionately you feel that you’re right.

At home games, everything is different.

You are pretty safe assuming that the order of winning hands will remain the same, but most other standards of play can vary depending on who is hosting the event, who’s dealing, and who else is playing in the game.

One of the rules that will be in question is how much blinds should go up, and by how much. You will have active say in that debate.

Another question will be if people can rebuy, how many times, and when the deadline will be.

You will, of course, want to argue your side based on what serves you at the moment for your game. The way to be persuasive about it is to use an external standard, such as how things worked in World Series of Poker one year, or at the casino up the street. Just claiming that your way is better will not be enough to make a difference a lot of the time.

And speaking of disputes…



4. Disagreements, arguments, and flat out fights

Now, that last one should be pretty rare. If you’re being a gentleman, not cheating, and not associating with crazy overzealous drunks, you probably will not personally end up in a fist fight. You could potentially witness one, but your physical safety is pretty much a safe bet.

However, you are by no means immune to passionate disagreements about how you deal, whether your joke about your chip stack counted as a real bet, or if you were clear enough that you were folding.

There was one time when I was at someone’s house named Greg, and he was dealing. My cards accidentally flipped over at one point, and I was quick to spin them over before more than two people saw.

What Greg did was flip over my cards and say, “It’s not fair for just a couple people to see them. Unfair advantage.”

I was naturally pretty peeved about this, and said, “What rules say that??” He said “Greg’s rules.” After an awkward silence at the table, he said “I’m sure there’s a similar rule online.”

After that, he never enforced that rule again, because the rest of the table didn’t agree, but it just goes to show that a lot of this is up for debate and can elicit conflict.

Overall, the home games are clearly more chaotic and disorganized. You have a much better chance of winning, but they are probably the least efficient way to make money long term in poker. Have fun and enjoy the variety of the experience.

There is no question that whoever has the bigger stack of chips has an advantage. Once one player has a significant amount of chips compared to the others, he can play much more loosely without fear of making a mistake and going bankrupt for the rest of the game.

Even more fun than that, the dominant chip player can become a mafia bully type who raises $500 on a hand that is barely worth a $20 double blind. When this happens, the rest of the table will fold, while grudgingly knowing that they could have beat him if he didn’t have such a cash advantage. This is called “buying the pot,” and it’s an extremely powerful state of play that you want to get into as soon as possible in any tournament.

Unfortunately, if you go based on the luck of the draw, you will rarely be the powerful one on the table. Even playing solid tight game can put you at the mercy of luck, a lot of the time. If you’re playing a game with antes or a fast moving blind chip, then you risk getting “blinded out,” simply by not playing and winning enough hands. The solution to this is to “steal blinds.”

Stealing blinds means that you raise on a so-so hand before the flop, so you can take the blinds that are already left on the table. However, you need to do things a certain way or this method can actually hurt you and take all of your chips.

Here is the basic strategy:

1. Wait until you’re in late position


If there’s one thing that brings out betters and callers, it’s a big pot. It’s like smelling blood in the water when players realize “This is going to be a big win for whoever gets lucky.” Because of this, you don’t want to bet too early in the hand. If you are right after the blinds and you make your bet, other players may start trickling in and once re-raises start happening, you’ll soon be out of your league. Waiting until it’s just you and the blinds is the safest strategy because they have no voluntary investment in the game yet and will be the least likely out of all players to keep going.

2. Raise enough to intimidate


For a bet designed solely to steal blinds, you’re best off raising by two to three times the double-blind value. This is enough to get people with marginal hands to fold, while not enough to put you in harm’s way if others have good hands. This is a critical point to stealing blinds and having this as part of a strategy gives you a very helpful safety net.


Remember that this is a somewhat different betting strategy from what’s traditional in poker. In most hands, you bet based on the odds of your hand winning the game. When you’re stealing blinds, you’re betting completely on the odds of other players folding right away, with no intention of even making it to the flop. Since this can be a more fickle aspect of the game, you don’t want to bite off more than you can chew. You want to raise just enough to get the job done.



3. Pull out if you need to

Even if you’re the last one to play on the hand, and the two blind-holders are not looking confident, you may be surprised that both of them start re-raising much more than you’re comfortable matching. At this point, you have to look at your hand honestly and see if it really makes sense to stay in. There’s no shame in folding if you’re clearly out of your league. There’s only shame in continuing to bluff while you’re holding back tears. You can always go for the blinds the next time you’re in the same position, so there’s really no rush.



4. Stay in if you need to

There will be times when you play a little more risky, raise too early, and others will follow suit and re-raise. When this happens, you may be facing so much pot odds that you have no choice but to ride it out, at least to the flop. A lot can change at that point, so even if you started out the hand by bluffing, you are now playing for real. Remember that the more money there is in the pot, the more incentive you have to stay in. Still, if you’re not very familiar with pot odds, be conservative and fold. It’s much more costly to get sucked into a runaway bluff hand then to fold and sit the rest of that hand out.



5. Mix it up

As we’ve discussed on this blog many times before, poker is a game of reading people. Because of this, many other players will be looking at what you’re doing and trying to figure out your strategy. Once someone catches wind that you’re stealing blinds, they’ll try to mess up that strategy and attempt to get you sucked in a bad hand.

The solution to this, of course, is to vary your playing so it’s not clear what you’re doing. There’s no law saying you have to steal blinds every time you’re on the button, so use it as part of your player’s toolbox, without doing it like clockwork.

Now, is stealing blinds always necessary? The top tournament players I know say it’s a very important skill for long-term playing. At the same time, there are plenty of big winners that don’t steal blinds during individual tournaments, so it’s not a crucial thing you need to learn right away and it’s not a magic pill. Stealing blinds is a skill you can develop over time, even if you attempt to steal blinds once every game or tournament. As you get better at it, you’ll find that it’s rewarding to get away with it and you’ll do it more and profit greatly from it. It’s just another one of those really fun parts of poker that makes the risk all worth it.

When you’re playing poker regularly, you may wonder if your main playing location is the best place to be in order to win the most money. If you’re playing at home, you may wonder if you’re missing out on the high roller casinos. If you’re playing the at the casinos, you may look at your watch and wonder if this game is taking ridiculously long compared to the digital dealer at FullTilt.com or PokerStars.com. Here is a roundup of the main differences between live and online poker.

1. You’re Less Likely to Get Scammed Live


Let’s just get this part out of the way. You can never fully prevent fraud, collaborating, or even blatant theft in poker. There was a friendly small stakes tournament from a year ago that still has me wondering if someone stole one of my black chips while I was in the bathroom.

That being said, it’s always a safer bet to play live. You can check the casino out, and weed out obvious collaboration. If you’re not familiar with collaboration, it’s when there is a “mark” or victim at table and other people playing conspire to screw him out of his stack of chips by sharing hands and strategically betting so he’ll lose. There can, of course, be just two people collaborating against a table of five, such as in the movie “Rounders,” but at its most effective, there is just one or two people being swindled.

With live poker, you need to have a tremendous amount of skill and organization to pull something like that off without the mark noticing. On the internet, very minimal preparation is needed. In online poker games, all there needs is to be three laptops in a frat house basement and you have a scam going for every new player that wanders into the poker room.

There are ways to help prevent this, but you’re always safer when you can see the players right in front of you.

2. You Can Play More Hands Online



One of the biggest advantages of online poker is that you can play many more hands than you would at a casino or tournament. The dealer’s speed (or lack thereof) in handing out cards can dramatically affect how much money you can win at a given time. I’ve seen some fast dealers, but few have ever been able to match the artificial ones online.

Beyond just the dealer, you have distractions in the room, people ordering drinks, and confused players who are still baffled that a 2-Pair can be worth less than a Three of a Kind.

Added to that is the simple commute to the casino or tournament. You can play a small stakes game on your iPad in a doctor’s waiting room, but it’s always somewhat of an ordeal to physically go to a casino.



3. You Can Read People Better in Person


I’ve shadowed some of the best players in online poker and they all have great methods for reading people. How they usually explain it is something like this: “See, this guy folds whenever that guy raises, so I can tell that he’s going to be timid if I raise on this hand.” In other words, you only have betting history to go by and nothing else. Also, since many people online only play a couple hands, you may not even have that to go on.

Betting history is important when playing, but to have that as your only way of reading people is severely limiting. It’s much better to have facial expressions, tonality, body language, and everything else to determine what kind of player someone is.


4. Your Schedule is More Flexible Online

Simply put, when you play online, you can take a break whenever you want. You can go to the bathroom, make a sandwich, or take a telephone call. You can technically take a break at casinos, but it’s less convenient and you can’t really unwind like you would on your front porch with an easychair and lemonade.

Also, whether you’re an early bird or a night lark, online gives you the ability to play whenever you want to. Some of us just aren’t as sharp after 10 pm or before noon. There’s no question that you have total flexibility with online poker.


5. Unless You’re a Hermit, Life is More Fun

At the end of the day, there’s no question that the fun factor is an important part of poker. While some people love playing online, the idea of spending up to eight hours a day by yourself staring at a screen is just lame to most people. In person, you get the thrills, the chills, the drama, and everything else that makes poker exciting.

Plus, you get the whole storytelling potential that is completely lost online. Even non-poker players love hearing stories of exciting games, enormous bets, and shocking turns and rivers. However, even if the exact same scenario rolled out in an online game, you would be hardpressed to find any non-player who would listen with any interest. It becomes the difference between talking about a bear attack in the woods versus killing a pretty nasty boar in a World of Warcraft game.

So should interpret this list as three points for live and two points for online? Not necessarily. However, I can probably simplify the decision with the observation that live poker is better for quality and online poker is better for quantity.

With most things in life, such as restaurant food, sex partners, and friendships, people tend to side with quality over quantity in importance. I’d challenge you to really consider whether this applies to poker for you. If you can make $5,000 more a month from online poker, it may not matter to you how bored you are with your laptop. If you have a 2 year old at home, an online game might be the best you can get. Always consider your own personal situation whenever making decisions about your poker gaming.

Learning poker tells is a very fun aspect of mastering poker. It gets away from some of the mundane technical strategic points and makes the game a lot more human. It becomes a challenge of psychological warfare and intimidation instead of just numbers and statistics.

Plus, poker stories are far more interesting when tells are involved. You may have heard one like this: “I had three Queens and was just about to fold on the river… when I saw Joey raise an eyebrow. I knew he had just shown his tell…”

Here are three tells that are very common in both poker and everyday life. You’re probably doing these yourself without even realizing it. Take note of the tells below and see how many come up at your next poker game.

1. The Hand-Shrug

Are you a fan of the show “Lie to Me”?

I used to be really into it. The main character is a professional deception expert who makes his living in observing and interviewing witnesses and suspects to see if they’re telling the truth. He reads micro-expressions, which are subtle manifestations of body language that most people don’t pick up on.

The show’s got a lot of value, but the first micro-expression I started seeing all the time in the real world is the hand-shrug. It’s when someone rotates his or her hand in the outward direction. Most of the time the person’s hands will be on the table and one will just subtly move.

This is a small but major admission that the person is unsure of what he’s saying. In poker, you’ll notice it when someone makes a bet or call and is trying to sound confident. The hand movement will betray his outward confidence and show he really isn’t sure he has the best hand. This can also show how confident the person is in general, because if he’s hand-shrugging when he’s not even holding cards yet, it reveals that he really feels outmatched at the table.

2. Deep Breathing

It’s a tough irony in poker that some of the very things you can do to calm your emotional state and get off tilt will reveal to other players that you’re on tilt in the first place.

If you go to an anger management class or a social anxiety workshop, what they’ll tell you to do is take a series of deep breaths when you’re stressed or upset. This is your body cooling off, both figuratively and literally. In Yoga, you’re instructed to breath out through your mouth when you want to cool your body down and through the nose when you want to maintain your heat.

So when you see another player take a major exhale through her mouth, you can tell that she’s releasing stress and trying to calm down. If this happened after she called a high raise, you can tell she’s feels like she took a bit risk and wants to sooth the emotional snap-back.

For your own playing, you may feel this is a paradox. Should you force yourself to breath normally even when you’re totally stressed out?

If you’re making a betting decision, your true calmness is much more important than your appearance of calmness. Bad decisions are made all the time in poker by nervous people. If you feel like some deep breathing will help your focus, then be as subtle as you possibly can while cooling yourself down.


However, once you’ve made a decision and other people are going around the table to bet, you need to put on a total mask of serenity and confidence. Even if you’re shaking on the inside, the outward illusion may be the one thing that causes your opponents to all fold. We all know that the quickest easy money comes where everyone folds at once.

Of course, you must assume you’re being watched all the time, so even your heavy breathing before your bet can be costly. As long as you keep cognizant and don’t let your breaths run wild, you can find the right balance between cooling your system and looking cool.

3. Contempt

This is another “Lie to Me” classic micro-expression. It’s actually one you’ll see in the “real world” very often, once you’re made aware of it. The facial expression is just someone curling up one corner of his mouth. It’s sort of like a semi-smile but only on one side. Most facial expressions are symmetrical, so this is a relatively unique form of facial body language.

This expression of contempt comes up with someone is disapproving of someone or something. Maybe your opponent disapproves of the dealer, or his opponent, or even his hand. It doesn’t have to be contempt for a specific person. It could be contempt for lady luck or the speed of play. Either way, you can bet it means he’s not having a good time.

Obviously, if you see the contempt expression when someone looks at his hand, it’s likely that he’s disappointed and hopefully getting a little on tilt. However, bear in mind that if someone chooses to stay in with a bad hand, his cards can quickly become a very good hand, depending on the flop, so stay careful to watch your opponent’s current facial expressions. What his mouth looked like three minutes ago is now irrelevant.

You can also ascertain someone’s betting strategy from watching the contempt tell very closely. If someone looks like he’s trying to lure people in to bet, he’ll have contempt when someone folds. If someone plays very tightly, you’ll see contempt from him with other players bet very loosely.

Conclusion

Remember that tells are just a small, but fun, part of your overall poker strategy. Tells are what you focus on after you have already mastered things like pre-flop technique, position analysis, and protecting your hand. However, no matter where you are in your poker skill development, you can stay watchful of phenomena like this so you get a head start on improving your player-reading abilities.

Pre-flop strategy is critical to your skill set as a poker player. You can literally up your game by 80%, simply by adding some of these techniques to your game. This is a scientifically sound method of knowing when to bet and when to fold.

