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Too many players focus on physical tells. For both online and live games, you should be focusing more on betting patterns and histories. The ability to figure out your opponent's hand based on his betting pattern is a crucial skill.
The ability to perform basic math calculations is certainly an integral part of playing fundamental poker. But in tournament poker, it's equally important to understand that survival often trumps mathematics in coin flip situations.
You have to play more hands than usual to be successful in tournament poker. While a conservative approach can help you squeak into the money, the only way to win is to mix it up and get involved with a wider range of starting hands.
There's more luck in poker. Getting good at golf requires a certain amount of physical aptitude. Both take a lot of patience. Both require knowing when to gamble - either with a big bluff or a high-risk shot. Both can be infuriating.
It's rare to find these true coin flip situations in Hold'em but surprisingly common in Omaha. That's one of the reasons why Omaha is the perfect game for action junkies who relish the notion of flipping coins for large sums of money.
In 1987, I wrote a goal sheet. I didn't want to waste my life. I'd dropped out of college, and there was a lot of pressure from my parents. I decided, 'If you're going to do this, you're going to become the best in the world at this.'
Many players in the big blind get in trouble by calling pre-flop raises; they try to do too much. They don't want to get bullied, so they attempt a tricky check-raise bluff or overplay their hands in an ill-advised effort to push back.
What gets lost is that half of poker is reading people. When you're reading well and you're making counterintuitive plays, a strictly math player will get scared and start making fewer moves, and then the person is even easier to read.
Players talk about pot odds all the time, especially when they try to justify a call that they made. Whenever I hear this line of reasoning, though, I can't help but wonder if they properly thought through the consequences of their call.
Limit Hold'em is the game for you if you bore easily and crave fast action. Conversely, in No Limit, the game will often slow to a halt when someone is faced with a big decision. That's uncommon in Limit games because all-in bets are rare.
Tournament play demands patience to survive and win. Winning at cash games demands a whole other level of thought and deception. You need to reach into your bag of tricks and run the occasional big bluff to be a consistent cash game winner.
When it came to healthy eating, my parents did their best to set me on the right path. At school, my friends ate McDonalds at lunchtime, but I had a packed lunch that my mother made for me. I hated it at the time, but looking back, I'm glad.
Powerful drawing hands, like a pair with a flush draw or even conventional straight and flush draws, are often good opportunities to try a semi-bluff - making a bet or raise that you hope will not be called, but leaves you some outs if it is.
Rarely is it correct to play a hyper-aggressive style of poker. But there are certain situations where a seemingly reckless approach will actually be the most profitable strategy to employ, like at the Main Event at the World Series of Poker.
If you call a hundred dollars but have a chance to win $10,000, those are excellent odds if you are at a table with people who have two aces or two kings. If you catch a flop you will get all their chips. I just play them because there is value.
The thing that can get confusing is you think, is this guy really a good player or does he just seem that way based on the way that they are playing. That takes longer to figure out, if they really are a good player or they just seem like one [bad].
Less control can be exerted in Limit games because it's more difficult to force players out of pots with structured betting. In No Limit, though, hands can be protected from being outdrawn by making large bets that force opponents to fold weak draws.
Limping in - entering a pot by calling rather than raising - is more complicated than raise-or-fold poker because you'll end up playing more hands. Also, it's difficult to put players on a hand when they're in the pot without making a pre-flop raise.
Shoving with K-Q is a tactic that does work well for Internet players and weak players. In the old days, though, grizzled pros would have eaten up those guys by utilizing the traditional, more conservative style of poker that emphasizes play on the flop.
The best tournament players actually try to avoid risky plays altogether. They prefer to wait for their opponents to make the risky moves. They'll wait patiently until they catch a strong hand. When they do, they'll take down their overly aggressive foes.
Trust me when I tell you that Andy Roddick has the game to win a major poker tournament. I've played Hold 'em with him several times and he consistently demonstrates the kind of playing style and competitive drive that gives him a legitimate chance to win.
I used to have a routine where I would eat a meal during the World Series of Poker. I would play, they would call it a day and I would go work out. I would always order poached salmon with mushrooms and I would dip the salmon into a side of ranch dressing.
The danger of paired flops is directly related to how high the pair is: there's less risk in a flop like 2-2-7 than Q-Q-8. Why? Because most players will fold a hand that contains a deuce but will play hands that contain a queen like A-Q, K-Q, Q-J, or Q-10.
How players react to questions that you ask can give definitive information as to the strength of their hand. Even an opponent who says nothing at all might be sending a silent signal. A mere shrug, an awkward smile, or even a frozen stare can be meaningful.
A lot of people these days are too ambitious; their sights are set too high at the start and they end up diving in too deep, quitting their day job too soon. They move to Vegas or wherever, make an all-or-nothing commitment before they're ready, and burn out.
A common mistake made by amateurs is that they fail to take advantage of players who bluff excessively. Instead of playing possum and letting their aggressive opponents continue to bet, beginners raise too early with monster hands, allowing their opponents to fold.
In karate, as your skill level increases, your instructor presents you with the next belt. But in poker, only you can decide when it's time to graduate to the next level. That's a tricky proposition for some players because it's difficult to assess your own progress.
