Poker Strategy - CardRoom.co.uk

Jan 28 2010

Talking about poker bankrolls part three

Category: Poker strategy — carl @ 5:27 pm

In the third and final part of this series then and following on from part two, this highlights another so called piece of poker wisdom that is wrong and that is that just because a player is playing successfully at $100-$200 Hold’em online for instance, that they can beat all of the levels below that. Maybe they can but chances are that they can’t for the reason that I stated. As I have said many times, there is a lot of rubbish spoken in poker and much of the advice that is bandied about is far too generic for it to be of any use whatsoever.

Because of my very cautious attitude to money then what I had to do was to basically trick my mind into playing with large amounts of money. What worked for me personally was to take $2000 for instance that I had earned down some other gambling avenue and to use it to take a shot in a poker game. If I lost it then I would not play until I had mentally absorbed the loss.

This brings up yet another point of why the slide rule “experts” have missed the point. Let us go back to the case of the 18K poker bankroll. What if you are the type of person that tilts easily or simply cannot mentally absorb a loss until a certain amount of time has passed. If you have lost 1K in the blink of an eye in a big no limit pot with an unbelievable outdraw then you are hardly the type of person that can be entrusted to have another seventeen grand at their disposal immediately can you.

If everyone had to wait until they had the correct theoretical poker bankroll available before they could play at any level then hardly anyone would be playing the game. Here’s another thing, do you really have to play down to the felt and lose all of your bankroll before you admit to yourself or find out that a particular level of poker is too difficult for you. If the “experts” say that you need 12K to play theoretically at a certain level to avoid going bust then what if you stump up the money but are wrong in your assessment of your abilities.

If you are five grand down, do you play on just because you have another seven in your poker bankroll before you say “oh well, better drop down a level but I will have to wait until I have got some more money because I have lost it all trying to prove that I could beat 20-40 holdem”.

This is insane and utter madness. The upshot of all this is that don’t go along with what you hear about poker bankrolls and just do whatever makes you feel the most comfortable because if you are uncomfortable then this will affect your game plain and simple. If a bankroll approach helps you then fine, if you prefer a no bankroll approach then that is fine also but too much rubbish is spouted in this area by people who have never tried to gamble for a living and I think that you know my views on them by now.

Carl “The Dean” Sampson

Rating: 8.5/10 (2 votes cast)

Rating: +1 (from 1 vote)

Tags: bankrolls, cash games, Holdem, online poker, Poker, Poker strategy

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Jan 28 2010

Talking about bankrolls in poker part two

Category: Poker strategy — carl @ 5:15 pm

Carrying on from part one then, this is all well and good with regards to what was mentioned at the end of part one but if the person involved has what is called a “very low attitude to risk” then they should not be doing it. If they are not psychologically inclined to be able to ride the sometimes violent fluctuations in the market then investing in that kind of thing is wrong for them.

Also if the stock market went through one of its steep downward trends like it did a few years ago and this person panicked and withdrew their money through ignorance or fear then they would have lost a very substantial amount of money, I know people personally who did and it was a very sad sight.

How you handle your money has basically an awful lot to do with what suits you as a person and not what someone says that you should do or what I or anybody else has done for that matter. I had a very low attitude to risk when I first started playing, I wanted to play professional level poker but this means playing for sizeable amounts of money and this was something that I found very uncomfortable.

So I had a very serious problem to overcome with regards to playing online poker, I had two parts of my personality that were basically at war with each other. On one side was this person that had a burning desire to play poker at a high level and on the other side was my more cautious and play it safe self holding me back.

A lot of books say that the answer to this is to start playing poker at low levels and slowly work your way up and build a bankroll and taking sign up bonuses along the way to boost it. Once again this is RUBBISH, anyone who plays low level poker and especially Limit Texas Hold’em will be likely beaten by the effect of the rake. It is not so bad in No Limit and this is why I advise players to go down this route. There is a world of difference between a $1-$2 Limit game and a $1-$2 No Limit game.

The Limit poker game will have about an average pot size of 5/6 big bets whereas the No Limit game will have on average at least double that for most games. The best player on the table can be a loser in a low stakes limit game and few players earn decent money out of it even allowing for multi-tabling online. But there is another subtle but highly significant reason why this advice is wrong and that has to do with personal motivation. One of the best pieces of advice that I ever heard about selecting the right level to play at for you went like this,

“Play at a level that motivates not intimidates”

This simple statement highlights a reason why many players fail in poker. They play at a level that is too small to mean anything to them and they end up not focusing or playing properly and basically messing about on the table. This means that they lose money, maybe not all at once but slowly but surely drip feeding it over time.

