Hey guys,

I just recorded a podclass on continuation bets, make sure to check it out:

click here!

Hello ladies and gentlemen,

I just recorded an amazing podclass on how to wrestle old ladies while covered in oil!

Just kidding it was on bluffing, when is the right time to bluff? what factors make a good bluff?

click here to listen!

that’s here!

or even here!

Hey guys, I just recorded a podclass on how much to bet, if I do say so myself it’s pretty good so why not check it out!

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Pot Odds

All the cards are out. There’s £100 in the pot, your opponent bets £50 and with your hand,  you’ll win half the time. Do you call?

Yes, the pot is now £150, that’s your reward. It’s £50 for you to call, that’s the risk. The Reward is 3 times the risk. The call is 33% of the pot. That’s the percentage of showdowns you have to win to break even. It’s simple to see that if you won 50% of the time, it would be a profitable call. I’d call every time.

In this example, all the cards are out so you don’t have to worry that your opponent is on a draw. In these situations pot odds combined with your own hand strength will give you an idea of whether to call or fold.

We can use pot odds when there are still cards to go as well. Suppose you have a nut flush draw on the flop and position. The pot is $30. First position leads out with a bet of $20. Two players call after him. The pot is now $90, its $20 for you to call. The call is 22% of the pot. You have a 17% chance of hitting your flush on the turn. Pot Odds say fold (however, this is a certain call, to find out why, read the Implied Odds Article!)

Just to be clear, pot odds influence every stage of poker. Here’s a preflop example of how to totally misplay a hand;

You are big blind

You have pocket aces

You have $100

The blinds are $1/2

First position raises to $10

3 callers

The pot is 43 

8 more for you to call

You raise 10 

It’s $10 for 1st position to call into a $61

16% of the pot

The odds get better for every player. This effect is called the umbrella effect, when one players call makes the pot odds better for the next player and so on, calls by early position players encourage late position callers. You could call it the domino effect.

They all call

The pot is now $103

Flop comes 4 7 9

You bet strongly at the flop 

That means all in for $82

You get called and beaten with a set

How to play it:

Raise at least $35. This would have given the first player 40% pot odds to call. However he would have been well behind to my Aces (at best 10.8% to hit a set on the flop) and since I am guaranteed to lead out strongly, this would have been a losing decision for him.

In this situation, when considering how strongly to re-raise, it is very important to consider the size of the total pot in relation to the players stack sizes at the table. If you have aces and  get a short stacked player to call into a pot roughly the same size as his stack and then check to him, he may push all in as a bluff, so you would be willing to let him see the flop to be able to stack him.

So remember to always relate the size of the bet or re-raise to the size of the pot!! Happy poker  

Technorati Tags: how to play holdem

Hey guys, I found this post on a forum and thought it was funny. I felt like complaining  after getting beat like a drum and this made me smile so here you go!

1. The only time a bluff works is when it gets you to fold.

2. If you try to slowplay your hand, the worst card that could possibly come will appear on the turn.

3. When dealt two rags in the Big Blind, someone will ALWAYS raise.

4. When you try to raise on the Small Blind to steal the Big Blind, you will ALWAYS get re-raised.
4a. You will then meekly call, miss the flop entirely, and fold to the BB’s ensuing bet.

5. If someone calls a cap raise, it’s because they have a monster hand - for example, a 45 suited which they clairvoyantly know will flop two pair against your aces.

6. If you flop an open-ended straight draw, you will NEVER make your straight.

7. If you flop a nut flush draw, you will NEVER make your flush.
7a. Instead, the backdoor flush draw will make his flush.
7b. In case you ever do make your nut flush, your flush card will make another player a full house.

8. If you move all-in at a Sit & Go and get called by someone with a worse hand, he will ALWAYS outdraw you on the river.

9. If you move all-in at a Sit & Go and get called by someone with a better hand, you will NEVER improve your hand.
9a. In fact, the river card will often make an even better hand for your opponent, just to rub it in.

10. Never call a straight or flush draw unless the pot odds justify a call.
10a. The pot odds will never justify a call.

11. “nh” in the chat window is shorthand for “You f–king suck-out artist!”
11a. “ty” is shorthand for “You lost. Deal with it.”

12. If you have a pocket pair, someone else has a higher pocket pair.

13. If you’re dealt a suited connector, there will be no pre-flop action before you.
13a. If you’re dealt a high pocket pair, everyone and their brother will call.

14. The best possible hand to be dealt isn’t AA. It isn’t KK, either. It isn’t even AK suited. It’s T7 offsuit, because there’s a 25% chance of flopping TT7 when you get it.

15. At a Sit & Go, all nine opponents are ganging up against you. This will become evident when chip leaders repeatedly decline to call the short stacks’ all-in bets.
15a. Unless, of course, you’re the short stack, in which case the chip leaders will call you without hesitation and show an unbeatable hand.

16. If you’re in third place when a S&G gets down to four players, you will not cash. This is because the short stack will get lucky again and again - he could get called all-in with 72o against AA, and the board will come
22772.
16a. Once the short stack passes you in chips, you will end up with a suited Ace in the next hand, flop a nut flush draw, go all-in, get called, and the turn and river will be two middle fingers.