Why is Pre-Flop Strategy So Important?

I would say pre-flop strategy is one of the most underrated subjects in poker for a number of reasons. For one, you need to make a pre-flop decision in almost every hand. The only time you don’t need to think about it is if you’re in the big blind position and no one has raised.

If you are playing unwisely in a situation you face every hand, do you think that might affect your overall success?

The truth is that pre-flop strategy is not only crucial, but one of the easiest things to fix in your game.

Basically, when you get dealt your first two cards, there are three qualities you want to look for:

High Cards

Before you say “Yeah, I play hard whenever I have an Ace! I got this down!”, you have to understand that one awesome card is not enough. In fact, an awesome card and a pretty good card might not be enough either.

Suited

A common response to this is “Yeah, Flushes are cool, but they’re so rare that it doesn’t make sense to bet based on them.” Flushes are somewhat uncommon, but they happen enough that you should be prepared to capitalize on them. If you have an enormous pot, then suitedness is a great asset.

Connectedness

This is important for nailing a Straight, of course. When I talk about connectedness, people sometimes question how often Straights show up. Straights do happen enough, and catching one at the right time can win you a big pot.

Now, like all strategies, this isn’t the word of God, but I would say you’re best folding on hands when you don’t have at least 2 out of 3 of the traits listed above. This means that if you have a King and a 7, it’s not good enough. Unfortunately, this also means if you have an Ace and a Jack it may just barely be enough.

Your best hands are going to be pocket monsters like Ace-Ace, King-King, and Queen-Queen. These are high cards and they’re beyond connected because they’re the same value. Next up would be Ace-King.

Ace-King is a funny one because many players have been absolutely astonished that they’ve lost hands using it. At one table I was at, someone had nicknamed Ace-King the “Anna Kournikova,” after the hot blonde tennis player who was having trouble in the championship tournaments.


“The Ace-King is the Anna Kournikova… Looks good, can’t win.” I would say both she and the Ace-King have gotten a bad rap. Where people go wrong with the Ace-King is that they assume they are invincible. The flop will have three Jacks, the turn will have a Queen, and the A-K holder will be thinking “Just an Ace for the river… all I need is an Ace…”

Don’t get me wrong, it’s true that if you’re faced with an awful flop and turn, your pair of 10’s are way better than an Ace-King. However, keep in mind that this is a situation where you already know most of how the hand is playing out. If ALL you know is your pre-flop, then Ace-King is a fabulous hand, and you should bet freely to protect it.

Obviously, super-high cards are great because they’re high and connected. If they’re both in the same suit and/or connected, it’s even better.

You don’t always need a high face card to bet, though. If you have a 7 and 8, with both being Hearts, then you’re doing very well and should stay in, as long as the betting isn’t too high.

This relates to another very important part of Poker, which is protecting your hand.

Protecting your hand is important because in tournaments, especially later in the game, you’ll get “blinded out.” This is when you pay so many blinds and double blinds without winning that your pot starts to dwindle.

This means that if you have a pretty good pre-flop, you should bet aggressively to collect blinds. Some people take this even further and bluff to “steal” blinds, but this is not always necessary.

The best time to protect your hand is when you have a good but not great hand. For example, if you have a pair of Jacks, you have a so-so chance of winning the pot if it goes to the river. However, your two Jacks have an excellent chance of being the best hand before the flop. Someone with a 6 and a 10 may have scored a Two Pair if they stayed in the game against you, but without that foreknowledge, they’re likely to fold against your confident bet.

Conclusion

The temptation to violate this pre-flop strategy can easily come during loose games where people are winning with technically bad-hands. I want to warn you that you shouldn’t alter your strategy unless you see yourself really getting blinded out. If you start playing loose as well, you may think that your King-Five will carry you, but you still have a very high chance of losing. Plus, the loose players won’t be intimidated and will see your bets.

Instead, just steal blinds when you have to, but otherwise stay tight with your preflop. You’d be surprised in some tournaments how little you actually have to play to win. It costs you nothing to fold if you don’t have a blind and there isn’t an ante.

Pre-flop is just part of the overall poker strategy, but it’s a very big part. Other things can affect your betting decision too, such as what position you’re in and how much is in the pot. A huge pot is nice odds, but if you have to give half of your stack of chips up to match it, it’s often not worth it. Use common sense.

There comes a time in a person’s poker practice where he or she decides that the game is more than just a side hobby. Maybe you start making weekly trips to the casino or you set up an automatic deposit in your PokerStars account. If this is you, then you are ready to start becoming a professional poker champion and bring in big money.

However, it can be tough to go from someone who plays here and there to becoming someone who can honestly say “Yes” when asked “Are you good at poker?” It’s an identity shift, and it can be scary for a lot of people. Your “old self” will want to get in the way and bring things back to the status quo. A lot of psychologists say that your subconscious mind tends to resist change, even when it’s healthy and necessary.

This is where visualization comes in. As far as inner game strategies go, visualization is one of the techniques for self-improvement that is agreed upon by virtually every business author, self-help guru, or athletic coach with a strong track record.

When most people talk about visualization, they think about sitting down for twenty to thirty minutes and imagining themselves successful. In the traditional practice, you would create images in your head of you with extraordinary luck and skills in poker. You’ll see yourself getting dealt pocket Aces. You’ll see other people folding when you raise a few chips. You’ll see yourself making the best judgment in each hand.

Unfortunately, that strategy is fatally flawed when it comes to poker, because there is so much that is out of your direct control. For example, you will never improve your chances of getting pocket Aces, no matter how good your game is.

Instead, I offer you an alternative way to visualize your poker game. This is not something you necessarily have to do every day, but you will grow in your game, the more often you use it.

Here’s the process:

1. Clear Your Head

First thing you need to do is leave everything from your day behind. Find a quiet place where you won’t be disturbed and sit down. Don’t use your bed, because you’re likely to fall asleep. Take at least three slow deep breaths and relax.

2. State the Goal

Think of what your goal is for poker. Maybe you want to win the World Series of Poker or maybe you want to make $3,000 a month from poker. Get a clear sense of what you want.

3. Create the Persona

This is the bulk of the exercise.

Let’s say you’re a 26 year old accountant and you would love to replace your job with poker income. You need $4,000 a month to do this.

Ask yourself, “What kind of man consistently makes $4,000 a month playing poker?”

Think of the qualities that come up. You’re asking about someone who makes easy money from poker on a regular basis and doesn’t even need to work anymore. This is clearly a special person. What kind of personality traits might this person have? They might include:

• Stays cool under pressure
• Is great at managing money
• Is in complete control of his emotions
• Loves the game of poker
• Has no ego about winning and can leave a game that’s going badly.

You can write these down or just think of them. The advantage of writing them down is you can focus on them one by one as you go on with the exercise.

4. Step into the Persona

This is the part where you take on the qualities for yourself.

Ask yourself, “What would I be like if I always stayed cool under pressure?”

This is where the real visualization comes in. You make a mental movie of yourself being very calm in stressing moments. Maybe you see yourself with one chip at the table while everyone else has a stack of 500 chips, yet you are cool as can be. You see everyone around you amazed at how relaxed you are.

You can expand this visualization to your daily life as well. You may see yourself in a massive traffic jam with only a half an hour to go before your poker tournament starts. In your car, you’re relaxed and just enjoying the breeze through your window because the delay doesn’t get to you.

Let’s do another one: “What would I be like if I was great at managing money?”

For this, you see yourself being a master of both your chips and your bank account. You see yourself happily transferring money from your poker winnings to your long-term savings account and investments. You see yourself budgeting for groceries and not getting the super-expensive whiskey because you have a tournament coming up and need to have a certain amount of money free for that weekend. You see yourself paying with a check instead of a credit card because you don’t incur any debt.

Keep doing this for every quality that comes to mind. Switch between seeing this scene “1st person” through your own eyes, and “3rd person” with an outside vision of yourself.

Do this for thirty minutes. If you’re a serious poker player and want maximum results, do it every day. You can also work into this session other qualities you want to install into yourself, as this is one of the most effective ways to improve your life. This very exercise is talked about in some of the greatest self-help classics, such as “Think and Grow Rich” by Napoleon Hill and “Psycho-Cybernetics” by Maxwell Maltz.

Keep in mind that while this and other inner game tactics are especially helpful for improving your success rate and game, that they are no substitute for regular practice and knowledge of poker theory. As we’ve discussed in other posts, poker can run counter-intuitive to a lot of our basic instincts, so that’s why it’s essential to have a clear understanding of statistics and solid gambling principles. The good thing is that once you have all of that down, these inner game exercises will really take you to the next level.

We talk a lot on this blog about how poker skills can improve your life. It’s true that you improve a lot of your talents when playing poker. You can read people better, keep your head cool under pressure, and develop a keen sense of intuition that most people lack. However, there are a few areas of poker that run opposite to how life works in the real world. Poker won’t make you worse at anything, but there are some natural life instincts and skills that get in the way of your poker game. Knowing what these are will dramatically improve how fast you master the game.

1. Poker Violates Your Natural Learning Process


Since the beginning of time, we have learned how to act and what to do from trial-and-error experience. It was the same for cavemen 10,000 years ago as it is today.

We jump off a ten foot high cliff and it hurts. Lesson: Don’t jump off cliffs that high.

We eat strawberries and feel good. Lesson: Eat strawberries.

We try to eat a pinecone and it taste bad. If we succeed in eating it, we have a bad stomach ache. Lesson: Don’t eat pinecones and don’t force yourself to eat things that taste awful, no matter how hungry you are.

In poker, however, that simple trial-and-error logic will get you crushed at the table. Suppose you have three Aces and two Kings, so you bet your entire stack of chips. Some lucky newbie takes you down with four 2’s. Lesson: Never go all-in when you have the best possible Full House in the game.

Or suppose you have a 4 and a 7 and you fold. The flop then reveals the other three 4’s. You would have won if you stayed in! Lesson: Always keep betting when you have a 4.

Those are the lessons that both your conscious and unconscious mind are taking in when you play poker, if you are not being careful. You often get rewarded for bad play and get punished for good play. This is why poker is one of the few things in life where practice doesn’t make perfect, at least not on its own.

How do you counteract this? Learn the actual statistics of poker and bet according to your odds instead of your past game experiences. You’re doing yourself a great service by reading a blog like this because it’s giving you information that you’d never get on your own. Experience in poker does help, but only when you are learning the theory away from the table along with it. 


2. Motivation Doesn’t Help

In sports, and employment, motivation and passion will help get you to the top. When Rocky faced Clubber Lang in Rocky 3, he was unstoppable because he had the “Eye of the Tiger,” which is full commitment to winning, no matter what.

In poker, being die-hard on winning will only screw you up. In fact, a take it or leave it attitude is much more ideal for any given hand or tournament. Poker is a lot more like negotiation than sports competition. It’s a meeting of the minds where you want to appear in control and powerful, yet not have a strong commitment to winning the game.

You still should intend to win, but you don’t really try very hard. All of your effort goes merely to calming your mind and keeping your focus.



3. The Best Player Doesn’t Always Win

All things being equal, if you pit the Yankees against the Padres in a baseball game, the Yankees will win. The Padres might not even get a base run.

In Poker, since you’re playing with chance, a lot of things can go wrong that will knock a great player out of the game shockingly early. As we’ve said before, one of the biggest frustrations in poker is losing even when you did everything you were supposed to do. This is why you see different winners in the World Series of Poker throughout the years.

The solution to this discrepancy is to look at your earning averages in general instead of in one night. If you are a skilled player, you will, on average, bring money in. You’ll have unlucky nights and that’s something just to accept. 


4. Poker Goes Against Investment Strategy

When you’re investing in the stock market, most of the advised investing techniques have a “buy and hold” mindset. You put a lot of money in, and when things go badly, it often makes sense just to wait it out for another rise. From there you can sell your stocks for profit or keep riding the wave. The money you have in there is still yours so you want to protect it.

In poker, that strategy will get you killed. Once you bet in poker, you have to assume that the money is gone for good and only think about what the next step is in the deal. Concerning yourself with how much you have at stake makes some sense in the stock market, but for poker, it will just lead you to get anxious and play over-aggressively.

Even worse, If after a loss, you think “It’s still my money, I just have to win it back,” you’re now totally in the wrong mindset and will take risks you really shouldn’t be taking.

Conclusion

The solution to this is to always have the attitude that the money in the pot doesn’t belong to anyone; and only concern yourself with what your next move is for a shot at the cumulative pot. You need to be able to walk away with a fold the second that things look very bad for your chances.

The good news is that regular practice and reading of poker theory can strengthen your ability to “switch gears” whenever you arrive at the poker table. These are very learnable skills and repetition will cement them in your mind so you can continuously make money in the game.

When you’re playing a Texas Hold’em tournament, you’ll constantly be in situations where people are trying to read you and what kind of cards you might have. They’ll be looking at how you hold your cards, what you say, where your eyes look, and any facial expressions. The more experienced the players are at your table, the more likely it is that someone will figure out what your strategy is, just by looking at you. Here are some ways to throw them off.

1. Wear Sunglasses

You see this in the World Series of Poker a lot, though not as much in smaller games. If you wear sunglasses, people can’t see where you’re looking, period. This also cuts out part of your face, so it’s harder to read your facial expressions. If you want to go for an even better effect, wear sunglasses with mirror lenses. This may not be tolerated at some casinos because it is very distracting to be looking at a reflection of yourself nonstop during a poker game. However, this is simply because the tactic works.

2. Wear a Hooded Sweatshirt or Baggy Clothes

The benefit of wearing baggier clothing is that your body language is harder to read. The tighter your clothes are, the more obvious it will be if your shoulders clench up or if your neck tightens during a hand. Also, if you have short sleeves, it will be apparent if you are nervous and clutching the cards too hard, because your bicep and forearm will be taut. The less of yourself you show, the less clues you’re giving about tension in your body.

Having a hood on makes things even easier, though it will be obvious what you’re trying to do. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, however. If people think you’re a paranoid freak at the table, this could throw them off and get them a bit off their game.

3. Intentionally Look at the “Wrong Card”

When you’re staring down four cards on the Turn, everyone at the table is wondering which one you’re looking at. Let’s say you’ve got two queens, and there’s one Queen on the table. If you’re focusing on that Queen, there’s a good chance that someone might pick up what’s going on, either consciously or unconsciously. However, if you stare very intently at the 7 card, then this will make people confused about what you’re doing. Their intuition will tell them you’re holding out for another 7 on the River, and this will cause them to play differently.

