Best Poker Tips

Yesterday we had our weekly poker evening with some friends at my place. All evening I had played pretty well, but unfortunately my stack didn’t grow much, it went even down and in a bout 2 hours I was down some €50. I was down to my last 10 euro when I finally came back after those 2 horrible hours.

But then I played a hand which I will not soon forget. See below what happend:

I was dealt;
  

My opponent (who was stack leader all evening) had;
 

My openent was playing very loose and very aggresive, like a real maniac with a lot of luck. So when he raised before the flop I didn’t expact him to have a premium hand (really strong hand), so I decided to just flat call him.

The flop came;
  

He flopped his two pair but I flopped my flush (with even a change to get a straight flush), so he was defniately going to be in a world of hurt this hand! 

After some betting, raising and re-raising I decided he wasn’t getting away from this hand anymore, and put him all in. After a long and dreadful contemplation he called.

Then the turn card came a Jack;
    

At this moment he had about four outs (two 6’s and two Aces, of wich one was already folded by another player) so he had 3 outs, giving him a little under6% chance to win the hand. But like I said before, he was getting the best of luck all evening and playing like a maniac so guess what happend when the river card came out?!
        

He made his Full House on the river and I could say bye to most of my chips….

But you know what they say;

That’s Poker!

Teach Me!

The other day I was playing at my weekly 100/200 no limit home game with some friends when I was dealt QQ in early position. My home game is quite a loose-aggressive game, so I decide to raise the pot to 1000 chips. Normally this would be a slightly large raise, but I know this table is loose, so I know I will get some action, but not too much. I don’t want my opponents to get lucky, and outdraw me with a hand like TJ.

I get two callers. One of them is a fairly aggressive player (Mike the Maniac), and the other quite solid (Tight Trevor). The Flop comes rags, something like 972. I figure I probably have Mike beat, unless he has some pocket pair and just made trips. But Trevor could have an AK or AQ and then I would have to lay down my hand, if an Ace or King comes on the Turn or River so I decide to bet some 2000 chips into the pot. 

If I do have the best hand I’ll probably take the pot down right here, which is fine. A decent pot for a decent hand. And indeed, Mike and Trevor both fold, and as I rake in the pot Mike shows me he had AJ, and Trevor AK indeed!

Sometimes I take a little peek at what the next card would have been, and in this case it would have been an Ace. Pfhew!

All well.

But now let’s suppose I had slow played the hand.

First I check before the flop. Mike raises and Trevor, with the even higher Ace, would have probably re-raised, so suddenly my pair of Queens doesn’t look so good anymore!

Actually the only thing I can do is call, because there’s no real reason to re-re-raise with a pair of Queens. So I go to the flop being a caller, not in control of the hand, and I have to make the first move after! Suddenly the large bet I make doesn’t look that threatening anymore to anybody holding two over cards to the board, and I either get re-raised, or just flat called by both guys, at risk of getting run down by two players, with two more cards to come. 

The Turn comes an Ace. Now I also can’t check anymore, someone could very well have that Ace. Heck, I even put Trevor on the high Ace. And the only way to find out if I’m right is by betting.

If I check now, I show major weakness and even if neither of my opponents holds the Ace, one of them is going to bet, and I’m going to have to lay down my pocket Queens. 

So I bet, get raised and either end up totally pot committed, or at best losing a large chunk of my stack, but live to see another day.

The motto here is:

DON’T SLOW PLAY!

Unless you are sure you’ve got the nuts and no one can catch up with you, don’t do it.

The only reason to be slow playing would be:

- When you have an unbeatable hand, but your afraid everyone will fold if you bet, so you let your opponents catch up hoping they’ll make some kind of hand and try to bluff at you.

- Or, just to mix it up.

If there’s a chance of any hand that can beat you, don’t slow play. It might work once, it might work twice, but you will get caught sooner or later and lose more money you ever won slow playing.

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An important concept about poker, something all poker pro’s know, is that a winning player is a raising player. If you want to make the money, you have to put it in the middle!

