Online Poker Tips
January 22, 2008 | Comments Off
Lately, I’ve been getting asked a lot for online poker tips. This, from seasoned offline poker players, came as a shock to me because these are guys who I play poker with all of the time.
I have a friend who hasn’t tried online poker yet. I know, in this day and age it struck me as being a bit odd that he has never played at any of the online poker sites. Naturally, I was more than happy to give him some online poker tips. I also thought it might make a decent article on online poker tips.
Online Poker vs. Offline Poker
The best online poker tip that I can give is that there are several differences in playing in a “home game” and playing online poker. It’s a fact that people tend to act differently on the internet than they do in real life in areas outside of poker, so it makes sense that people act differently in online poker vs real life poker also. Here are some online poker tips that apply generally accross to board to online poker.
Top 3 Online Poker Tips:
Online Poker players will call you more often – This is the first online poker tip to remember. The pyscology of it is it’s much easier for your opponent to click “call” than to reach into his stack of chips and call you at an offline game.
Try and spot online poker tells – These are sometimes easier to spot than others. You must remember connection speeds as well when taking this into account but the fact is, there are lots of online poker tells.
Bet consistently – Always allow yourself the same amount of time between bets. This online poker tip goes hand in hand with the online poker tip from above. By betting at consistent intervals, it will be easier to pick up on your play and you will leave your opponent disadvantaged.
Online Poker Tells
January 22, 2008 | Comments Off
There are many online poker tells out there. Learning to recognize these online poker tells can help you out in the long run. It is very important to remember certain factors, such as connection speeds, when considering these online poker tells. But you will find that most of these ring true.
Long pause, followed by a raise (the nuts):
This is the most overused of the online poker tells. The irony is that by using this strategy, they are actually giving off their own tell. The player himself is screaming strength with this online poker tell, because people usually only do it when there is a big possible hand on the table, like a flush or straight. You place a bet, your opponent pauses for about 15 seconds and then raises you. If he were speaking to you he’d be saying: “Hmm… there’s a flush possibility on the table and you’ve bet into it. Man, I really have to think about this because you might have a really strong hand! Oh well, I think I’m beat, but I”guess” I’ll raise…”. Don’t fall for this. Sometimes, a player legitimately thinks you’re bluffing the river or whatever so he’s raising you back, but most of the time he’s got the nuts.Instant / automatic raise (very strong / the nuts):
This raise happens so fast that it could only have come from the player having pre-selected the bet / raise buttom. Obviously, this player has a hand and is determined to bet it with everything he’s got.Instant / automatic checking (aka: drawing, weak):
This is a pretty straight-forward tell, since most players won’t go to the trouble of clicking on auto-check in order to come back and check-raise you. So, when you’r e in a decently small field and it’s autochecked to you and lead out with a quick bet, you can often take down the pot right there and then.[Heads][up][/][Shorthanded] Fast calls to your bet (marginal/medium hands):
Usually when someone is chasing you or has a marginal hand, they’ll call you down fast to try and scare you from betting the next round, as they’re trying to indicate they’re going to call you down to the river. So, with reverse psychology, you can see their strategy is to intimidate you from betting all the way to the river, since they want to see it for cheap. If they did have a strong back, they’d be raising you or check-raising you. In this situation, if you do have strength, you should most likely continue to bet. If you don’t have strength, this might be a bluffable situation.
Texas Holdem Limit Strategy
January 22, 2008 | Comments Off
This section will give you the basic strategy at winning at longhand limit Hold’em (8 or more players). This section is intended for the beginner, so he or she can win at the lower limits ($2-4 or less).
Preflop Starting Hands:
This is where most beginners make mistakes. Simply, they play too many hands. What beginners fail to recognize is that longhand limit Hold’em is a game of patience. As sad as it sounds, you literally can just wait to be dealt the quality hands, and just win with those.
So what are the good hands? David Sklansky, a poker expert, groups hands into 8 categories. I’m going to simplify his method a little bit for you. The main difference between my ratings and his ratings is that I don’t give preference to suited cards. The only reason I do this is because beginners tend to play suited cards too much. Being suited is nice, but it’s just a bonus, it doesn’t change the actual value of the cards that much.
