CardRoom » Poker strategy

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

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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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Dec 04 2009

Detecting and Hiding Poker Tells

Category: Poker Blog — malcolm @ 11:53 pm

Poker tells are a physical movement or physical representation when a poker player holds a strong or weak hand. Human beings are creatures of expression and we give off physical signs of emotion and feeling without even realising it, even when we think we are being completely still. Detecting these signs in an opponent and repressing as many of your own physical tells as you can is part of being a successful live poker player. Poker tells also appear in online poker games although to a lesser degree than live poker and in a slightly different way.

Every movement a poker player makes at the poker table could potentially be a poker tell. Every tick, smile, wince is giving information. The difficulty can be that some players give off deliberate or false poker tells to compensate for the true physical tells that they cannot hide. No article can teach you to decipher 100% of the time whether a poker tell is genuine or not, but here are some of the things to look out for.

Sometimes a poker tell can be seen in how the players stack their chips. Conservative, tight players will be tidy by nature and maintain tidy stacks. If they are constantly straightening them and maintaining perfect stacks it is unlikely this player is a maniac. Loose aggressive players are more random in style so may have more untidy stacks or look more disinterested in their chips as they are more interested in some poker action!

When a player acts overly disinterested in a hand after either limping in or raising then they are often trying to hide a big hand. If they glance at their chips after looking at their hole cards this signifies they are likely to bet. To hide your own tells after you look at your hole cards take a look at your chip stack. When a player touches their chips look for any shaking of their hands that is not part of their normal behaviour. Often a player tries so hard to hide poker tells the body simply must do something and hands begin to shake involuntarily because they are so nervous or excited inside.

A sigh or a shrug is usually a sign of strength. Players tend not to be too honestly emotive during poker games so any sign of blatant strength or weakness may not be genuine. When your opponent’s eyes stare directly into the pot and then at their chips they are probably counting and working out the odds of drawing to a better hand. There are some excellent poker books focusing on poker tells by Mike Caro and Joe Navarro that I recommend you read and study.

When playing online poker the tells you will encounter tend to be based around the timing of bets. An instant re-raise all-in usually signifies strength, the player has looked at his cards and the situation is obvious enough to go all-in without any thought. Players usually fold quickly so to think for a long time and then call or raise should be treated with suspicion. Online poker players can often become impatient and use the quick action boxes to check, call or raise so when they take more time this usually means strength. If they check instantly the hand is probably weak and often this is not a fold only because it is free to check.

Whichever poker sites you play on or when playing live poker consider the strength of your own hand before looking for tells. Tells are important for information gathering, but with 2h-3d you are perhaps better to fold and look for a better spot rather than shove based on a poker tell. Common sense has a place in poker too!

By Malcolm Clarke

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Tags: online poker, online poker tells, poke, poker advice, Poker strategy, poker tells

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Nov 23 2009

Getting your poker education from books

Category: Texas Holdem FAQ — carl @ 1:47 pm

There has been somewhat of a technological revolution with regards to poker over the past few years. The Internet has paved the way for the poker boom at sites like www.pokerstars.co.uk to really take off and this has led to vast numbers of young kids coming into the game and taking poker very seriously. Now most of these young guys are not just any old young guys but players who are University educated and have thought processes, intelligence and learning techniques that are highly relevant to the analysis of poker.

Many of them also have advanced qualifications in mathematics and statistics. Years ago, the people with these types of credentials didn’t come into poker because it wasn’t main stream and the Internet wasn’t widely spread and neither was poker. But now it is and these young guns are analysing the game in whole new ways that the old guard simply didn’t. So they understand the game better in many ways and have certainly enlightened the knowledge base of many of the older players.

So where does all this leave the older poker books? Well I would not go as far as to call them useless as a way to learn how to play poker because I have over a hundred in my library. For instance I rate the Harrington series very highly. There are some books that are classics and will remain so. But I think that the overwhelming majority of them can be used as nothing more than primers for novice players in this new age of poker that we are living in.

I think that it can certainly be detrimental to the education of a poker player these days to concentrate on poker books as their soul source of education. Although it has to be said that this is sort of dependent on what level you are trying to beat. At something like NL50 ring games for instance then there is still enough value for good players to be able to beat these games with a good solid game behind them after having read the Harrington cash game series for example.

But you really need to avail yourself these days of the many good technically aware young poker coaches that are sprouting up all over the Internet on online coaching sites. There are many respectable sites like Card Runners, Stox Poker and Leggo Poker to name but a few. These sites are teaching their players the primary way to learn poker in the 21st century.

Unfortunately this means that the older players are getting left behind and until recently this certainly meant me as well. I was forced to undergo a rapid re-education and was forced to re-evaluate everything that I previously knew about poker.