The level has to motivate you enough to play properly without it scaring you, once you identify this level THEN you have found the correct level to play at and not what any book or anyone else tells you.

Carl “The Dean” Sampson

Rating: 8.5/10 (2 votes cast)

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Tags: bankrolls, online poker, Poker, Poker strategy

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Jan 28 2010

Talking about bankrolls in poker part one

Category: Poker strategy — carl @ 5:06 pm

The subject of bankrolls and how much money to have behind you gets talked about an awful lot and just like anything else, most of it is WRONG. Much of this RUBBISH has been spoken by people who have never played poker or gambled in their entire lives. I have my very own attitude towards bankrolls and financing my playing that has worked very well for me.

Firstly let me state something blatantly obvious, a poker bankroll will not turn a losing player into a winning player. When you hear about big stakes players frequently going bust then so much for bankrolls. But I have always argued that any part time semi-professional player simply does not need one if they have other sources of income that is disposable.

For example, let us take what used to be my bread and butter game of $30-$60 Limit Holdem poker once upon a time. All the books say that any working pro who wins at a rate of one big bet an hour ($60) needs at least 300 big bets to avoid going broke. But that is $18,000 which is a very substantial amount of money to many people. But what if you don’t have that kind of money then does this mean that you can never play 30-60.

But what if you do have that kind of money, does this mean that you can automatically jump right in, I say no to both. What if you have the skills to play 30-60 holdem but not the mindset to want to risk 18K. What if the mere thought of having this mental eighteen grand disturbs you so much that it drags you away from your optimal game. Also, what about the guy who starts off playing at 30-60 with his 18K bankroll and despite being a very good poker player, is down $9000 after a couple of months and then packs it in because the fear of losing it all has affected him.

Any player that does this has not in theory started with $18,000 but actually $9000 and a 9K bankroll is not big enough for 30-60. But the mathematicians in the gambling world make me laugh because they churn pathetic advice out to people that is based on figures and nothing but figures as if Hold’em poker online is played by emotionless robots. Much of what they talk about is unworkable for many people and looks good when seen on paper or in a book.

It is exactly the same principle with financial advice, it would be blatantly wrong to advise someone to transfer money from a much lower interest bank account to an investment that was linked to the stock market all because the FTSE had risen by an average of 10% per year since it was formed and the bank account in question was only providing 3% at best without finding out certain things about the nature of that person first. Look out for the second part of this article elsewhere on the site.

Carl “The Dean” Sampson

Rating: 8.5/10 (2 votes cast)

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Tags: bankrolls, cash games, online poker, Poker strategy, texas holdem

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Jan 27 2010

Risky Bankroll Management

Category: Poker strategy — malcolm @ 10:08 am

Never would I try and persuade people to manage their bankroll less than safely nor would I encourage or dissuade gambling of any kind, it is your choice. Personally I play Texas Holdem with a high regard for money and this allows me to stay in the game and minimise the pain when I lose because the participation in poker is at the limits I am comfortable playing. Whilst I minimise the gamble, many participate in poker in such a way that increases it.

For some players being dangerous with their bankroll is part of the fun. Phil Ivey was quoted recently saying that he enjoys the empty feeling of disaster when faced with a big loss. Phil is therefore happy to play a dangerous game with his money and has no fear of losing it. He does not get a buzz from low limit poker and plays as high as he can because only larger amounts of money mean anything to him due to his vast wealth.

Being conservative with your bankroll is recommended because it is easy to go on tilt and start chasing money. When I worked in the bookmaking Industry I watched people get into a series of losses then start chasing their losses making irresponsible wagers. Their bets got bigger as their losses got bigger, compounding the loss. Sometimes they won and were saved and other times they had to leave with a disproportionate loss.

There is nothing wrong with taking a shot at a higher game in poker. Many players do this within sensible bankroll management. Their normal amount of buy-ins for cash games may be thirty buy-ins and when they reach a point where they have twenty buy-ins for the next level they take a shot. If they lose they move back down and try to re-build and if they win they stay at the higher level until they can move up again or suffer losses dictating a drop. Their sensible approach is maintained by the moving up and down through the levels to remain safe.