Category I
AA, KK, QQ, JJ, AKThese are the best hands, bar none. You should raise or reraise with them preflop. If you hold AA, you especially want to jam as much money into the pot as possible.
Category II
TT, 99, AQ, KQThese are good hands, but they aren’t amazing. You generally need help from the board. Almost always in low-limit, you will need to hit a set with TT or 99 to win.
Category III
88, AJ, AT, KJ, QJ, JT, QTThese are good hands. However, be careful playing AJ, AT, KJ as these hands are vulnerable to losing to a higher kicker (i.e. if an Ace is on the board, but someone else has AK, you would lose because he has a higher ‘kicker’).
Category IV
Ax suited (x means any small card), Kx suited (x should be 7 or higher preferably) 77, 66, T9, 98, 87, 76 (only play the connecting cards if they are suited and you can play hands with a one card gap, like T8, as well)These hands are okay, but generally don’t win. They need a lot of help from the board.
Category V
Small pocket pairs (55, 44, 33, 22)Rate about the same as Category IV hands.
Category I hands should almost always be played. The only exception is if you hold AK or say JJ and you are positive that someone has AA or KK by the way they are raising (in other words, the person is a very tight player but is acting like a maniac preflop). These hands in general should be raised from any position and you want to get a lot of money in preflop. However, remember, for AK you need to hit an Ace or a King. So do not get in a raising war with one person because that person likely has a pocket pair already.
Category II hands should generally be played. These hands do best with less people, so you should raise to knock people out. Do not jam the pot though (i.e. reraise) because these hands have little value before you see the board. Do not call 3 bets cold with these hands (if you raise, then someone reraises, call, but do not call if someone raised, then reraised, and then it’s your turn.) The reason you do not call 3 bets cold is because you clearly do not have an advantage going into the flop. The one thing to remember in Limit Hold’em is you want to have an advantage going into the flop. Go ahead and call one raise in late position, unless the raiser was in early position and is a very good player (he probably has you beat with a category I hand).
Category III: Treat these hands with caution. They are often dominated by cateogry I or II hands. Basically, with the exception of 88, these hands are vulnerable because they are generally high cards but their kickers are somewhat low.
You should play these hands more often when they are suited and/or you are in late position. When they are suited, they have a higher chance of winning, especially among a multi-way pot. When you are in later position, you will have a better idea where you stand among other players. If there has been heavy action before you, you should consider folding because someone might have a hand that dominates yours. However, if everyone has folded to you or there is just a limper or two, a raise is probably in order.
Category IV/V: these hands are very different. You want a large, multiway pot. The reason being is that these hands miss the flop most often. However, sometimes these hands are amazing (i.e. if you hit a straight, flush, or trips). Therefore, you want to be paid of big when you actually hit something with these hands, which is why you want a lot of people in the pot.
Example:
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Your Hand | The Board |
You call a bet on flop, 9d comes on turn, and then you jam the pot. You want to commit as few chips preflop with these hands as possible while hoping that many people go into the flop. If you are the dealer, and one guy is in with a raise, fold. However, if you are the big blind, and 5 people have called a raise, go ahead and call and see the flop.
Flop Play
Once you hit the flop, you will be in one of four situations:
1. You are winning but have a beatable hand. For example, you have top pair, top kicker or an overpair (e.g., you hold Qd Qc and the board is Js 10s 5d). You want to jam the pot and knock people out. Thus, you want someone to bet to you and then to raise if you are in early position. If you are in late position and no one has bet, you must bet to knock people out.
2. You have a boss hand. You have three-of-a-kind or maybe even a full house on the flop. There is no reason to knock people out, because you will probably win (unless you have trips and there’s a flush draw out there; then you need to make them pay). In these situations, it’s generally best to wait until the turn to really jam the pot, but jam the pot on the flop if you think a scary draw is out there that will beat you.
3. You have the second-best hand. If you follow my preflop strategy, this is unlikely, but it could happen. Example: you hold Ac Qd and the flop comes Kh Qc 4s. In this case, treat the hand as a drawing hand or simply fold, unless you really believe that you may have the best hand at the moment (this is unlikely in a larger, multi-way pot because someone is bound to have a King).
