Poker

Taking a Poker Break This Summer

We have something painful to admit: we have to take a break from poker. It’s not that we hate poker, but we kept writing about how you need to take a break if things are getting too hot in the world of poker. Summer is where a lot of competitions come up, and we think that we would be doing ourselves a disservice if we didn’t take a step back. When you’re constantly getting into tournaments, competition is all you see. Over time, it tends to mess with your judgment. You have to sometimes look at your hands and realized that if you played less poker, you would actually make better decisions. When you feel that everything around you has to be a battlefield, then you’ll make terrible decisions. It makes a lot more sense to do the right thing by just going through your options carefully and quietly to yourself.

Are you the type of poker player that isn’t even looking at your hand history? Are you the type of poker player that isn’t estimating your opponents? If you answered yes to either of these scenarios, chances are good that you need to take a step back this summer too. It can also help you stretch your bankroll when you play less. Not everybody has the type of money to just throw around. And if you’re not making good decisions, then you’re just flushing money down the drain.

We always find that we play much better poker after taking a few weeks off. Plus, it’s summer — this is the time to really go out and have a good time. Why sit around the house when you really don’t have to? You could have a lot more fun going outside for a change. Poker is so vast that it won’t leave you — it’ll be right there where you left off. You can’t go wrong with taking a poker break. It leaves you with the opportunity to get so much more done if you could just focus a little bit more than you are right now.

And we’re not even saying that you need to get out of the world of gambling. But you might want to make it a goal to look at playing something other than poker. With so many advertisements for poker around the Web, you might feel like poker’s the only game worth playing. But that’s not the case at all. As long as you’re truly looking at all of your options, there’s no way that you’re going to be bored. There is a very wide world of action waiting for you, so why not check it out for yourself? You’ll truly be glad that you did!

Don’t Stress – Pot Limit Omaha Is What You’re Looking For!

By Martin

Okay, it’s definitely time to get serious about poker again, and we’re not going to be talking about No Limit Hold’Em right now. That’s right, there’s a big poker world outside of NLHE, and it’s about high time that you discovered it. It’s not the end of the world if you want to keep playing NLHE, but we figured that we’d give you something fresh for a change.

This brings us immediately to Pot Limit Omaha. It’s a game that truly earns a special place in our hearts, for a lot of reasons. It has a lot on common with NLHE, which means that you can pick up the game easily. Both types of poker are community card games, so you have a chance to really get into some action. If there’s time in your schedule of poker, playing PLO (Pot Limit Omaha) definitely makes sense.

One thing you’ll need to keep in mind when it comes to PLO is that you get 4 cards instead of two. You must make a winning hand with two cards from your hand and three from the board. This can be a lot trickier than you might expect.

Strategy is going to be a bit different, because you have to get into the flow of a different variation. The general recommendation would be to play heads up PLO because it means that you’re going to have to look at what your opponent is doing. It’s tempting to go into “battle” with the usual 6-max game, but that’s a bad way to go about it. You need to think about having to play much tighter, looking at what possibilities could be there.

The biggest switch is going to be looking at all of your cards, not just the first two that look good. If you can get out of the NLHE mindset on this front, then you’re going to be playing much better PLO. You also can’t just go all in and bully your opponent, which might take away from the sizzle with PLO for some people. If anything, take this as a sign that you need to stop randomly going AI and start looking at poker in more strategic terms. Trust us, you can be intimidating in PLO without going all limit. Good luck!

The Final Table of the Tournament – Yes, You Can Be Here!

By Martin

The final table of the poker tournament is where everyone wants to be. Of course, bad tournament play will eventually come back to haunt you. You might get deep into the tournament by just winging it, but it will take a more refined strategy to make the final table consistently. Remember that we’re just as interested in the long term poker game as we are the short term one. This means that you really need to sharpen your skills, focus, and look at ways to be profitable while surviving the match.

You see, tournaments attract a lot of players. Not all of these players are going to be sharks, even though a lot of people make that initial assumption. The reality is that you’re going to be playing against fish, shark, and just about everyone in between. It means that you might have a hard time really getting a good “read” on people, because you’re going to be moving all around the tournament. Multi-table tournaments are even harder than SNG’s because of how many people you will be exposed to.

