Poker Room Hustle

Some great Cash Game Strategy From Daniel Skolovy for PokerListings.com

Why You Shouldn’t Slow-Play

The object of poker is to win the most money. That’s it – that is your goal.

That’s why you’re playing poker and not pogs.

In other words, all the strategies you employ are just a means to one end: the money. In light of that, one of the mistakes I see the majority of newcomers make is slow-playing. Or slow-playing too much.

Slow-playing, for the most part, is counterproductive. If your goal is to get the most money in the pot, how are you going to do that by checking? You build pots by betting your big hands, not by lurking in the weeds with them.

Here’s an example of your average slow play:

Effective stacks $200; blinds $1/$2. You’re dealt 6 6 on the button. A player from early position raises $6 and you make the call.

The flop comes out 3 6 A. Your opponent bets $10. You call. The turn is the T.

Your opponent bets $18 and you just call. The river is the 7. Your opponent checks and you bet $35. Your opponent calls. You table your set of sixes and he mucks his A K. You scoop a $138 pot.

OK, so you won a $138 pot. You might be patting yourself on the back saying “Nice hand.” This is not a nice hand.

When you flop a big hand like a set, you want to play for stacks. This is what you’ve been waiting for, folding 6-2 and 5-9 all day. So now that you’ve finally hit your monster, you want to waste it by trying to slow-play? That kind of strategy is just wrong-headed.

Big Hands Want Big Pots

When you flop a monster you want to win your opponent’s stack. It’s very difficult to win someone’s stack by slow-playing.

Why? When you slow-play you often find yourself with a small pot. Your goal of getting your stack into the middle when the pot is small becomes very difficult. You can’t exactly bet $200 into a $4 pot, can you?

If you build the pot the entire way, it will be big enough on the end that you can comfortably bet your entire stack.

The hand in the example was played well by our villain. He played it like most villains would in this spot. He bet two streets into you and when you called multiple times he went for the conservative river approach. He checked and then called a river bet.

He did this to avoid getting raised (which is what you would have done). In this situation it’s very difficult to get paid off after having just called two streets. If you had raised the flop then he most likely would have had to call with his top pair, top kicker, thus building the pot further.

Let’s look at an example where there is no slow-playing:

Effective stacks $200; blinds $1/$2. You’re dealt 6 6 in the cut-off. The player from early position makes it $6 to go. Everyone folds to you; you make the call.

The button and blinds fold and you take a flop heads-up of 3 6 A. Your opponent bets $10. Opting against the slow play, you raise the flop to $45. Your opponent calls.

The turn brings the T. Your opponent checks. There is now $102 in the pot and just under $150 left in your stack. You bet $70.

Your opponent tanks and calls. The river comes down 7. Your opponent checks and you bet your remaining $80. Your opponent calls and tables A K. Your set of sixes takes the $400 pot.

By building the pot the entire way it made it easy to get your entire stack into play. When the pot is large it also gives your opponent incorrect odds. He may have felt on the river he was pot-committed since he had already put 60% of his stack into play and the pot is offering 4-1 on his call, making it extremely difficult to fold.

Still, There Must Be Times When Slow-Playing Is Correct

Yes, you’re right. In poker, one strategy is never always correct. You always need to take into consideration the table dynamics, your image, your opponents’ playing tendencies, etc. before you decide how to act.

I’m not advocating never slow-playing. I’m just encouraging you to use it sparingly.

One situation where slow-playing is correct is against an ultra-aggressive player whom you know to have a history of betting three streets strong with weak holdings and who will continue their aggression until they are played back at. In that case it is not terrible to slow-play.

As an example:

You’re playing an extremely aggressive opponent. You have seen him bet three streets with as little as ace-high.

Effective stacks $200; blinds $1/$2. You’re dealt T T in the small blind. The ultra-aggressor raises to $8 UTG and it’s folded to you. You elect to just call. The flop comes down T 2 5.

You check and your opponent bets $20. You just call. The turn comes 5. You check and your opponent bets $65. You call.

The river comes A. You bet $100 and your opponent calls with A 4. You pick up the pot with your full house.

In this situation you know your opponent is ultra-aggressive. You know he’s going to be betting with practically anything. He will build the pot for you. So there is no need to raise and make him fold his weak hand.

This situation isn’t a common one, so you have to be in tune with the table dynamics. You’ll need to be certain this opponent is willing to keep betting. Also notice in the example that the hero bet the river.

It’s very risky to go for a check-raise when our hand is this strong. If the river goes check-check we could lose a lot of value.

So there you have it. You don’t have to stop slow-playing all together. However, if you are making a habit out of slow-playing all your big hands than you are probably losing out on a ton of value!

Here is  a great article that outlines how staying fit and maintaining a healthy lifestyle will significantly improve your Poker Game

By Arthur S. Reber — I know, I know. These are supposed to be articles on poker and the psychology thereof.

But a couple of installments back we had an extended discussion on the role of self-confidence and personal assuredness and their impact on our games. In that article, I snuck in a bit on exercise.

I did it for a good reason. Physical exercise turns out to be a remarkably important element in cognitive function, and let’s face it, folks – poker, if it is anything at all, is one hell of a cognitively demanding game.