I post probably 5 to 10 times a day in my forum. I have a forum directly related to my blog where I will write my blog and people will disagree with me and call me an idiot so then I will say this is why I wrote that and blah, blah, blah. I spend a lot of time online.
To be a great poker player, you're going to have to learn this fact: Everything that's said at a poker table is worth listening to. It's all information that you can use to make better decisions, whether people are talking about baseball, politics, or, oh yeah, poker.
There are times when success doesn't make sense on a purely mathematical basis. I've played absolutely perfectly before, put in a masterful performance, and then my perfect play evaporated because one guy lost his mind and got lucky. Of course, I've also won that way.
Common wisdom in Texas Hold'em suggests that you should raise before the flop if you're planning to play a hand. The saying goes, 'Raise or fold,' but is that correct? Well, it's not the worst advice, but limiting yourself to one of these two options would be a mistake.
While sophisticated plays can work in poker, if attempted by an inexperienced player, they'll usually backfire. Elaborate bluffs and check-raises are best left to experienced players. It's just like golf: don't try to hit a tricky flop shot with that 25-handicap of yours!
To start with you had to keep from getting arrested by the police. Then, you had to keep from getting cheated in the games. You also had to worry about collecting the money if you won. Then finally, after all that was said and done - you had to keep from getting hijacked.
Obsessing about statistics won't make you a better poker player. In fact, you'll end up wasting too much valuable time on that stuff when you should be concentrating on crucial issues, like getting a read on your opponents and studying the psychological aspects of the game.
What took me decades to learn, these kids can get on the Internet...What I learned by brute force, dealing out hands, they learn on computers. It tends to make for fairly technical players, but they make up for it with aggression, the kind that comes when you learn things fast.
I am most challenged by playing cash games against the world's top players. These games force me to think several moves in advance, like in a game of chess. And though I also find tournaments fun to play, they just don't provide the constant brain buzz that cash game players crave.
The best advice when playing from the small blind is to mix up your play. The general rules are to fold garbage hands, limp with marginal hands, and raise with hands that are strong enough to play big pots with. Don't allow your opponents, however, to pick up patterns in your play.
When strangers walk up to me and want to play golf for money, I worry. I wonder why they're coming to me, and I begin asking questions: When did you start playing? What's your best score? Are you playing your best golf right now? Where do you play? Usually I can tell if they're lying.
In America everyone plays bang ball, eight ball, nine ball, that kind of stupid crap, but in Canada and Europe they play snooker which is a much more skillful game and I enjoy that. I play pool now with friends, if we go to a bar we will play, but I am nowhere near as good as I once was.
Playing Limit Hold'em will certainly improve your No Limit game. There are subtleties to the Limit game that will enhance your technique at the No Limit tables. Mastering these uniquely aggressive Limit tactics will enable you to steal more pots when you sit down to play No Limit Hold'em.
The world's most successful tournament competitors - like me, Phil Ivey, Erick Lindgren, Phil Hellmuth, and countless others - like to play small ball poker. It's a style that we use to steadily increase our stacks in no limit hold'em tournaments without having to assume significant risk.
In cash games, you're apt to see more players staying in to see the flop. If you have a hand worth playing, your best options are to either limp in or make a slightly larger pre-flop raise to build the pot and narrow the competition. A raise of four times the big blind should do the trick.
Success at poker is ultimately the result of solid fundamentals and the ability to read your opponents' betting patterns. This is especially true when playing online. But playing live poker is a completely different animal. In this venue, the presence of physical tells can not be overlooked.
The benefit of fast play is that you'll get players to commit their chips with relatively weak hands since it will be hard for them to believe that you have a strong hand every single time. The downside is that your opponents will raise weak when you have nothing at all, forcing you to fold.
Some golf instructors get overly technical and teach the mechanics of the ideal swing. That approach didn't work for me. So, I found a pro that didn't insist that I learn Tiger's swing. He accepted my physical limitations and improved my game by focusing on the minimal golf skills that I have.
Sometimes when you look back, you think I wish I would have played this hand differently or that hand differently. But then you have to understand that you can't go back and to focus on the present. Whether or not you're applying the lessons you've learned from mistakes you've made in the past.
Internet players have successfully addressed the all-in play from a mathematical perspective. For example, it's fairly common to see a net player move all-in over the top from the big blind with a hand like K-Q when they have less than twenty big blinds remaining. And for good reason - it works!
Donald Trump doesn't have significant tells when he's lying because truth and lies to him are kind of homogenized. He's such a pro at it that you don't see a lot of divergence in his body language when he's lying or telling the truth. It's just constant bulls**t. He's probably a very good bluffer.
Playing correctly from the small blind can be frustrating and confusing. On the one hand, you already have half the bet in the pot, which should entice you to play more hands. On the other, you'll have to play out of position on every street, which suggests that you should actually play fewer hands.
The real reason why I don't play in many big cash games is because I can't stomach the thought of losing $100,000 or more in any given session. If I play three consecutive days at the Bellagio, I might win two days but lose big on the third. Really, who needs the agony of losing that much money? Not me.