4. You have a drawing hand. Example: you have two spades in the hole and there are two on the board. For these hands, you must use outs and pot odds. There is a detailed explanation of this in the shorthand article under ‘Flop Tips.’
5. You have nothing. Example: you hold 6h 6d and flop is Ac Kd 7s. You clearly are beat, just fold at the first bet.
These are the basics of longhand limit. There really aren’t that many tricky situations you will encounter. Just remember, the more people that are in the pot, the higher the likelihood that someone has the boss hand that is out there on the board, so be careful of that. If you have AK and AQQ is on the board, you should be more careful with it if you are up against 6 players than if only one or two is in the pot. If there are six players and there is a lot of action (raise/reraises), you are probably beat. However, if you are only up against one or two opponents, you still probably have the best hand.
Starting Texas Hold’em Poker Hands
January 22, 2008 | Comments Off
  | Ace Ace (AA) |
  | King King (KK) |
  | Queen Queen (QQ) |
| Ace King suited (AKs) |
 | Ace Queen suited (AQs) |
  | Jack Jack (JJ) |
 | King Queen suited (KQs) |
| Ace Jack suited (AJs) |
| King Jack suited (KJs) |
 | Ace King offsuit (AKo) |
Poker Hand Rankings
January 22, 2008 | Comments Off
The following poker hand rankings apply to every game of poker. These poker hand rankings are very general and do not account for “wild cards” or anything like that. If you want to see the odds of getting these hands, check out our probabilty section. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Steal At the Bubble
January 22, 2008 | Comments Off
With the blinds being rather high at this point and the antes increasing (if there are antes), now is the perfect time to steal a few hands, here is why. Everyone is thinking about finishing in the money. They tighten up their game to be sure that they don’t wind up in the bubble. If you have a big enough chip advangtage, here’s how I think a solid poker player should play it:Raise until someone plays back at you or you lose a pot. It’s that simple at this stage of the game. I’ve done this blindly several times. I raise, they fold. At least you are safe to know at this stage of the game that if someone plays back at you they probably have a hand.
The basic premise of this article is that at this stage of the game, a lot of people are playing for that first money position. I say let them have that first money position, I’m playing to win!
Poker Probability
January 22, 2008 | Comments Off
There are literally 2,598,960 possible combinations of 5 cards randomly drawn from a full deck of 52, without wild cards. This chart gives a breakdown of each possible poker hand being drawn.
Hand | Frequency | Probability | Odds against |
40 | .00154% | 64,973 : 1 | |
624 | .0240 % | 4,164 : 1 | |
3,744 | .144 % | 693 : 1 | |
5,108 | .197 % | 508 : 1 | |
10,200 | .392 % | 254 : 1 | |
54,912 | 2.11 % | 46.3 : 1 | |
123,552 | 4.75 % | 20.0 : 1 | |
1,098,240 | 42.3 % | 1.37 : 1 | |
2,598,960 | 50.1 % | 0.995 : 1 | |
TOTAL | 2,598,960 | 100% |
Note: The royal flush is included as a straight flush above. By itself, the royal flush can be formed 4 ways (one for each suit), giving it a probability of .000001539077169 and odds of 649,740 : 1.
Dynamics of the Last 3 Tables of a Tournament
January 22, 2008 | Comments Off
Once the bubble has past and people start getting a taste for that big money, things really start to change. Fatigue and loss of effective play come around and this is where most people start to choke. You’ve made it this far but if that was your only goal, remember this: Often times, people fold way too many hands and play so damn tight, just to make it to that final table that now is a great opportunity to steal more blinds and antes. Just as people did when it was getting close to money, so they will do when it gets to this level of the game.You do have to pay close attention now if you want to make it to the final table but be sure to watch for plenty more opportunities to steal a few blinds and antes, especiall as the table goes from 27 to 18 to 10! You are already in the money but be sure that if you do happen to go out in this round that you have a good beat story to tell!