I’ve said this before, and I grow ever more certain of its truth: The game of poker, when it is played at its highest levels with the strongest opponents, is the most complex and mentally demanding game that is played routinely by members of our species.

Sure, it can be played by any old bozo and, if you wish, you can fool around at the tables without so much as cranking up your brain past its basic, grade-two level.

But if you want to truly grasp the richness of the game, its wonderfully interwoven features, its wheels-within-wheels-within-wheels strategic ploys, you’d better get that three-pound hunk of what looks for all the world like a bowl of porridge between your ears rolling.

And physical exercise will help you do it.

I’m serious. We now know that physical exercise can have a significant impact on cognitive functions, particularly on memory.

This link has been suspected for a long time, particularly in the elderly, whose declines in memory can be stopped or even reversed by a program of physical exercise. But until recently we didn’t know exactly why this happened, and we weren’t sure if it also helped younger people.

It turns out the reason is simple. Physical exercise boosts the efficiency and effectiveness of brain metabolism, specifically of lactate, glucose and an insulin-like growth factor, and it does so across the board: in rats, monkeys and people of all ages.

Simplifying a bit, these compounds are to your brain as gasoline is to an internal combustion engine. They’re the fuel.

Each of them has slightly different roles, but a series of recent studies recording brain activity shows that uptake of all three of these compounds by brain cells increases with exercise.

And, fascinatingly, the brain areas that are most affected are those known to be critical for memory, decision making and deliberative thought – functions that lie pretty close to the core of the game of poker.

So, what do you need to do? It’s fairly simple. You need to put in at least one to two hours a week doing three classic kinds of exercise: cardiovascular, strength and flexibility. If you can do more hours, so much the better.

There are all kinds of ways to do this – running, fencing, skiing. But for most of us, it’s best done with trips to the gym or wellness center.

Poker players are among the most unhealthy people in the world. They sit around all freakin’ day in a chair doing dick-all, eating on the fly, usually fatty, unhealthy foods.

Fortunately, not as many of them smoke anymore, and we can all be thankful that very few public rooms allow tobacco now. But I find myself feeling more than a bit sad when I see how many of my friends are overweight and how many of them weren’t a couple of years ago.

Between the need for solid decision making, thinking and memory and the importance of physical stamina and bodily well-being, it’s a bloody shame to see how many of us have let ourselves go.

And, yeah, I understand how tough it is to get your butt down to the fitness center two or three times a week. Sometimes I have to drag my weary self out of my comfy chair too.

But I do it. And when I do, I am really happy with myself.

I keep my weight down and my muscle tone up, and I can almost feel those glucose molecules zipping around in my medial temporal lobes (important brain areas for memory), parietal regions (involved in processing many incoming channels of information) and, of course, my frontal lobes (critical structures for decision making and deliberative actions).

OK, I’m done preaching now, but you know what? I just gave you some of the best poker advice you’ve gotten in a long time. If you follow me here it’ll give you as much of a step up in your game as reading all 72 volumes of Dan Harrington’s writings on poker.

Author Bio:

Arthur Reber has been a poker player and serious handicapper of thoroughbred horses for four decades. He is the author of The New Gambler’s Bible and coauthor of Gambling for Dummies. Formerly a regular columnist for Poker Pro Magazine and Fun ‘N’ Games magazine, he has also contributed to Card Player (with Lou Krieger), Poker Digest, Casino Player, Strictly Slots and Titan Poker. He outlined a new framework for evaluating the ethical and moral issues that emerge in gambling for an invited address to the International Conference of Gaming and Risk Taking.

Until recently he was the Broeklundian Professor of Psychology at The Graduate Center, City University of New York. Among his various visiting professorships was a Fulbright fellowship at the University of Innsbruck, Austria. Now semiretired, Reber is a visiting scholar at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada

“Here is a great Cash Game Strategy Article From Poker News Daily”

Crucial Concepts in NLHE six-max cash games

By Carl Sampson for Poker News Daily

Going through the mistakes that poker players make, it becomes pretty evident that most players seem to be locked in a downward spiral committing the same mistakes over and over again. In this article I will be taking a look at a few of those mistakes that hopefully can then be corrected in a very short space of time.

#1     Defending your blinds

It is never going to be profitable sitting in the blind seats and you are going to have to come to terms with this fact pretty quickly. A combination of having to place money into the pot without getting to see your cards first and having bad position throughout the hand is a terrible handicap to have to endure.

You need to be folding a very high percentage of your hands and this includes the big blind as well. The rest of the time you should strive to balance your play between folding and calling depending on the level of action before it gets to you and who has raised, as well as the content of your hand and the history of the game.

#2     Not paying attention to flop textures

If you raise from the button with a hand like 8c-7c and both blinds call you then you are going to have to proceed with far more care than against only one opponent. If the flop comes Qc-Jh-6h then your chances of taking this pot with a continuation bet have been greatly reduced.

We have two cards in the playing zone and both of your opponents appear to have liked their hand. Likewise if you raise with that exact same hand and both blinds call you again only this time the flop comes something like 4h-4c-2d then you may have a hard time convincing both opponents that you have an overpair and one of them will probably call you and the better players may be looking to check-raise.

