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What kind of poker are you looking to play? Cash or tournaments?

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What kinds of poker are you looking to play? Cash or tournaments? We have

  • $1/2 #nlh (Min $80 Max $500)
  • $2/5 #NoLimitHoldem ($300-$2000)
  • $1/3 #NLHE (Min $100 Max $1000) and
  • a rebuy poker #tourney!
  • Poker game runs daily from 4pm to 8am sometimes later.
  • There will be refreshments, snacks, multi-flat screen TVs, security, pro-dealers and a lovely waitress/certified MASSEUSES!! (Females welcome).

How to get a seat?

All it takes to get a seat is registering via text/our website. If you don’t registered yet, just fill the form below! or Text “SPblog” to (347) 471 1813 with full name, email & occupation.
>> Final Step:Please add Becky Shellz on facebook to quickly verify your identity for the safety of our members.

Tricky Spot with Tens Against Dan O’Brien at a WSOP Final Table

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With this week’s article and the next few, I want to share and analyze some hands from a 2015 World Series of Poker final table — the $5,000 No-Limit Hold’em Event.

In this hand I was up against world-class professional Dan O’Brien. The blinds were 15,000/30,000 with a 5,000 ante, I had about 2 million to start the hand, and O’Brien had about 1 million.

O’Brien opened with a raise to 75,000 from early position, and it folded around to me in the big blind with {10-Clubs}{10-Diamonds}. As I talk about in the video below, of the players at the final table, O’Brien wasn’t one against whom I necessarily wanted to play a big pot. At the same time, being able to eliminate a good player would be great, so it was a tricky situation.

Take a look at the video and see how I decided to play my pocket tens — and what happened next:

 

Would you play this situation aggressively before the flop? Or would you call and hope not to get too exploited after the flop?

High Stakes Poker – What’s Your Limit?

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Everyone knows what high stakes poker is – its games where the dollars are thrown around in man-size bricks isn’t it? But what amount would really make it high stakes? Let’s try to work out the magic number…

The popular TV show which ran for seven seasons – and featured most of the best players the poker world has ever seen – had a minimum buy-in of $100,000 as its standard, sometimes increased to $200,000 for special episodes or specific seasons. Of course some players, the really big boys such as Phil Ivey and Tom ‘durrrr’ Dwan would often appear with $500,000! If we cherry pick season 5, Dwan was up $771,000 while Negreanu was stuck for almost $850,000!

So these are high-stakes, no doubt about it, but it’s all relative. The Macau games, for example, in which Ivey and Dwan have both been found, dwarf anything you’re likely to see on TV!

Recently I wrote about the back-rooms of Macau, citing Daniel ‘Jungleman’ Cates who stated that:

“Dwan once lost a staggering US$20,000,000 pot in a set-over-set situation.”

Now THAT is high stakes! Or rather, you’d describe them as the ‘nosebleed’ stakes – the games at which the usual high-stakes crew baulk and start crying a little when they lose. Because let’s face it – your average high-stakes pro has to be ready to lose a million or so when he has adownswing; but $10million? That’s got to hurt!

Guy Laliberte, the co-founder of Cirque du Soleil, was most definitely hurt when he ventured into the online nosebleed games, but it was his feelings rather than his ridiculously deep pockets which took the hit – $28milllion being a drop in the ocean for the multi-billionaire, the laughs and cries of ‘whale!’ from his opponents and railbirds being the real cause of pain – enough to cause him to stop playing!

So, what do normal poker players and fans consider high stakes? A Twitter poll carried out byDan Fleyshman provides an answer…and the jury is split!

What do you consider is the lowest cash buy-in before a poker game should be classified as “High Stakes”?💰♠️♣️♥️♦️

— Dan Fleyshman (DanFleyshman) September 16, 2016

Quite a spread there and a very even divide between the three options, I would have voted for number 3, the $100k and up option, but one of the responses to Fleyshman’s tweet got me thinking about my own ‘high stakes’ experience.

@DanFleyshman @SaraUnderwood depends on your financial situation imo. High stakes means losing it would be a big deal

— Simon Coates (@Coatesy49er) September 16, 2016

I found myself playing $109 S&G’s a few years back and to be perfectly honest I saw no huge difference in the level of play from the $20 ones! However, when you hit a downswing, it hurts a lot more, especially if like me you aren’t really bankrolled for it!