This meant undoing previously learnt knowledge which was proving to be a hindrance to my future progression as a player and my ability to be able to continue to make money playing online poker. So my advice would be to be wary of getting your education from poker books in the modern world of online poker and especially the older books.

Carl “The Dean” Sampson

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Tags: Holdem, home game, online poker, poker books, Poker strategy

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Nov 20 2009

Conspiracy Theories in Online Poker

Category: Texas Holdem FAQ — malcolm @ 11:42 am

For every pot that a player wins, there are either one or more losers in that pot. It is a common misconception that most players are winning poker players; in fact the opposite is true. How many times has a player said they are a “break even player”? Rarely is that the case and if they are not winning when they play poker, they are probably losing. These losing players are often not objective enough to consider that they should make improvements to their online poker game and they look for ways to pass the blame. There are many common misconceptions and sensational theories in online poker particularly.

The Curse of the Cash Out

After cashing out got lucky and the luck is now evening itself out. Only the very best win and win and even many players report a negative change in their luck. There is a thinly veiled accusation made that the online poker site is manipulating their cards in order to keep the money going to other players. They are implying the poker site is consciously thinking “This player will cash out so keep money away from them”. In reality this is unlikely to be the case as this sort of policing on players withdrawals and deposits on a grand scale would require complex algorithms that would be difficult to hide in their code. Many of these players will be losing players who simply get a bit of bad luck after having some good luck.

Hole Cards Manipulated Late in Tournament

We all know how the action hots up late in a poker tournament with raises and re-raise action in nearly every hand. Players must gamble for a stack and you get a lot more standard and some bizarre calls. An accusation was made by a forum member only yesterday suggesting there are more “big” confrontations between good starting hands near the end of the tournament and suggested the sites give players good cards to encourage more all-ins and calls to finish the tournament faster. Poker fools us well. You should be folding hands like AJ from early position late in a online poker tournament and this hand may be raised and called off later in the tournament. The ranges of calls and pushes get looser as the tournament progresses. The random card generator algorithms will always be discussed by the techies on the Poker forums but we can rest assured that our online poker experience will let our own skills decide whether we are good enough. If tournaments were ending very early this would be too obvious to hide.

Poker Books Do Not Teach Correct Strategy

This is a theory that I somewhat agree with, but with reservations. Poker books teach “optimal poker strategy”. Often this optimal strategy is playing with the knowledge that we are never sure about as poker is a game of incomplete information and lots of guesswork. Success or failure of a play tends to be made in hindsight. Poker is a game of exploitive strategy, so providing we have a good basis on general poker theory then as we progress through online poker tournaments or cash games we work out opponents approach to the game and adapt to achieve success. The key thing is to make sure you have that solid base of theory.

There are many people telling us that online poker is not safe, is rigged or that we are not able to win. Whilst it would be better if online poker sites were audited so that we knew for sure as time goes by and there are no problems then the risk of encountering them reduces. There will always be conspiracies, just like there will always be winning poker players, make sure you are one of them.

By Malcolm Clarke

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Tags: online poker, online poker tournament, poker cheat, Poker strategy, poker theory, poker tournament

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Nov 12 2009

My Top Three Poker Books

Category: Texas Holdem FAQ — malcolm @ 10:35 am

When visiting my local Waterstones or Ottakers I invariably drift to the section that has the card game books and flick through the poker books on offer. Most of them are, dare I say it, not up to standard. There are a bunch of “Destroy Online Poker” titles that offer little in the form of actual ideas on multi-tabling or real online poker strategies instead offering abstract advice on playing draws, trying to read your opponents hands and the usual stream of information found in most other poker books. We live in a world where information is society’s addiction and poker now being part of the mainstream culture means every reasonable poker players sees opportunity in collating their advice and offering literary lessons on winning. This has flooded the market with poker books.

Fortunately for well meaning family members planning their shopping for Christmas there are a number of poker books that outshine the rest. Here are my top three.

1. Doyle Brunsons Super System I and II : A Course in Power Poker

There are two books in the series with the second book being the updated version which was reprinted in 2005 at the height of pokers boom. After 2005 the online poker player started smartening up, was this book a factor? It is certainly good enough. In the original book, Bobby Baldwin’s section on Limit Holdem was considered the most important piece of poker literature ever printed. Jennifer Harman’s Limit section in the updated book is also very highly regarded. There is an online poker section in the newer book and information on Omaha poker. Most dedicated poker players own a copy or have access to a copy of this book as a reference to how to play poker correctly. Each chapter is written by a selected professional of Doyle Brunsons choosing.