In this example, you have to remember that raising with a suited connector is injecting a decent level of deception into the hand and your raise is sending out the message of “high cards” to your opponents. Once the flop appears then your two opponents are not going to be taking you for having connected with that flop unless you have something like a pocket pair.

An even worse scenario may arise if you open raise from the button with hand like 6d-5d and both blinds call you. The flop comes 4h-3d-3c, both opponents check to you and you make a two-thirds of the pot continuation bet with your straight draw. The small blind folds but the big blind who is relatively short stacked overbets the pot and moves all in.

You have no implied odds on your call and you are now making a purely pot odds decision. If you are not getting the proper odds for your call then you must fold, but in this instance then not only have you lost your bet on the flop but you have also lost out on the chance to take your opponents stack as a deuce or a seven coming on the turn will still look like it missed you to your opponent.

Also if a high card flops like an Ace or a King then you are better placed to represent that hand as a pre-flop raiser. But the texture of the flop is a critical feature of No Limit Hold’em play, and ignoring this area of the game will seriously impede any player’s chances of success.

#3     Calling raises with weak hands

There seems to be a very serious sub-culture in Hold’em in which players call raises with speculative hands looking to either hit a big flop or to outplay someone post flop. This type of play has been strongly re-enforced by televised tournament poker. But as we all know, televised tournament poker is a long way removed from cash games.

There are no escalating blinds in cash games so there is no need to accumulate chips by taking risks like there is in tournament poker. Plus the final stages of poker tournaments tend to get even more hectic where the blind to stack ratio is very small. But continuing this theme in cash games is not profitable on the whole.

One of the objectives for calling a raise with a speculative hand is not going to happen frequently enough, and that is to make a big hand. When you miss the flop (which you will do a large percentage of the time) then you are left with only two alternatives. These are either to fold and take the loss, or to try and outplay your opponent by either raising them on the flop or looking to float them on the flop and then trying to take the pot away from them on the turn.

These are highly risky plays and very expensive when they go wrong. But you will not be able to outplay your opponents often enough to compensate for your losses. Now when you go heads up with a raiser then what you are doing is a combination of one of two things, or in many cases both combined: you are either going up against a strong hand (because they raised) or you are going up against a player who is showing a strong intention that they want to play their hand (whether it is strong or not). This second reason is one that many players fail to take on board but this can leave you outplayed or outmuscled purely because your opponent had the nerve to push you even harder than you are prepared to push them.

Do not blindly think that you are making a clever play by calling a raiser even when you have position with a mediocre hand. A combination of going up against a strong hand or a strong intention or both will often mean that it is you who will be the loser and not your opponent.

Also the size of the stacks tends not to be as large in online games as they are in live cash games, and many players short stack online, which essentially means that your implied odds will be nowhere near what they should be in certain situations. Remember these three types of error and remember them well, and you should be well armed to navigate six-max NLHE cash games in the future if you do not repeat them.

The Bigger They Bet, The Harder They Fall

By Dan Katz for Poker News Daily | Posted on November 12, 2008

I’ll admit it.  I have a major leak in my sit-and-go game.  I am simply not very good heads-up.  Sure, I can win, but not nearly as often as I’d like when I get into the final two, even if I go in as the chip leader.  I just always seem to do the wrong thing at the wrong time.  There is one kind of player, however, that I do seem to have success against in the heads-up portion of a tournament: the massive overbettor.

This type of player is super-aggressive post-flop with any sort of decent, yet not monster, hand.  If he hits a pair on the flop or even finds himself with a solid draw, he will likely way overbet the pot, even to the point of going all-in, in order to protect his hand.  He will pretty much always raise pre-flop in position (since it’s heads-up, this obviously means on the button), even more than a good player normally would, and will try to beat you into submission with continuation bets after the flop.  Really, unless the board looks ultra-scary, he is not likely to take his foot off the gas once he becomes the aggressor.

Fortunately, the overbettor, or severe LAG (Loose-Aggressive) player, as we could call him, is relatively easy to defeat, provided you have patience and a stack which will allow you to play defense.

While you will, of course, need to open up your game a bit since it’s heads-up, you will want to proceed with caution pre-flop.  As always, raise with powerful hands, but be a little less aggressive than you might normally be with small to medium pairs and marginal hands like connectors (suited or otherwise).  Because your overbetting opponent is apt to raise, raise, raise, you want to keep the pots smaller with drawing hands, and this includes lesser pairs, since you will likely need to hit at least something on the board to win the hand at showdown.  The last thing you want is to get three-bet with connectors and then have to call even bigger bets after the flop if you want to continue chasing a draw.  By keeping the pot small early in the hand, you will be able to play more hands, hoping to hit big, while still being able to get away from them if need be without sustaining too much damage.

In the meantime, let the other player do all the betting for you.  You know he’s going to bet and raise, bet and raise without worrying too much about what you have, so oblige him.  He might get away with sticking his head in the lion’s mouth time and time again, but eventually, he’s going to get complacent and the jaws will snap down on him.  When you do get a hand worthy of making a move, just play it passively.  Check-call the flop if you’re out of position (which is a great spot to be in against this betting fiend when you have a big hand) and let him make his grand, greater-than-pot-size continuation bets.  If the board is still innocent looking enough, check-call the turn.  By the time you become the aggressor on the river, your opponent will likely be pot committed and will have to call you with his inferior hand.