4. Imply Your Betting Strategy is Different from How It Is

When you are up to bet or check, a good way to throw people off is to stack some chips in a way that implies you’re thinking of betting a significant amount. Do this on hands where you know you will fold. Look like you’re thinking about the hand for a few seconds, with chips ready to go, and then just “suddenly decide” to fold at the last second. When you play this way, people will have a much harder time being able to tell what your true betting strategy is.

5. Meditate Before the Tournament

The more relaxed you are when you come to the poker game, the less likely you are to emotionally and physically react over your luck at the table. Meditating for twenty minutes before you drive to the game will help you both make better decisions and keep from revealing what’s going on inside your head. You’ll get much more out of this practice if you make meditation a daily practice instead of something you do right before a tournament. I want to advise you that you do not get the same effect from relaxant drugs or alcohol. Sometimes these can help, but there are way too many side effects to consider.

6. Start Meaningless Conversational Topics

Anything that will take the attention off you will help prevent people from figuring out your poker strategy. In past articles we’ve said to avoid small talk, because it can distract you from your game. However, once you are comfortable enough with your playing, you can use this as a tool to distract other players.

Talking about politics is a cheap tactic that can do serious damage on someone’s focus. If you’re playing in a redneck bar in Kentucky, a good bomb to drop might be, “I heard Obama is going to tax poker players extra in his new bill. Now you have to pay taxes on both what you bet and what you win.” Obviously, this is completely false, but would cause such a fury that the players would be thinking about anything but what your two cards might be.

Another sneaky thing to do is to start conversational topics about poker, but unrelated to your hand. If you have two Queens and are waiting for another one, then something to say might be “Did you hear at the last Poker Stars tournament, someone won with just two 4’s, after three straight flushes?” Now people are thinking about flushes and 4’s instead of your queens.

Beyond those two topics, anything where people have interest can make a big difference. For example, if you say, “So how is that new job going, Charlene?” and she launches into a huge story, then you have a lot of good things going for you at that moment. For one thing, she’s obviously distracted. Second of all, while she’s blabbing, the other players are not noticing how much of their focus they’re losing from comprehending what Charlene is saying. In fact, if you actually know Charlene’s story beforehand, you will have an even easier time because your brain’s capacity will not be taken up with entering fresh data into your mindbanks.

In the end, your poker decision making strategy, your awareness of others, and your inner focus will be what wins most of the games for you. However, it’s always helpful to have smaller tactics and techniques to keep you at the winner’s table as much as possible.

People play poker for a number of reasons. For many it’s a fun social event with a possible prize at the end of the evening. It’s a night with the boys where you can get a break from the wives (and if one shows up, she’s usually bringing in some chips and beer).

For others, it’s a full-time income stream. Up to eight hours a day is spent at the computer playing games or you are making regular trips to the casino. It’s a cash cow, and while you enjoy it, the idea of fun is secondary.

If you read this blog more than once in a while, it’s probably somewhere in between those two categories for you.

Once you’re playing poker enough, whether it’s “fun” or “work,” it becomes something you have to set a budget and limits for. There is a real price per admission, and at some games, you could seriously clean out your bank account if you don’t set any boundaries on what you’re willing to gamble. Here is a process to set a budget on how much you can spend on your poker games.

1. Decide if You Even Play Enough to Think About This

Despite the concerns raised in the introduction, there is a possibility none of this even applies to you. If you play a tournament every day with a five dollar buy-in and no re-buys, then you probably don’t need to budget. Your risk of financial breakdown in this case is about the same as your granny with the chronic Bingo habit.

But even if you play a $100 game every night, you might still be ok without a budget. It really depends on your income. If you make $700,000 a year after taxes, then blowing 5% of your paycheck on poker isn’t so bad, even if you never win. A lot of people spend a higher percentage of their salary on their morning Starbucks.

However, once your poker hobby becomes a possible threat to your living expenses or other cherished activities, it’s time to set an iron-clad poker financial plan that you can stick to, without fail.

2. Find the Amount You Can Afford to Lose Every Week



This is a very simple concept, but most people have a hard time applying it. All you have to do is see how much you could lose every week in poker non-stop, without it interfering with your other bills or overall lifestyle. Let’s say it’s $100.

Before we go on, you may think that pretending you’ll lose is a very negative and unnecessary assumption to make when calculating your budget. After all, you can’t lose all the time and if you’re winning on some weeks, shouldn’t you be able to bet more on other weeks?

There is some truth to this, but it misses the point. You can never fully take the risk element out of poker. However, what you can do is neutralize the emotional effect this risk has on your playing ability. We’ve already discussed in other blog posts that your ideal poker playing state is calm and without fear or passion. If you’re only playing with money you can afford to lose, then you will not get scared when things are not going your way. You’ll be far less likely to go on tilt and screw things up. It’s challenging enough to make an objective, emotionless decision on a hand without worrying if you’ll be able to make rent next month.

We’re picking a cash amount we’re sure won’t have you sweating all over when you go all-in and are wiped out thirty seconds later.

3. Quit Gambling for the Week Once Your Limit is Spent

I don’t care how lucky you’re feeling. If your weekly limit is $100, then pack up and go home once it’s gone. Take the rest of the week off. Don’t even look at a game until then. It’s a self-sabotaging lie that you just have to play a few more hands to make it back. The “I’ll make it back” idea has to be the most costly thought in poker. Your ego gets in the way, and only bad things can happen once you’re committed to correcting past poker mistakes.

And yes, you have to keep the number consistent. Even if you won $1,000 the week before, still play with that $100 the next week. Believe it or not, your subconscious may try to “auto-correct” itself and even out your winning average the following week, so just add your winnings to the bank and start fresh the following week.

4. Raise your weekly number once your bankroll is large enough.


Suppose you’ve become a poker superstar.

You have taken that $100 every week and turned it to $500, $700, even $1,500 again and again. You should now have a hefty sum of money in the bank.

If you’re feeling a lot richer, now you can raise the number to $150, $200, or more, depending on how much money you have.

I would suggest you create a separate bank account for your poker winnings, which will help you manage this. Mint.com is one website that lets you create budgets for separate areas of your life. You can create a category for gambling and poker.

Remember that, no matter what, your weekly maximum should still be calculated based on how much you can afford to lose every week. If your poker stash has extended to $50,000, don’t start hitting the high roller games with $10,000 buy-ins. If you’d be wiped out of your savings in five games, then you have no business entering the tournament in the first place.

Part of the fun of poker is the drama of the whole thing. Setting a budget admittedly feels boring and restrictive. If you find it’s taking all the fun out of it for you, you might be better off just sticking to low stakes games at your buddy’s house. However, if you want to make serious money in poker, then you have to treat it like a real business and be the best CEO you can.

One of the most annoying things in poker is when you’ve studied the rules, read the books, and visited the forums, only to wind up at a table full of people where rules just don’t apply. The “loose” players are the ones who are ignoring most of what we suggest on this blog. They’ll go all in on a pair of 3’s and fold on a straight because they didn’t realize Jack comes after a 10. Maybe they’ll get excited that they have 2 spades and bet three blinds pre-flop, hoping for a flush. The randomness can be scary or infuriating, depending on how your game night is going. Here are some guidelines in dealing with loose players.

1. It’s Still Your Fault if You Lose

Making excuses in poker will get you nowhere, and this is definitely true when dealing with loose players. It’s so tempting to say you would have won if your opponents weren’t so inexperienced, but this is clearly ridiculous.

This mindset (“They’re too bad at poker for me to beat”) is similar to a green belt in Karate saying he lost a bar fight because the other guy didn’t know the basic Japanese fighting stance. You should be able to use your experience to your advantage; otherwise there’d be no reason to learn at all. Poker is a game where the winds can change unexpectedly, so it is your responsibility to adjust your playing style to the conditions at hand.

2. Top Priority is to Stay Off Tilt



When loose players are at the table, you will be far more likely to go on tilt. This is because you will be playing “correctly” and your strategy still won’t work a lot of the time. Whenever this happens, the tendency is to cry out “that’s not fair!” and sulk a little bit, whether outwardly or inwardly. Instead, it’s extremely important that you keep cool. In fact, it’s even more important than usual that you keep your emotions at bay. You will need to use all of your awareness to feel out the unfamiliar situation at hand. Remember that no one’s ever won a game by complaining about it.

3. Play Tighter Than You Think You Have To

When people are betting or checking on bad hands, you may feel tempted to do the same. If you’re usually a very tight player, don’t drop all of your strategy just to match the table. You do have to be careful to not get blinded out, but this won’t happen any faster than at a tightly played game. The blinds move and are raised at the same speed, regardless of erratic player behavior.

If you play best only betting when you have face cards, this will make you all the more powerful when you actually get one. In fact, depending on how strongly or lightly you want to hold your poker face, you can come off as a seasoned pro from keeping a tighter style amidst the madness. When you bet, they know you mean business and many will fold simply from you putting your chips on the table.

4. Protect Your Hand More Fiercely

Loose games are where the underdogs win. It’s where someone best 1/3 of their chips on a pair of 4’s, and then gets two more 4’s on the turn and the river. All the “good players” would have folded by then, but the lucky idiot gets to win the pot because of his insanity.

These underdog wins will often be decided later in the hand, so it’s your job to make sure it doesn’t get that far. If you have a pair of Kings, don’t fool around after the flop, unless you get another great addition to your hand. Instead, bet hard and scare away the loose players who are in it for the fun. Protecting your hand is important in any game, but it can be life-or-death around loose players.

5. Don’t Talk a Lot

If you’re a tight player, you will likely make better conversation with other tight players without it affecting your game. Among loose players, your conversation will be more of a liability. This isn’t because you will give away your secrets, but because you’ll lose your focus on your game.

For one thing, the loose players will often seem to be having more fun than you. This may lead you, on some level, to want to get in on their fun and get their approval. This is opposite from the mindset you need to calmly take their money. Let them do their thing while you plan your attack. Remember that you’re there to win.

Another liability is that the loose players’ betting and playing styles are hard enough to keep track of without having to engage in discussion as well. You want your awareness to be laser-focused on the game so you can make the best judgments. There’s always time to mingle later.

6. The Final “All-In” Hand is Usually Worthless

All players at some point have to put it all on the line when they’re almost out of chips. Whether you play loose or tight, the time will come where you can’t hold out for a double Ace anymore. The difference is that loose players tend to reach that point a lot faster. When a loose player is at 25% of the other players’ chips, then it’s fair game to say that his all-in is a marginal hand at best. Use this as an opportunity to take all of his chips for your own.

You won’t be able to avoid loose players all the time, so it’s important to keep these strategies in mind. In fact, if you get good dealing with loose players, you can win a lot of money at informal tournaments. Loose players tend to be like a flash in the pan and an opportunity for quick money. Just remember your fundamentals of the game and see the positives of the situation instead of just the risks.

One weekend, I was cooped up in a hotel with nothing to do. To pass the time, I thought I’d take advantage of HBO On Demand, and watch the pilot of The Sopranos. It’s a great show about a mafia boss, his mob employees, and his family life. Almost everyone on the show is connected with the mafia in some way. The show was so good, I made it through almost the whole series and unexpectedly found it very relevant to poker. The mob family on the show makes a good deal of money from gambling, especially poker games.

Here are some gold nuggets to take home:


1. Never Borrow Money for a Game



It’s a recurring storyline that always ends the same. Someone over-extends his reach at the table and has to borrow money to pay the house or stay in the game.


Usually, the misguided poker player sincerely thinks his luck is about to turn around. He just needs to stay in a couple more hands to win. On a whim, he re-buys from the house on credit or borrows from a rich acquaintance at the table. To make matters worse, the money is borrowed so it doesn’t feel “real” when he puts the chips on the table. He loses, of course, and then has to pay back the money at enormous interest rates and gets severely beaten if he’s late on a payment.

You probably won’t end up in a situation like this, but even in the non-criminal world, debt and poker do not mix. Whether it’s a cash advance from your credit card or a spot from your buddy, there is so much that can go wrong from gambling with borrowed money. Stick to the cash you brought to the table. When it’s gone, just go home. It’s obviously not your night.



2. Drugs and Alcohol = Bad

We talk about the importance of conscious awareness on this blog and it should go without saying that any alcohol or recreational drug you take can affect your performance at the table. When Tony Soprano hosts a game, there are always loads of alcohol and cocaine available, usually on the house. Las Vegas casinos do the same thing with whatever is legal in the area.

It’s a fun party atmosphere and you’re amongst friendly people, so it can be tempting to kick back with a couple top-shelf mixed drinks or high-grade cocaine.

Avoid the “party favors” and stay sober, even if it feels rude to turn a drink down. Even though the house may seem kind in offering you a drink, they’re most likely not trying to help you win.

3. Avoid the High Roller Games

There’s something very exciting about playing at a Sopranos poker game. You never know who will show up. Aside from the gangsters, you have guests like David Lee Roth from Van Halen, billionaire CEO’s, and the occasional movie star. Several of Tony Soprano’s friends-turned-victims couldn’t resist a shot at being part of poker legend history.

And it makes sense. What could be more fun than getting in on that action?

Well, the difference is that if David Lee Roth goes all-in on the first hand, and then re-buys three times on credit, and then snorts up the entire supply of cocaine in one night, he has very little to worry about. His monthly royalties from 1984 alone will take care of the issue.

You, on the other hand, are wayyyyy out of your element. If you’re excited that you have permission to play at a table, then this is a clear sign you don’t belong there. The guys at high roller tables are usually having fun whether or not they win. They can put $25,000 up for a bet, and win or lose, it won’t affect their lifestyle in any way. This is because a normal day at their profession brings in such a high amount of money that the poker game is not much more than a fun game of Pac-Man with a pocket full of quarters.


Stay with the small fish until you have enough bankroll that it wouldn’t bother you to lose your buy-in at the big table.


4. Above All, Take Responsibility

There’s a beautiful scene from Season 2 of The Sopranos where a high school friend of Tony does everything he can to get into a high roller game. He tracks down the secret location, begs Tony for permission to get in, and then begs again for a $10,000 advance to get in on the game. By the end of the night, he’s $40,000 in debt and there’s no solution in sight for how he can pay. When he’s later being slapped around for not having his minimum payment, he pleads to Tony, “Cut me a break, will ya? I’ve been unlucky!”

