No Limit Holdem Advice

I left my last article talking about how to manage your stack when you have a stack of 10 big blinds.  In this article I am going to share with you the type of hands I would recommend shoving when choosing a hand to make a move with.  I am going to discuss situations in which you are the first to act in the pot whether it be you being under the gun or if everyone has folded their hands to you.  Poker can be very tricky but with these tips hopefully it’ll start treating you a little better. 
 After we get passed the obvious shoving hands such as all pocket pairs, AK and AQ  a player may become unsure of themselves when making their all in move.  Say we are under the gun with a hand like A7.  I would recommend folding this hand in this situation because A7 plays horribly after the flop because you wont be able to use both your cards for straights and if isn’t suited then that takes away from your chances even more. When a player calls you in this situation more often than not the calling player will have you dominated pre-flop.  If the player is calling with 7s or better then you are only drawing to your ace and if they call with A8 or better then your down to only hitting a 7.  Ok now let’s say were in the same situation with J 10 or a hand like 53 (or some other suited connectors).  Hands like these play better after the flop because of straight and flush draws.  There also more effective because if your not getting called by a pair you are getting called by hands like AK, AQ.  It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that 53 plays better against AK than the A7 we folded under the gun before. 
Ok now let’s say we are on the button or in the cutoff position with the same A7.  A hand like this is ALWAYS a shove even though you are going to get picked off sometimes(its just the nature of the beast), a player cant afford to fold in a situation like this with only 10 big blinds.  The difference is your only shoving against 2 or 3 players as oppose to shoving against the entire table.  Now with a hand like 53 in the same situation, some players would fold and some players would shove any 2 cards no matter what.  Before shoving a hand like this in any situation you should evaluate the table and re-evaluate your image on the table and make your best decision from there.  If you seem likes a wreck less player then players might call you with a wider range but if your image is tight then players may lay down the better hand and let you take the pot. 
 I am not saying this is THE way to look at these situations but go ahead and take these tips and see how they work within your game.  When all else fails, simply walk away from the game and never look back. J

When poker tournaments are in the late the stages there are many different kinds of stack sizes that players could have.  You’ll have the chip leader, middle stacks and you’ll have those small stacks clinging on for dear life.  In this article I am going to discuss the small stack play and how to use your chips more effectively than you may have in the past.  Playing small stack poker can be a tricky thing  and players sometimes do not play their stack correctly which in result could end their tournament life.  I am going to discuss small stack play in which the player has roughly 10 big blinds to work with.
 Let’s imagine that you are in a tournament in the late stages and you find yourself with a stack of about 10 big blinds.  This is a situation in which a player has to choose a hand to make their move with.  With this many blinds there is no time to mess around and in my opinion there are only two options when you have a stack of this size; it’s either all in or fold.  I say this because you don’t have a stack to limp in with because odds are you will miss the flop completely and someone will more than likely bet you out of the pot.  If you were to keep doing this over and over your chips would disappear very quickly.  I don’t really recommend limping but it make me cringe when I see players do it with 10 big blinds or less. 
 The other option I don’t recommend doing is the standard raise unless the player is an experienced player and they have been in this spot before.  The two options I would stick to if I was a new player would be to go all in or just simply fold.  Now this can tricky as well because you don’t constantly fold your hands away because the blinds and antes will eventually run you out of chips.  On the flip side a player doesn’t want to all in with any two random cards at any point in time.  The decision to go all in can come down to a couple different factors.  One factor would be the position on your table.  If you are one the first to act then I would recommend shoving a stronger hand but if you are close to the button and one of the last to act then your hands don’t have to be as strong.  It’s a very tricky situation to master but on the flip side I don’t think poker is a game anyone can master because the game is constantly changing.
 So if you find yourself in a 10 big blind situation think about some of the tips I just gave and see how the works out.  Choose your spots wisely, don’t fold all your chips away and finally pay attention to your position on the table.  Stay tuned for my next article where I will discuss the type of hands that I recommend when making your move all in.  Good luck in your next poker tourney!