So, high stakes may only be high if your bankroll finds it hard to cope with the losses! Daniel Negreanu recently said that losing a million would mean nothing to him:

Q:If I lost a million in the game, I’m not gonna be like ‘Wow that sucks.’ It’s just whatever”

So it obviously means different things to different people as the poll suggests.

 

Ok, it’s over to you dear reader. What amount constitutes ‘high stakes’ poker? Is there a definite figure we can put on it or, as with many things in poker, does ‘it depends?’

2016 WSOP on ESPN: What Would You Do?

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Finally — finally! — the first episodes of the 2016 World Series of Poker Main Event are starting to appear on ESPN. The first two arrived this week, with the network picking up the action on late on Day 4.

This week’s hands began after the dinner break when just 357 remained from the 6,737 players who started the event, with episodes covering the last couple of levels of the night until just 251 remained.

Two former Main Event champions had feature table time, with 2004 winner Greg Raymer and 2013 champ Ryan Riess both nursing short stacks. (Riess would go out in 271st for $36,708, while Raymer made it through to Day 5.) Several all-ins and busts were shown from outer tables, and we caught glimpses of eventual November Niners Cliff Josephy, Kenny Hallaert, and Griffin Benger.

At one point during the first episode Christopher Frank impressed with a big preflop fold of {K-Diamonds}{K-Clubs}. It was a three-way hand in which Frank had opened, Robert Allain three-bet shoved a short stack, then Maxim Sorokin just called the shove from the blinds. Frank then reraised, and when Sorokin reraised back Frank thought a bit before letting his hand go.

Allain had {A-Diamonds}{8-Hearts}, but as Frank had suspected Sorokin turned over {A-Hearts}{A-Clubs} (and would win the hand to knock out Allain in 291st for $32,130).

“That’s gonna be on TV, right?” asked Frank afterwards, who pumped his fists and grinned a little afterwards, having been correct when making a tough decision.

Speaking of tough decisions — and the pressure being on television — we’re selecting a couple of the more intriguing hands from this week’s shows and putting the decision to you how you would play them. The first came right at the start of the very first episode, while the second kicked off the latter hour.

Hand #1
It’s the feature table, and with 357 players left the average stack is 943,000. They’ve begun Level 20, with the blinds at 8,000/16,000 with a 2,000 ante.

Ryan Tococ is first to act under the gun. He has 721,000 to begin the hand, and after looking down at {Q-Spades}{Q-Clubs} he raises to 35,000. It folds to Shaun Deeb in middle position who has nearly 1.5 million to start the hand, and Deeb three-bets to 102,000.

Everyone else folds — including Raymer who lets go of pocket sevens from the small blind — and Tosoc calls Deeb’s reraise. Pot 246,000.

The flop comes {9-Spades}{9-Diamonds}{10-Diamonds}. Tosoc checks, and Deeb bets 73,000. Tosoc calls.

The turn then brings the {2-Spades}. “Lon, since the dawn of time a deuce on the turn does not change anything, anywhere, anytime, anyhow,” says Norman Chad to his partner Lon McEachern, noting the deuce being an apparent blank.

Tosoc again checks, and when Deeb fires another bet of 173,000, Tosoc calls again with his overpair. The pot is up to 738,000.

The river brings the {2-Hearts}, putting two pair on board and prompting a repetition from Chad of his observation that a deuce on the river is also unlikely to have changed anything. Tosoc checks one more time, and this time Deeb pushes all in.

“Oh, man,” says Tosoc with a grin. “I wish this wasn’t televised. I’ll look so bad if I’m wrong.”

He has 371,000 left, meaning Deeb has put him to a test for his remaining chips. Eventually Deeb calls the clock, though with editing it isn’t obvious how long Tosoc has tanked.

Ultimately Tosoc decided to call, and nodded when Deeb showed him {A-Hearts}{A-Clubs}.

“Nothing you can do,” said Deeb. “It’s the perfect run-off… I have all the missed draws.” They discussed the hand a bit further afterwards before Tosoc departed in 357th place ($28,356).

Hand #2
Another tough decision came at the start of the second hour, a three-way hand that also involved Deeb, James Obst (who had the chip lead for much of the latter part of Day 4), and Valentin Vornicu.