No one likes excuses, but few people detest excuse-behavior more than the mob. Tony is constantly having to deal with FBI wire-tappings, rival gang threats, and attacks on his life from disgruntled mafia underlings. If he can’t trust you to be responsible for your own effect on his business, he’ll have no problem disposing of you.

Now real life may not be as brutal, but there are some real similarities to take home. When you screw up, owning up to the mistake will cut you some slack from almost anyone. Even the mob bosses on the show will respect a debt-ridden nobody when he admits he screwed up. He won’t be let off the hook, but he will live to see another day.

In your own life, this means drawing a personal boundary on making excuses. If you have a bad few nights, it’s your own doing. It doesn’t mean you didn’t play with solid strategy, but it does mean that you put yourself in your current circumstances. Taking responsibility for where you are not only gets others off your back, but also empowers you to make the right changes to rectify the situation.

While we’re on the topic, it should go without saying that playing poker with the mob is probably a bad idea, whether or not you’re a great player with a high bankroll. There’s enough shady stuff that can go on in the gambling industry to begin with, that there’s no need to dabble with real criminals.

There’s a favorite saying in poker: “If you’re at a table and you don’t know who the sucker is, then YOU’RE the sucker!”

It’s true, and I’ve been the sucker many times, as much as I would have wished otherwise. The good news is that the “sucker” phenomenon works to your advantage.

In multi-table tournaments, you will often have the option of where to sit. In the end, you will be facing off against the top guys no matter what, but it helps to have a lot of chips and you have to make sure you survive to the final round, of course. If you’re not already a star player, a lot of your early tournament success will come from where you sit in the beginning.

1. Women

I hate to be a chauvinist, sexist pig, but there’s no question about it. The more women there are at a table, the more likely they are to make silly mistakes and put a lot of money on the wrong hand. In fact, they are also the most likely to not understand the rules of the game and even blatantly give away their hand by asking “Is a full house better than a flush?” right after the flop. If you’re a woman reading this, my advice stays the same.

A side benefit of this that the tables with the most women also attract horny guys who want to flirt with the ladies and have little to no interest in protecting their hands and betting properly. They become easy targets because they don’t have their eye on the ball. 


2. Kids

Ok, slow down. I’m not suggesting you go to the local middle school and start card games on the playground. Even if they had a high enough budget from their lunch money, no one would ever believe your master plan was only to steal their money.


What we mean by “kids” are college age players or people slightly over 21. There are some extremely talented young players, but most of the time, the younger ones will make mistakes the older ones don’t. For one thing, the younger crowd has less emotional control. They will get more heated up when things don’t go their way, which will give away their hands, plus lead to poor betting choices.

Younger players also have smaller bankrolls, so they know that if they lose $300, it could seriously effect whether they can pay their rent or not. We all know that the more important the pot money is to you, the less control you have over the game. Take advantage of that.

3. Vacationers


There is a profound difference between people that go to Las Vegas to play poker vs. people that play poker because they’re in Las Vegas.

There are many vacationers who barely know the rules of poker and will even take a David Sklanksy book to the table with them before the dealer makes them put it away.


These are the people who see a poker table in Atlantic City like the Tea Cup ride in Disneyland. The trip feels incomplete without a spin at the table, so they do it and pay hundreds of dollars or more for the privilege.

4. Couples

Men who are good at poker do not want to be disturbed when they play. They don’t want to explain the rules to their girlfriends and don’t want to have to check in to make sure the wife has a drink and isn’t getting harassed by the guy next to her. Actually, all men would prefer that those obligations were not part of the dating or marriage game, but the ones who are serious about poker will not take that baggage to the table with them.

If you see a man sitting with his significant other at a poker table, chances are neither of them are good players. I suppose it’s possible that both of them could be superstar poker champions who feed off each other’s power, but this is about as common as the movie “Mr. and Mrs. Smith” where the man and wife are both James Bond caliber assassins.

And if you see multiple couples sitting together, it’s an even better opportunity, especially if they know each other already. The men will want to impress the women they’re with, for one thing. This will inflate their egos and murder their judgment. When there are multiple couples that came together, the men will often try to compete, even if it looks friendly, because every guy wants to be the alpha-male of the group. Plus, you have the compounded effect of the men having to take care of their significant others on top of all that.

5. Big Drinkers and Drunk People

This one may seem obvious, but there’s a little more to it. If someone is obviously wasted, they might be removed from the table before you get any of his money, so don’t bother with the people who are nearly comatose. However, if you see someone especially rowdy with several beer bottles, then he’s likely to be a good bet. Aside from the lapses in judgment, he’s likely to be over-eager to push a lot of money in to be the life of the party.

6. Anyone Who’s Especially Emotional

As we talked about in an earlier article, emotion tends to cloud your judgment in poker. This is true for both negative and positive emotions, so look for both the angry people and the elated people.

If someone walks in bitching about there being no parking or is abusive to the server, he is a good target. If a lady skips in nearly walking on air because she has a fresh new engagement ring, she is someone to sit close to. Anyone who comes in happy about a job promotion or a bonus is a good opportunity as well. It’s even better if someone is very happy over a bonus and is actually coming to the poker game because of the bonus.

This article reveals some of the dark side of poker and could lead you to question its ethics. The truth is that poker is, and always will be, a zero sum game where money is redistributed from poor and inexperienced players to seasoned and competent players.

Aside from a few beginners’ luck stories, the people mentioned above (besides talented women and young players, of course) will lose their money whether you sit next to them or on the other side of the room. What you have to decide is whether you want their lost chips to catapult you or someone else to the final table of the tournament.

Today I’m going to talk about something that is critical for long term poker success and often discussed, but mostly misunderstood.

The biggest thing in your way of becoming a non-stop poker champion is one of the very things that make you human: emotion.

We’ve all heard about “being on tilt” and how getting upset will mess up your game, but it goes a lot deeper than that. The truth is that absolutely any emotion, good or bad, will affect your game in a negative way.

This isn’t the easiest thing to hear, particularly because the allure of poker is largely for the good feelings the game gives you.

First of all, there’s the endorphin boost that continuously drags gambling addicts back to the game after unforgivable losses. You get that rush of the river card tipping over to give you the perfect hand. You get the soaring pride from going all-in on a pair of 3’s and watching the entire table fold. When someone mentions they had a flush for that hand, you feel even better.

Even if you take the risky gambling highs out of the picture, there’s the solid and well-deserved happiness of going home with the full pot after playing the game so fantastically.

However, these emotions can get you into trouble as well. Here’s why:

1. The More You Feel, the Less You See

When you take all parlor tricks of bluffing and stealing blinds out, the key skills of poker are observation and calculation. You need to keep track of your cards, your probabilities of winning, what’s in the pot, who is raising, who is checking, facial expressions, player bet histories, etc.

Thoughts and feelings like “Man this is my lucky day!” or “My new iPad is going to rock when I win this,” will distract you from the situation at hand. When you think about it, any thoughts at all will be clutter in your head. Obviously negative thoughts and emotions will do the same thing, with the added bonus of making you feel bad.

Even worse, once your mind is set on a certain thought process or emotion-filled belief, your subconscious tends to produce evidence to validate it and filter out contradictory events and details. So if you feel like it’s your lucky day and someone else with four Kings is betting in a very confident manner, you simply won’t see what’s going on, even if all the other people at the table can.

2. There are Always People Who Can Read You


I don’t care if you are the poker face champion of the decade. There will always be people who can tell when you’re a little too excited over a hand.

Being able to shield your emotions is critical for poker, but it’s much, much better to not have the emotion to hide in the first place.

The attitude of “If I win, it’s ok; and if I lose, it’s ok,” will make you very hard to read by even seasoned professionals. If this sounds a little risky to you, know that thinking and feeling this way will not make you careless and cavalier with your betting decisions. On the contrary, it will open a world of easy choices to you in how you play your game.

3. You are the Scariest Man at the Table if You Don’t Care

As we’ve talked about on this blog, your projected image is a powerful part of your poker ability. We all know that when someone is particularly striking at the table, it affects our game and often throws us off course.

One example of this phenomenon is the “Wild Card.” The Wild Card is the guy whose bets seem to have no connection to his actual hand. He may fold on a flush or go all in on a Jack-High. This makes everyone at the table particularly uncomfortable and interferes with their strategy.

However, a much bigger threat to the table is the “Seasoned Pro.” This is someone who doesn’t wear a Poker Stars jacket to the table, but just gives off the eerie feeling that he could be sponsored by them if he wanted to be.

The way this vibe is given off is by not taking the game’s outcome so seriously. The Seasoned Pro may actually take poker very seriously, but winning or losing his tournament buy-in will just be a drop in the bucket either way. From this attitude, people assume he’s either already very rich, or is just so good that he knows he will take home the gold no matter what.

The good thing is that you can project this attitude even if you’ve never won a tournament in your life. It’s all about limiting the effect each hand has on your emotional wellbeing.

How to Let Go of the Emotions

There are a number of practices and courses out there on emotional control. Meditation is a great ongoing exercise and deep breathing will often calm a lot of people down. The problem is that you can’t meditate during a game and if you start taking enormous slow breaths every time you get an important hand, you’ll signal to the table something’s up and defeat the whole purpose.

A popular course called the Sedona Method teaches a practice called “releasing” where you let go of emotions as they come. Here is one of the beginning exercises:

• Welcome the feeling. Whether it’s sadness, frustration, or joy and pride, let it come into your awareness and take note of the body sensations.

• Ask yourself: “Could I let this go?” If you can specify the emotion, such as anger, excitement, disappointment, etc., it’s even better. (“Could I let this nervousness go?” etc.)

• Ask yourself: “Would I let this go?” (“Would I let this nervousness go?”)
• Ask yourself: “When?”

• Repeat as needed.

For Steps 2 and 3, you would usually say “Yes,” and to Step 3, say “Now,” but it’s fine to answer “No” and “Another time,” if that’s how you’re feeling. It’s always better to accept the feeling for the moment rather than resist it.

A couple things will happen as you adopt the habit of letting go of emotions while playing poker. For one thing, you’ll find you make better decisions on your betting. You won’t call ridiculously high raises and then kick yourself for it later. You’ll be much more relaxed both when you win and when you lose.

However, another thing that will happen is you will either become, or appear to become, a lot luckier with your hands. Since adopting this practice in my playing, it became a lot more common for someone point at me after a win and say, “Hey, how come HE gets all the good hands? This isn’t fair!” Whether it’s true luck or the illusion of luck is up for you to decide, but you’ll be very impressed with what happens.

There are a few cliché sayings in every field that serve no purpose but to piss off beginners.

In golf, it’s “Stay calm.”

In dating, it’s “Be confident.”

In exercise, it’s “Stay motivated.”

And finally, in poker, it’s “You have to be good at reading people.”

What do all of these have in common? They’re all obviously true but give absolutely no help on how to do it. No one tries to lose motivation in the gym and no one intentionally gets pissed off before going to the putting green. You might as well tell a poor person he should try making money for a change.

The good news is that as far as poker is concerned, I have you covered. Learning to read people at the table is a skill that can be developed to a shocking level of accuracy. There are some simple exercises that over a short period of time, will give you uncanny insight into what other players are thinking and planning.

Here is an exercise I call “The Focus Cycle.”

This is ideal for a poker table, but it works in any room with several people. In fact, you’re far better off practicing this when you’re not in a poker game, so you don’t have your money and your cards to think about at the same time.

I’ll tell you first how I came up with this exercise. I was at my office one day and saw a stack of magazines on the table, about seven feet away. One of the magazines of the stack had a picture of Iron-Man on it, and I was a little curious about what the article would be about.


At that moment, my coworker Sandy reached to the pile of magazines (about ten of them), and pulled the exact one I was thinking about and handed it to me. I was stunned. She gave a smug smile and walked away.

Later, I mentioned this to another friend of mine at the office and she said, “Sandy sees EVERYTHING. She can always tell who’s having an affair in the office, who’s up for a promotion, and who’s a few weeks away from getting fired. I don’t know how she does it, but nothing gets past her attention.”

I figured that Sandy wasn’t a psychic and that this unique talent wasn’t in her DNA. Her awareness was impressive, but definitely something I could learn if I put my mind to it. After spending some time with Sandy, I modeled how she looked at the world and came up with this drill to give myself the same ability.

Here’s how the “Focus Cycle” works

Say there’s five people in a room with you. If you’re at a restaurant, just do this with the people at your table. Look at someone in your group and ask yourself:

“What has his attention?”

That’s it. You don’t have to wonder anything else at this point. Just simply find out where his attention is. Maybe it’s on someone speaking, maybe it’s on his iPhone, or maybe it’s half on the clock and half on the birds outside.

Then you move to the next person in the room and ask yourself the same question. Cycle through everyone in the room, multiple times, and you’ll find yourself picking up more and more information with just a quick glance.

Once this becomes easy for you, you can take this even deeper.

If a guy at your table is looking at the waiter telling a story, ask yourself, “What does he think of the person speaking?” “Is he really interested or just pretending to listen, while sneaking glances at the pretty girl nearby?” “Does he agree or disagree with what’s being said?”

Since you’re spending equal time on each person, you will never get “caught” doing this. You may also be pleasantly (or unpleasantly) surprised to find that someone in the group has their attention far more on you than you previously thought.

I think by now you can imagine how this will help you at the poker table.

After you’ve mastered this, how hard do you think it will be to look at someone’s face and guess if he’s happy with the flop on the card table?


Even better, once you get really refined with this, you’ll actually be able to tell which card on the table has the player’s top interest. Suppose the dealer flips the turn and on the table, you have three spades and one heart. If you see the player focused on the heart, you know that this is crucial for his hand. If the player’s all dizzy eyed and has zero actual focus on the cards on the table, there’s a pretty good chance they’re meaningless to him because he’s bluffing.

This is a subtle art to learn that takes time. It’s a “core” skill that will help you not only in poker, but in business (especially negotiation) and social life in general. When people say that the skills in poker are what it takes to succeed in life, this is a perfect example of what they mean.

A donk bet in poker is a very controversial move as it has the potential to be just as bad for you as it can be good. It is most effective as a type of scare tactic only if you know how to time this move right. And poker sharks often utilize donk bet as a winning strategy against the not so skilled players. The bottom line is that the fame of donk bet depends on who is using it and in what way (as well as the limit games).