Your income outside of poker should be a factor in how risky you are prepared to be with your bankroll. If you have $1000 and you can re-load that amount every month then you can be more inclined to gamble with it than a person to whom that $1000 is everything they have. Many players are prepared to risk $100 each month to try and run it up into something more. Providing this $100 is not required elsewhere then this is fine. Your own personal and professional circumstances will dictate what an acceptable amount of money to play poker is for you.

Note that risky bankroll management is not taking your last $215 and buying into a large poker tournament on a Sunday. That is not risky, just stupid. Risky bankroll management is anything whereby a normal swing in poker could result in going bust, for a winning player. This must be a conscious decision that you are truly at ease with if you play poker this way.

This article is relevant only for those who Play Texas Hold’em and are winning players. If you lose your money will be lost no matter how well you manage your bankroll. Poker players who ignore bankroll management can suffer a standard downswing and be ruined. Bankroll management is poker risk management and very important to staying in the game and allowing the downswings to run their course before returning to profit.

There is no reason, however, that if you wish to be slightly bolder with your bankroll that you cannot do this providing your circumstances allow and the reason for your wish to live dangerously is not just to satisfy a gambling urge. You should always keep the euphoria of gambling under control and make the right decisions for your poker game when relating to your bankroll.

By Malcolm Clarke

Rating: 8.7/10 (3 votes cast)

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Tags: bankroll management, betting, cash games, gambling, Poker, poker bankroll, poker risk

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Jan 14 2010

Playing Poker in Position

Category: Poker strategy — malcolm @ 11:12 am

When you play Texas Hold ‘em poker online and started playing some tournaments or cash games you will have noticed the strength that comes with being in position. Opponents respect position and late position especially affords chances to play different hands and exploit the temporary strong place in the action you hold. Everyone gets a chance to be in position so you should be exploiting every opportunity to benefit from it as your opponents will be able to do the same things to you in just a few hands time.

According to where you are sitting at the poker table in Texas Hold ‘em some hands are playable and others are not, unless you decide to bluff. When you are directly to the left of the big blind, known as “under the gun or UTG” you are first to act pre-flop and then third to act post flop if both blinds remain in the hand. Playing a hand without seeing what every other member of the table is doing is obviously a disadvantage which is why recommended poker strategy says you should fold most hands from early position.

In online poker, players began to realise the negative image that under the gun players have. Clever players realised that a raise from under the gun, therefore out of position, looks very strong. Against a tight player you can limp in under the gun and re-raise in a bluff squeeze play to win the pot pre-flop. This requires real knowledge on your part that the opponent you are making the squeeze play on can fold.

Online poker strategy has come full circle as if you are a tight player acting under the gun your perceived hand range is probably AA, KK, AK or QQ when you make the re-raise and if you still receive action you need to be cautious. If you hold Aces pre-flop then a re-raise all-in is the natural play, but what do you do with anything less? Depending on your opponent Queens will probably be played if you feel he could make the play with anything less than a premium hand. Remember your position under the gun signifies strength so having the late position player re-raising or raising your limp narrows his range to stronger hands. You do, however, need to be cautious and becoming creative from early position is an advanced strategy in poker.

Let us imagine you hold JJ under the gun. You limp in for 2 dollars in a $1/$2 no limit cash game and are called by the button. The big blind checks. The flop comes down 3s-5d-Td. The big blind checks to you and you bet out a pot sized bet of $7 and the button player raises to $27 costing you a further $20 to call. The big blind folds, so what do you do? He has limped pre-flop so you can rule out overpairs unless you know he is tricky. He could easily have a suited connector giving a straight or flush draw, or he could have 99 or 88. There is the chance of a set although TT would probably have seen a re-raise. You call the $20. The pot is now $61. The turn is a Qd. Now you can either bet out or check.

In this spot you would love to see what the opponent does before checking. (Of course you could check but as you have checked if your opponent bets this is not as telling as if they acted first). Fearing the flush and set or overpair you check. He bets $45. You feel bad but you fold. Why fold? There are so many hands that beat you and the only thing you are beating is an Ace rag hand and there are now overcards. If they had AQ they are winning, KQ of diamonds is now ahead.

Swap the positions at the table and you would have re-raised with jacks pre-flop after the under the gun limp (assuming he took the same action) and perhaps took down the hand. Any suited connector the opponent held would have really struggled to come up with a reason to play out of position when you are betting big from late position. Notice that once the late position player starting betting in our example things got uncomfortable for us. Remember that when you are playing, position is a big part of winning poker.