We all have different reasons on why we play the game of poker but for the majority of us it’s the rush that cards can bring, perhaps the hopes of winning a WSOP bracelet, or simply for the money.  Cashing in tournaments isn’t the easiest thing in the world to do so when you do cash in tournaments you want to make the most out of those situations.  But before a player can enter the money stage of the tournament all players must go through what we like to call ‘bubble play’. 

When the bubble comes around and players are about to cash and all the short stacks start to call time bank, this is where a player can take advantage of their table.  The idea is to become a little more aggressive when the bubble play comes around because other players become scared to make a play because they want to make it into the cash.  New and inexperienced players who haven’t reached this part of a tournament may not play back at you if they are low in chips and they are about to make money.  They will do anything to avoid being eliminated before bubble play is over so this is the perfect time for players to take advantage of a tight table and really start to accumulate chips.  This doesn’t mean get wreck less with your chips but beware of spots where you can raise when you normally wouldn’t. 

Also on the flip side of this there are many players out there that are aware of the bubble play and the strategies behind it.  That being said you may come across some players willing to play back at you because they quickly realize you are trying to exploit the bubble play.  It’s a tricky situation in some cases and it may take a couple tournaments to pick up on certain tells.  Choose your spots wisely and best of luck on making the cash.

Cash games and tournaments are two horses of a very different color. Despite that fact that no-limit hold’em is the most popular variant in each style, there are a multitude of strategy adjustments that must be made when switching from one to another.

It is rare to find a cash game player who completely resists the lure of tournaments. For a few reasons, tournaments are very appealing. First, there is the “lottery effect” where you can turn a relatively small investment into a huge sum with some luck. Second, tournaments are where most of the TV time and celebrity exposure is at. No one particularly cares about a guy who makes $2 million in cash games, but a guy who does that in tournaments stands to receive an endorsement deal and TV exposure (at least a few years ago, anyway).

Here are some common mistakes that cash game players make in tournaments:

Splashing Around Too Much

Cash game players are accustomed to playing with deep stacks. Players in most cash games have a stack of 100 big blinds or more. Tournaments simply don’t work this way. After the first few levels, the average stack in a tournament is usually 25-60 big blinds depending on the quality of the structure and competition. Oftentimes, cash game players are too slow to adjust to the shorter stacks. One of the major adjustments that needs to be made is fewer hands are played meaning fewer raises are called before the flop. When stacks are 200 big blinds deep, it can make sense to call a raise with Six-Five suited. In a tournament when stacks are just 50 big blinds deep, this becomes much less of a viable play.

Giving People Too Much Credit

The value of re-stealing in a tournament is sometimes lost on cash game players. For example, when a tournament player is down to just 15 big blinds and an aggressive player makes a raise, it can make good sense for the player to re-raise all-in with a hand like Ace-Nine suited. All too often, cash game players don’t realize the value in making this play. They tend to give the player more credit for having a huge hand rather than acknowledging that it makes sense for them to be re-raising all-in with a fairly sizable range. This is because, in cash games, when a player moves all-in preflop, they usually have a monster, so cash game players have been conditioned to think “all-in preflop = big hand”.

Making Hero Calls

Cash game players are used to being able to take gambles on making very thin calls. After all, if they’re wrong, they can always just reload in their typical game. In tournaments, it makes less sense for players to bluff since if their bluff fails, they’re out of the tournament. Cash game players aren’t always aware of this, and therefore have a tendency to make big “hero calls” on the river thinking their opponent is bluffing. While river bluffs occur regularly in cash games, they’re really not used much by players in tournaments.

In live poker games, you only get to play about 30 hands per hour. At this rate, it can take a while to build an understanding of your opponents. Thankfully, there are some general stereotyping guidelines you can follow to have an understanding of how your opponents will play even if you just sat down at the table. It simply takes too long to learn your opponents’ tendencies in live games. To really beat the game, you’ve got to make a few assumptions based on the player’s apparent age, race, sex, and lifestyle.

Old Guys

These players usually have a pretty decent understanding of hand values. A lot of them have hangups about being caught with their pants down, so they’ll be pretty reluctant to call huge bets with marginal holdings. Risk-aversion is the name of the game with these players. They sit there, grind it out, and do everything possible to avoid having their head taken off. When holding a strong hand against them, you’ll just have to make small- to medium-sized value bets in hopes that they’ll call you down.