What is a donk bet?

When one player has the initiative and the opponent makes a bet before the player with the initiative does, it is called a donk bet.

When is a donk bet useful?

As I mentioned before, majority of the poker players do not realize the powers of donk betting, but in the hands of the right person, it can be a great weapon. One of the most effective ways of donk betting is to do it heads up on the river. When you learn how to donk bet the flop with skill and intelligence, you will realize that not having the initiative or being out of position are disadvantages that can actually be tackled and turned around.

You don’t always have to surrender the right of first bluff to the player having the initiative. When you set your sight on a flop, you can always pretend as if you have no idea which player raised pre flop. (Bad players can never remember who raised pre flop. This is where donk bet got its name – a donkey bet designating the worst possible poker players).

When and at what frequency should you use donk bet?

It is probably the million dollar question in regard to this topic. Most poker players do not know how often they should donk bet, nor do they have any idea about the types of flops that make for good choices. Let me offer you a few tips.

Donk betting is at times a part of the heads up strategy and good short handed strategy. However, only a few flops need to be donk bet as a part of the strategies mentioned above. This is sufficient for improved results.

Next, take your image into consideration. Do you come across as predictable and tight or are you regarded as a bluff master by your opponents? If you are projecting a tight image, you can get away with increased levels of donking or bluffing.

Think about the flop. How many draws are there? Can your opponent put you on many draws? Your opponent won’t be able to get hold of a pair with a K67 containing two hearts. But that very same opponent might take on a stubborn stance and move on to a showdown with high aces if he is with straight and flush draws in the mix.

There are more reasons to consider the flop. Do you think there are two over cards in the hands of your opponent? Do you think it is plausible that he flopped a pair? It is highly unlikely that your opponent will obtain two over cards or a pair with flops like Q44 and K73?
Try to judge your opponent. If your opponent plays tight, donk as much as you can against him.

Why should you apply Game Theory and when?

The information and tips that I have given above will help you outplay your opponent, especially if you can collect correct information about your opponents and have a good knack of pegging their strategies. Beside that, you also need a good strategy of your own.

If you can’t manage to glean much information from your opponents’ moves, however, a move like this becomes risky – God save you if you are heads up with a poker shark or an excellent player and you try this on them. That’s when you have to apply game theory to try and get out of a tight spot.

In these types of situations, you should fully concentrate on making yourself impenetrable so that your opponents are unable to read you. Once you’re satisfied they can’t figure you out, deploy your game theory skills; mix up your play and confuse your opponents. Regardless of whether you are bluffing or possess a good hand, no one should be able to collect any information about you or your position.

At the same time, if you don’t have a good hand, you should check; and if you have it, you should place a bet. You can donk bet two out of three flops, and you may bluff about one out of three flops.

When you flop a pair once out of three times, your opponent lands in a soup. If he now decides to constantly resteal, he won’t be able to get out of the tight spot 50% of the times. The other half of the time, you will be able to outplay him by value bluff raising and semi bluffing. Even if your opponent catches you on a draw, you will effortlessly pull yourself out of the trap. Your opponent’s 5:2 restealing odds won’t be very useful for him as he will often lose even while being ahead, and at other times, he will lag behind you.

Let me now discuss another situation. Suppose you are donking and your opponent misses and gives up. There are high chances that he might end up folding his best hand and relinquish his 2.5 big bets. When he folds too much, you or anybody else can easily exploit him.

Conclusion

When you apply the strategy of donk betting correctly — in the way mentioned above — your opponents will relinquish their winners, spew their chips, won’t be able to decode your playing style, and will find themselves in a tricky situation much to your advantage. However, remember to not use this unless you’re sure you know your opponent’s position and his caliber.

Tom ‘durrrr’ Dwan is probably one of the most well known and best players in the game of poker at the moment, but as yet a WSOP bracelet has eluded him. It is not for the want of trying though and after 36 events at this years annual event that was still the case, but then in event 37 all that looked set to change.

Event 37 is the $10,000 H.O.R.S.E Championship and on Tuesday, when it started, it attracted a field of 240 players who generated yet another massive prizepool of well over $2million. Yet again the poker world is out in force as another event at this years championships has huge prize money to offer, and it has firmly shut the doubters up who said that Black Friday would have a damaging effect on this years event.

Dwan is one of the games leading high stakes players and with just seven players remaining in this event he held the chip lead and looked set to claim his first ever bracelet. Sadly though it was not meant to be and he was eliminated in fifth place and cashed for $134,480. So the hunt goes on for Dwan as another near miss is added to his already impressive CV.

Last year Dwan so nearly won his first bracelet when he was runner-up in a $1,500 No Limit Hold’Em event, an event that had he won would have allegedly pocketed him more money than the Main Event winner itself due to a number of side bets and a two year bracelet bet. Goodness knows how much he will pocket when he finally lands his first bracelet.

Back to this event and when heads-up play was reached it was Canadian Shawn Buchanan who held a 1.6million chip lead over the American Fabrice Souiler, but it was Souiler who ended the day with a 6-1 chip advantage over his opponent. Souiler bagged 6,290,000 chips when play was finally stopped because of the new 10 level rule that has been introduced this year, and Buchanan ended the day bagging just 910,000 chips. Play will resume on Friday afternoon when the winner will take home $609,130 and the runner-up $376,458, but as for Dwan he will consider this as another great opportunity missed as he goes in search of his first ever bracelet at the World Series.

Omaha is one of the most clear-cut poker games of all, but it is surprising to see the number of new myths turning up every day. At times, the true nature of Omaha gets concealed under layers of fantasies and myths that hardly have any basis. The purpose of this article is to debunk a few of these for good.

Myth # 1 – It Is Not Possible To Win With A Set

A poker player usually loses his sets when he playbacks sets that have already flopped. Suppose a player has KQQJ while QJ3 is the flop. In such a scenario he will flop a draw and a set.

In Omaha, pocket pairs are pretty weak. Firstly, a player has to pair the board and then he has to spike the set card. However, he can collect a few of the blank cards by driving out sufficient numbers of opponents out of the pot.

The most desirable outcome in this case for any player would be to catch a blank or a full house. But there is no guarantee that he will definitely make his draws. Most players end up scooping when they win by flopping a set. Your objective should be to scoop out the entire pot. However, flopping three kings isn’t the same as flopping three jacks. The case is the same with three kings and three fives.

A player should quickly fold cards such as 555 on a flop of 875. It is not advisable to check and call after flopping a set. You ought to turn on your aggression while betting. If you want, you can permit all the other opponents to draw, which will allow you to throw away a flopped set.

Myth # 2 – Bluffing is not possible in Omaha

The truth is that it is the weak players who cannot bluff in Omaha. It is difficult for intermediate or bad players to get away with bluffing in Omaha, but it is not impossible to do so for a season player. In Omaha, nut hands take place on their own. But it is easier to bluff when your opponents are dim witted and the situation is not favorable for making a total nut.

Don’t bluff if you are in the last position. If you are in an early position, you can easily bluff away the smaller pots. However, you can’t earn six big bets through flop bluffing even if the proportions are similar. Smaller bets often yield four small bets, so they are desirable.
In short, in a game of Omaha, it is possible to earn loads of big money even through rare successful bluffs. In fact, you have to bluff or semi bluff if winning the game is on your agenda.

Myth # 3 – Aces Cannot Win, Ever

For some players, aces are a big mystery as they lack the skill to win with pocket aces and many gamblers feel this hand is just not playable. In reality, it is dangerous when you flop a set or play aces passively.

Omaha hands with one ace are regarded as good ones. But if these Omaha hands contain one or more random crapola hands, it is difficult to win with aces. In Omaha, aces are the primary pre flop raising hands. In most cases it is seen that people play very poorly when they face aces. If you wish to face opponent/opponents whom you are comfortable dealing with, you should reraise or raise prior to the flop.

Myth # 4 – Never Raise With Low

This is another myth with no basis and is usually followed by weak players who play awful games. At all times, there will be four cards in Omaha hands. Sometimes, there will be a constant low in your hand, but it means more than that.

There will be times when there won’t be high hands on you, or you might come across a very clear high hand. But unfortunately, it won’t fold. However, if you ever possess anything that will give you a high hand, your target should be to devise plans for manipulating the betting through raising so that you might lay your hands on three quarters instead of being content with only one.

Myth # 5 – “You play less Texas Hold’em hands compared to Omaha hands”

Compared to Texas Hold’em, there are fewer and lesser bankroll fluctuations in Omaha. This is because the marginal group of hands in Hold’em is quite different from the one in Omaha, where it is almost absent. While playing Texas Hold’em, your main strategy should be to outplay your opponents. In Omaha, the key to winning is showing down the winning hand.

Myth # 6 – You Should Never Raise Prior To the Flop

Accumulating as much money as you can prior to the flop is one of the fundamental and hugely important concepts in Omaha. When your opponents call on the turn while drawing dead, it is time to rake in the maximum and most obvious profit in Omaha. You can create this profitable edge by exploiting the radically dissimilar pre flop values of starting hands in Omaha.

Here, most of the garbage hands are almost always played pre flop. This is the opportunity to make lots of money, and you will get these opportunities at every hand. So, your profits keep on piling. Starting hands are critical to winning in Omaha. Your strategy should be to bet your hands aggressively pre flop.

Myth # 7 – Omaha is Way Too Difficult

There are different levels of complexity in all poker games. But contrary to this notion, if you compare Texas Hold’em and Omaha, you will find that the latter is much simpler, sans all the complexities, randomness, and uncertainties so commonly seen in Hold’em. And this is because Texas Hold’em has too many hands. Hands are rarely played heads up on the flop in Omaha games.

Another good thing about Omaha is that whenever three or more players contend for the pot, one of those players has an obvious edge over others. Sometimes the bottom line in a game of Omaha is to simply calculate how much chance you have to win the whole pot or part of the pot.

Conclusion

These are just some of the many myths that people believe about Omaha; and if you dug a little deeper, you might even uncover myths that belong to other various versions of poker. Some of these could be a result of bad analysis by people who didn’t play right and blamed their situation or cards. Some could even be superstitions. Whatever the case, before you choose to believe any strategy, remember to always consider all the scenarios that support or reject it. More often than not, you’ll be surprised at what you find.

This years World Series of Poker is in full swing now, and already the British players have stolen the headlines with three of their players grabbing bracelets. As the action hots up two more are in contention in event 35, the Six- Handed Pot Limit Omaha Championship.

Buy-in to this event was $5,000 and as with the majority of events at this years Championships attendance figures were very healthy indeed. A total of 507 players stumped up the cash to take part generating a prizepool of $2,382,900 and after two days play there are now just 15 remaining, with all of them in with a chance of scooping the first prize of $619,575! Two of those players are British stars Chris Moorman and Dave ‘The Devilfish’ Ulliott. Moorman is considered to be one of the best British players yet to win a WSOP bracelet, while Ulliott has one to his name already.

Ulliott is in eighth place with a decent chip stack 0f 415,000, which is roughly 40 big blinds, and Moorman is in 13th with 208,000. When play resumes later this evening both will fancy their chances of success despite being well behind the current leader Gregory Brooks who holds a massive stack of 1,294,000. Brooks is well clear of the second placed player David Chiu who has a stack of 891,000. Below is a list of the top five players and their chips.

Top Five Players and Chip Count
Gregory Brooks – 1,294,000
David Chiu – 891,000
Michael McDonald – 827,000
Jared Bleznick – 710,00
Jason Mercier – 619,000

Three well known players exited this event late last evening and they were Tom Dwan, Erick Lindgren and Vanessa Selbst. In fact all three left the tournament straight after one another with Dawn being the last to leave in 16th place. All three collected a decent cash of $23,519 for their work over the last two days.

It is the British players that are attracting all of the attention though, and when play gets under way later tonight all eyes will be on Moorman and Ulliott as they go in search of Britain’s fourth bracelet at this years Championships. In this format of the game anything can happen so even though Moorman and Ulliott are some way behind the leader do not count them out just yet. In fact it may well be another British success story that comes out of Vegas tonight.

If you just can’t get enough poker from the comfort of your home, and you own an Android smartphone or iPhone, you’re in luck. There are a plethora of mobile poker apps to choose from these days.

Big poker companies have been eager to jump on the mobile poker bandwagon, but in their haste many have shuttled out less-than-stellar apps, and as a result, have had to pull them from the market.

The Rush Poker Mobile app, compatible with Android smartphones, was pulled from the Android Market late last year due to maintenance.

As our phones get smarter, they get faster, but we’re not quite there yet. Playing real money poker on a mobile network is a risky endeavor. Connection speeds, ranges and security issues have kept these apps in maintenance mode for quite some time.

Google does not allow real money gambling apps in the Android Market, although when these apps do become available for non-U.S. residents, you should be able to download them from their respective websites. In the meantime, there are a wealth of play money apps out there to support your poker passion.

Live Hold’em Poker Pro

Live Holdem Poker Pro by Dragonplay is the most popular poker app on the Android Network with millions of real players. You can play with your friends on Facebook and Google Android. The interface is bright and intuitive, and the graphics are clear. The app runs smoothly on most smartphones, with very few instances of crashes noted by reviewers. Best of all, it’s free!


Game Features:
• Live Chat
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• Shootout tournament mode
• Sit-n-Go tournamet Mode
• Ring Games
• Free daily Gold
• Lottery Draw
• 200+ Virtual goods you can send people on tables
• Facebook connect for fast registration (optional)
• Save to SD card

Android Marketplace Rating: 4.5/5

WSOP Hold’em Legend

Glu Mobile is one of the top developers on the Android Marketplace, with fan-favorites like Contract Killer, Bug Village, Gun Bros and Bonsai Blast to their name. In WSOP Hold’em Legend, you’re an up-and-coming young gun trying to become a legend by winning coveted WSOP bracelets.

Build your bankroll, earn achievements, and unlock higher-stakes play by participating in WSOP events in Las Vegas and other casino venues around the world. The video cut-scenes add a layer of depth to the adventure, allowing you to see high-quality videos of featured opponents reacting to your moves. Just like poker on the computer, you can save and replay your favorite hands.

If you’re short on space, you may want to hold off on this title: it requires over 250MB. Comment complaints include unrealistic AI and the aforementioned whopping 250MB download. WSOP Hold’em Legend is available for the iPhone and Android powered smartphones.