There are a few reasons to raise. Of course you raise to make the pot bigger and thus more money for you, but there some more reasons which are a little bit more strategically.

First of all, you have to raise to make sure you don’t keep every player in the pot. Let me explain why.

If you have pocket Aces against one player, your chance of winning the hand is about an 85% chance, against 15% for your opponent (against any random hand, all-in pre flop). This means you have about a 5,6 times bigger chance of winning.

Now suppose you play against 9 opponents. You now still have a five times bigger chance against each one player, but the odds would be more like 38% chance for you to win, against 6,9% for each player. So the combined chance of another player winning the hand is 62% (6,9% x 9 players).

That means 38% for you, 62% against you!

Scary, huh? Against nine players, there is an overwhelming chance of your Aces getting run down. Your chance of losing is almost twice as big as your chance of winning. So that’s why you never want that many players in the pot. Because it is very likely that somebody who holds a hand he would have folded if you would have raised, now suddenly he makes that impossible straight, or two pair.

Little example:

You have Ks Qs and don’t raise from middle position. A lot of players see the flop of Q92.

Now you have top pair and a great kicker so you bet and get three callers; both blinds and the button.

The turn brings another 2, and the river a King. Making the board Q92 2 K. 

Now you’ve got two pair, which is a great hand, but of course you get beat by the 92 (full house) from the big blind. Trust me I have seen this happen many times! Had you raised, the big blind would have definetely folded that 92 in the first place, and you wouldn’t have to be whining about that bad beat.

So one or two callers that’s all.

Another import reason you should raise is because it is a great way to gain information about your opponent’s hand. And, odd as it may seem, it helps you save money on bad hands! 

Let me give you an example.

Say you’re playing a €5/10 No Limit game. You are holding KK on the button, which means you have last and best position. Don, sitting in middle position opens for three times the big blind, making it €30 to play. You decide to just call. Everybody else folds.

The Flop comes:

This is not too bad a flop for you, but you’re not sure about the Ace. Don bets out €50, about half the pot size.

NOW HERE IS THE MOMENT OF TRUTH!

Obviously you’re not going to fold your Kings, because you know Don will bet after his initial pre-flop raise, whether he has the Ace or not. For all you know he could be holding a pair of 10’s.

So what should you do now? Call? Okay, suppose you call. Now the pot is €205.

So the Turn comes:

Not too bad either, as long as Don doesn’t have the Ace. Obviously Don is going to bet out again. This time he bets €150. Sure enough you call again.

Now the pot is over €500.

The River comes:

Another Ace. Once again Don makes an even bigger bet; you call and have Don turn over his AQ. You lose a big chunck of your chips, because you never knew about the strength of Don’s hand.

So what should you have done different?

Raise!

When Don bet the flop, you should have raised him! That is THE moment to find out if he has the Ace. If Don bets 50 and you raise him another 100, you’ll see soon enough whether or not he’s comfortable with his hand. In this case he’s probably not going to have hard time calling your raise.

And then comes the Turn, Don bets again. By now you should know enough; first he calls your raise, and then he comfortably bets again. Don must have the Ace. And so you can lay down your Kings, knowing you’ve made a good fold, at minimum cost.

Even though it may seem more expensive to raise, it is still by far the best way to save you money when you don’t have the best hand.

If you’re starting to get up there with your poker skills, you might have noticed that different players have different styles.

The easiest player to beat is the ‘calling station’. He never makes a raise, always just calls. Even with aces.

He is the fish. You should be after him.

Then there’s the ‘tight playing, premium hands only’ kind of player. He’s not involved in much action, but somehow he always makes it to the money.

The best tip I can give you is; stay away from him. Maybe he’ll let’s you see a cheap flop from time to time (don’t count on it), but you can bet your ass he’s got a good hand when he joins the action.

And if you do want to take him on, do it with small cards. Hope for a small flop and scare him away. But when he starts to bet… get out!

