Getting On Tilt in Poker
January 22, 2008 | Comments Off
Playing Poker on Tilt means letting your emotions disrupt your ability to play. All poker players go on tilt at least once during their career, but limiting these episodes is essential to winning at poker. Poker is a game that requires reason. If you have Qs Js, and the flop comes Ah Qh 10h, and there is a lot of betting action, you need to know to fold. If you were on tilt, you would let your emotions take control and make you do whatever it took to take down the pot. You would keep chasing, hoping to catch a king and hoping that no one had a flush.In general, people who get upset and don’t stay focused and reasonable will lose all the money they brought to the table. Poker is almost anti-human in the way it triggers emotions but rewards people who are made of stone. I don’t mean to scare you or act as if all poker players are unemotional stones, but it is imperative to stay focused and rational while at the poker table.
Generally, most players tilt due to a bad beat or if they just can’t seem to win a hand. Some players have a slight tilt after they win a big hand or two, but those episodes generally are much shorter than tilts caused by losing.
For example, take this hand I played recently:
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Me | Opponent | Flop |
I bet at the flop and was called. 10came on the turn. I bet, he called. River was 6. I bet, and he raised. I decided to just call, thinking he may have actually had KJ. No, he had 6 6. The idiot had called me to the river with little hope but won on a very lucky river catch. Needless to say, I was not playing well the next couple of hands.
While going on tilt is natural, you need to limit it. Generally, the best way is to sit out a couple of hands and go for a walk.
Another good way to handle a bad beat is to just think about all the bad beats you have laid in the past. After the bad beat I mentioned above, I sat back and thought about the time I stupidly went all-in during a Pot-Limit Omaha with bottom set.
3d 3s 7s Js | Ac Kc 8d 8h | 3c 6h 8s |
Me | Opponent | Flop |
My opponent had the best hand when all the money went into the pot. I was lucky enough to catch a backdoor flush on the turn and river and took down a huge pot. That day, I went on to win the most money that I have ever won. If I had lost that hand, I probably would have called it quits and never would have won all of that money. Thinking about the time I pulled off this bad beat and went on to win such a huge sum helps me get through the times that some idiot rivers me.
Listening to music is another way to avoid tilt. The positive vibes you get from a song you enjoy will help counteract the negative emotions from a bad beat. I would also suggest changing songs or CD’s after you have suffered a bad beat. This way you distract yourself from getting too emotionally caught up in the poker game.
Many people, myself included, tend to curse at the computer if they get bad beat. However, for myself at least, cursing is not nearly as therapeutic as thinking about that huge bad beat I laid at the Omaha table. Cursing tends to make you more mad and will cause you to develop some bad habits. When you are about to go on tilt, sit out and think of happy thoughts (as cheesy as it sounds, it’s true) and hopefully you can resume playing your best.
Poker Tells
January 22, 2008 | Comments Off
Poker Tells are traditionally associated with people’s physical twitches in which one gives away the strength of his or her hand. Tells exist both in the brick and mortar and the online world. Here is a list of certain common tells:
Online:
1. In limit, a quick call with two flush or straight cards out generally means a draw.
2. In limit, a quick raise on the flop generally means top pair.
3. A poor player who is thinking generally has a weaker holding and is debating a call.
4. Generally if someone thinks for awhile and then raises, it is not a bluff.
5. Someone who is frequently raising the pot preflop and then folds at the flop if someone bets at him is likely to be on tilt.Live:
1. When a poor player puts a hand over his mouth, it generally means he has a strong hand. Generally he is concealing a smile.
2. Shaking hands means the player is nervous. However, this can mean he is bluffing or that he has a very strong hand.
3. A player reaching for a drink also is a sign of being nervous.
4. When a poor player ’stares you down,’ generally it means he is bluffing.
5. When the flop comes and a player quickly looks at his chips, he is likely to have a strong hand.
Skill Versus Luck in Poker
January 22, 2008 | Comments Off
The money to be gained or lost in a home game tends to mean next to nothing and everyone almost always plays every hand to the end. Add in to that, dealer’s choice & the ever popular “wild cards” and you have a recipe for gambling on your hand, not playing it. In these situations, it’s often the middle hand that wins by catching a lucky card on the river.
Another reason why luck has such a big role in home-style poker games is that many of the skills we use in pro-style games just don’t come into play in a home game. Skills such as patience in determining which hands to play, when to bluff, and how to read your opponent just aren’t used when playing such low-limit against your family. If you are playing too many hands in a tough poker game, you will find yourself short stacked in no time.
Patience
The plain fact is that if you play too many hands in a pro-level poker game, you won’t win. It’s mathematically impossible for you to last for any length of time. But, if you play this many hands in a home game, you may fair better because the sheer size of the pot from the hands you draw out on may offer sufficient pot-odds to draw on that inside straight or whatever the case may be. Especially, if there are “wild cards”.
Bluffing
Another big difference between home poker games and pro-style games is bluffing. Bluffing will actually succeed in a pro game, where everyone will just call you in a low-limit family-style game. It is extremely hard to pull off a bluff in the family oriented game. The main reason for this is the limits are set against you. That 25 cents you’ve raised the pot isn’t going to be enough to scare anyone away, even if it was a check-raise. Anyone would call that, even if they thought they were beaten.