By Malcolm Clarke

Rating: 8.0/10 (2 votes cast)

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Tags: online poker strategy, Poker, Poker strategy, position

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Dec 15 2009

The Basics of Short Handed Poker

Category: Poker strategy — malcolm @ 1:30 pm

Short handed poker is a logical choice for the winning Texas Hold ‘em poker player. Money is made playing poker when the winning poker player makes good decisions. As the action is faster in short handed poker there are more opportunities for a good player to make profitable decisions at the table. Short handed poker increases the aggression and exposes players who think they understand the game but do not. Money can still be made at short handed poker.

Most of the live poker tournaments on television are short handed variations of poker so if you want to enjoy success and make a name for yourself, mastering this style of poker should be part of your poker strategy.

Your pre-flop hand range needs to be a little looser because you will be facing the blinds in 33% of your hands. As nice as it would be to wait for premium hands, even at the beginning of a poker tournament you do not have enough time to catch a premium hand and then be paid enough to compensate for the regular blinds you are losing. Also, your hands would be vulnerable against connectors and so on that other poker players will be playing. High suited connectors and low pocket pairs are very playable in short handed poker. With only five other players being dealt to, there is more chance that a hand you would automatically muck like AJ in early position at a full ring table is a hand you should play short handed.

Depending on whether you limped pre-flop you need to continuation bet with top pair most of the time. It is a very strong hand in short handed play more so that full ring games. Re-raise a continuation bettor with these hands. Do not instantly muck second pair because often it is the best hand but opponent knowledge is important here. With a good draw you can bet immediately to try and take the pot there and then and use any opponent re-raising to decide whether you are completely beaten or you can shove to flip for the pot if you believe you may have a chance to win.

One tip from the books published by 2+2 is that when the opening few positions on the table fold the action plays out like a full ring table. This makes sense as the only players left are the late positions and blinds just like in full ring. It just takes less folding to reach this point on a short handed table.

The biggest difference between full ring and short handed poker games is the aggression. You will encounter much more aggression with experienced players knowing exactly how to put you in uncomfortable situations. Your weapons for pushing the action to weaker opponents is bets such as the pre-flop raise, the three bet re-raise, continuation bet and betting out post flop. Passive play will not work at short handed games. Opponents are usually aggressive all of the time so bluffing becomes a real skill which must be used against only certain opponents and be well timed.

All poker sites offer short handed poker in both cash games and poker tournaments and the tables tend to be full at the lower stakes games with some middle and high stakes games being contested at peak times of the day where traffic to these rooms are highest.

If you feel you need to be more aggressive at the poker table, learn short handed poker. There are many short handed poker guides and specific tuition articles online which you would do well to research. Short handed poker is a complicated game that cannot be solved by one article.

By Malcolm Clarke

Rating: 6.0/10 (1 vote cast)

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Tags: 6 max poker, online poker, Poker, Poker strategy, short handed poker

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Dec 07 2009

How to play the connectors in online poker part three

Category: Poker strategy — carl @ 1:45 pm

Late Position

It is vital that whenever you sit down at any poker table that you try your hardest to assess the players on your table. There is no room in poker for mental laziness. When I am in late position and I have only just sat down at the table then I will make it my goal to see what the blinds are made of and the people to my left.

Those blinds are crucial to my success, if they play back aggressively then I will attack them less but if they are the passive types then I want to know quickly and I will raise from late position with hands like connectors whether they are gapped or not.

Once again if the pot has been raised before it gets to me then I will dump them in the overwhelming number of cases as I just do not want to be going up against premium poker hands against trigger happy players with small to medium stacks with speculative hands like connectors.

So if a player raised before me then I will simply pass the hand. But the main difference with being in late position is that I now have more opportunity to attack the blinds if it has been folded around to me or if there has been numerous limpers then I may take a flyer and limp along in the hope of flopping a big hand and getting paid off and this is a viable online poker strategy.

But these are long shot propositions and straights and flushes are poker hands that do not come along that often and your flush is not even the nuts and could cripple you anyway. If I consider raising with a hand that is weaker than the average conventional raising hand then I will not just do it with any old piece of garbage.

It is true that any two cards can win in poker but if you raised with anything then you would simply be raising too often and you would find players coming back at you a lot more. But those little connectors have the capacity to make a big hand that is fiendishly concealed and can break someone…..as long as that someone is not you of course!