And of course, we all know the irritating maniac style player. He just loves the action of a poker game and wants to be involved in every hand. The dangerous part of his style is his unpredictability. It can be very difficult to put him on a hand, because he’ll play just about anything.

The best tip I can give you is this; let him do all the betting. Let him dig his own grave when you do have a hand. He’ll try to bluff you off too many times, and if you’re really up there, you should be able to get him.

His weakness is wanting to play too many hands, which in the end costs him a lot of money. But then again he’ll make a lot of money because people tend to pay him off whenever he does have a hand.

Now what I want you to achieve is this:

You must be solid, and by solid I mean that you should be selective in choosing your starting hands, but not too solid and have everyone fold as soon as you enter a pot. So you must combine the best of two playing styles. The solidness of the ‘tight playing premium hands only player’, and the unpredictability of the maniac style player.

You can obtain a loose image by mixing up your play from time to time. Suddenly play some strange hand, and make sure you get to showdown with it. And when everybody sees what kind of ‘loose hand’ you just completely messed up -by playing it in the first place, and then being unable to let go of the pot-, you’ll say something like: “Ah jeez, you just caught me with my pants down!” as you flip ‘em over.

In the near future I’ll get a little deeper into this subject.

I know; sometimes it can be scary getting a pocket pair of tens. You know it’s a quite good hand pre flop, but it can also be run down easily. A very common made mistake is trying to protect your marginal pair by going all-in pre flop.

A logical reasoning for this is thinking that your hand is best pre flop, so going all-in will probably give you the best chance of winning. Even though this is true, there is a big downside in making this play.

When you do go all-in pre flop, you can be deamn sure that no-one is going to call your bet unless they have a big hand. A hand big enough to call an all-in pre flop. If nobody has a hand like that, they will all fold. You know, it requires a better hand to call an all-in than actually go all-in. See this tip for more on this subject.

So in effect the only two possible outcomes to your all-in are that:

a) Everybody will fold leaving you the blinds only, which is a poor turnover for a hand like that. Or:

b) You will get called by somebody holding a monster like Aces or Kings. And you lose all of your chips.

That’s why I suggest you don’t go all-in pre flop with a hand like JJ, TT, 99 or even QJs. Just try to play it wise, and don’t get hung up on it. Make a decent raise, or call a raise, and see what the flop brings you. If the flop brings any over cards and you have reason to believe someone might be holding one of those cards, just fold.

That’s one poker tip on how not to go broke with a marginal hand.

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Another important principle some people don’t stop and think about is this:

In general, it requires a better hand to make a call than a raise. And it requires a bigger raise to protect you marginal hand, than your monster hand.

Let me elaborate.

If you hold a monster like Aces or Kings, you don’t want everybody folding.

If you hold a marginal hand, like middle pair, you don’t want everybody calling.

So what you need to understand is that, most of the time (especially against intermediate players) a bigger bet means a lesser hand, and a smaller bet means a better hand.

If you have a good hand you don’t want to scare your opponents away. If you have a marginal, or even a bad hand, you do want to scare your opponents away.

A little example:

If you have middle pair on the flop, you could make a pot size raise and hope to scare your opponent off. But if you have middle pair and someone else makes a pot size raise, there’s no way you can call that bet (unless you have great read) because if you do call, you will have to show your hand, and the chance is big it’s not going to be good enough. But if you would raise, there is a reasonable chance your opponent might fold and you take the pot.

You should familiarize yourself with this principle, because most players do this without being aware of it. Probably you too, and if you’re able to react to this it will give you a distinct advantage on your opponents.

Playing a marginal hand is always tough.

That’s because you can’t be sure if you’re ahead, and you might need to depend on your reading skills in order to take down the pot, or make a good fold.

When you get to the river, any hand has become psychological warfare. After the betting rounds that happened before you have every reason to want to strip your opponent down. Or make a brilliant fold. You don’t want him to get away with anything. And you definetely don’t want to show your hand. So maybe you will try to raise him for all his chips and induce a fold.

But sometimes it does pay off to check at the river if it is checked to you.