Tale of a Bad Beat
January 22, 2008 | Comments Off
There are bad beats, and there are bad beats. They happen, and everyone has a bad beat story to tell. And the ones that happen to you early on, when you’re first starting to learn poker, are the ones you hopefully learn the most from. This is what happened to me when I first started playing Texas Hold’em.
I was dealt a pair of queens. I raised the big blind because I wanted to weed out players that had drawing hands and to get money into the pot from those players committed to seeing the flop (the first three community cards).
Only a couple of players folded, but when the dealer flopped a queen and a pair of 8s, I had a full house. An excellent hand, so I bet. The queen on the board and my bet were enough to cause everyone to fold except one player; he just called. The turn brought a card that I can’t remember now. It was something that couldn’t hurt me, so I bet again. And my opponent called again.
What was he thinking? He had to know that the least I had was top two pair and most likely the full house. I still can’t remember what card showed up on the river, but that’s when he bet. But why? My full house beat any possible straight or flush, and it was the highest full house possible. I raised his bet, and he re-raised. By now, I was sweating, so I just called and turned over my pocket queens.
Most of you have probably guessed why my opponent was so confident – he had not one 8 in the hole but two. His four-of-a-kind beat my full house. What hurt so much was that I never saw it coming. Every poker book in the world tries to hammer home the idea that you absolutely must learn to read the board and figure out which possible hands could beat your own.
And I had even read that chapter three times.
But I do have kind of a lame defense. The odds of being dealt a pair of anything are 220-to-1 against it. That’s almost half a percent. That means that it’s a relatively rare occurrence, and the odds against two players being dealt pocket pairs are even higher. True, I had considered the possibility but had also dismissed the idea almost immediately.
Okay, that was the first lesson I learned that day – read the board and don’t be so focused on your own good hand that you’re blind to other scenarios.
The second lesson was to beware of callers. Normally, you think of a player that simply calls all the time, never betting or raising, as a passive player. He’s the kind that will stay until the end, hoping to just draw a straight or flush on the river. Sometimes it works, but more often a “calling station” will lose more than he wins. But the player I was up against was not that kind of player, and I should have known something was wrong.
According to Bill Burton in “Get the Edge at Low-Limit Texas Hold’em,” (www.billburton.com), “You need a stronger hand to call a raise than you do to initiate one.” That concept was difficult for me to comprehend until that fateful day. But now I know it means that someone with the strongest hand possible doesn’t have to worry about scaring other players to fold. A strong player wants others to stay in and contribute to the pot.
My opponent already had four 8s with the flop and knew that I likely had pocket queens because I bet after seeing that third queen. The only thing that could beat him was the fourth queen showing up on the turn or river (which would have won the bad beat jackpot for him), and when it didn’t, then he became the aggressor. And this little fly ventured into the spider’s parlor.
But the third lesson I learned that day is probably the most important. And it has been the hardest one for me to incorporate into my play. I’ll have to save that one for next week.
Until then, aces and faces to you.
Building a Bankroll
January 20, 2008 | Comments Off
When Building a Bankroll, there are some questions that must be asked
How much money should I invest?
This is an important question, with two simple answers.
If you are a beginner or just looking to have fun, don’t invest any more than is ‘fun’ to lose. Hence, if you’re comfortable blowing 100 bucks, put in $100 and see if you can win with it. This is what I did. My original roll was only $100 but I built it up into my current, much more powerful bankroll.
Bankroll considerations are different for a seasoned player who has proven himself a winner. These types of players are looking to consistently make money at a given limit. If you are one of these players, you should be able to bank 200 big bets at the limit you play. Hence, if you play a $2-4, you should have $4 * 200 = $800 roll. For $5-10, your target roll should be $2,000. These numbers prevent you from blowing your entire bankroll because of one bad run.
Some may say that 200 big bets is too low for shorthand, but I believe you need to be reasonable about potential losses. You don’t want to invest more than 200 big bets unless you’ve proven that you’re successful at that limit.
Also, a very good idea is to keep a daily diary of your sessions. This will help you know if you are a winning or losing player, and how often you win/lose. It will also prove helpful come tax time if you live in a country with income tax on gambling winnings (in the UK, there is no tax on gambling winnings). If you plan on playing poker regularly, consider using a service such as Check Your Bets.