17. The player with the best hand at the end is often the player who had no business being in the hand to begin with.
17a. Moreover, this player will have flopped nothing and still stay in the game, then catch either runner-runner two pair or an Ace on the river.

18. People with “Muck Losing/Uncalled Hands” unchecked will never show their hands anyway.

19. If you ever go on tilt online, the best thing to do is mark yourself as away, get up, and do something else for a few minutes to clear your mind.

19a. Reorganizing the kitchen knives is not recommended.

20. Above all, remember this: when you fold hands that would’ve flopped monsters, when you flop top pair and lose to an overpair, flop two pair and lose when bottom pair is counterfeited, when you make a straight then lose
to a flush, when you make a flush and lose to a full house, when you make Queens full of Tens and lose to Queens full of Jacks, when you place fourth in every Sit & Go you enter after the short stack sucks out on you and you
fail to get the same luck, when every deposit you make lasts as long as a keg at an AA meeting, don’t be hard on yourself, because you’re playing winning poker.

Technorati Tags: how to play holdem funny

A super-aggressive move to try after the flop

Hey guys, here is a super-aggressive move to try on the flop after you have raised, been  called and are now out of position against an aggressive opponent.

A good time to make this play is on “safe” looking flops, flops where you think neither you nor your opponent has flopped a good hand. Let’s say you raise from the button with AK and the aggressive big blind calls, the flop comes down 2 2 5.

You could check this hand, and fold if your opponent bets.

You could continue bet, which is a fairly standard move in this scenario, but your aggressive opponent might re-raise you with nothing, and you would probably fold.

Or you could play super aggressively.

You could check your mediocre hand to him expecting your opponent to try and bluff you out then re-raise him.

You want the right opponent here, your opponent has to be aggressive enough to bet most of the time when you check to him and also tight enough to fold most of the time when you raise him.

He has to be tight-aggressive.

Against idiots this play will not work, they may call your re-raise with nothing.

So the situation to make this bet is:

1 You’ve raised preflop

2 The flop hasn’t helped you, and you don’t think it has helped your opponent either.

3 You think your opponent will bet when you check to him

4 You think your opponent will fold when your raise him

4 You have a table image as a reasonably tight player

5 You are prepared to take the risk

Under these circumstances this is a nice bet to make! Have fun check-raising with Ace high!

Hey guys, I was browsing on www.texasholdem-poker.com and I came across this article by Sid Lambert on Bankroll management. I believe this is an important concept and wanted to share it with you;

enjoy!

Cameron

Bankroll management is the process in which a player decides how much of their money they should risk in any given game, specifically in regards to poker. If you are simply playing for fun, then play for whatever stakes make you happy. Otherwise, if you are trying to maximize your chances of growing your bankroll in the long term, then read on.

Never play with scared money

The first rule of bankroll management is to never play with scared money. By scared money I mean money that you need for important things like rent, food, or other necessities. Not only could this ruin you life, but it will undoubtedly effect your play, usually for the worse. Your bankroll should be an amount of money set aside specifically for poker.

Let your bankroll always determine your limits

After some minor adjustments, your bankroll should determine the stakes in the game you sit down at, every time you sit down. This rule is very simple in theory, but gets a little complicated when you look at the details. The purpose of doing this is so that when you inevitably take a big downward swing, it usually won’t bankrupt you. Your starting bankroll should be whatever you are comfortable with (i.e. an amount you won’t cry about if you lose it). With sites like TitanPoker you can select from games as low as 1¢/2¢, so you should be able to follow these rules even with a very small deposit.

Limit vs. no-limit cash games

In limit cash games, the general consensus seems to be that you should have a bankroll of about 300 big bets. So if your bankroll is $150, then a good game to play would be .25/.50. No limit cash games are much more volatile, so when you do have a bad run of variance, you’ll need more of a cushion. A typical no limit cash game player should have about 20 maximum buyins in his/her roll. The max buyin is usually 100 times the big blind, so that works out to 2,000 big blinds if you want to think of it that way. So if your bankroll is $500 a good limit to play would be .10/.25. I realize that sounds like peanuts, but no limit cash games can get bloody very quickly.

Sit and go’s and Multi-table tournaments

For sit and go tournaments (often referred to as SnG’s), a rule of thumb is to have at least 25 buyins in your bankroll before going for one of these tournaments. Multi-table tournaments (MTT’s) with fields as high as 5,000 players are exceedingly volatile investments. A very good player is very likely to only cash in about 15% of these large tournaments, however if you do cash, the winnings could be gigantic. MTT entries should be few and far between if you even play them at all. If you were really serious about playing MTTs regularly for long term profit, I think a bankroll in the range of 60-100 buyins sounds reasonable.