2016 WSOP on ESPN: What Would You Do? (Or “I Wish This Wasn’t Televised”) 101
Valentin Vornicu
We’ll play along with Vornicu in this hand.

With about 280 players left, the average stack is just under 1.2 million. With the blinds up to 10,000/20,000 with a 3,000 ante, Vornicu — with 1.67 million to start the hand — chooses to limp in from late position with {8-Hearts}{7-Hearts}.

With 1.547 million in the small blind to begin Deeb calls, and Obst — the leader with 3.771 million — checks his option from the big blind.

“My favorite blinds,” jokes Vornicu, referring to the two challenging competitors he’s up against, albeit with position.

The {7-Diamonds}{8-Spades}{6-Diamonds} flop brings Vornicu top two pair while also providing a possible made straight, a straight draw, and/or a flush draw for his opponents. Deeb leads with a bet of 36,000, and both Obst and Vornicu call.

The turn then brings the {8-Diamonds} — a terrific card for Vornicu as it gives him a full house. Deeb fires 102,000 this time, and when Obst calls the pot is up to 399,000.

Both of his opponents seem to have caught something, but unless there’s a straight flush sitting in the blinds Vornicu has best.

While Chad in his commentary suggested a call would earn Vornicu more value on the river, he chose to raise to 382,000. That chased Deeb, but Obst stuck around with a call.

The river brought the {2-Hearts}, and after Obst checked, Vornicu had another decision to make. There was 1.061 million in the middle. Vornicu had 1.22 million behind, while Obst had 3.33 million.

Vornicu chose to bet 925,000, prompting a smile from his opponent.

“Will this one make TV, you reckon?” said Obst. At last he did call, turning over {Q-Diamonds}{5-Diamonds} for a flush, and Vornicu earned a big boost to his stack. (Incidentally, Deeb folded {J-Hearts}{9-Diamonds} on the turn.)

Some intriguing decisions, made all the more so with the pressure of being televised. What did you choose? And what would you have done with Obst’s hand on following Vornicu’s big river bet?

The Dangers of Selective Attention, Why We Repeat Our Poker Mistakes

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Today will be the last of a few articles I’ve written on poker insights I’ve found from reading the work of Robert Trivers, a prominent evolutionary biologist who has extensively studied the role of deception in both humans and other species.

I’ll jump right into three more such insights. Again, I think you’ll readily see what Trivers says about deception reveals something important about what happens at the poker tables.

1. Selective Attention

Trivers devotes more space to self-deception than to other forms. Human beings are exquisitely refined self-deceivers — and if you think you’re not self-deceptive, it’s only because you are!

 He describes one experiment in which “people were convinced that they were likely — or highly unlikely — to be chosen for a prospective date.” If they were convinced they were picked for a date, “they spent slightly more time studying the positive rather than negative attributes of the prospective date, but if [they weren’t], they spent more time looking at the negative, as if already rationalizing their pending disappointment.”

Trivers tells of another experiment in which people were played an audio tape of someone describing the dangers of smoking, with the subjects explicitly told to pay attention to the content.

“Meanwhile, there was some background static and the subjects had the option of decreasing its volume,” he continues. “Smokers chose not to decrease the static, while nonsmokers lowered the level, the better to hear what was being said.”

Scientists have conducted thousands of such experiments. Test subjects consistently show this kind of bias — we look harder for and pay more attention to the information that tells us what we want to hear, encourages us to do what we want to do, or reinforces a decision we’ve already made. We tone down and filter out contrary messages.

Mike Caro has long warned about the danger of using poker tells in this selective way. For example, in an article titled “Great Mistakes in Poker Tells,” Caro explained how “When it comes to tells, you’re apt to overestimate the value of ones that invite you to call and ignore ones that suggest you should fold.”

You can see the problem.

“If you use tells in that manner, you’re making a great mistake,” Caro continues. “That mistake is so common and so serious that if you can’t shake the habit, you’ll probably make more money by just ignoring tells altogether.”

2. Being Inconspicuous

Most deception having to do with one’s strength, ability, or aggressiveness is biased upward, projecting more than is actually present. Pufferfish inflate their bodies, cats stand their fur on end, and all sorts of animals selectively use lower-pitched vocalizations — all with the goal of seeming bigger and more threatening than they really are.