So, let’s address two different scenarios: you are playing the tournament and you want to break into the final table, and then the scenario that assumes you’ve already made it to the final table.

Breaking In (Scenario One):

No matter how big the field is, you have to remember that everything is a matter of numbers. Eventually, the big bad poker players will make mistakes, bail out, get tired, or surpass you. That’s all there is to it. Loose players that rush in trying to get chips will eventually find that their luck runs out. Playing tight at the earliest stages of the tournament seems to be your best option. How tight you play depends on you, but you really want to stay away from garbage hands. Just because you saw Doyle Brunson make 7-2 off-suit work doesn’t mean that you need to try to mirror that at all. The truth is that you probably aren’t a professional poker player. Sticking to basic theory until you get to adjust your strategy usually works out better than thinking you can copy what the guys do at the WSOP. They have literally millions of hands worth of practice under their belts. If you get that obsessed about poker, you can feel free to freestyle. Until then, you need to stick to what works.

The idea here is that you don’t want to try to stand out by getting as many chips as possible. Everyone is going to be doing that. You need to think in terms of chip preservation. Indeed, you want to try to survive as long as possible. This isn’t something that sounds like a good idea — it’s the best idea that you can plant in your head. You absolutely want to be able to move around like that, because any other alternative just isn’t going to make sense. If you go for the big chi runs and you’re wrong, you’re going to lose big. Then you have to spend the rest of the tournament trying to get back to your original stack and then some. It’s better to be stingy with raises rather than the guy that blows all of his chips before the blinds have even gotten serious. Don’t be that guy.

The type of tournament that you’re in matters as well. Freerolls tend to attract a lot of fish. You cannot assume that poker newbies live and breathe this stuff. They tend to be “TV players” that hear about all of the money you can make with online poker and they certainly want a slice.

Playing that way just isn’t going to get you the type of money that you’re looking for. It’s better to think about how you can strategically survive.

Let’s move on to the other scenario: being actually at the table. [Read more…] about The Final Table of the Tournament – Yes, You Can Be Here!

Summer is Coming – and so are the Poker Tournaments!

By Martin

Summer is one of our favorite times of the year, for a lot of different reasons. There’s really nothing like being to chill, hang out with some friends, and go toe to toe with some fierce poker players. Poker again? Absolutely — we’re crazy about poker. Admit it — even if you’re a newbie, you’re probably looking for the thrill that comes from really competing against people. There are a lot of competitive things to do in life, but none really hit the spot like poker. You have so much data to study, so many people to play, and a lot of great wins if you manage to figure out a strategy that really works for you. Gone are the days where you had to just hope everything falls into place when it comes down to your entertainment. Poker is something that you can do online while making money along the way. That’s really exciting, right? Absolutely!

The time is right to look into great poker, but you might be afraid to dive in. This is where the tournaments come into play. You see, tournaments are designed to be open to just about anyone and eyesore. If you really have a weak poker game, you’ll find that freerolls are where it’s at. There will be people that are weaker than you, and this can raise your confidence. Don’t worry if that sounds mean — the other players are looking to take your chips too!

The nice part about a tournament is that you can really play a lot of hands. For newbies, this is good because it really lets you turn over hands quickly, learning what works and what doesn’t work. That whole concept of poker position matters a well. Playing in a tournament will make you very aware of position very quickly. You don’t have to be the best poker player in the world to place “in the money” when it comes to a tournament. The key here is that you want to outlast the competition. Don’t always go for the “sure bet” on the table. Let other people get risky. You’re trying to stay in the game for the long term, which is just as important as getting those big pots. As the blinds creep up and people make even more irrational decisions based on fear of loss, you’ll eventually come out ahead. There are plenty of guides that just focus on tournament play, so don’t think that you have to really stop with this one. You need to build a good strategy in the tournaments in order to do better and better. Of course, don’t beat yourself up if your tournament game is rusty from the beginning. Everyone gets good at poker in their own time, and you just might need more time than other people.

There’s no need to fear tournament play at all. The whole point of the tournament is to get you to “loosen up” in your mind. You’re a poker player now, and there’s always a chance to win more money. No, you will not always win. This is something that you’re going to have to eventually cope with. If you’re willing to keep practicing and getting better, then it’s highly likely that you’ll win a lot of money at poker over time. However, if you’re someone that’s easily pushed back because of losses, then poker really might not be your game after all. Good luck!