The time to tread more lightly when you have a strong hand after the flop is when you raise your opponent’s overbet, only to have him just call.  As I mentioned earlier, this kind of opponent tends to go nuts with his betting when he has a drawing hand or something good, but not special, like top pair.  If he’s on a pure bluff, he will probably fold to a sizable raise (he’s a crazy overbettor, not a crazy bluffer).  But if he just calls, he may actually have something strong.  This doesn’t mean you should concede the hand.  It just means that you are going to need to make a read and evaluate whether or not your strong hand is likely to beat his possibly strong hand.

If you don’t want to wait until the river to make your move, that’s fine, too.  You will still likely take down a nice pot and your aggression may serve to slow your opponent down, allowing you to take control of the match.  And if he just goes right back to what he was doing, fine.  You’ll nail him soon enough.

Of course, you can’t wait too long and let your stack get whittled away if you enter the heads-up match with too short of a stack.  In that case, make your big moves as you typically would with the short stack, knowing that your opponent very well might get careless and give you a courtesy double-up.

Remember, the key to besting the habitual overbettor is patience.  It is easy to get antsy when you have to constantly fold to an opponent’s unnecessarily large bets.  But if you have a large enough stack to wait him out, you can eventually let him dig his own grave.  Also keep in mind, as I mentioned briefly earlier, that this player is not a maniac bluffer.  If he’s making his overbets, he at least has something, even if it’s just a draw.  So, trying to match his aggression with misplaced bluffs will not usually work, as he will be handcuffed to hands that will likely beat a bluff, even if those hands are weak.  Take advantage of the love he has for his middling hand and crush him when you have a monster.

Here is another great article from Pokerlistings.com about Bluffing

The Bad Bluff

By Sean Lind

There is nothing more rewarding for a pro than calling down an amateur making a bad bluff; and there’s nothing more upsetting to an amateur than getting called.

An amateur thinking at a basic level will often make a bad bluff thinking it’s a strong move. But bluffing well is an advanced skill requiring a very deep understanding of the game.

The stronger your opponent, the more advanced your bluff methodology must become.

One Hand, Two Stories

When there’s a car accident at a busy intersection, there is no shortage of witnesses for the police to talk to. Remarkably, even if the accident only happened a short time ago, each eyewitness will have a different take on what happened.

Even though every witness saw the exact same event, they all saw it (or remember it) differently. This is typically referred to as “Eyewitness Recall” in forensic psychology. Our interpretation of the current situation stems from our memory of the proceeding events.

From http://www.campsych.com/eyewitness.htm:

“Memory consists of three stages: (1) storage, (2) retention, and (3) recall. Storage factors can impede memory accuracy when we find ourselves unable to recall information from our memory because it was never stored there. For instance, can you recall which way Lincoln faces on a penny, and where the letter identifying the mint of the penny is located?”

This means that each person witnessing a hand will have their own idea of what has happened in the current hand, and in the hands leading up to it. The players in the hand, each having different information (since they both know only their own hole cards), will each have a different take on the situation.

Bad Bluff Examples

This first example is a standard, common instance of an amateur making a bad bluff.

Table Setup: The amateur is in early position with a slightly less-than-average stack size of $175. The pro is on the button with a slightly larger-than-average stack size of $325. The two players have been at the same table for a couple of hours with no significant history between them.

Pre-Flop: Amateur raises. Pro calls. Heads-up to the flop.

Flop:

Amateur checks. Pro checks.

Turn:

Amateur checks. Pro checks.

River:

Amateur bets the pot. Pro calls.

Amateur shows

Pro shows

The pro wins the pot with two pair, sixes and jacks.

In this scenario the amateur usually sits in shock, wondering how the pro could have called with nothing but bottom pair. The amateur sees the action as herself having raised pre-flop, thus giving the impression that she has a big hand.

The pro never bet any of the streets; clearly he does not have a big pocket pair. Because only the amateur has shown she has a big hand, she feels that there is no way the pro can call when the top card pairs the board.

The pro beats nothing but a bluff, and with the amateur showing strength pre-flop and playing with a tight table image, she feels that the chances she’s bluffing should seem slim to none to the pro.

The pro sees the hand very differently. Due to her tight image, the pro immediately puts the amateur on a big hand when she raises, making for an easy loose call with the suited connector. The flop gives the pro a small pair with no real strong draws.

When the amateur checks the flop, the pro now knows the amateur has one of two hands: the amateur flopped a set of jacks and is looking to check-raise, or more likely the amateur has A-K or A-Q and chose not to c-bet.

If the amateur has AA, KK, QQ or A-J, she is almost certain to make a bet with the flush draw on the flop.

The pro is now either way behind, or ahead of a player with six outs. The pro is also able to bluff having a flush if another club hits the board. If the amateur is scared of the draw, she is most likely sitting on only four outs to win now.

The turn makes no real change to the situation – when the amateur checks, the pro is now 90% sure that the amateur is on A-K or AQ. He’s willing to check behind with the lead, taking his equity rather than risking getting check-raised.