Women

Sure, there are a few exceptions to this rule, but by and large, women are pretty bad at poker. They often have a lackluster comprehension of hand values and are pretty easy to trap into calling bet after bet so long as they have at least top pair. Unlike with old guys, it’s pretty safe to fire larger bets against women. They don’t seem to put as much emphasis on “how much” was bet… only that something was bet. Use this to your advantage. If you want them to fold, just try betting something small to see if they’ll go away. If you want them to call, bet somewhat hefty.

Young Guys

Young guys can kind of be hit or miss. The “drunken frat boys” can tend to play pretty bad whereas the “quiet kid with a hoodie and an iPod” could be one of the best players in the world (thanks to hundreds of thousands of hands of online poker). But by and large, young guys play pretty well. When in doubt, it’s best to just stay out of their way. However, if you have a druken frat boy at your table, don’t be afraid to milk him for all he’s worth if you have a big hand. Often they have some “macho” hangups that disallow folding. Young guys are also easy to induce into making a bluff, so don’t shy away from leading out at the flop if you hit it really well.

Asians

Asian males, for the most part, are completely erratic. A lot of deeply-rooted cultural inferiority leads to them attempting to “prove something” while at the poker table. They like to play loose, make a lot of bluffs, and gamble it up! A term used in the poker world to describe these players is “crazian”. If you run into a crazian, try to trap them by betting big and hoping they pick a poor spot to bluff all-in. The downfall of these players is their inability to admit defeat. However, with all of that being said, they’re often pretty good at poker albeit insane. There’s nothing wrong with staying out of their way and waiting for that monster hand to rob them blind and leave them shouting, “webuy!”

Hispanics

You won’t see a ton of Hispanics at the poker table, but when you do, I’ve noticed a lot of them carry a “just happy to be here” attitude. They’ll generally play very straightforward; if they have a hand, they’ll bet, if they don’t, they’ll fold. You can open up a little more against these guys. As long as you seem friendly and respectable to them, they’ll generally fold a lot to you.

Poker is a high stakes game – there’s no doubt about that.  However, when you allow yourself to be caught up in the rush of emotions of bluffs and bad calls, you’re playing with what’s called a tilt.  Maintaining a calm, cool composure when you’re playing poker can be difficult, but it’s this rational thought that will allow you succeed when other players falter.

So what’s the problem with being on tilt?  After all, isn’t a little passion and excitement what makes the game of poker so much fun?  Well, succeeding at poker requires calculated risk and clear thinking, and you can’t do that if you’re on edge.  Think about the last time you got into a fight with a friend or family member.  Did you say things you didn’t mean to, or things that you wish you could have taken back after the argument is over?  In fact, some scientists have estimated that your IQ drops as much as 10 points when you’re agitated or upset – and this can definitely have a negative impact on your poker game.

The following are some instances when you might experience tilt during a poker game:

-If you’ve lost a few hands in a row – especially if you’ve lost due to mistakes you’ve made.  It’s natural to get upset after losing repeatedly, so try to remember that even the best poker players have bad days.  If you let yourself get upset over a few bad hands, you’ll fall deeper and deeper into a tilted state of mind, making it less likely that you’ll be able to recover your composure and get back on track.

-If you’ve lost more money than you intended to.  Let’s face it – we all go into poker games expecting to wind up the triumphant player with towering stacks of chips.  But if you’ve dropped a few hands, you could be out quite a bit of cash or even your entire bankroll.  If you find yourself in this situation, leave the game immediately – don’t throw more cash at a bad situation.  You won’t be able to make good decisions, so the odds of recovering the money you’ve lost are pretty bad.

-If you find yourself getting frustrated with one player in particular.  If you’ve ever played against someone on a lucky streak, you know how irritating this can be.  It’s tough to watch someone else get all the good hands, and even more painful when that player seems to be immune to your bluffs.  If you find yourself singling out another player as your nemesis, take a step back from the situation.  If you’re able to bring your focus back to the game as a whole, that’s great.  But if not, it may be time to call it quits for the day.