In a pro game, however, bluffing is a sound strategy. If you’ve played very few hands, it’s very possible to steal a pot at the end of a hand by becoming overly agressive at the right time. Your opponents will almost certainly put you on a strong hand, if not the nuts.
Reading your opponent
Another very important element in pro games is the ability to read your opponent. Are they full of crap or are they the real thing? In most home games, there is so much money in the pot (relative to the size of the amount to call) that there is no need to even consider this factor. In pro poker, however, there is enough money involved that a good read can be very valuable.
The simple fact is, if serious poker was a mere game of chance, there would be no such thing as a professionaly poker player and the people you see on the television constantly winning tournaments (i.e. Phil Ivey, Doyle Brunson, Daniel Negraneu, etc) would just have to be the luckiest people in the world. This, obviously, is not the case and many a professional poker can have very successful careers by honing their poker skills.
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.
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!
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!
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.
Thinking Like A Poker Player
January 20, 2008 | Comments Off
Thinking Like a Poker Player
Poker pros are commonly described as tight and aggressive: “These poker pros do not play many hands, but when they play them, they play them like they had the nuts.”
That’s a nice general description, but it doesn’t say much. And it’s not even totally right about no-limit games, since a solid, loose-aggressive player is a person to be feared. Thus, I think when people say a player is tight-aggressive and therefore good, I really think they mean that the player has mastered four critical elements of poker.
#1. Math skills
They know that you have about 1 in 8.5 chance of hitting a set when holding a pocket pair, and that you have about a 1 in 3 chance of completing a flopped flush draw by the river.
They know the importance of ‘outs.’ Outs are simply the number of cards that will improve your hand. Count your outs, multiply them by two, and add one, and that’s roughly the percentage shot you have at hitting.
They can figure out the ‘pot odds.’ Knowing outs is meaningless unless it’s translated into rational, calculated betting. Knowing you have a 20% chance of hitting, what do you do then? Well, simply once you figure out your chance of hitting/winning, you divide the size of the pot at the river (i.e. the current pot plus the amount of money that you think will be added through future bets) by the amount you have to put in. If you have a 20% chance of hitting and the bet to you is 50, if the pot at the river will be greater than 250, call. If not, fold.
Math skills are the most basic knowledge; it’s day one reading. Anyone who doesn’t understand these concepts should not play in a game until they do.
#2. Discipline
Good poker players demand an advantage. What separates a winning poker player from a fish is that a fish does not expect to win, while a poker player does. A fish is happy playing craps, roulette, the slots; he just hopes to get lucky. A poker player does not hope to get lucky; he just hopes others don’t get lucky.
Good poker players understand that a different game requires a different discipline. A disciplined no-limit player can be a foolish limit player and vice versa. A disciplined limit player has solid pre-flop skills. When there is not much action pre-flop, he or she only plays the better hands. When a lot of people are limping in, he or she will make a loose call with a suited connector or other speculative hand.
However, a disciplined no-limit player is very different. This player is not so concerned with paying too many blinds; instead, he or she does not want to get trapped. The main difference between disciplined limit players and disciplined no-limit players is that the limit player avoids piddling away his stack bit by bit while a disciplined no-limit player avoids losing his whole stack in one hand. Hence, a disciplined no-limit player can play a lot of hands. Preflop, he or she can be extremely loose and limp in with hands as odd as 5 3. However, a good no-limit player knows when to toss hands that will get him or her in trouble.
A disciplined player knows when to play and when to quit. He recognizes when he is on tilt and is aware when a game is too juicy to just quit while ahead.
A disciplined player knows that he is not perfect. When a disciplined player makes a mistake, he learns. He does not blame others. He does not cry. He learns from the mistake and moves on.
#3. Psychological Skills
A good player is not a self-centered player. He may be the biggest SOB you know. He may not care about anyone but himself, and he may enjoy stealing food from the poor. However, when a poker pro walks into a poker room, he always empathizes with his opponents. He tries to think what they think and understand the decisions they make and why they make them. The poker pro always tries to have an answer to these questions:
What does my foe have?
What does my foe think I have?
What does my foe think I think he has?
Knowing the answer to these questions is the first step, manipulating the answers is the second and more important step. If you have a pair of kings and your foe has a pair of aces, and you both know what each other have and both know that you each know what the other has, why play a game of poker? A poker pro manipulates the latter two answers by slowplaying, fastplaying, and bluffing in order to throw his opponent off.
Good poker players know that psychology is much, much, much more important in a no-limit game than in a limit one. Limit games often turn into math battles, while no-limit games carry a strong psychology component. Thus, poker tells are much more important in no-limit games than limit games.
#4. A Clear Understanding of Risk vs. Reward
Pot odds and demanding an advantage fall into this category. Poker players are willing to take a long-shot risk if the reward is high enough, but only if the expected return is higher than the risk.
More importantly, they understand the risk-vs.-reward nature of the game outside of the actual poker room. They know how much bank they need to play, and how much money they need in reserve to cover other expenses in life.
Good poker players understand they need to be more risk-averse with their overall bankroll than their stack at the table.
When you play in an individual game, you must value every chip equally at the table. You should only care about making correct plays. If you buy in for $10, you should be okay with taking a 52% chance of doubling up to $20 if it means a 48% chance of losing your $10.
However, you should be risk-averse with your overall bankroll. You need to have enough money so that any day at the tables will not affect your bankroll too much. If you worry too much about losing, then you will make mistakes at the table. You need to leave yourself with the chance to fight another day.