The Blinds

I think that one of the most misplayed positions in poker and especially in No Limit hold’em is the play in and around the blinds. In my experience people defend their blinds too much in this version of the game. I don’t know if they have a limit Texas Hold’em poker mentality or what or maybe they instinctively know that the pre-flop raiser is coming in light and are electing to make a stand against this would be aggressor.

But the best play in the majority of cases if it has been raised is to simply fold the hand, this even applies if the raise has come from a steal position. Of course there are indeed exceptions to every rule and if you are constantly getting raised by the same player after it has been folded to them on the button then you cannot simply fold your hand in the big blind all the time otherwise this will just encourage this aggressor to simply raise with anything and take your blind money.

So as long as you have the proper table image of a solid normal type of player then you can play back at this bully every now and again on light values. Because after all, they have proven that they are clearly raising without the goods so you can re-raise on weaker hands also. As long as you are not over doing this play then your opponent is going to respect your re-raise and will likely fold.

This means that your raises are in fact taking larger chunks of money than if you had simply raised from position and taken the blind money.
This way, you can help to keep aggressive opponents who are in late position in check and your re-raises with connecting hands will have deception both when you flop a concealed monster and when high cards flop that your raise has represented.

But the fact of the matter is that if the raises are not coming from overly aggressive poker players who are making their intentions crystal clear then the best move is to fold connecting hands to a raise.

They are of course ideal for completing the bet in the small blind in un-raised pots as you will be getting excellent odds both in implied odds and pot odds to call the extra small bet with a sound speculative hand like a connector whether it is gapped or not.

Carl “The Dean” Sampson at bwin.com

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Tags: Holdem, online poker, Poker, Poker strategy, texas holdem

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Dec 07 2009

How to play the connectors in online poker part two

Category: Poker strategy — carl @ 1:33 pm

Middle Position

Nothing really changes much even when you get to middle position. Once again if you are sitting in a game where the players are passive and have fair sized stacks and also have the capability to lose their entire stack needlessly then you could speculate in un-raised pots a little more but the pot has to be categorically un-raised. Don’t try getting cute by calling an early position raise hoping that you can take the pot away from your opponent who likely holds nothing but high card poker hands.

Remember that your position although better than early position is still not that great and there are several poker players still to speak after you. The problem with your poker hand is that you need to hit the flop big time in order to continue and a pre-flop raiser will more than likely fire at the flop irrespective of what arrives so what are you going to do then when you miss?…..or were you hoping to flop a straight or a flush. If you were than I don’t much fancy your chances.

Depending on the poker game, if it has been folded around to me and I have a tight table image and the game is relatively normal with no aggressive players to my left or there is not much re-raising going off then I may sometimes throw my opponents a curve ball by raising from middle position with a connector whether it is suited or not. You simply cannot wait until you have a premium poker hand all the time before you raise otherwise your play is just going to be too predictable to your opponents.

But there is one thing that needs to be pointed out here and this is that there are in fact slight differences with regards to middle position. For instance in a nine handed game then after the two blinds, we have the button and the cut-off who are in the two latest positions on the table. This leaves five players in between the blinds and the cut-off in a nine handed game. Early position could certainly be classed as the first two to speak after the big blind but could also involve a third person as well.

So when early position becomes middle position and when middle position becomes late position is not always clear cut and especially when players are regularly sitting out or leaving the game. In a typical ten handed game, I would be much more inclined to raise from say the seat to the right of the cut off than I would the seat that is three seats to the left of the under the gun player despite many poker theory books stating that both are middle position.

So now we can see that middle position plays just that little bit differently to early position and the overall game dynamics are different. We will see in the next part on playing connectors just how things change from middle position to late position and how that impacts online poker strategy.

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Tags: Holdem, online poker, Poker strategy, texas holdem

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Dec 07 2009

How to play the connectors part one

Category: Poker strategy — carl @ 1:24 pm

In this series of articles I would like to take a look ay how to play connectors in Texas Hold’em poker. Notice how I merely referred to them as connectors and not suited connectors. This is because in No Limit hold’em games then having the connectors suited is a nice bonus but is not really crucial as most pots these days are not multi-way.

Which is just as well really as getting trapped underneath someone else’s higher flush is an absolute crippler. Once again we will be looking at full ring poker games with between eight and ten players active. The term connectors will be used to describe hands from 3-2 all the way to 10-9.