Of course, tilt isn’t always so clear-cut.  You might notice an increase in your blood pressure or in your frustration level after just one off hand or after a single bluff of yours is called.  Or it could be that you’ve had a stressful day at work and you’re letting your feelings bleed over into your poker game.  Try to remember how you feel when you’re playing at your best – you’re cool, calm and in control of the game.  Work on getting back to this rational state of mind when you’re on tilt and you’ll be well on your way to winning at the game of poker.

As you already know, poker is a game of skill, luck and bluffing.  However, there are very few people who can get away with bluffing without revealing themselves to their opponents in some small way – whether it’s a twitching of the lip, an increase in eye movement, or some other physical mannerism.  By learning to recognize these signs – commonly called poker “tells” – you’ll be able to determine whether or not an opponent is bluffing, improving your odds of succeeding in poker.

When you’re just getting started as a poker player, try focusing on one specific opponent, instead of trying to understand everyone who’s seated at your table.  Watch this player discreetly, looking for patterns in his or her responses to specific hands.   If you realize that the player was bluffing on a certain hand, try to recall whether he or she exhibited any unusual mannerisms during that round that might clue you in to future bluffs.

One of the first places to look for the signs of a bluff is in the eyes.  The eyes can tell a lot about what a person is thinking or experiencing, which is why you’ll find many professional poker players wearing visors or sunglasses to block them from their opponents.  Look specifically for an increase in eye movement and blinking, as both of these can be signs that a player is bluffing.  You can also try to measure the number of times the player looks at his or her hand during the round – players are likely to look at their hands more often when they’re bluffing than when they’re not.

You can also look for slight changes in a person’s face or body language that give away a poker bluff.  When some people are nervous, they develop facial twitches or shaky hands, and their posture may change to become more rigid or relaxed.  Of course, picking up on these tells requires you to be carefully observing specific players when they are bluffing and when they’re not so that you’ll be able to notice the difference.  Try not to make it obvious that you’re watching them – move your gaze slowly around the table as you take in specific details.  A few other tells to look for are eye pupil dilations, signs of a dry throat, increased sweating, unusual flexing of muscles and changes in the body gestures.

Finally, look for changes in behavioral responses that could indicate a poker bluff.  Players who are bluffing may shuffle their cards around more often, or may play more with their chips, as if contemplating reactions to different possible outcomes for the hand.  Players who talk more often than usual may be demonstrating the nervous energy that’s associated with a bluff, while normally talkative players that become suddenly quiet may also be hiding a bluff.  You may even be able to pick up on a bluff by the way a player stacks his or her chips – the pattern may be different when that player is bluffing.  Again, you’ll only be able to pick up on these cues if you watch a player regularly in order to determine which behaviors are normal and which indicate a bluff.

There are two major advantages to studying poker tells.  First, you’ll improve your chances of winning if you’re able to pick up on when your opponents are bluffing.  But also, as you become more aware of how poker tells translate to the game, you’ll be better able to control your own tell signs, or at least compensate for them enough to confuse your opponents.  Over time, both of these benefits can lead to a dramatic improvement in your poker winnings.

One method many online poker players have adopted in recent years is called “short stacking”. This is an approach one can take in no-limit hold’em cash games. Online poker rooms have a minimum and a maximum buy-in for their no-limit games. Usually, the minimum buy-in is 20-40 big blinds and the maximum buy-in is 100-200 big blinds. Short stacking means buying in with the absolute minimum and looking for spots to shove all-in preflop.

For example, a $5/$10 game I used to play had a minimum buy-in of $200 and a maximum buy-in of $1,000. Late in the night after many fish had come and gone, it wasn’t uncommon to see 3 or 4 players sitting with more than $2,000. Since my bankroll wasn’t large enough to buy-in for the maximum, occasionally I would sit down with the minimum, $200.

Most players who short stack really only make one play: fold or shove all-in preflop. The point of this article isn’t to tell you exactly what hands you should shove all-in with in what position. The complexities of no-limit hold’em make it hard to play under a rigid structure. For players who like to look at preflop starting hand charts, take it to the kiddie tables (limit hold’em).