Making the Move to Online Poker Without Losing Your Cool

By Martin

Stressed at the thought of playing online poker, even though you’ve been doing awesome in your local poker room? You’re in luck — we know exactly what it’s like to feel like a fish out of water just because you made the switch from offline poker to online poker. Yet the temporary discomfort will unlock so many different benefits. Indeed, when you choose online poker, you’re essentially choosing convenience. You just need to make sure that you’re thinking about the bigger picture when you make the decision to move forward. That’s really all there is to it. Thankfully, you have a lot of chances to get things underway rather than feeling like you’re just spinning your wheels. The last thing that you want to do is miss out on the convenience of being able to win real money at home.

That’s right, we said it — if you play online, you have just as many chances to win serious money as you did if you were playing locally. That’s what attracts so many people to the world of online poker in the first place. However, there are a few things that you’re going to need to do in order to keep the stress low. You don’t want to lose your cool and end up blowing your chances at some good poker.

First and foremost, you want to start at LOW STAKES. Now, we put this in caps because we’ve heard way too many stories of people that think that they can make big money online the way they’ve been doing well in their local card games. This is really a recipe for disaster. You might think that you’re going to be the biggest, baddest poker player in the game but this isn’t the case at all. You will want to make sure that you are starting out low. This is so that you can just focus on playing great poker. It gives you a chance to start with a small bankroll. After all, if you’re as good as you think you are, and then your bankroll should swell up in virtually no time at all.

Online poker deals with players from all over the world, with tools that they use to refine their game to a razor blade’s edge. You’re in for a tough battle, but that should excite you not scare you. In other words, you’ll find yourself getting better just because the opposition is so much fiercer than what you’re probably dealing with in your backyard.

Moving up the stakes slowly lets you really get used to the way that online poker is played. There’s nothing wrong with going with low stakes poker. You can still make a lot of money playing low stakes. In fact, many professionals got their start grinding the low stakes poker tables.

You also want to try to invest in tools that are going to let you get even better. For example, you can go with a heads up display that will show you all of the data that you can stand. A program like Hold’Em Manager lets you see all of your opponents and study the hands that they have played against you. You can see the stats displayed right next to each player, which means that you can get a better idea for the players’ images without too much thought.

What these programs also bring to the table is the chance to review past hands. This is something that’s going to be absolutely critical when you’re trying to become a serious poker player. You can’t know where you’re going if you don’t take at least a little bit of time to figure out where you’ve been. That’s just the way it is.

If you’re going to look at old hands, you might want to be able to sit and take notes as well. You need to see any weaknesses in your game so that you can get them closed without too much hassle.

You might feel that software is cheating but we’re here to assure you that it isn’t cheating at all. As long as the site’s terms of service allows the use of external software programs, then it’s fair play. It would be different if the site blocked you from it.

You will need to also take advantage of some of the features the poker sites give you, like the ability to take notes. Being able to see all of your notes for each and every player. This means that you’ll be able to see any information you need to know in advance. There’s also a chance to color code players. This can come in handy in a hurry, especially when it comes to selecting tables. What if you were to tag all of the shark players with amazing poker skills red and all of the weaker players green? This means that when you see a table of green coded players, you know that the chances of you making good money are a lot higher than at a table full of red players.

You want to make sure that you’re taking your online poker game seriously. This is not something that you really can do while you’re watching TV. It’s just not going to work out very well. It will lead to trouble, and that’s not something that we’re trying to have right now. You get to really build a poker career that pleases you.

After all, isn’t it about your entertainment and pleasure at the end of the day? You want to make sure that you’re building the best environment for great poker that you can. If you follow the tips in this guide, you should be just fine. Don’t worry about being the master of the poker universe in a few sessions. That just won’t happen. However, if you take your poker game seriously and work on ways to improve, chances are good that you’ll be a player to watch in virtually no time at all. Good luck!

A Look at Five Card Draw Poker

By Martin

If you’re trying to diversify your poker portfolio, you really need to learn five card draw. It’s really one of the oldest forms of poker, and plenty of people know how to play it. Just because the casinos aren’t covering it doesn’t mean that it’s not important anymore. If you go to a party and they’re playing Five Card Draw, you really need to know what you’re actually playing.