Checking behind here also sets up the amateur to make a donk bluff on the river thinking the pro will fold after showing no strength.

The river is an absolute blank as far as the pro is concerned. If he was sure the amateur didn’t have a jack on the flop, he’s even more convinced she doesn’t have one now. The amateur makes the donk bluff the pro thought she might, and snap-calls for the win.

In the eyes of the amateur, this was a strong bluff, as she believed no player without a jack could make the call. The amateur had a strong read on the pro’s hand, but didn’t stop to consider the information the pro had on her.

Amateurs are always shocked that the pro could call here with nothing more than top pair, whereas looking at it from the pro’s point of view, there was never a reason to fold.

This second example, taking place an hour after the last hand, is the reverse of the first example. Here the amateur makes what she thinks is a hero call on a pro:

Table Setup: The pro is in early position now with a large stack size of $770. The amateur is on the button with a slightly larger-than-average stack size of $325.

Pre-Flop: Pro limps. Amateur raises. Pro calls. Heads-up to the flop.

Flop:

Pro checks. Amateur bets. Pro calls.

Turn:

Pro checks. Amateur bets. Pro calls.

River:

Pro bets half the pot. Amateur calls.

Amateur shows

Pro shows

The pro wins the pot with a pair of aces.

In this example the amateur has the correct read on the pro; she knows that the pro is on the flush draw in the hand and keeps correctly betting his top pair.

When the flush misses on the river she believes the pro is making a weak bluff with a missed draw, and calls with her pair of queens.

The amateur forgot to take her thought processes one step further. Knowing the pro is on a flush draw, it’s most commonly going to be the nut flush draw he’s holding. When the ace comes on the river, the pro did miss his flush draw, but now has the best pair.

The only hand the pro is worried about losing to here is A-Q for top two. It’s a thin value bet that works out nicely.

Before you start making bluffs at your opponents, you’re going to want to take all of the possible factors into consideration. Successfully bluffing typically requires the player to set up the bluff on an earlier street. If your opponent can’t realistically put you on a hand that beats them, your bluff is going to fail.

If you play the first four streets like you’re holding something weak, only to show sudden unwarranted strength on the river, chances are you’re going to get called down. Most often these dark tunnel bluffs work when the player is actually value betting the best hand, only thinking they’re bluffing.

Before you make a move at a pot, take into consideration the picture of yourself you’ve painted to the other players, as well as the picture you have of them. Only if both of these align will your bluff have a high chance for success.

The best way to work on any poker skill, such as when to bluff, is to see as many hands as you can. Thanks to online poker rooms, seeing thousands of hands over a weekend is no longer a difficult task.

Here is a great article from PokerListings.com that shows you why hunting for sets is probably the most profitable source of income in no limit cash games.

Set Mining

By Sean Lind

Implied odds is perhaps the most important concept in deep-stacked No-Limit poker. And set mining is one of the simplest and most effective ways to take advantage of it in Hold’em.

Set mining consists simply of playing pocket pairs, while knowingly dominated, exclusively trying to flop a set. The idea is to have a hand large enough to play a big pot, while keeping it disguised well enough to stay under the radar and get paid.Before you can really understand the ideas behind set mining, you have to have a firm grasp of implied odds. Daniel Skolovy wrote a slick article on implied odds. If you need to learn, or would just like a quick refresher, check it out here.

Quick Look at Some Numbers

Let’s start with a hypothetical situation:

You are dealt 99 on the button; a player in middle position raises four times the big blind with AA. You call; the two of you go heads-up to the flop.

The chances of you flopping a set are just a bit better than 8-1 against. Since it’s not important to be exact at the poker table, using 8-1 will serve our purposes just fine. This means out of the nine times you make this call, you’re only going to flop a set once.

You put in just under 50% of the money pre-flop, and are an 8-1 dog. You had horrible pot odds, and at the pot-odds level, it appears you just made a huge mistake.

Luckily, if you do flop your set on a flop such as 239, you’re going to get paid, and paid well enough to make up for all those other times you missed.

The odds of flopping set over set are in the neighborhood of 1-98 – we’ll say 1-100 to make things easy. This means that if you flop your set on a nonthreatening board like the one above, you are going to be willing to get all your money in.

Although you will lose your stack when you flop a lower set, it is rare enough that it’s still very profitable to set mine, disregarding this risk.

If we get all the money in with our top set of nines on the 239 flop, AA has only a 10% chance of winning the pot. As you can see, the implied odds are huge, even though our pot odds are tiny.

Stack Sizes

To set mine profitably, you need to be playing in a very deep-stacked situation. Being deep-stacked means playing with an absolute minimum of 100BB. Ideally, you should only apply deep-stacked strategy to situations when you’re playing with a stack of over 200BB.

The odds of you hitting your set and winning the pot are very slim pre-flop. You are a 4-1 dog with nines against aces. When you play this hand, you need to be in a situation where you can win a pot large enough to make up for all the times you lose the hand, which will be the majority.

This makes set mining a very poor idea in short-stacked poker and almost all tournament situations. Especially in non-major online tournaments, it is rare to be truly deep-stacked in a tournament.