It is also worth pointing out that connectors do not necessarily have to be connected. As hands that have a gap or even two and three gaps can also be called connectors as they still have straight making potential. For example poker hands like 7-5,8-6, 9-6 etc can come under the heading of connectors.

Early Position

The number of times that I see people misplay connecting cards are too numerous to mention. I don’t know if it is the influx of televised poker or what but many people seem to be falling in love with this type of hand before the flop. One thing that you must remember with hands like these is that they are speculative hands.

This means that you require the situation to be such that you can sneak in very cheap and have the potential to make a lot of money either because a player has a huge stack and because you feel that he has the capacity to lose that stack by making a big mistake.

These crucial points are often overlooked even by poker players who should certainly know a lot better. So if I have any kind of connector in early position in a full ring poker game then I will just dump the hand….end of story.

Even if you have big stacks after you and you have also identified several players on the table who could possibly go for their entire stack, your position is still terrible and will remain so on every betting round.

It goes without saying then that if I am in early position and there has been a raise to my right or even just a call, I will still dump my hand. I do not know at this stage that there will not be a raise after me and a speculative hand like 8-7 or 7-5 cannot stand a raised pot. You will end up being out of position with the worst hand on too many occasions for the play to be anywhere near profitable and that is a poor online poker strategy.

Do not get confused here with tournament poker tactics. Remember that players in tournaments need to accumulate chips to win the tournament and will be looking to gamble more than they would necessarily do in a normal cash game.

This concept gets accentuated on the final table where blinds are coming around rapidly and have escalated to a much higher level thus placing players under more time pressure. Whenever you see players doing this on television then do not be fooled by what you are seeing and then try doing the same in your regular cash game.

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Tags: Holdem, no limit holdem, online poker, Poker strategy, texas holdem

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Nov 27 2009

Bluffing

Category: Poker strategy — CardRoom @ 10:22 am

The purpose of a bluff is always to win a pot in spite of the fact that your hand is really not strong enough. Whenever you make a representation of a very big hand you should be prepared to back it up in a way that might earn you hundreds of dollars in cities such as Las Vegas or Los Angeles. Not to mention what you can do on the mercifully anonymous internet. Whenever you have made a manifestation, whether it is online or at a casino, of a big hand you have to back it up with the behaviour and facial expression that would suit if you actually had a killer hand.

You have to be very calculative when doing this, because if you fake certainty too much, then your opponents are likely to see that you look way to relaxed, which you probably wouldn’t if you were actually holding a splendid hand. Then you would want your opponents to not think that you had good cards, in order to call your bluff with a higher bid.

This is really advanced psychology, and the best thing a poker player can do is probably to look as indifferent as possible at all times. Not to show a range of emotions at all, pretty much. Try to practice in front of the mirror of how to look relaxed, but not in a forced way. When you feel like you have the best expression that neither looks too proud or disappointed, then it is time to hit a real table and see if it works. The step after that is to start paying attention to others, while bluffing. Admitted, this is not beginner’s course, but it needs to be dealt with sooner or later. The sooner, the more money you have the chance of winning, and the more fun you will have.

It is always funny also for any audiences when bluffs are called, regardless of the outcome of the situation. Various television producers focus quite a lot on these moments in the editing of recorded broadcasted tournaments. And why wouldn’t they? Acting, bluffing and calling is always good fun.

It is hard to find the best balance between having a suspiciously blank face and looking way too saddened or excited. But remember that this works both ways; if you spend some time paying attention to your opponents, you will note that they probably are struggling with the same dilemma. Keeping a good poker face truly is a science in itself. And it is not your expression in itself, it is everything from the way you’re breathing changes to what you do with your fingers or where you look. One basic rule when you are trying to hide a bluff with a good poker face is to not change a thing. Stay exactly the same as you were one minute ago, in all aspects. This works the same way when you are playing poker online, apart from the fact that you are hidden in another way. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that you are totally invisible just because you are playing online. You still have many behaviours that others can note.

There are many ways of bluffing, some of them less ethical than others, and bluffing is the kind of art you can spend your whole time practising. You might do yourself a favour looking up as many tips as possible online, and putting quite a lot of your focus on the way you bluff – and the potential bluffing of others.
But be careful to cross the thin line of cheating, because that will not only make you less popular at the poker tables, but also rob you of that lovely feeling of winning because you flat down earned it.

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