“But there is a second kind of deception — deceiving down,” explains Trivers, which is what happens when an organism tries “to make itself appear smaller, stupider, and perhaps even uglier, thereby gaining an advantage.” For example, he tells of how in different kinds of seabirds “offspring actively diminish their apparent size and degree of aggressiveness as fledglings, to be permitted to remain near their parents, thereby consuming more parental investment.”

There are various reasons for such “deceiving down.” “Appearing less threatening may permit you to approach more closely,” he writes. “This is a minority strategy that probably owes some of its success to the fact that most people are doing the opposite, so our guard is not as well developed in this direction.”

In other words, being less conspicuous — and seeming less threatening — can thereby enable the deceivers to act more freely and get more of what they want.

I can’t find the exact quotation, but I remember once in a World Series of Poker broadcast thatNorman Chad said of Allen Cunningham something like, “You don’t even notice he’s there until he’s stacking your chips.”

I’m a naturally quiet, shy, solitary person, so I can’t easily slip into the role of the gregarious, chatty, social animal at the poker table, despite knowing that it would be more profitable. Instead, my strategy is to emulate Cunningham — a goal I achieve in demeanor far more than in skill.

That is, I try to be pretty much invisible, somebody that is easily overlooked as a threat. I don’t want to set off anybody’s alarms. To that end, I don’t talk during hands. I don’t bluster, taunt, or trash talk. I don’t expose my knowledge of poker math, strategy, or history. I just sit and play, hoping to leave with a nice profit before anybody realizes I’m winning.

3. Repeating Mistakes

Trivers is, of course, far more sensitive to the perils of self-deception than most of us are, having spent his career studying it. Yet he admits that he can still fall victim to it in embarrassing ways. He is guilty, in fact, of a fault most of us have — repeating our mistakes over and over.

“Take one common problem I have involving both conflict and self-deception,” Trivers confesses. “Someone does me harm, and I imagine a spiteful response, a nasty letter or some other gesture of contempt.”

“Then the submerged side of me says, ‘But, Robert, you have been in this situation 614 times already and you have talked yourself into the spiteful action, yet in every case shortly afterward you regret your action. This is no different. Do not do it.’ And then the dominant part of my personality comes roaring back. ‘No, this time is different. This time I will feel satisfied and happy.’ And there goes number 615.”
I think if that confession doesn’t elicit a chuckle of self-recognition from you, you must be some sort of pod-person, not a real human. We’ve all been there, right?

There’s a guy I play with often in a penny-ante (almost literally) home game. He never goes all in on the river unless he has the stone-cold nuts. But I swear I must have called him with a second-best hand ten times after I had figured that out about him.

Each time I thought, “Well, he knows that when he’s made that bet before, he’s always shown me the winner. So surely this time he’s taking advantage of that history to bluff me out of the pot.” So I call. Again. And lose. Again.

I’ll bet that with not too much effort you can think of a similar kind of mistake that you have repeatedly made while playing poker — maybe even after you had recognized it as a mistake that you should fix. And I’ll bet further that if you reconstruct the decision process that has led to repeating that mistake, you’ll find a prominent element of self-deception, some way in which you talked yourself out of the right move and into the wrong one. Our train of thought tends to derail in the same way time after time.

The Importance of Gathering Information from Showdown Hands

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The game is $1/$2 no-limit hold’em. A player raises to $8 from early position and it folds around to you in the cutoff where you’ve been dealt {7-Clubs}{7-Diamonds}. You decide to call and everyone else folds.

The flop comes {K-Spades}{5-Hearts}{4-Diamonds}, your opponent bets $12 and you call. You both then check the {5-Spades} turn. The river is the {10-Diamonds} and your opponent fires another $20 into the middle — that is, a little less than half the pot.

You think your sevens might be good, but ultimately decide to fold your hand. The dealer pushes the pot to your opponent, collects the cards, and as another hand is dealt you sit and wonder what your opponent might have had.

He could have had a king, you think, although his checking the turn makes that seem less likely. Or maybe he had a pocket pair himself, one better than your sevens. Or ace-ten. Ace-jack? Without a showdown, you just don’t know.

But what if you did call that river bet? The hand your opponent turns over potentially reveals a lot of information about that player. Indeed, if this hand were happening between two other players and you weren’t involved, you’d do yourself a lot of good sitting up in your chair and getting a look at what the players were showing down after the river call, as that information could be of great benefit to you going forward.