Here’s what you need to know about the game.

The game is basically split into a lot of variations — you have California Draw, where there’s no restrictions on the cards needed to open or win. This is pretty cool because when it comes to high stakes, you have lots of chances to bluff and win big money.

The game is played with a regular 52 card deck, and you get up to six players. You can have even 8 players if you really wanted to, but this makes for a messed up game. Six is the optimal number here, people.

Before the deal phase, each player puts an agreed ante into the pot — this is like a forced bet, for all of you poker newbies. The ante will be the same as the minimum bet. The cards are then shuffled and cut, with the dealer dealing all cards face down clockwise one at a time until each player has five cards. This eliminates accusation of cheating from the dealer. There’s a betting round that begins after the players have looked at their cards. If everyone passes (checks) in this first round, then the cards are thrown in. The turn to deal passes to the left, the pot stays where it is, and you go through another ante session.

If you’re going to play a fixed limit game, the number of raises after the initial opening bet is going to be limited to just four.

You do have a draw phase, where you will need to figure out how to improve your hand. You can discard some cards and get new ones. The play starts from the dealer’s left, with each player choosing how many cards they intend to replace. They will then discard that number of cards face down and have them replaced by the dealer. You can discard anywhere from no cards up to three cards.

The second betting round gets pretty fierce — this is where most of the action will be. The showdown comes after the second betting round, if the pot hasn’t already been won.

It’s all about making your best hand possible. So standard hand rankings do still apply here. If you’re coming from Texas Hold’Em, then this shouldn’t be too difficult to remember.

There are some cool variations of Five Card Draw that you should definitely know about. There’s the variation that lets you draw more than three cards, which is pretty cool. You can discard and draw four cards if the fifth card is an ace. Other variations let you discard all five cards if that’s what you want.

There’s also variations that let you change the betting rounds to include blinds as well as antes.

There’s even Jacks or Better Five Card Draw, which is where a hand has to be as good as a pair of jacks to open the betting.

Keep in mind that you could open with two pair and still satisfy the “pairs or better”. The next round can include anything, but the first opener has to be from someone with “jacks or better”.

Five Card Draw is something that definitely of benefits. If you’re going to play with any type of table game, this is the one that you need to look for. Check it out today!

Visiting the Concept of Equity in Poker

By Martin

Poker equity is something that every player has to understand in order to move ahead. Sure, your plays might not need equity at the beginning but you’ll need to understand it before you can become a pro. If you’re going to bet real cash for online games, then poker equity is really how you’re going to make your money. You have to embrace the mathematical side of poker in order to maximize profits. Really, it’s not as bad you might think it is. It’s just a matter of figuring out how likely you are to win. It’s all about calculations. If the calculations are on your side, you push. However, if the calculations just aren’t in your favor, you’re going to want to fold your cards. Even if you feel you have a monster hand like AA, it could swing the other way based on the cards you receive on the flop. Smart poker players don’t get committed to the cards — they get committed to the game.

Equity and betting for value go hand in hand. Let’s take everybody’s favorite hand, Big Slick (AK).

If you have AK on a board of A-9-2 (rainbow), you have to dig deeper than just these few bits of info. You might realize that raising preflop is a good idea. You need to do this in order to scare away junk hands. Junk cards take away from the type of money that you really do deserve to have. But that’s a topic for another day. If you raise preflop and two people go in with you, you have to think about the best hand you can make.

The flop coming down A-9-2 might make you excited. Top pair, with a good kicker. However, this is when you really need to be careful. Someone could have 9-2 (yes, some people keep garbage like this just in case of a freak board) and win against you. Be prepared to fold Big Slick or watch him get creamed.

Remember that sometimes people will play garbage, especially in lower stakes. To understand the value of the other person’s possible outs, you need to think from their point of view. Three sevens and two deuces represent their outs. The chances of your opponent outdrawing you for this hand would be 40-5, or 11% (40 of the remaining cards do him no good, but 5 of them actually do). The overall win chance is 19%. Don’t worry, this means that we actually have an 81% chance of winning as well.