Whenever you’re playing a marginal hand, you might be tempted to make another raise at the river if it’s checked to you, in hopes of a fold.

But what most people don’t realize is that, when you make a bet at the river and your opponent folds you are likely to have had the best hand. So if it did come to showdown, you would have won anyway. In which case there would have been no need to risk any extra chips.

If your opponent does have the best hand, however, he will call you and strip you from the extra chips you’ve just bet.

What I’m saying here is that it might be wise to just check whenever you have a marginal hand at the river, and it is checked to you.

In this case nothing good can come from raising.

When you have a hand that is a sure loser (in which case I’m wondering what you’re doing at the river anyway) you might want to raise big time to have any chance at the pot, but at this stage this is very unlikely.

If you do think you’ve got your opponent beat and it is checked to you, you will obviously have to raise! If your opponent folds you don’t have to show your hand, which means you keep him in the dark about your play. And if you do get called, you’re going to rake in some extra chips.

Keep this one in mind the next time you’re pondering what to do at the river!

Everybody has an image, whether you’re aware of it or not.

A table-image, that is.

Your table-image is the way other players see your style of play and respond to it.

For instance, you can be known to play rock-tight, so other players will easily give you credit for having a big hand.

Conversely, if you’re known as a very loose player, others will call you more easily. Even with something like bottom pair.

That’s because you have the image of playing every hand, so high cards on the board won’t scare your fellow players.

There’s a good side to both styles of play, as long as you remain aggressive. And you have to be aware of your image and use it to your advantage.

If you’re considered very tight, you can bluff more. Others will think you’ve got the goods when you start betting and they will get the heck out. Say you hold QQ at a flop of AK9, you can still safely bet into this pot, because other players have every reason to believe that you’re holding a big hand here.

If you’re considered loose, you get paid big time when you’ve made a hand because your opponents will think you’re bluffing anyway, so you’ll get a lot of callers all the time. The downside to this is that you’re unable to bluff anymore. Unless you have a solid read of course.

In a tip I wrote earlier, I already told you why it pays to show a bit of one style and play the other. But if you’ve got a certain image, you’re not to worry. It will pay you off as well. As long as you know how other players think about the way you play, and use that against them!

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With poker it’s really important to avoid emotions. When you loose one big pot, you should “not care” about it and keep playing the same game. This sounds really easy but unfortunately it isn’t that easy. I’d like an example so here we go:

You have a nice hand KK and you raise pre-flop with 4 times the blind (let’s say you sitting at a low stage ring game 0.50$/1$) and put 4$ on the table. One player calls you.

The flop hits 4d, 10h and Jc. This is really a nice flop for your KK right? So you raise again with 4$, and your opponent calls you again.

Turn card hit the table and it’s a 2d. You just checks to see what your opponent does, he also checks so that’s a good sign.

The river card hit the table and it’s a 6c. Also good for your KK, so you put 5$ on the table, your opponent then raises you and put 10$ on the table.

By now you should be surprised because he checked at the turn, didn’t raise before and after the flop and now when the 6c hits the table he raises you.

I would put him on a slow play, but with what? Could he have made trips? Or QQ?

So comparing the pot and the raise you just call him. And he shows you two 66, to make triples at the river. And he takes down the pot.

Now you starting to feel shitty, angry, unlucky and start thinking how lucky your opponent is with pair of sixes in the hand and make his hand at the river with calling quite a lot of money? You want to beat him in the next hand, you want your money back or even more, and you go on TILT!

This kind of emotion you should avoid. Really keep you own play, he won now but believe me 10 times playing like this with a KK is going to give you 7 or 8 times a nice pot. Those 2 or 3 times you loose big, but the grand total is a big PLUS!

Don’t try to beat now your opponent; don’t sit at the table with a shitty feeling. When you do I can assure, you going to be a pot committed fish! And your opponents will take advantage.

This remembers me when I saw a High Stakes Poker game on TV, Doyle Brunson (the all-time poker legend) said when something like this happened to Daniel Negreanu: “That’s way they call this game Poker son”

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