Let’s imagine the river bettor turning over a few different hands here after you call that last bet. The completed board is {K-Spades}{5-Hearts}{4-Diamonds}{5-Spades}{10-Diamonds}, and after raising from early position preflop, continuation betting on the flop, checking the turn, then betting again on the river, he turns over…

{J-Clubs}{10-Clubs}
Heck, he rivered a better pair, you think, as you muck your sevens in frustration. But wait… you’ve lost the pot, but you’ve gained a lot of information.

For one thing, you now know your opponent to be a player capable of opening from early position with medium suited connectors (i.e., not just with premium starting hands). He also can continuation bet even when missing flops, so he knows something about the advantages of being aggressive and keeping the initiative when he has it. Meanwhile he did not keep barreling on the turn, meaning he was perhaps wary of your flop call (and not a total maniac).

Then when the 10 came on the river he made an interesting value bet. Or maybe it was a blocking bet designed to keep you from betting more. In any case, you’ve got a lot to work with the next time you get involved in a hand against this player.

Or say on the river he bet, you call, and he turns over…

{K-Clubs}{K-Diamonds}
Oof, you were crushed, you think. Good not to have lost any more than you did. Again, though, set aside the result and look back through the hand. What does the hand tell you about this player’s style?

For one thing, the preflop raise and continuation bet on the flop are both less remarkable — more “standard” than with jack-ten. He then checked the turn after improving to a full house, a slow play likely decided upon in the hopes that you’d fire that turn rather than check behind. The river bet, then, was clearly for value, and it did earn him some more on the end.

A much more straightforward sequence, then, somewhat suggesting (in a limited way) a more straightforward player.

Or let’s say things turned out better for you following your river call, as he turns over…

{A-Spades}{J-Spades}
You’re stacking chips, but don’t let the joy of having made a correct call get in the way of reviewing what just happened — in particular what the hand reveals about your opponent.

Ace-jack suited is a better hand than jack-ten suited, although opening from early position with it still represents a somewhat aggressive play. His continuation bet was standard, but he chose to check the turn despite picking up the flush draw. Then when the spade didn’t come, he bluffed the river. The combination of the turn check and smallish river bluff perhaps suggests he can be aggressive before and after the flop, but tightens up on the turn and river.

The fact is, practically every hand that goes to a showdown is going to offer similar insights into your opponents’ styles, including information about their starting hand selection, the attention they pay to position, their bet sizing as it relates to relative hand strength, their preflop and postflop tendencies, how they bluff or value bet, and more.

Don’t forget also that whenever you make it to showdown, you are also revealing information to your opponents about how you play. Here you showed a willingness to call from late position with middle pair, to stick around even with an overcard to your pair appearing on the flop, to show caution on the turn and not take the opportunity to bet when given an opening, and to call on the river despite having only a medium-strength hand.

Going forward, be mindful of how your image might have been affected by these actions, knowing that others may peg you as a “sticky” calling station, or a player who understands the power of position, or a cautious and/or passive player — all impressions you might then exploit in a subsequent hand.

Some showdowns reveal more than others. It happens sometimes that players catch a run of good cards causing them to reach more showdowns than usual, thereby giving an impression that may or may not fit with their actual playing styles.

But almost no showdown is without significance. Every time hole cards get turned over, the chips go to the player with the best hand. But the information is available to everyone, with those paying the most attention reaping the greatest rewards.

Five Key Differences Between Pot-Limit Omaha and No-Limit Hold’em

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For many no-limit hold’em players, pot-limit Omaha is a logical next game to try.

On the surface, PLO plays similarly to NLHE. It’s also a “flop” game with five community cards, the same number of betting rounds, and small and big blinds.

Unlike other fixed-limit variants, PLO is also considered a “big bet” game like no-limit hold’em, although the size of your bet is limited by how much is in the pot (hence “pot-limit”).

However a big, obvious difference between the games is the fact that in PLO you are dealt four hole cards instead of two, and you must make a five-card poker hand using exactly two of your hole cards and three of the community cards. That difference greatly affects hand values and the importance of draws in PLO. Indeed, oftentimes having the nuts on the flop isn’t enough in PLO — you also want to have redraws to better hands should the action continue onto further postflop streets.