For every dollar you get into the pot, you will get back 81% or 81 cents. This is powerful, and a good reason why poker players love calling stations — players that really do nothing except call bets. They get sucked in, providing amusement long after the hand has already been played. Betting and raising is correct because you’ll make back the money over time, multiple bets at a time.

Equity puts you in a position to play real poker rather than just playing poker from the gut. Why not practice a little more and see what difference it brings to your game?

Are You Really Ready to Play Poker for Real Money

By Martin

Real money poker is huge. We’re not understating it either — if you’re a poker newbie, know that the competition for online poker is intense. If you’re going to play for real money, you have to realize that there are people out there that will work very hard to take every dime you put on the table. It’s just in their nature. They are playing to win. This is why it’s good to take breaks from poker, because you don’t want to get so sucked into the game that you forget what real life is about. It’s not always about competition and going head to head. If you don’t have the skill you need, you need to make sure that you practice until you have it down pat.

The biggest mistake that any poker player can do is entering the field when they really aren’t ready to play. If you’re stuck at work thinking about what a jerk your boss really is, you’re not ready to play poker. You need to mentally leave that stuff behind and think only of the action at the table. This will earn you a lot more money in the long run than if you were to just hope everything will smooth itself out. That’s just not the way poker goes. You have to make sure that you’re focused on doing all of the right things before anything else. This means going with solid poker theory.

Playing from the gut or going on hunches will make you broke. If you want to spend your money that way, fine. It’s entertainment, after all. You’re free to do whatever you want to do. However, may we make a suggestion? Learn poker theory. Practice it over and over until the rules are memorized for you. You should have a basic strategy that you love enough to play well, but that you’re not so in love with that you never do anything major. You have to make changes to your poker game every once in a while. This is true if you don’t have around to other casinos. You’re going to develop a pattern that will be used against you. There’s just no other way around it. You can’t just hope that everything will be okay. As a poker player, you have to take control of your life. You have to become captain of your own ship. You have to become someone that isn’t afraid to take risks.

If you can do that, a whole world awaits you.

If you want tips on playing better poker from the beginning, you have to start with the first one: know that there’s a time for practice. Don’t be so quick to involve money. Sure, it’s nice to make some poker wins with real cash but you can lose so much money. Make sure that your gambling money is separate from the rest of your money. There are a lot of people who believe that they can just jump in and be professional poker players. They think that it’s the ticket to a very easy life. This couldn’t be further from the truth. You’re going to need to make sure that you’re taking your time with poker.

Poker has overlap with investing. Just as big time investors starting out papertrading without real money, you’re going to have to gamble without real money. Playing as a practice player will help your strategy tremendously. It means that you aren’t paying with real cash for the mistakes that you are bound to make along the way.

Mistakes should make you tougher, not weaker. You’re going to have bad days as a poker player. You might as well get them out of the way. The power of mental clarity is something that just can’t be put into words. You have to think about the type of fun that you’re going to have. For hardcore poker players, the idea of going head to head against other people really is their idea of a good time. Don’t worry if you’re not there yet.

There is a social side of the poker community. Even though some veterans want to quickly label you as a donk, there are others that see themselves reflected in your timid actions. There’s a seat at the poker table for everyone, including you. People how tease you skip over the fact that they were once inexperienced. They forget that everyone has days where they’re not playing as well as they could. Go easy on everyone that you meet. They’re fighting a tough battle and they could use all of the help they can get.

All is fair in term so poker play. Don’t go so easy on people that you let them win pots. That might be okay when you’re just practicing but real money poker is a completely different story. Only you can determine when you’re ready for the big leagues. If you’re worried about going through too much bankroll, you need to stick with micro-stakes until things even out for you. Good luck!

A Little Concentration Goes a Long Way in Poker

By Martin

Are you trying to boost your poker averages and struggling to do so? Trust us; you are in very good company. A lot of people hope and dream to really change the outcome of their poker game, only to find that it’s a lot harder than they really make on television. You might want to win big pots, but you have to make sure that you’re concentrating.

Poker is a lot more multilayered than people think it is. You have to consider not only what you’re holding, but what your opponents are holding as well. It’s not just good enough to get a monster — you have to project that monster in order to chase out all of the people with garbage hands that end up getting lucky. That would really make things harder, wouldn’t it? It not really — you can beat players that play trash hands, but you have to adjust your image as well.