The goal when short stacking is to double up and leave. Buying in for the bare minimum, doubling up, and then leaving has received a lot of criticism from the poker community. Most of this criticism comes from jaded max buy-in players who don’t know how to handle short stackers. We can argue whether short stacking is unethical or not, but people who participate in that type of whining and moaning are probably going to elect Barack Obama President of the United States and lead to the economy’s collapse as a result of taxing businesses to death. The relevant matter is this: as long as online poker rooms let players buy-in for 20 or 40 big blinds and allow them to leave whenever they damn well please, there’s no reason one should feel bad for short stacking.

Harrah’s has really improved the World Series of Poker main event this year. While the Main Event has always had pretty good structure, allowing for a lot of play, they have made it simply amazing this year. The blinds move up very slowly, allowing for more play and skilled players to increase their advantage over amateur players.

While this will decrease the ‘lottery’ appeal of the Main Event, I think it is an overall good thing. The WSOP Main Event should reward skill heavily. After all, it is poker’s main tournament of the year. No-limit hold’em will always have sufficient variance to allow lesser-skilled players a chance. The new structure certainly allows a skilled amateur to win the whole thing, but the amateur will now definitely need to be skilled.

If you’ve ever read any poker book before you will undoubtedly have read about how it’s better to bide your time and play only premium hands. For a long time I subscribed to that school of thought but I came to realize that the theory is flawed, particularly in a No Limit Hold ‘Em tournament. You might get through the first few blind levels without ever putting your chip stack in danger and you might also outlast several of your opponents, perhaps even enough to make it in the money. However when the field has dwindled down to just a handful of players who have been playing more aggressively during the last few levels stealing blinds and antes have now accumulated a large majority of the total chips and you’re left with only 3-4 rounds of BB + antes. You’ve now become

prey for the bigger stacks at the table who will wield their stacks around and you will eventually be eliminated. So how do you avoid this situation? By being the increasing your aggressiveness as the blind levels start increasing.

You’re registered in a 90 player tournament, the starting chip stack is 1500 and the blinds are at $10/$20. The first 14 players will be paid.

You played conservatively through the first 7 levels, you picked up a few pots with some strong hands, made a bluff here and there.

Now the field looks like this:

Remaining players: 24 - 4 tables of 6 players

Blinds: $200/$400

Antes: $25

Average chip stack: $5,000

Your chip stack: $4,375

You sit down at the table and these are your opponents

Player 1 $8,675

Player 2 $5,340

Player 3 $6,220

Player 4 (You) $4,375

Player 5 $1,125

Player 6 $3175

With just 24 players remaining if you want to make it to the final table and increase your chances of winning the tournament you must switch into hyper aggressive mode. When a tournament gets so close to the money the majority of players will guard their remaining chips with their life and will become super tight and that’s when you swoop in and steal their blinds in antes.

You are in the dealer position and everybody folds around to you holding Q? 4?. You make it $1200 to go, the small blind gets out of the way and the big blind calls.

The flop comes K? 8? 4?

You picked up a backdoor flush draw but you didn’t connect.

Player 6 (BB) Check

Player 4 (You) ?

The BB called your preflop raise but checked on the flop. He could either be slow playing a K or he could be on a flush draw.

You bet the pot, $2750 enough to put the BB all-in. He ponders for a second but reluctantly folds.

In a situation like this, the only way the BB was going to call you is if he made the nuts (the best possible hand) and because of his check on the flop you know he didn’t.

Now you pickup a pot worth $2600 and your chip stack is now at $5925. In one hand you went from 4th largest stack at the table to 3rd.

I can’t stress this enough, when you are close to the money players will rarely risk a large

percentage of their stack. Instead they’ll play ultra-conservative just to make it in the money.

By constantly raising and re-raising pots you will rapidly build your chip stack, and the more your stack grows the more aggressive you should become. There is one instance in which this type of play should be avoided and that is when another big stack is involved in a pot. You should never butt heads with another player that can put you all-in unless you’re holding the nuts.

Keep in mind that playing hyper aggressive doesn’t mean going in with any two cards either. There are very few instances in which you should play hands like 7? 2?, but once you get a feel that the players around you fold to any substantial raise your cards don’t even matter anymore.

If you have ever watched a professional poker tournament you will have noticed this style of play by several players, the most notorious of which is The Great Dane Gus Hansen.