But that’s just scratching the surface of the differences between pot-limit Omaha and no-limit hold’em. Here are five important ones:

1. No huge favorites preflop in PLO
If you go all in before the flop in no-limit hold’em with {A-}{A-} and get called by a player holding {K-}{K-}, you’re a huge favorite to win the hand (better than 4-to-1). In fact, with pocket aces you’re a big favorite over any other hand in a preflop all-in situation. There are many other situations in NLHE where one hand dominates another, too.

Such is usually not the case in pot-limit Omaha, where even the best starting hand is often only 60-65% to win versus even mediocre four-card starting hands.

2. You have to make better hands in PLO
With four cards each player has six different two-card combinations from which to choose in PLO in order to make a five-card poker hand. That changes hand values dramatically, since all of those combos mean there are many more hands to beat than is the case in no-limit hold’em.

Making two pair or a straight often is going to be the best hand in NLHE, but in PLO such hands can be vulnerable to better ones. Especially if the board pairs or three cards of the same suit appear among the community cards, you can often count on someone having better than two pair or a straight.

3. Drawing hands can be favorites over made hands in PLO
Perhaps one of the least obvious differences between NLHE and PLO to those who are new to pot-limit Omaha is the fact that drawing hands can sometimes be overwhelming favorites over made hands after the flop. You might even flop the current nuts and be an big underdog with two cards to come.

Say you have {10-Clubs}{10-Spades}{9-Clubs}{2-Spades} and the flop comes {Q-Hearts}{J-Hearts}{8-Clubs}, giving you a queen-high straight. You shouldn’t get too excited, though, as a player with a flush draw and draw to a better straight might actually have you crushed. Someone with {A-Spades}{K-Hearts}{10-Hearts}{7-Spades} would be nearly 63% to win against you if the two of you got all the chips in on that flop!

4. Pot-limit betting means more postflop poker
Another significant difference between PLO and NLHE has to do with the pot-limit betting format. Unless a player is short-stacked, no one can simply open-push all in before the flop in PLO. Rather there often has to be at least a raise and reraise first — and perhaps even more raising — before anyone can get all in.

As a result, you’ll find a lot of players sticking around before the flop, willing to call a raise and see what develops. NLHE players accustomed to playing with short stacks and not having to make many postflop decisions can find PLO challenging since so many hands demand players have postflop skills. The increased complexity caused by the four-card hands also makes it harder to narrow ranges in PLO for some NLHE players.

5. Position is more important in PLO
Because of all the factors listed above, position is often more important in pot-limit Omaha than in no-limit hold’em. Having position gives you extra information when acting — namely, knowing what your opponent has chosen to do first. It’s an advantage in most forms of poker, but especially so in PLO.

The pot-limit betting makes it harder for a player acting first to push opponents out of pots, while it also helps the in-position player control the size of the pot that much better. The player who has position can check behind or call bets with medium-strength hands that have the potential to draw to better ones. Thus can the in-position player often lose less and win more. Many experienced PLO players are much less willing to call raises from the blinds or get involved from early position even with strong starting hands when compared to NLHE.

A few summers back, we asked Daniel Negreanu at the World Series of Poker what advice he would give no-limit hold’em players wanting to jump into a PLO event. Hear what he had to say:

There are still more important distinctions between PLO and NLHE, including how the games tend to play (PLO can be a lot looser) and the difference in variance (greater in PLO).

For those of you who play both no-limit hold’em and pot-limit Omaha, what are the biggest differences between the games in your opinion? Let us know in a comment below.

Five Things a Beginner Poker Player Needs to Know

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Poker is one of the most popular games played across the globe. Interestingly, most of the new players don’t spend time before making any decision while playing. No wonder once you feel the urge to hit it, why waste time thinking around right? Well, this is where you go wrong and face loss in the game. Here are 5 important things you as a beinner should follow when playing poker. Go through these and get inspired:

Poker is a roller coaster ride
One of the important things for you to know is how much variance is involved in the game. If you are a skilled player, you can win in the long term, but you are beginner you need to be more careful. In simple words, you will experience a lot of highs and lows in the game. Keeping this mind, you must be focus during the game and shouldn’t divert your focus. Even during downswing try to stay focused and make correct moves.