Before ever considering whether or not to set mine, you need to take a look at your opponents’ stack size. Your only goal with a set mine is to win a stack, or double up. You can’t afford to do any less.

Show Me the Money

Because set mining is almost exclusively flop-dependent, you want to put in the least amount of money possible until after you see the flop. If the pre-flop raiser raises too much, it can upset the fine balance of keeping the net gross of your few wins above your net losses.

On top of this, when you do flop your set, you still need to get paid. In a serious deep-stacked situation with strong players, everyone will be playing with the same understanding: no player wants to get serious money into the pot without having a very large hand.

On the flop from earlier, there is simply no draw or hand that would be willing to put large money into the pot. Aces beats pocket tens through kings; since you didn’t reraise pre-flop, chances are you don’t have kings, and maybe not queens. This means aces can only beat two possible hands willing to go to war in this pot.

A bad poker player will be willing to get it all-in with aces here; this is where your skills in reading your opponents become important. If you’re up against a player who can’t fold aces, then no matter what you do, chances are you’re going to get it all for a big pot.

If aces bets out and you just call here, what could you be calling with? If you have an overpair, why would you call?

If you put him on a c-bet or a bluff, it makes more sense to raise and see where you stand. There are no draws, so the only thing that would flat-call on this flop has to have aces beat.

That is, unless the player holding aces has no respect for you, and thinks you’d donk off your stack with any sort of pair. If you’re up against a good player here, chances are you want to raise and make it look as if you’re on tens and are trying to end the pot right there.

Most often aces will just call and check the turn to you. Now you can keep on value betting. Think and bet exactly as you would if you had tens and believed he was bluffing. You want to bet small enough to make him want to call.

If he is behind, aces have a lot of outs against anything but a set. Even If you have two pair, aces have five outs on the flop, and eight on the turn. If you keep it cheap they’ll stick around. Hopefully they’ll decide you’re bluffing, or the board will pair, making them think they just counterfeited you.

When you have a set, you want to take the time to think about what your opponent has, and what they can put you on. Choose a hand that makes sense, which they can beat. Then play as if you have just that.

If you are to become a successful sit-n-go poker player then in my opinion you have to be very confident in your abilities, play fearlessly and become fairly aggressive. The reason for this is that passive players who only play the nuts or premium hands pre-flop become to predictable and in turn become extremely easy read, therefore they are very vulnerable to a lot of bluffs and also wont get paid off when they have made a premium hand post flop.

On the other hand If you are constantly mixing up your play, e.g. raising with suited connectors, or just calling a raise with AK, then you always leave your opponents guessing and they never know if you have made a hand or you’re bluffing, this uncertainty in your opponents leads you to getting paid off when you have made quality hands, and also allows you to effectively pull of bluffs in some situations.

However the key factor in taking this approach is to be very confident, if you aren’t confident and don’t believe in your abilities, then you too will eventually become an indecisive player who is very passive and only plays the nuts. You will see yourself folding cards that would’ve produced straights or 2 pair on the flop and when you eventually do get your AK or high pockets you will get a tough beat and your sit-n-go is over. To me there is no sense in only waiting for high cards and pockets to play a pot in sit-n-go’s, you must remember that any two cards are good if you hit your flop, and the more unpredictable your cards e.g. 85 suited, 10,8 suited, then there more likely you are going get paid off if you make a strong hand, and if you don’t make a hand you simply fold. Also this approach cleverly disguises your strong hands, e.g. if you have KK preflop and you raise you might get re-raised by an Ax just because of your table image, this allows you to squeeze out more money out of your opponents.

In poker you have to play the opponent not the cards, well you do play the cards to some extent but it’s mainly the player. Ill give you an example, I am in the Big Blind with 34 suited, there are 5 players left in the sit-n-go, everyone folds except the small blind who raised it 4xBB. Now we have been playing for a while and I am very aware of this guys playing style, he only raises with high cards or high pockets and hardly ever raises with junk, also I had seen him fold his small blind a few times when there was no pre-flop raise. All this info lets me know that this player is very passive and will only bet if he has made a good hand, the flop comes out 2,2,6, small blind checks and I bet half the pot as I know that flop couldn’t have helped him. He reluctantly calls, the next card is an 8 and is pretty irrelevant, he checks and check behind him considering he might have pockets. Next card is a 3 and I have made a pair, the small blind checks again and now I am fairly certain that he hasn’t hit and my 3 is good, anyhow just to be on the safe side I check it down and win the pot as he showed AQ. If my 3 didn’t hit i would’ve made a considerable bet on the river and if the card wasn’t an ace or queen my opponent would’ve most likely folded and i would’ve took down the pot with 3,4. So remember you don’t have to have high cards to win all the time, you must be able to read your opponents accurately and this will lead you to win more Poker sit-n-go Tournaments in the long run.

If you are to become a good poker player and make a living of playing poker in the long run then you must realize the fact that poker is a long term business. No single session will determine how good or bad you are at poker, it should be fairly clear that in order to become a winning poker player you have to be consistent and win over the long run. You could win $5K over the course of a week but then blow it all in one night if you are not dedicated and disciplined enough to play No limit Poker, therefore you must have the right attitude when playing in order to succeed. No limit Holdem is a very tricky game and if you don’t approach it with the right mind frame and knowledge you will wind up going broke in no time at all. It is essential to be aware of the variance factor in no limit poker, and be prepared to handle bad beats, miracle suck outs, and also have the discipline to avoid gambling in certain situations so you don’t end up tilting and donating your entire hard earned stack.