Game Features:
• Multiplayer cash games, including H2H
• Earn free chips
• Play high stakes tournaments
• Career and Multiplayer Leaderboards
• Real video cut-scenes
• Earn trophies, achievements and bracelets
• Hand replays
• Authentic venues

Android Marketplace Rating: 4/5

VIP Poker

VIP Poker by TinyCo is one of the top-rated poker apps on the Android Marketplace, and for good reason. It’s smart, simple, and easy for beginners to pick up—no need to learn a bunch of buttons!

Game Features:
• Free 100k chips for new players
• Free additional daily chips
• Play online with thousands of players over 3G or WIFI
• 5 or 9 seat Texas Hold’em Poker tables
• No account creation needed. Just get in and play
• Play at your own pace with different speeds
• Play live with your iPhone and iPod friends
• Choose from several avatar pictures, including the Android robot

Android Marketplace Rating: 4.5/5

Zynga Poker

Developed by the folks behind Mafia Wars and Words with Friends, Zynga Poker allows you to play live against other Zynga Poker players on Facebook, iPhone and Android. A Facebook account is required in order to play this game, and as such, this game requires more permissions than most, including the ability to read all of the contact data stored on your device. Download this game and get $10k in chips.

Zynga Poker has a fun interface with player avatars and solid graphics. Zynga even held a $15k real money cash game shootout for nine lucky players last year. The first place winner walked away with a cool $10,000.

Game Features:
• Play Texas Hold’em Poker live with Facebook friends
• Play over 3G, 4G or Wi-Fi
• Sit-N-Go Tournaments
• Win up to $1 Million Chips in Daily Lottery
• 5 to 9 Person Poker Tables
• Live in-game chat
• SD Card Support

Android Marketplace Rating: 4/5

PlayPhone Poker

PlayPhone Poker is a solid poker app with all the necessary features. Play with thousands of players online and invite or join friends in a game. As with all of these poker apps, you’ll find very loose play, which can be both frustrating and rewarding.

Game Features:
• 10,000 free chips when you start, and 1,000 free chips daily
• Easily invite friends to join your table
• Chat with friends
• Beautiful HD Graphics
• Great and easy-to-use interface
• Add and PM friends
• Global and friend leaderboards
• Unlock fun achievements like “Fearless” and “Card Shark.”

Android Marketplace Rating: 4/5

Conclusion

Whether you have an iPhone or an Android-powered phone, Texas Hold’em poker apps are plentiful. Depending upon which device you have, your gameplay experience may vary, but all of the aforementioned apps are well-developed and consistently updated to improve stability. It might be a while until we see a fully functioning and reliable real money app in the states, but in the meantime, hopefully these free apps can satisfy your thirst.

PokerStars may have been getting a lot of bad press in America of late but in Europe they go from strength to strength. The United Kingdom & Ireland Poker Tour, (UKIPT), has stopped off in Newcastle this weekend at the Aspers Casino, and over the course of the last few days there has been some great action, and it will finish later today when the final eight players return to battle it out for the top prize of £67,000.

A total of 554 players started out in the £550 Main Event and now we are down to just eight. The two leading players are the ones to beat as they have significantly more chips than the others. The final table is made up of six players from the United Kingdom and two from Ireland, all of whom are looking for their first UKIPT title. Included in the final eight are two PokerStars qualifiers Tim Slater and Jonathan Gawith, and both will be hoping for a good finish today. Below is a list of players at the final table and their chips.

Final Table Placings and Chips.

1st Richard Sinclair -1,938,000
2nd Rajesh Verma – 1,343,000
3rd Rakesh Paul Gupta – 958,000
4th James Morris – 926,000
5th Jonathan Gawith – 898,000
6th Tim Slater – 858,000
7th Tadhg Ryan – 836,000
8th Barry Foley – 446,000

James Morris may yet have something to say on who wins the title, especially if yesterday is anything to go by. He was not afraid to shove all-in on a number of occasions and if he were to double up early today he may take some stopping. At one point his pocket rockets were busted, but he slowly moved back up the field and finished the day in fourth spot with 926,000 chips. He could make life difficult for the top two with his aggressive style when play commences later today.

At the start of play yesterday the chip leader was John Shipley, but he was not able to build on his good play from the previous day and eventually finished in 41st place and cashed for £1,100. There were two previous UKIPT champions in the field at the start of play yesterday but neither looked like making the final table. Nick Abou Risk has won two titles before, but he was knocked out in 37th place winning £1,100, and the other was local boy Gareth Walker. Walker won the Nottingham leg of the tour earlier in the year, but he struggled to make any impact yesterday and was eliminated in 52nd place and with it cashed for £970.

The final table starts at 3pm today and chip leader Richard Sinclair will want to carry on from where he left off yesterday. Once he got the chip lead he went in to overdrive, bullying the smaller stacks and he will fancy his chances later today. It should be a great day at Aspers with plenty of great poker in store.

All the successful poker players who prefer Texas Hold’em and online poker are also huge fans of HUD (head up display). But what is HUD? Allow me to explain: when you wish to collect real time info about all the opponents at your table, you take the help of this advanced software program.

You can learn about numerous secret tendencies and unique playing styles of your opponents or glimpse into their profiles. You can even get to know whether your opponents have an aggressive or loose playing pattern along with various other kinds of necessary facts by using HUD.

I’ve already covered how important such data is in order to succeed at poker. And HUD helps you in this respect even more by providing you with all kinds of information you could possibly need.

What is HUD or Head Up Display?

People in the military aviation sector coined the term “head up display.” For them, it was a data presentation device with a transparent display that does not require a user to turn his gaze away from his viewpoint in order to see the reading clearly.

The HUD that is used in online poker is also a type of transparent display used for showing statistical data that relates to the game under way.

When you look at an enlarged image of HUD, a rectangular box choc-a-block with numbers placed close to each player will become apparent. Let us suppose there are nine statistics for each of the players in every single box. Two lines divide all these nine statistics in such a way that there are five and four statistics on each line respectively. There will also be a circled box corresponding to some player.

Let us suppose his username is XYZ. Keep gazing at this circled box. The HUD’s first line will display the number of hands and the VPIP/PFR/AF. You will, therefore, get to know how many hands you possess within your database for XYZ. Knowing this information will help you better decode XYZ’s playing style and betting tendencies.

Let us now suppose XYZ’s VPIP = 18, that is, 18% of hands. This indicates that he is a tight player, but loose at times — a player who is tight by nature but isn’t a rock really. Let us also suppose XYZ’s PFR amounts to 10%. This is close to his optimal aggression prior to flop. AF (= 28%) refers to the aggression factor.

Thus you are getting a complete rock solid picture of XYZ’s playing patterns which will, in turn, help you plan your strategy of combat against him.

Poker HUD Stats

Now let us suppose, XYZ’s readings for the second line are 56 / 52 / 2 / 44 / 7. The numbers given here represent the percentages of c bet, c bet to fold, 3 bet, 3 bet to fold along with check raise.

Let us first decode the meanings of all these percentages. XYZ’s 56% c bet represents the frequency of his continuation bets. After raising pre flop , XYZ decides to go in for continuation bets 56% of the times, which is a bit more than half. This figure is a pretty low percentage and reveals that XYZ prefers moderate amounts of bluffing. His tendency to fold against a c bet occurs 52% of the times. This is also a very low figure. And it indicates that XYZ sometimes tends to doubt or float.

A three bet figure of only 2% is again very low. But it implies that the person prefers to play in a straightforward manner. And because he places three bets 44% of the times only, we can now become sure that he is indeed a doubting Thomas, as mentioned earlier. Needless to point out – this figure is lower than average. However, if you also notice that XYZ check raises 7% of the times which is a rather high figure, you’ll see that he has a tendency to trap his opponents.

This is why HUD is considered so powerful. You can receive sharp profiling as well as extremely precise statistics by using this tool.
The moment you look at the HUD box, you get a complete detailed summary of the playing style of a particular player, and you can work around their idiosyncrasies or exploit their weaknesses.

This example revolved only around nine statistics and discussed only a specific display. But you can customize a HUD in many different ways; it is also possible to change displays. You can choose from over a hundred statistics and dozens of displays for each player, which is just great!

Having said that, it is better not to dabble with 50 or 100 statistics while multi tabling because your computer system will invariably slow down. It also confuses many players. Besides, online poker tables are filled up by many strange players with unknown histories. In such cases, majority of the statistics won’t be able to converge any way. Instead, I will advice you to go with a handful of reference statistics that are solid.

HUD Types

Two different types of HUDs are currently available on the market. One type is characterized by its preference for using its very own central database, usually containing millions of poker players online. I will recommend Poker Edge for this category.

The other type of HUD will access the database created by you. Sometimes, players create their own database through data mining or by collecting histories of hands. This is the database used by HUDs like Hold’em Manager. The latter doubles up as a HUD as well as a poker tracking software, and it is the best on the market in its class at the moment.

Conclusion

Information is everything in today’s world. And HUDs are able to provide you with just that. Use them wisely, and you’ll notice your predictions get more accurate over time.

Range, Equity, Maximize is a process outlined in the book Professional No-Limit Hold’em: Volume 1, by Matt Flynn, Sunny Mehta and Ed Miller. It is a three-step process for making better decisions at the poker table. Before we delve into the specifics, it’s important to have a general definition of each term:



• Range: The possible hands an opponent could hold, given that opponent’s actions up to this point.
• Equity: The percent chance your hand will win at any point during the hand.
• Maximize: The value of your hand based on the information you have thus far.

Range

Goal: To put your opponent on a range of hands, based on their action up to that point in the hand and what you know about their playing style.

You’re almost never going to be able to guess what two cards your opponents’ hold; that’s why it’s better to put your opponents on a range of hands. Putting your opponents on a range of hands isn’t easy. You need to keep track of every move made at the table, which requires a great deal of patience. It’s easy to get tunnel vision and become overly concerned with your own actions, so much so that your attention is diverted away from other players. For many, this tends to take place when they have a big hand. They don’t want to seem overly concerned, so they stop paying attention and miss out on valuable clues, patterns or even tells.

Remember, just because an opponent is not in a hand doesn’t mean you can’t gain information from them. In home games particularly, inexperienced poker players will look at the flop and issue a disgusted look or slightly shake their head, indicating they wish they had stayed in the hand. This can provide you with information for the current and future hands.

Keeping track of your opponents’ moves and determining a range means asking questions to yourself during the course of the hand. For instance: How much did the player in early position raise? What types of players are calling? Who limped in?

Before you put these players on a range of hands, you have to ask yourself, “What type of players am I up against?” Obviously if you are playing online and have no previous hand history against a particular player, you can forego this question.

Another option is to use an HUD (Heads Up Display), like PokerTracker 3 or Hold’em Manager, which will actually show the percent of times a player makes a specific move. For instance, if a player only makes a 3-bet pre-flop 4% of the time, you can use a piece of software like PokerStove to find the top 4% of hands, which can help clue you in.

Example: Say you are at a 9-player $1/$2 NL Hold’em table. You are in early position with As-Qs and raise $6 to make it $8 all day. A player in middle position calls, as does a player in late position, who is a tighter player.

The flop comes out Qh-Jh-2c. Since you are first to act, you lead out with a $16 bet. Middle position folds, but the late position player calls.

With this call, you can probably eliminate the possibility that your opponent flopped a set, because with a flush draw on board he most likely would have re-raised. It’s unlikely he has any pocket pair. He wouldn’t call with a pair lower than Jacks, and if he had something like Kings he would have raised. At this point he might have something like: A-Q, Q-J, K-Q, A-J, Ah-Kh, Ah-10h, Kh-10h, 10h-9h.

The turn is a 3h. The board now reads Qh-Jh-2c -3h. You lead out with $24. Your opponent re-raises you to $50. Now, a flush is the most probable hand your opponent holds. It’s highly unlikely that he opponent called your initial raise with anything less than 10h-9h. Since he probably has the flush, he may have called with 10h-9h, Ah-10h, Ah-Kh or Kh-10h.

Equity

Goal: To find out how much equity you have in the hand against your opponent’s range.

Now, if you’re excellent at poker mathematics you might be able to figure this out in your head, but for 99.9% of us, I suggest using PokerStove or PokerSleuth. It’s simple: Just plug in your hand, click the hands you think your opponent might be holding—or type in a percentage, and PokerStove will calculator your equity on the fly.

Example: Per our earlier example, you have 0% equity this hand, seeing as how we put your opponent on a flush and you cannot make a better hand.

Maximize

Goal: To get the most value out of your hand based on the information you have thus far.

Example: Going along with our example, the best action for us is to fold. You have top pair with the best kicker, but there is a big flush draw looming on the board. In the rare occurrence that your opponent doesn’t have a flush draw, that he took a chance by just calling with, for instance, a set of Jacks, you are still way behind. Your best play is to fold.

Conclusion

Most every example of the REM process demonstrates a hand where you are ahead, but it’s just as important to use in those situations, as it is to use when you are way behind in a hand. You gotta know when to fold ‘em.

If you play a lot of online poker, HUD’s like Poker Tracker 3 and odds calculators like PokerStove will expedite this process and give you and edge up on the competition.

Poker game selection is something you should definitely master if you want to become a winning poker player. The reason I want to emphasize more on this is that nobody really appreciates it as one of the very necessary, although tough, poker skills; what’s even more baffling about this ignorance is that game selection ranks highly among the least controversial winning strategies in poker.

How to exercise good poker game selection?

Professional poker players, for whom poker is a way of living and earning a livelihood, look at their entire country, neighboring countries, or even worldwide when they consider game selection. They always search for the best possible games to earn the maximum amount of money. In hindsight, it makes perfect sense too seeing how easy it would be for you to be at the top at a tournament that doesn’t feature any top-ranking players! It’s possible that the winner would get only $10,000, but isn’t a small amount won better than a large prize you could never obtain? That’s why game selection is important.

How do Las Vegas games differ from Los Angeles games?

You will find the widest selection of games in Los Angeles – between $ 60 / 120; the widest selection of stud games in the north east; and the largest numbers of some of the biggest games in Las Vegas – $ 100/200.

Vegas games are tighter as the casinos out there take a percentage out of every pot – also known as the house rake. California games are far more aggressive and looser compared to Vegas games. That’s because the cost is equally distributed between all the players through a technique of time collection or button drop.