You can’t win right away
There is another important lesson you must know that you can’t win right away. Just like any other game, poker also rewards the experienced players who spend a lot of time playing it. Even though you can jump into any tournament, you can’t expect to win big right away. Learn to control your temper and expectations in the beginner to become a good player in the long run.

Learn about terms and conditions of the game
When you are playing poker, be it offline or online, make sure you know about the rules and playing-poker-2bregulations. Different sites and companies have different set of rules and in order to win you must know about it. For instance, some sites might offer you a bonus of $1 if you unlock 75 points. This means if you have included $100 you need 7500 VIP points to unlock it.

Don’t stop practicing
When you are a beginner in this game, your key to succeed lies in your practice. There’s no fate or accident that the top players win continuously, the main reason behind it is practice. In fact, they excel in the game because they try to improve their strategy as well as their game. As a beginner, you must practice as much as possible. Check review sessions, training videos etc. to sharpen your skills.

Don’t be satisfied too soon
Winning a game or two as a beginner is nothing to show off. In fact, to be called a big player you need to see your winning records, how many matches Online-Poker-US-Players-Safeyou have played and won, etc. You simply can’t call yourself a big player by playing 100 tournaments and winning $1000. You won’t know how good a player you are if you haven’t won at least 20,000 cash on poker or you have played 500 games or so.

Now, these are the top 5 tips that you must know as a beginner when playing poker. No one can become a big poker player overnight and for that one needs to keep these tips in mind. So, follow these above mentioned tips to gain great expertise on the game and turn into a master player. (source:jasonmecier.com)

How to Tilt Lesser-Skilled Players at the Lower Stakes

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My approach to the game of poker has always been very simple. I am there to play against the bad players, a category that in the lower stakes games is often comprised of casual or “recreational” players. I know that this is where the money comes from in these games and so my attention when playing in them is often entirely focused on this group of opponents.

But just being at the table with a weaker player is not the end goal. Sure, this is a good situation and you will turn a profit in the long run. But your real aim should be to stack the weaker opponents before any of the other regs can.

This is why one of my main goals when playing against the recs is putting them on tilt. Note: I am notreferring to behaving badly in order to throw others off their games — that’s a huge no-no. Rather, I’m referring strictly to playing in such a way that tends to frustrate opponents, especially lesser-skilled ones, causing them subsequently to play even less well and make more mistakes.

When somebody is on tilt (frustrated with me), then that player is much more likely to pay out like a slot machine when I finally hit something good.

In this article I am going to explain exactly how I go about tilting lesser-skilled players with the way I play against them.

You Need to Have Position

Putting players on tilt is always going to be a million times easier when you have position on them. This gives you the ability to raise their limps, three-bet them, float them, bluff them, and bet much more.

The process of tilting someone really is all about being as annoying as possible. (Again, I’m talking about being annoying with your bets and raises, not with your behavior.) This is infinitely easier to do when you always get to act last. For this reason, when playing cash games I will go to whatever lengths I can to make sure that I have position on the lesser-skilled player.

This also means that I typically avoid all forms of speed poker online. In these games you are moved to a completely random table every single hand, which makes it impossible to maintain position on anyone. In these games it is also very difficult to build up a playing history or “dynamic” with any of your opponents, because they might only be at your table once every 10 or 20 hands.

Weaker Players Like to Limp; I Like to Raise

Now that we have position on such an opponent, what do we do?

Well, players like this tend to limp into the pot a lot. They like to play as much as 50% or more of the hands that are dealt to them and see a “cheap flop” whenever they can.

The easiest way to start building up a desired dynamic with a player like this is to start raising them widely. They will get frustrated quickly when you consistently prevent them from seeing their cheap flops.

I will raise their limps with a wide range of hands that I typically refer to as “anything remotely playable.” What is my anything remotely playable range? Any pair, any two Broadway cards, most aces, most kings, most suited connectors, most suited one-gappers, most suited two- and even three-gappers. You get the idea, I am raising wide.

One consideration here is that it is important to have docile regs behind you. If you have aggressive regs to your left, then there is no way that they are going to let you keep getting away with isolating the weaker players with a range this wide. Luckily though, most regs at the lower stakes are fairly passive.

Continuation Bet the Flop… a Lot

Your approach on the flop should be fairly similar. That is to say, take the aggressive approach more often than not.