2. David Sklansky : The Theory of Poker

I have read other reviews of this book that states without reservation that this is the most important book that has ever been written on poker. This book teaches you a foundation of general concepts that must be read numerous times before you can truly grasp the concepts offered to you. Anyone wanting an introduction to general poker theory should look no further than this book. Sklansky is a theorist whose “Sklansky Minutes” on the 2+2 pokercast debate such things as asking the name of an operator on the telephone to get better service. Definitely an eccentric character, he channels his deep thinking approach to life into the theory of poker and creates a masterpiece. Coupled with Super System I and II you will have a fantastic grounding of the key concepts of winning poker.

3. Mike Caro’s Book of Tells

By reading this book, according to many reports, it will give you a significant edge over your opponents. This book does not try and teach you what you will learn in Theory of Poker or Super System; it focuses on the psychology of poker and turning that into profit. I place this at number three because this book will be the first building block after you have grasped the general theory required, which you learn in the above two books.

It teaches you to look for weaknesses in your opponent to win the hands that they do not merit and by focusing on body language or other signals you can win some hands you may otherwise have folded if you relied solely on poker theory. It even focuses on identifying deliberate tells from an actor to the person who is unwittingly giving genuine tells. This is another essential poker book for your library.

Obviously these book rankings are just my opinion however you will find few players that will criticise any of the above books. There are more specialised books on most of the concepts covered, but without a classic grounding in poker theory you will struggle with more complex texts. I would highly recommend you purchasing one or all of the above books as it will really improve your poker game.

By Malcolm Clarke

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Tags: david sklansky, doyle brunson, mike caro, online poker, poker book, poker books, Poker strategy, poker tips

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Oct 29 2009

Have Fun and Profit with Five Card Draw Poker

Category: Texas Holdem FAQ — malcolm @ 10:16 am

Have you ever seen the film “Maverick” with Mel Gibson and Jodie Foster? If not you should because it is a good film all about Draw Poker. It features Gibson playing Brett Maverick who is a Five Card Draw poker player who thinks he is the best in the world. Five Card Draw is easy to learn and low limit players can play at decent limits because there are only two betting rounds. On my Internet surfing travels I found a free video to watch on the game which showed a proficient player for 29 minutes discussing his hands. I was hooked immediately.

Something about the game seems to work for me. As I have mentioned in previous articles you should try as many of the variations of poker as you can because one persons trash is another persons treasure so just because everyone plays Texas Hold’em does not mean it is your best game, or your most profitable.

Each player is dealt five live cards after the posting of the small blind and big blinds, just like Holdem. You place your bets in the first betting round. After the first betting round each player, from the player to the left of the dealer button onwards, can choose to draw one to five of their cards and have them replaced. They do not have to draw a card they can “stand-pat” and keep all of their cards. This usually signifies a strong hand. Players can of course fold before they bet; you are not forced to draw. There is one final betting round after the draw and if required the showdown then takes place. The best poker hand wins, with the hand strengths the same as Texas Hold’em. The winner takes the pot!

The game is slightly more simple to learn that Holdem because it only contains two betting rounds. In relation to strategy you should not be entering hands with less than a high pair as this is usually the best hand that is not beaten at showdown. Ideally you want something better than top pair before showdown. Because there are only two betting rounds your key choice in the game is whether to play the pot limit or no limit versions. Swings are smaller because of the two rounds of betting, but getting your money in good is where the money comes from in this game. If you are good at picking your spots then this is where money can be made. Pot Limit Draw is probably best played by either beginners looking to learn and not suffer big swings or professionals who have a sustained edge over their competition. Both games have their merit and it depends on your own personal preference which version of Draw you choose.

Some players do not like the game because money tends to go in with any hand bigger than a straight. If Player A, for example, holds a straight whilst Player B holds a flush, there are no community cards to scare you away from putting your chips in and thus a strong hand versus strong hand is always going to be all-in. Because there are only six players at a table (so everyone can draw cards out of the deck) the blinds come around quickly so your money would always have to go into the middle at this point. You are forced to call with good hands, but this lends itself to opportunities to profit as even good players must call when they would fold in other games.

The excellent part of Five Card Draw Poker is that it is quite similar to Hold’em in the way hand strength is played out and also when you are ahead you will generally be well ahead as you are not sharing your cards via the community cards. A player capable of watching their opponents closely, as there is lots of showdowns and information is more easily obtained on players, makes the observant player the best rewarded.

Bluffing must be well timed and based on player information, so the only way you can learn is to focus on your opponents and learn their tendencies. You cannot overdo bluffing as you will be called with many hands, but big calls on the river are less profitable because generally you either have a decent hand or you do not and new players migrating from Hold’em may not realise this. Online poker sites have a growing number of Draw games on their poker rooms so look out for better cash games popping up. I think this may turn out to be a really popular game in the future.

By Malcolm Clarke

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Tags: 5 card draw, draw poker, five card draw poker, Poker strategy

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