When you play poker for a living (No Limit Cash Games) you should be in the mind frame that the game is continuous, it never stops, you could come back 5 hours later or even the next day and continue playing. Therefore you should approach every situation independently and not get too attached to any single hand (unless you have the absolute nuts), because the fact remains that, there are plenty more hands to come and there will always be a better spot to get your money in if you feel you are beat. So do not risk more than you have to on any particular hand. Study your opponents and the board to the best of your abilities, if the board displays cards that are likely to have you beat (e.g. flushes, straights, 4 card straights or flushes etc.) and your opponent appears strong then lay your hand down. It doesn’t matter whether your holding pocket aces or you have trips, when your beat your beat, and laying your premium hands down when you know your beat is what separates the pros from the amateurs. With that being said always remember who you’re playing against, you may have to call an opponent down with mid pair at the river, only because he is a loose aggressive player who has the ability to continually make plays and bluffs. So there are a lot of factors to take into consideration when you are involved in any particular hand; analyzing them separately and individually on each hand without emotions affecting your judgment, is what’s going to help you become a better no limit poker player.

Remember The cycle is continuous, so don’t put pressure on yourself to make a certain amount in one night or think that “I have to win a hand in the next half an hour”. Instead just let the cards do there job, you do yours, which is play solid poker, and let everything else flow into action. If you begin to think objectively about every situation (this can be done by taking a third person view of the hand and analyzing the situation objectively without any emotions), suppress your emotions at the table and understand that the game is continuous and there is plenty of time left for you to make money from your opponents. Then I assure you will gain a significant edge over your competition and will see yourself making better reads, better decisions, and overall, playing better Poker in No Limit Cash Games.

These days everyone seems to be hooked on Online Poker and the majority of the new generation of poker players almost exclusively play online and have probably never seen or played in a live cash game. Back in the days before poker became a global phenomenon it was only played in brick and mortar cardrooms, in casinos, or in illegal cardrooms, there was no internet poker and the game was played in its original normal fashion. Although Internet Poker may be convenient, easily accessible and extremely fast paced, all factors which allow you to maximize your profits efficiently and quickly, there is just simply nothing like a good live game of poker. Personally I need to get away from the constant hustle of online poker every now and then and get my much needed dosage of live poker, Whether it’s the fact you get to socialize and meet new people or maybe because you can read and analyze your opponents more accurately, poker is a game that is enjoyed most while you are playing live. If you’ve never played a live cash game or haven’t been to your local casino in a while then there are some adjustments you will have to make to your game before you step into a live game of poker.

The First adjustment you will have to make is to tighten up and not play too many hands, in online poker the pace is very fast and you get to see about 50-70 hands per hour, whereas in a live casino you usually have a dealer and you will only see about 20-30 hands per hour. What does this mean for you?, well as an online player you are probably used to the quick pace and perhaps play more than 1 table which means you’re used to seeing over 150 hands an hour. Out of these 150 hands the majority are folded and you probably win around 4-5 big pots in a couple of hours, but in Brick and mortar casinos were the pace is much slower you will maybe only win 1-2 big hands in a hour and get garbage hands for a whole hour straight. So you will have to be a lot more patient and adjust to the slower pace, you cannot get bored and start playing too many hands. A lot of tight internet players will approach a live game and get involved in a large number of hands with weak holdings just because they are sick of folding. If you cannot adjust to the different pace of the game then you will be giving up a significant part of your edge and giving the other players at the table a considerable advantage.

If the slower pace causes you to be impatient you should do something to occupy yourself, start Talking to the other players around you, go for a dinner break, or practice your hand reading skills on the hands you’re not involved in. You may even want to start reading a book or playing your PSP if it is allowed in the casino, also you should keep an eye on players that have become impatient with the game or are on tilt and are starting to make rash decisions, these are the players you would like to target.

The next thing you should be ready for in live poker is some ridiculous bad beats, I don’t know if it’s the atmosphere in the casino or something else, but people tend to gamble a lot more when they are playing live. Don’t be surprised to see people chase gut shot straights or call you till the river with pocket 4s and then hit their set on the river to crack your AK, loose players in the casino will chase long shot draws and if they miraculously suck out on you shouldn’t immediately go on tilt. Remember in the long run your stronger hands will hold up against these loose players and eventually you will collect a lot more money than them, the luck factor in poker always evens out so continue to play a solid game and you will reap the rewards. A good way to counteract the bad players at the table is to loosen up your hand selection pre-flop, you may want to start playing with suited connectors and suited aces and face cards a bit more. These hands will fare well in multi-way pots because if you hit your straight or flush you will get a lot of callers and take down a huge pot.

Another adjustment you will have to make is to bring your poker face and reading abilities to the table. In online poker you have around 30 seconds to make a decision on each street and obviously you cannot see your opponents, this takes out a big factor of play in poker, you are unable to read and analyze your opponents based on their reactions and behaviors (also known as tells), hence you usually have to make a decision based on the strength of your cards unless you have previous knowledge of whether the player is loose, tight or aggressive ( Poker Odds Calculators can help you obtain this information).