When my opponent checks to me, I will be making a continuation bet most of the time. This is especially the case early on in our playing history because I expect the player to give me more respect.

It is important to note that if I get called on the flop, I will often shut down on the later streets, especially if I have nothing at all. If there is one thing these players love to do, it is call a lot. Don’t try to bluff them off their middle pair. It won’t work.

The real key here, though, is that they will miss the flop most of the time, which means you will often take it down with a simple flop c-bet. Also, even if they hit the flop, we could still get lucky and hit a draw or spike an overcard later on in the hand. Since we have position, we will get to control the entire pace of the hand.

Essentially, the deck is stacked in our favor, and that is why we will win in the long run with this approach.

When Lesser-Skilled Players Go on Tilt

If you follow this approach of raising widely before the flop versus this category of players then betting the flop a lot, you should be able to take down the majority of the pots. This is because, once again, they will miss the flop most of the time.

This will lead them to get frustrated. Which, of course, is the whole point of this little game.

As we build up a history with these players and take down several pots, they will start to get more aggressive in some spots because they want to get back at us. A lot of the time these attempts at aggression will come in the form of silly bluffs, but it is important to refrain from getting involved in a big pot with them unless you have a good hand.

By “good hand” I don’t mean having the nuts at all. I mean having as little as top pair, no kicker. As our opponent’s bluffing range opens up, our bluff catching and value betting range needs to open up as well. We don’t need the mortal nuts in order to play a big pot against them.

Should you be lucky enough to find a big hand during this stage (e.g., aces or kings preflop, a set postflop, etc.), the chances of you getting paid off in full go way up.

Final Thoughts

Many people forget these days that the money in poker comes from the bad players. It should therefore be your goal to focus on those players and stack them as quickly as possible.

You do this by getting actively involved in lots of pots against them and hopefully even tilting them. It is important to remember, though, that while these players often lack a solid understanding of the game, they are not stupid. If you sit there waiting for your aces all day before ever getting involved in a pot with them, they are not going to give you the big action that you want when you finally make your hand.

As the old saying goes, “you have to give action to get action.” The best way to do this is by getting position on the weaker players and raising and betting a lot, especially in the early stages of the hand. Eventually you will make a big hand (or even just top pair) and you won’t have to worry much about getting paid off. (Source: pokernews.com/strategy/…)

Three Key Ingredients to Winning No-Limit Hold’em Tournaments

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No-limit hold’em tournaments not only challenge players to discover the best ways to play particular hands, they also require them constantly to keep in mind the broader perspective imposed by the tournament format. In other words, while it’s great to have a solid understanding of NLHE fundamentals, in tournaments you always also have to remain aware of the constantly changing contexts for individual hands.

Popular Twitch streamer Evan “Gripsed” Jarvis identifies three key ingredients that he believes can help you maintain a dynamic strategy to maximize your expectation in poker tournaments no matter what the situation.

Those three ingredients are:

  • Look at the big picture
  • Know how to play various stack sizes
  • Understand the effects of the payout structure

In the video below, Jarvis explores each of these three ingredients in more detail.

Under the heading of looking at the big picture, he explains how even the best players only cash a small percentage of tournaments, making the deep run (and big cash) an important goal upon which to focus. Meanwhile knowing how to play various stack sizes represents a skill that distinguishes tournaments (somewhat) from cash games — especially deep-stacked games — since stacks are changing so frequently in tournaments. Finally, understanding payout structures can have a big effect on how much risk you take on in the effort to make that deep run and finish in the highest-paying spots.

With the 2016 World Series of Poker getting underway this week, Jarvis will be back at the Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino where among other goals he’ll try to tie Ronnie Bardah‘s record by cashing in a fifth-straight WSOP Main Event.

To mark the start of the series, Jarvis is hosting a couple of free webinars this weekend along with fellow poker pro and coach Nicholas Verkaik.

The first, titled “How to Win Consistently at the WSOP,” happens Saturday, June 4 at 1:00 p.m. ET and will cover planning for the series, maximizing expectations, deciding when and where to play, managing your time, energy, and emotions, and more. The second follows on Sunday, June 5 at 1:00 p.m. ET, covers “How to Sell Action & Play More Events,” and will discuss the process of selling action, putting together packages, finding investors, record-keeping tips, among other related topics. (Source: pokernews.com)

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