When you’re concentrating, the rest of the outside world just ceases to matter. This is a good thing. You want to make sure that you’re keeping your eye on the prize at all times. There’s no reason to believe that you have to just hope and pray that everything is going to work itself out. You owe it to yourself to play the type of poker that you’ve always wanted to play.

So you’re playing from home — which would be most of the players on casino networks in the first place — you’re going to want to make sure that you don’t have other things going on around you. Sure, it’s nice to have friends over, but when you’re deep in a serious cash tournament, you want to be able to concentrate. This goes the same for children — wait till they go to bed before you drown yourself in poker, unless you have a very forgiving and understanding spouse.

Everyone will implement these tips differently. Some people find that going to their favorite casino is relaxing enough that they don’t need to have the television on in the background. Other people will hate the silence and add in at least a little white noise. It’s completely up to you. We’ve found that when we have a lot of other distractions going on, nothing gets done the way it’s supposed to get done. What a bummer, right?

You need to focus on the fact that you’re playing for real money. It’s your hard earned money on the table. Why not make sure that it’s protected at all costs? Why not make sure that you’re really getting things under control? Why not make sure that you have everything you could want tended to in a proper manner. That’s going to really make it easier to get things handed in the proper way. Otherwise, you will spend a lot of time feeling frustrated and ultimately sick of playing poker.

Of course, if you do end up getting burnt out, it’s not a bad idea to step back and make sure that you’re getting enough rest. You might be playing a lot more poker than you think which can be enough to really stress you out. It’s up to you to get things done, so why not start today? Good luck!

Going Back to Aggressive Play in Poker

By Martin

Yes, we had to do it again: aggressive play rocks, and if you master aggressive play in the right way, you will get to see your career in poker take off quite a bit. This is because it’s always a good time to start thinking about how to get deeper in the game. You will benefit well from changing up your playing style. We decided to write about aggressive play again because so many people ask about it. Being aggressive doesn’t mean reckless, even though a lot of newcomers just assume that. It’s not the case at all. You will do a lot better thinking about pushing for aggressive play in terms of strategy. The aggressive player thinks about when and where to be aggressive, but also what type of intensity to honestly expect. You want to make sure that you’re thinking about your folds and your bluffs. Some people fold at the drop of a hat, while others think about staying in too long.

The first thing that you need to think about is how many people are playing. If you have a lot of players, there’s much greater chance of someone having something that can honestly beat you. On the other hand, if you have just a few players, then you might have better chances of actually landing on something good and being able to move around better.

You also want to look at how many chips you have. If you have the most chips out of everyone, then it’s time to put those chips to good use. Don’t let them just see the flop for free all of the time. If you do that, then they’re going to get used to that fine treatment and walk all over you. It makes a lot more sense to dig down deeper and start looking at the type of players you’re working with. A lot of players, when they don’t have any chips to speak of, will hunker down and the blinds will start eating them alive. This isn’t a good way to spend one’s time at all.

You are a lot better off in the long run to start thinking about how you interact with the other players and who is actually playing from pot to pot. Is there someone who always tends to raise? If so, then you know that they are playing a bit aggressive and you will want to study how they react. Poker is definitely a matter of psychology as well as strategy, and thinking about these things will truly make a difference for you in the long run.

Don’t forget to look at position. You need to look and see about whether or not you’re really in a good betting position, or if you’re just kidding yourself. Simply put, a good betting position means that you get to see how everyone else is playing before you make your own bet. This usually means being the small or big blind since they go last.

If you have the shortest stack on the table, you might think that aggressive play is going to carry you home. This isn’t the case at all. You would be better served thinking about when to push and when not to. Since you look desperate, everyone is going to assume that you have nothing to lose and take your chips along the way.

There’s also nothing wrong with taking things slowly to begin with. This gives you a time where you can adjust your image as you need to rather than getting caught up in the details. That’s going to give you the power to stay in the game for a long time. This is even more the case when it comes to tournaments where staying alive really is the top problem that you’re going to face.

Seeing how people respond to a raise is one of the key points of becoming a more aggressive player — just remember that aggressive really doesn’t mean reckless. That’s something that seems to be going around a lot, but it’s not where you want to be. Break out and profit today!

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