Styles of play

The numbers given so far are only guidelines, as your style of play will effect these numbers greatly. If you are a winning, solid conservative player, you may be able to lower your threshold of 300x big bets in limit down to 200x since your variance should be more stable. Note that this will put you in a high risk / high reward game. On the other hand if you are a hyper-aggressive type player, you may need to up it to 500x to handle those bigger swings. Additionally, if you play poker for a living, you may want to up it to 500x just to take things conservatively in order to make sure you can easily pay bills even after a losing streak. Again, the opposite of that position would be if you are willing to make more risky play in the hopes of building your bankroll quickly, or if you can easily afford to lose your entire bankroll without a sweat. In these cases you can consider dropping your threshold down to 200x for limit cash games as an example. However you slice it, figure out your metric and stick to it. You do not want to suddenly change these requirements because you think you are doing very well or you need to ‘make up’ some losses. Any changes should come slowly so that you can account for variance.

Changing Levels

After you have established your metric, changing levels should be a no brainer. Once your bankroll can support higher limits, move up. If you have taken some losses, then don’t be too proud to move down. Moving down in limits happens to the very best players, don’t let it effect your play. Chances are that in the long run, even with a big cushion in your bankroll, you will probably even go bust at some point. Most professional poker players have a story about going bust, just don’t let it happen to you suddenly. You would have to be some sort of superman to go from 1¢/2¢ up to $30/$60 without having to go down in levels at some point. Of course your available games will vary depending on which site you decide to play, so if the site you are playing on doesn’t offer a $2 + $0.20 SnG game, you should stay down in the $1 + $0.10 buyin games until your bankroll is ready for the $5 + $0.50 game. He is an example metric for a tight aggressive SnG player:

Bringing it all together

Assuming you have read and understood everything thus far, you should be able to put together the chart below yourself. If are still unsure about these numbers, try asking around in our forum as other visitors will be more than happy to suggest solutions to your particular situation.

A nice article on texas holdem from:

http://ezinearticles.com/?The-Worst-Hand-in-Texas-Holdem-Poker-and-How-to-Win-With-It,-for-Beginning-Poker-Players&id=925940

Here is a little known secret about gambling that every beginner should learn and never lose sight of. The worst hand in Texas Holdem Poker, statistically speaking, is the off suited 2 and 7.Here is another secret you should learn and never lose sight of, more money is lost on supposedly good hands than on the 2-7 off suit.

Think about that for a minute and ask yourself this question, “Since everybody knows the off suited 2-7 is the worse hand and very few people ever play it, how much is lost with that hand and how much more is lost with seemingly good hands?” If you learn to lay down a hand when it is going to cost you money you turn a loser into a winner because you have just developed discipline. The pros survive in tournaments because they know when to lay a hand down.

That shows how the difference between what is statistically bad and what is realistically bad are two very different things. Beginners quickly learn what the worse hand in poker is and lay it down, but then get a better hand statistically and refuse to lay it down even when all the signs indicate that they should. That is why I always say, “The off-suited 2-7 is the second worse hand in Texas Holdem Poker.”

The worse hand is any hand you hold onto and play to the bitter end and lose your chips and possibly your seat with. Starting to understand what I am saying? If you are going to be a good poker player you need to play the cards and the other players. Learn the statistics and you are part way to your goal of being a good player. Learn a little psychology and a lot of good old fashioned poker and you will be a good poker player.

Ahhh AK, it can be the best of hands, it can be the worst of hands……

I like to raise AK preflop, I will raise it from any position except first on a ten seater table.

If someone raises before me I  re-raise about half the time.  I would not re-raise if I put my opponent on a truly premium hand such as AA,KK or QQ. With this play I can usually get my opponent to fold preflop and give me a no risk pot, nice.

If I raised with AK and was re-raised, I would probably either fold it or re-raise all in, I would probably not call a strong re-raise, the reason is that my AK only has about a 33% chance of hitting on the flop and I wouldn’t want to committ a lot of chips knowing I will be Ace high on 66% of flops and my opponent is almost sure to bet at me strongly. I would be more likely to call if I had position on my opponent, thinking that if I called and missed I would have more options on the flop such as checking if my opponent checked to me and hitting my A or K on the turn. I would also be more likely to call if I was deep stacked, so that my winnings when I flopped an A or K could compensate for my losses when I only flopped Ace high and my opponent bet strongly at the flop.

If I re-raised all in, I would only do so if I thought my opponent would fold to my re-raise, or call with AQ or AJ.  I don’t play poker to get involved in coin tosses.

So in summary play AK aggressively but not too aggressively, its not a hand we want to consistently go all in with preflop if we think our opponent is very strong as it is behind to QQ (a little) KK (much more) and AA (overwhelmingly).

Here are some stats to help you out with those preflop decisions. The scenario is AK against one other hand all in pre flop:

AK vs 78(s) = 58% (clear favourite)

AK vs AJ = 71% (clear favourite)

AK vs AQ = 68% (clear favourite)

AK vs 22 = 47% (behind)

AK vs QQ = 43% (behind)

AK vs KK = 30% (well behind)

AK vs AA = 7% ( dominated)

So we see AK is a bad hand to go all in with if we think our opponent is very strong because we are behind QQ, well behind KK and  dominated by Aces. AK suited fares a little better(around 3 or 4%).