Understandably, it is the tourists – the much maligned and oft ridiculed species – who turn out to be the weakest poker players in Las Vegas. These ‘poker dumb’ tourists hardly ever play poker regularly and are there to “spend” money rather than to make it.

The Los Angeles games, on the other hand, are totally different because they rarely get tourists the way Las Vegas casinos do. In other words, even the weakest players in these casinos are regulars on the circuit, have mastered a wide range of strategies and tricks, and are more difficult to beat.

How to choose based on the type of player you are:

The easiest strategy for winning against any opponent is to attack and exploit his weakness. However, the weaknesses of weak players can be so varied and different, that it may easily confuse you. So let’s try and make this job a little easier:

Texas Hold’em is the most popular poker game among all, and it is also the most popular preference among the weakest players. This is because the weaknesses of weak players are better protected in Hold’em than in Stud or Omaha.

In other words, weak players should stay far away from these two games as their chances of winning there are zero. Playing Hold’em, however, offers them at least a fighting chance.

For an excellent player, Texas Hold’em games can be profitable as they offer greater random luck and higher variance, especially if decent players are in the same game. There is a whole range of stuff going on in Hold’em games that an excellent player can utilize to initiate action.

Of course, the hallmark of a winning and successful poker player is versatility in any situation. He should be able to play in any type of casino, he should be able to play any type of game with any limit.

Despite this, a good player will always pay attention to which game he wants to select—after all, who doesn’t want that advantage of choice to maximize their profits?

Another factor to keep in mind is that you may have bankroll considerations or temperamental preferences, which would limit the type of games you may be able to play. For e.g. because a game of Omaha is super boring, a player may decide to opt out of it and play Texas Hold’em instead. However, such temperamental decisions are conscious ones. Ideally, you should always choose to play a game that will be profitable for you money-wise. If you consciously select a not-so-profitable game, you should have a very good reason for doing so.

Table selection and poker game selection are both highly critical factors both when you have extremely limited choices or thousands of choices. For e.g. when you play online poker, you can choose from hundreds of games with the click of a mouse. Finding out that single best game from among hundreds is really tough and nobody is asking you to do that as a mandatory step. It’s easy to let go and just pick any game. That, however, would not be a very wise idea.

Conclusion

Experienced players never trivialize poker game selection. If you have made up your mind about something, you should be able to ask yourself – and receive the answer — about why you are playing at a particular table or why you have chosen a specific game.
There are a number of players who tend to take game selection for granted. This also means that you have a good chance of being across a few players who don’t really know why they have chosen to be at your table.

Do not make the same mistake that they did. While you should prepare yourself to play against anyone at any game, you should always choose the games you know you can win more easily than the others.

After learning up the basics of poker, it is time to move on to more complex concepts. Today, we will discuss hand ranges and how to determine them.

What is a hand range?

Players who are strong and commendable have a tendency to play a few specific cards/hands before the flop, which is referred to as hand range. A player might not be conscious about his range, but all players, whether they realize it or not, have a hand range. Some players choose to go by their instincts/intuition while selecting their playing cards; others prefer to follow charts on starting hands.

Put in simple words, either your opponent or you could be holding a set of possible hands before the flop to initiate a specific action. This is called hand range, and it includes all possible hands that can be held by someone. Here’s an example:

If you type out a hand range, it may look like the following. R = {JTs, KQo, KTs +, ATo +, A2s +, 22 +}. Now for their respective meanings. JTs refers to JT suited. KQo means KQ off suit. KTs + refers to suited KQ, KJ, KT. Off suit aces from AT to AK are represented by ATo +. A2s represents suited aces from A2 to AK. 22 + means pocket pairs from 22 to AA.

Hand ranges are usually defined according to a number of other factors in addition to the type of cards one might hold. For example:

• The tilt factor of a player
• The earlier bets of a player in a particular hand
• The HUD stats of a player (aggression, VPIP etc etc)
• The position of a player
• How the player behaved or dealt with his cards in a past hand that is identical to the hand taking place at this moment

Therefore, if you can analyze properly and carefully on the basis of the factors mentioned above, it is possible to accurately guess an opponent’s hand range 99% of the times. However, you need to remember that even if one parameter’s value is altered, the whole range will change significantly.

Why are hand ranges so important?

The answer is simple: while judging your opponent’s move, is it better to grapple around in the dark or should you opt for a more logical structured method? Hand ranges will allow you to logically structure your thinking patterns about how to put an opponent on a hand. And because of hand range, it is also possible to determine the probability of an opponent holding various kinds of hands in one single range.

This allows you to speculate fairly accurately upon what you should expect from your opponent.

When you take hand range into account, you also learn how to detect particular playing patterns in your opponents. Observing this is enough to provide sound fodder for your thoughts and also help you identify the hand preferences of your opponents in general. In other words, when you have this kind of information under your belt, you automatically become more skilful. Your judgment is accelerated, your hand reading ability improves drastically, and you are easily be able to identify all the situations that recur constantly at some tables.

Simply put, thinking in terms of hand ranges offers a multitude of benefits.

All the best poker players in the world are aware of this concept and make use of it when choosing their moves.

How to figure out an opponent’s range?

The problem with beginners is that only when they are in the middle of a hand, do they truly become concerned about their opponent’s range. When they can’t figure it out or when they realize they’re at a disadvantage, they fold; and immediately afterwards, their mind gets distracted away from the game until the next hand is dealt.

The ambitious players looking to improve their game, however, try to figure out an opponent’s range in order to benefit from it in the next hand. In fact, when you’re out of the hand, that’s probably the best time to do this because you’re not encumbered by thoughts of thinking about the pot size, your bankroll, or keeping your tells hidden.

In online poker, it’s not hard to find out someone’s history and figure out the kind of player they are. Based on that information and from what you have gleaned by watching their betting styles, you can guess which cards they would most likely play.

Let me give you an example: suppose a very tight opponent chooses to bet five times the big blind before the flop. Then he makes a very ugly flop of 4d 7h 2s and makes a pot sized continuation bet on this. It will take only experience to figure out that this player is holding AK at the worst or a big pocket pair before the flop.

Conclusion

It is extremely essential in Texas Hold’em to be able to read hands and hand ranges accurately. And while there are tools along with plenty of websites on the Internet offering free use of their poker odds or range calculators which can help you, the ultimate goal is to be able to grasp these things intuitively. Do that, and you’ll have far more success than any amount of bluffing will ever bring you.

When you buy in for the minimum amount, it is referred to as short stacking. In PokerStars, this amounts to 20 big blinds. Therefore, if you are playing in a no limits 100 Hold’em cash game, 100 big blinds will be the maximum buy in, i.e. $100; $60 will be the average stack; and the short stacks will have $20.

Short stackers can be of two types: the first types are the beginners or novices whose aim is to reduce their risks and learn the ropes of the game. Beginners are always advised to buy in for the minimum at first. Only after that should they try to adapt themselves to the innumerable poker traps they may encounter.

The second type of short stackers is very systematic and they come armed with various skills. They are pretty robotic as players. Today’s article is dedicated to these advanced short stackers and how you should handle or play against these types.

Getting into the Inner Psyche of Short Stackers

Short stackers play like human robots — monotonously and systematically — without applying brains. In most cases pushing all in preflop or playing a fold is their preferred strategy. These types rarely ever check and prefer to bet or fold the whole of their stack.

Usually they don’t call a bet at all. That means the burden of taking tough decisions is passed on to your shoulders, and the game’s strategic aspect is largely eliminated for them.

Short stacking players are looked upon as extremely annoying in online poker circles. Let me explain why: suppose a short stacker goes in for an additional 16 big blinds and raises a player all in, and the latter has either raised or has been limping with four big blinds preflop before our short stacker. In such a situation, this latter player will feel forced to get into a big gamble or forego his bet. Obviously, he will not choose to go all in unless he has a really strong hand.

Thus, short stackers often create high reward vs. high risk situations for other opponents. And these precarious situations often transform into coin flipping scenarios for 20 big blinds. Normal players, however, choose the standard style of playing affordable flops before committing so many chips, as that is safer. That’s one more reason why short stackers are perceived as so annoying.

Another reason why short stackers are universally disliked is that they use the minimum amount to buy in and the moment they double their money, they choose to leave the table. This basically means, after winning an all in bet, short stackers take to their heels. And the opponent playing against him never gets another chance to reclaim his money back!

You can never really win huge amounts of money from a short stacker; after all, their “all in” amount too is just the minimum buy in. By the same virtue, they can’t put a dent in the chip stack of a deep stacker either, however, many players still aren’t comfortable handling such players.

If you were to ever come against such a player, here are a few tips that might come in handy.

How to Play Against Short Stackers?

Short stackers sometimes use a bit of variation in their strategy. So they either aim for pushing all in at the flop or they choose to call or raise preflop. Their strange strategies often turn out to be winners. Do you know why? Because short stackers use fold equity as their source of profits. On top of that, careful players who don’t wish to gamble away 20 big blinds also tend to fold a bit too much.

However, folding may not always be the right option. You see, short stackers don’t always calculate their chances well. Just like maniacs (maniac poker players, not the really mentally retarded ones), each short stacker too is different and unique and possesses different ranges.

Therefore, you should always take the help of VPIP/PFR statistics to determine your opponent’s range. When VPIP/PFR = 6/6, {AJ +, TT+} (VPIP = 5.88%) will be the likely range. {AT +, 88 +} is the likely range when 8/8 is the VPIP/PFR.

Usually a reference all in range {AJ +, TT +} is used by a skilled short stacker to pull his VPIP/PFR up to 7% or 8%. In doing so, the short stacker will also try to add flexibility to the reference all-in range. He will also try to loosen himself up when the opportunity is ripe.

Suppose you are in a situation where you raise four big blinds at preflop. The short stacker on the other hand 3 bets you all in. It is assumed that the pot contains 25.5 big blinds, the hand does not involve any other player, and you have to call 16 big blinds. In this situation, you can use any hand that has a 38.55% equity or greater to call. Also, let’s assume {AJ +, TT+} is the short stacker’s all in range.

You can use PokerStove to find out that {AQ +, 22 +} is the range to which all these hands correspond (when their equity > 38.5% vs. all in range). If this short stacker has a loose shoving range, for e.g. {AT +, 88+}, {AJ +, 33 +} will be his calling range. A tighter range of {AQ +, JJ +} will boast of a calling range of {AK +, 55 +}. You should ideally call with top aces or pocket pairs but discard the extremely low ones.

So you see, short stackers may be annoying, but there is a systematic way of handling their game, and even beating them when your cards permit it.

Conclusion

While understanding and figuring out each and every opponent is a major challenge, it is also one of the most interesting aspects of professional poker. If you enjoy this process and know how to learn from your mistakes, this world is for you. I hope this article helped you a bit further in your quest for poker success. Until next time, ciao!

Now we are all scared of playing against poker maniacs – you know the types with a VPIP/PFR/AG statistics of 80/30/3.5 or something like that! The type everybody avoids so much because of his preference for big bets. The type who makes the pot reach 40 big blinds by the river whenever he plays a hand with someone. The type who commits himself to the whole stack while playing hands.

It doesn’t matter if he has good cards on him or crappy ones, a maniac will always raise or bet and bluff his way out. You have no other choice but to call his bets till the river to find out what he is exactly up to. And this is not all. You might be doing everything in your capacity to contain him, but suddenly you realize that his cards really are good and what you thought of a lull in his fortune was just his way of baiting you in so he could get you to put more of your money into the pot.

So how do you hold your own something like this, and most importantly, how do you figure out whether such an opponent has a good hand or a bad one at any given point – especially when playing online?

To play or not to play

Before getting into the psyche of a maniac player, you first have to identify such a player by watching the styles of all your opponents. I personally feel you should take the help of poker edge as it shows you the statistics of all the players, including those with whom you haven’t yet played.

Trust me, there will be many times when you’d just want to avoid the hassle and leave the table. There are plenty of tables where you can play your safe game and make small, incremental wins over the hours. Bigger websites such as PokerStars allow you to do this, as they have so many tables. And this is a pretty safe strategy because maniacs usually don’t play at many tables. Besides, maniac poker players are pretty rare. So if you move out, you may not meet someone like him again.

The other strategy is to cling to the table, deal with the increasing variance silently and then turn the table on this maniac by exploiting him. However, it is the path taken by top poker pros who possess a lot of skill and experience beneath their belts. If you are skilled yourself, you can sit beside the maniac and silently control the betting. Or you should try to sustain his aggression by tightening yourself up.

How to beat such maniacs?

Your job is to tolerate and withstand his huge swings. In the meantime, examine and study his betting styles. Maniac poker players might be, well maniacs, but they don’t like to commit poker suicide. Therefore, at times, this maniac will fold his hands. Maniacs usually aren’t skilled poker players. Their skills are spent on wild bluffing and playing weak hands like a champion.

But they can’t really play their strong hands that well. Their bet sizes always vary for monster hands and for bluffs. Maniacs usually place abnormally large bets. But if you are a careful observer, you will be able to detect patterns. Maniacs have a tendency to place larger bets if they possess stronger hands. This pattern becomes ubiquitous during raising preflop.

However, if you take into account the long term picture, you will find that poker maniacs usually turn out to be heavy losers. And if you master the art of handling these maniacs properly, you will gain a lot of money from them. These poker maniacs have huge egos and playing poker is a way of dominating the rest of the players at the table. Their playing style is extremely loose. It doesn’t matter if the odds are very poor. They will still choose to call large bets.

What to expect while playing against these maniacs?

Firstly, expect huge, super large pots (not seen in normal situations) even if the hands are standard.

Secondly, you have to observe this maniac player and make necessary notes.

Watching them play an orbit or two will give you a fairly good idea about their idiosyncrasies and how they get involved with all the hands they play.

How to react while playing against a maniac?

As mentioned before, maniacs tend to lose over the long run; they are LAG, and therefore, losing players. It is your job to beat the pulp out of such a player by allowing him to dig his own grave. Allow him to do all the calling and betting using your good hands till the river stage. If your hand is super strong, you can deal with him any way you want. Otherwise, you should call, as raising maniacs are dangerous creatures.

When playing against a maniac, you might be better off shifting your entire focus on his style rather than observing the others around you for a while. If there’s a pattern to his gameplay – there usually is even in the middle of all the madness he might bring along – you should be able to observe it sooner rather than later.