In live poker there are a lot more factors to consider, in a live game, a large part of a good player’s edge comes from reading his opponents hands based on a “feel” or instincts about what’s going on in the hand, and sometimes this can take awhile so take your time and analyze your opponents correctly. Often in a live game you will know if you can bet your marginal hand for value or whether your opponent has flopped a very strong hand simply based on their physical behavior and betting patterns, so be weary of this and train yourself to read and analyze your opponents accurately, this is one of the main factors in becoming a successful Live Poker Player.

So if you were wondering why you can make a killing of online poker, But end up going bust every time you go and play in a live cash game. Then make some of these adjustments and you should see a major improvement in your overall live poker play.

It is often naturally presumed that whenever you play poker you should employ the Tight aggressive style of play. With that being said the majority of poker players worldwide do actually adopt this approach. Although the TAG style of play might be the best strategy for no limit cash games it is not always the best tactic to employ when you are playing large tournaments or to a lesser extent single table sit-n-go tournaments.

A common strategy known amongst experienced players is to play in the opposite style to your opponents. Since the majority of players adopt the TAG approach, you may want to consider adding some LAG (Loose Aggressive) elements to your tournament game. This will add an extra dimension to your game; you will constantly keep your opposition guessing by playing a large variety of hands.

After playing poker for a long time I have come to realize that you cannot stick to one particular style of play for a long period. If you are always playing the TAG game you will eventually become too predictable and your opponents will figure out that you only play with premium hands. You will get bluffed at a lot more and won’t get paid off with your monster hands. In order to overcome this problem you must be able to effectively mix up your play by shifting gears at the right times to continually keep your opponents on their toes; this is the key to playing solid tournament poker. I’m not saying that you should permanently switch to a LAG style of play, however by simply adding some key LAG elements to your tournament game you should see you a major overall improvement.

Now, what exactly is the Loose Aggressive approach? The LAG player is defined as a poker player who calls and raises a large variety of hands with the intention of outplaying or outdrawing an opponent who is usually holding a stronger hand. This type of player is also very aware and will usually back down when there is retaliation or resistance, However he will semi bluff at a lot more pots and sometimes come over the top if he feels his opponent is weak and cannot call.

This type of variety in a player’s game can very easily help them exploit the enormous number of players who don’t let a single chip slip into the pot without holding a premium hand in the early stages of poker tournaments. In No Limit Cash Games you can sit around and wait for the nuts all night, but in tournaments and sit-n-gos you don’t have that luxury, the blinds and antes are continually eating away at your stack, so you must be making some moves regularly. By adding LAG elements to your game in the early stages of Sit-N-Gos and Tournaments your stack will be better equipped to deal with the frenzied circumstances at the end stages of the game.

When you are using the LAG approach you will probably be able to pick up a lot of small pots without much resistance. If you raise pre-flop with hands like 35 when you are in position and if you only get 1 or 2 callers you are in a good spot to take down the pot a majority of the time. Even you miss the flop entirely the pre-flop raise has put you in control of the hand and if your opponents check to you it is most likely they missed as well (Two Thirds of the time your opponents will completely miss the flop), a continuation bet in this spot will usually take down the pot.

Obviously this tactic won’t always work; sometimes you will bet and get check-raised, but that doesn’t matter because you should be able to get away from the hand easily and you wouldn’t have lost that much. Overall you will accumulate more chips by continually winning those small pots, after all you can’t win every pot, and even if you missed the flop with AK or AQ and you got check raised you would most likely have to fold.

Another major advantage that makes the LAG style of play so profitable and enjoyable to employ is the fact that sometimes you will hit the flop hard and make a huge hand, e.g. you flop a straight, a flush or 2 pair. If this occurs it is very unlikely for your opponents to put you on something like 86 or 47, and if they have high pockets or got a piece of the flop you will get paid off in a big way and take down a huge pot.

Although, there are some disadvantages of using the LAG approach. When using this style you will always come across inexperienced players or calling stations that will call you down with bottom pair or AK and absolutely destroy your stack. So to employ the style effectively you must study your opponents very carefully and know who to target. Remember there is no point bluffing a calling station or re-raising with bottom pair if you know your opponent never folds when he hits any pair.

Also by going into the pot with marginal hands you will constantly find yourself holding the second best hand. Whether you are holding middle pair or your kicker isn’t good enough, a good LAG player should be able to away from 2^nd best hands without losing too much money. However if you are not careful this could seriously damage your stack and jeopardize your chances for the latter stages.

Nevertheless overall, by adding LAG elements to your game in the early stages you should be able to amass extra chips and acquire a nice stack early on. You immediately gain a huge advantage over players who play a cautious, tight game. The extra chips that you accumulate will allow you to survive tough decisions in the end stages and give you some breathing space.

So if you happen to get involved in a race situation in the latter stages you are able to withstand a loss and are not completely crippled. You will have an extra buffer of chips that will be much needed and treasured when you are placed in those situations. On the other hand a player that always pursues the TAG approach will most likely be dependant on his AK to win a race or be eliminated out of the tournament.