You have to realize that all the large bets are different, just as all the maniac players are different and unique in their own strange ways. All you have to do is to distinguish their bet sizes from their hand strengths. You will also have to observe the way these players deal with their big hands. A maniac will tone down his aggression if he has a really good hand so that he might get paid off. On the other hand, another maniac might force his opponents to fold by making larger bets with wild bluffs. However, because each maniac is unique and different, this is not a blanket rule and you need to find out the particular hidden playing style of your opponent.

Conclusion

Play against a maniac only if you are a braveheart who is not prone to tilting, and if you are able to deal with his wild swings. Otherwise, it is better to seek out greener pastures at other tables.

You have heard a lot about poker and its popularity. You regularly watch various famous poker tournaments on TV. You have also read up a few bestselling books on poker, and you brush up your knowledge regularly by browsing through the “poker tips” sites. You took it up with a lot of enthusiasm; yet you lose… endlessly!

After endless rounds of losses, you are now deeply frustrated.

Hold on before you lose hope. This is a very familiar picture, and there are plenty of things you can do to improve your game.
Poker is not a very easy game, it is certainly not child’s play and plenty of people suck at poker, like you.

Why do people lose?

The very first thing you need to do to stop your poker losses is to change yourself. Unless you change yourself from what you are now into what you want yourself to be six months from now, you won’t improve your game.

However, before we move on to that, let us look into some of the commonest reasons behind losing at poker.

• You don’t know how to play it right! People give a whole bunch of reasons such as bad luck, opponents cheating, rigged games, or even blame the dealer for their misfortune where in reality, the biggest reason for their loss is that they don’t really know how to play well in a number of situations.
• When a player is wealthy and does not have to worry about money matters, he may not care much about losing
  Professional, successful poker players are extremely disciplined. When this discipline is missing from a player’s life, he starts losing at poker as he does not follow any plans.
• Sometimes, emotional fools lose a lot at poker. When a player’s actions are dictated by his emotions, instead of by reason, he is bound to lose.
• There are many players who have taken up poker to infuse some action into their otherwise boring lives; they play poker as it affords so much excitement and fun. These people also don’t care much about losing.
• Distraction is the next big cause I wish to highlight. When you are doing other stuff while playing poker, your concentration is divided and you commit mistakes which make you lose. This is especially a problem when playing online in the comfort of your home.
• However, I feel the number one cause behind losing at poker is alcohol. How can you expect to win a game of reason and wits when your senses are totally blurred by alcohol and you are inebriated?

It is possible to rectify all of these problems except wealth. Stinking rich fellows hardly ever become winning poker players because they never feel the sting while losing money. Rumor has it that Guy Laliberte – a billionaire – has lost close to $18 million till 2008, but has it changed anything about his lifestyle? Heck, people in his position might even see losing a few millions at poker as a boost to their glamor quotient.

How to minimize poker losses and stop being a loser?

Following are some ways in which you can minimize your poker losses and stop being a loser.

Using poker tracking software (e.g. Hold’em Manager) can help you plug your losses as these applications highlight the potential leaks which make your game suffer. They also allow you to review your statistics and monitor them. If you choose to study optimal play, you will be able to bring about the required adaptations to your poker game.

Most poker gurus will advise consistent losers to play ABC poker – the tight aggressive style of poker. When you are playing tight, you become extremely selective about the hands you choose to play. The aggressive style demands you to raise or bet rather than call. You will find a summary of this style through the VPIP/PFR/AG statistics.

Poker leaks are the culprits behind many poker losses. You should educate yourself about the top and most common poker leaks. You will find a lot of good websites on this topic on the Internet. Your next task is to make sure that these leaks don’t occur in your case. If your game is free of leaks, you will stop losing money at poker.

When a player calls too much and too frequently, he stands to lose money at poker. Your VPIP should be between 20% and 10% if you are playing full ring no limit Texas Hold’em cash games. However, when the VPIP reaches 50%, you will no longer be able to profit. To succeed in this case, you need to start out with stronger starting hands in a stringent manner.

The biggest reason behind poker losses is tilt. If you are on a long losing streak, you should continuously remind yourself that tilt is your nemesis and you should stay away from it.

When you are playing Texas Hold’em poker, your big blind should be 1/3000 or 1/5000th part of your bankroll. Suppose you possess $5k. Your playing limit should be 50 cents/$1 NLHE. If you play $1/$2, you will be risking your whole bankroll.

When you play within limits and still lose, you have the option of moving down to a lower limit. This way you can again reduce your losses. And if you succeed at the lower limit, you have the option of moving up to the full limit again. The key to minimizing poker losses is to learn how to move up and down with the synchronized increase and decrease in your poker bankroll.

That brings us to the topic of bankroll management. The most basic thing here is to add only that part of your money to your bankroll, which you will not use for anything else other than poker. This exclusivity helps you keep your personal life and finances completely free from the rise and falls of your professional poker career. The next thing to do is to ensure that you play within the bankroll limits. It also means ensuring you’re able to play enough number of games by choosing the right bet sizes.

Conclusion

I hate to tell you, but there isn’t any magic pill that will make you a winner. Reading up and being enthusiastic about poker are great things, but they don’t make successful careers on their own. Implement everything your learn and refine your strategy. Learn to read others as well as they are able to read you. Play a lot but keep within your means. Eventually, you’ll stop losing.

Position is everything in poker. Position is akin to having possession of the ball with 20 seconds left in a tie basketball game: You have the opportunity to win, and to do so, you must be aggressive. If you’re passive and don’t take attack the basket, you’ll likely run out of time or wind up taking a well-defended outside shot. In poker, if you don’t take the opportunity to bet and raise when you have position, you’re losing out on golden opportunities. Try observing any poker pro on TV. When they have position, they tend to attack, even if they know they have the worst hand.

The value of table position is not only defined by absolute position, but relative position as well. Relative position is your position in relation to the pre-flop raiser, and it can often be more effective than have absolute position. When we take into consideration relative position, we must reassess the strength of our position and, of course, our hand.

Say you are on the button. Player A calls from the big blind. The player to the immediate right of you (in the cutoff), Player B, makes a raise. Here is a situation where, although you were are last to act initially, Player A is the one who closes off the betting. In this case, it’s actually better to be to the right of the pre-flop raiser. Why is this?

Sandwiched between players

Going with the aforementioned example, let’s say you are dealt K-J. The player in the cutoff, Player B, makes a raise and both you and Player A call. The flop comes J-9-5. You have top pair with the second best kicker. But here is the, ahem, kicker.

Nowadays, it’s safe to assume that the pre-flop raiser is going to make a continuation bet the majority of the time (depending on the stakes you play). Since the other players expect this move, it’s common to check to the pre-flop raiser. Player A does just that. Player B indeed makes a continuation bet.

Now, the power of being the last to act lies in the ability to see all of your opponent’s decisions beforehand, and then make a bet according to their perceived strength and hand range. However, you are no longer last to act in this instance. Player A will act last (assuming he does not re-raise). Player A was likely to check no matter what, so it’s difficult to put him on a range of hands. Unless he is certain that he has the best hand, he probably won’t lead out.

Essentially, you are sandwiched, or trapped, between two players who are tough to put on a range of hands because their fairly common moves did not indicate how strong or weak they were.

It’s possible that Player B holds a hand like A-J, a mid-range pocket pair or maybe even an overpair. It’s also quite possible that he is bluffing with a hand like K-Q. To add to our dilemma, we are unaware of Player A’s next move. He could be preparing to make a re-raise, whereby we would have to seriously consider a fold.

Professional No-Limit Hold ‘em example

Ed Miller, author of NotedPokerAuthority.com and multiple books, including Professional No-Limit Hold ‘em: Volume 1, brings this example to the table: A maniac has been going all in every hand at 9-handed, $1/$2 cash game table. He has $270, and you sit down for the max of $100. You decide you will call him with sixes or better, or A-10 or better. Two seats open up at the table, one to the immediate right of this maniac, and one to the immediate left. Which seat do you take? Ed writes:


Consider your worst all-in hand, ace-ten offsuit. If you sit to this person’s immediate left and call all-in, any of the other players could play as well. If one of them has AA, KK, QQ, JJ, AK, AQ, or AJ, you take the worst of it. However, if you sit to the immediate right of the slider, you see what everyone else does before you commit. You can limp with ace-ten offsuit, then get all-in if no one else calls him. If instead someone plays, you can fold.

With relative position, you will often get to check to the likely bettor, then see how every other opponent reacts before committing your chips. That is why, contrary to conventional wisdom, it can sometimes be better to be on the right of a very aggressive player. Most of the time, however, absolute position is more important than relative position.

While it’s a contrived and unlikely example, Ed uses this point to illustrate how relative position can be more important than absolute position. On the other hand, unless you’re in late position, like the cutoff, you can run into plenty of problems by checking and seeing how everyone else bets. What if you have Q-Q and you check and let the blinds limp in. The flop comes 9-9-4. The BB goes all in for $100. What do you do now? How does a check-raise make you more money if you know this player is going to go all in regardless of what you do? By check-raising you’re inviting more players into the hand, who, especially if they have a small stack, might just be tagging along for the pot odds.

Also, don’t think this kind of maniacal play doesn’t happen, although I’ve only seen it a handful of times. If you’re patient, the money will come to you.

Conclusion

When considering relative position, it is better to be to the immediate right of the pre-flop raiser than it is to be to the immediate left. Against good players, you should expect a continuation bet most of the time; thus, you will be last to act. You don’t want to be to the immediate left of the pre-flop raiser. Here you will be first to act when the raiser makes a continuation bet, and it’s difficult to gauge the strength of the other player(s) in the hand who checked before the raiser.

Expected value in poker is commonly referred to as Expectation or EV. The term expected value had originated from the world of probability mathematics. It basically means a given scenario’s average outcome over the long run.

How to calculate expected value?

In order to do that, every possible outcome has to be considered. Each of these outcomes has to be multiplied by the probability of the outcome taking place. Then all these numbers have to be added together. The whole thing sounds really confusing, so let me use an example to make it clearer.

Suppose you possess a randomized and very ordinary six sided die. And after rolling the die, you want to calculate the expected value by applying the theory given above. The results are given below. (I assume you are aware of the concept of probability)

If you roll a 6, the probability will be 1/6.
If you roll a 5, the probability will be 1/6.
If you roll a 4, the probability will be 1/6.
If you roll a 3, the probability will be 1/6.
If you roll a 2, the probability will be 1/6.
If you roll a 1, the probability will be 1/6.

Now you have to multiply these values by their respective probabilities. The results are as follows.

1 x 1/6 = 1/6
2 x 1/6 = 2/6
3 x 1/6 = 3/6
4 x 1/6 = 4/6
5 x 1/6 = 5/6
6 x 1/6 = 6/6

Now you have to add all these together and the result will be as follows.

1/6 + 2/6 + 3/6 + 4/6 + 5/6 + 6/6 = 3.5

Therefore, as you can see, 3.5 is the expected value of that randomized die. Suppose, the casino guys had weighted the die. This means that the chances of any one value showing up aren’t the same as in the previous case of a neutral die. Let’s assume that the casino guys have weighted it such that at least half the times, the number 6 will show up. For the other attempts, the remaining 5 values can show up randomly with equal probability. That means, the probability of 6 showing up is ½ and the probability of each of the remaining values showing up is 1/10. The result will be as follows.

1 x 1/10 = 1/10
2 x 1/10 = 2/10
3 x 1/10 = 3/10
4 x 1/10 = 4/10
5 x 1/10 = 5/10
6 x ½ = 3

When you add all these up, the resultant sum equals 4.5. I hope now you can understand the reason behind other numbers having only a 10% chance of showing up.

Expected Value in Poker

So far, I was discussing the dice. Let us now move on to cards, as in poker.

The poker strategies that you normally witness are of two types – psychological (since poker is a mental game) and non psychological (since poker is also based on mathematics). Most of the non psychological poker strategies have their roots based in expected value. Suppose you are in a game where nobody has raised the pot and you are limping along with the help of very medium pairs.

Many of your opponents are also limping like you. There may be a positive expected value in a game like this. And in the world of poker, the biggest dilemma from a mathematical point of view, is to take the decision that yields the highest expected value. At times, the EV turns out to be negative. However, it is far less negative compared to other courses of action.

Let me now describe a very common scenario to explain the relationship between poker and expected value. Suppose you are in a game of Texas Hold’em. Your position is heads up on the river. The cards you are holding are J and A of hearts. The display on the score board is A 10 5 8 3.

Your position is first. $10 is the big bet. $100 is the worth of the pot. The question is, should you bet in this situation?

For the sake of the argument, let us suppose any two cards could be held by your opponent and if he doesn’t possess a club, chances are that he will fold, always. And let us also suppose that he will use his club to call a bet. He may also move on to two bets if the cards on him are Q or K. If you check in this situation, your opponent will check without the clubs or bet with the help of any club.

Now comes the mathematics part. We know that he is holding any two cards. Therefore, it is extremely likely that he might be holding each of those individual clubs. Let us also suppose that he is not holding both sets of clubs; because if he did, he would most probably raise the turn with them.

In the first scenario, you ought to bet. And if he calls your bet, the hand on him will be an inferior one. We can tell this for sure, because if he had a better hand, he would’ve placed a bet earlier. Your opponent can call with possibly 6 different kinds of clubs. Therefore, you stand the opportunity of winning some extra $10 at least six times. The total number of clubs available is eight. So he would probably call six out of eight times.

$10 x 6/8 = $ 7.5

You possess a worse hand now and he has raised. You will lose $10.

Negative $10 x 2/8 = Negative $2.5

The expected value of betting in this case is as follows.

$7.5 + Negative 2.5 = $5

That’s not so bad!

You might wonder whether all these calculations are real or not and if it is possible to apply these calculations. To tell the truth, correct or strategically sound poker is played by poker pros based on exactly these types of calculations. It is the expected value that determines plays like calling with decent hands in the absence of strong hands; bluffing; check raising, etc.

Conclusion

Judging by the calculations, you’ve probably realized that it is not really easy to sit there at the poker table and calculate all the exact values. There are only a handful of people who can do this effectively. But this expected value dictates all the sound strategies which poker pros apply in their games. Your job is to analyze and review your own decisions, dissect a specific hand and then ponder on how you can or could have won more. You do that for enough number of games and do it all the time, eventually it will get easier.