The Poker Lab Rat

Despite an aversion to tips, Howard Lederer, known as “The Professor” for his ability to teach even total munters how to play poker, does give three top tips in a recent interview:

a) Never limp – despite what Doyle Brunson says (no sign of competition between pros here )
b) Come in raising and force your opponent to define his hand
c) Always make the same raise – ideally three times the blind

Beginner’s Passion
Just put the hours in – you are learning all the time. And don’t focus solely on no-limit hold’em, which concentrates on flop betting – in limit hold’em the betting spreads over all the streets.

Study the Game Seriously
Analyse specific situations away from the table. As I learned each lesson I could free myself to react spontaneously at the table.

Achieving Expert Level
After years of study a poker player can achieve expert status. But don’t become satisfied with your success –improving as a poker player is a never-ending process. The competition is always changing and adapting. If you don’t change and adapt as well, then the competition will pass you.

Managing Your Money Skilfully
Keep detailed accounts and don’t risk more than 50 times the big blind in no-limit or 30 times the big blind in limit.

Manage Your Lifestyle
For instance, if you are tired, don’t play. Also, have a reason to win – married players do better than the single guys!

Take it One Hand at a Time
Stay ‘in the moment’. Destroy the past and don’t speculate on the future. The more that I stay focused on the present hand and forget about bad beats and bad plays, the better I play. As for the future, suppress any thoughts of winning the tournament.

Read Books
I advise that you read one book at a time, and see what works for you. I learnt from the book Zen and the Art of Archery, to relax further. A master archer can hit the target without having aimed. Cease to focus on the moment, and find that focus from within you. For two years now, I’ve been practising on my own form of poker meditation. Instead of trying hard to focus I allow it to happen through relaxation. Let the world in, let the information in.

Final Word
Let the bad plays go. Beating yourself up over a bad play serves almost no purpose other than distracting you.

Bonus Tip: Pick the Right Website: We regularly play online poker at a range of web sites and as a team of 12 each have different styles of play and preferences for different features in the poker software.

Two sites we all rate and recommend however are UK’s Bet365 Poker (top site on the Microgaming Prima Poker network) and Poker.com, a savvy Australian-owned poker room with great software and an excellent ramp up to tournament play through literally hundreds of freerolls. To find out more about these 2 poker rooms use the links below for the latest joining bonuses and player promos.

>>TO Bet365 Poker

  >>TO Poker.com

>>TO a poker room scorecard comparing the top 20 sites on the net

He’s the authority on poker strategy and statistics, and has written the definitive book on poker tells. When Mike Caro talks poker, it’s always well worth the time to read… I did like the confession at the end of this item on being out-psyched by a Japanese guy! 

Sell! Sell! Sell!
When you’re in a game of no-limit poker you’re in the game of selling. When you have the better hand you want to sell it for as much money as possible. You want to bet the amount that gives your opponent pot odds to call – with as much on top as you can get away with. Very frequently moving all-in is a bet that just won’t pay and you’ll only take the blinds. Determining the best price is more to do with understanding your opponent that your mathematical knowledge.

Stats
I don’t think it is essential to know the statistics of poker inside out – and that’s coming from me. (Caro penned the exhaustive stat section of Doyle Brunson’s Super System.) It’s a controversial point and many players may argue with that but they don’t see the bigger picture. There’s not much difference between having a good feel for the game and knowing the precise odds. The biggest move up is by applying psychology, tells and manipulation.

Tells
There are two types of tells. One is from players that are acting – trying to convey misinformation – and those from players that are not acting, which the player is probably unaware of. The primary job is to determine whether a player is acting or not. That’s Caro’s first law of tells. Determine whether he is acting and if he is, disappoint him by doing the exact opposite of what he wants.

Weak Means Strong
Players normally try to convey strength when they’ve got a weak hand and show weakness when they have a strong hand. When you see a player sigh, shrug their shoulders or hesitantly say, “I bet”, when they’re moving their chips in they’re often sitting on a strong hand.

Big Bluff?
The shaking hand has traditionally been misinterpreted as a sign of the nervous bluffer. Slight tremors or outright shaking of the hand comes from the release of tension of completing a big hand. When players are bluffing they bolster themselves and become rigid. If a player’s bluffing he tries to make himself small. It’s a scary situation when you’re bluffing so you shut down because you don’t want to elicit a call.

Calling Station
People have a calling reflex. They’d rather call than fold. Players don’t go to a casino or poker room hoping to fold every hand so they’re really looking for you to give them reasons to call. The more things that you do the more likely your opponent is to make the call.

False Tells
Giving off false tells is a dangerous game because you’re assuming your opponents are aware of Mike Caro’s book of tells! By reversing tells you might be doing precisely the wrong thing because most players fall for the weak means strong routine. You should only introduce reversing into your game if you’re playing someone you think understands the science of tells.

Reverse Psychology
I was playing against a Japanese guy at the Bicycle Club Casino in a suburb of LA who managed to fool me three times with reverse psychology. He never said a word so I was sat there thinking that he didn’t even speak English. When he finally stood up, as a substantial winner I might add, he said only these words as he was leaving, “I enjoy your book, Mr Caro.” That was a little humiliating – but it was fun!

You can play ‘Mad Mike Caro’ online at Doyles Room (I would not bank on walking away with the bounty $$ on his head though!)

Poker rooms both online and terrestrial have been flooded with players just aching to make their mark – and fortunes – courtesy of the now globally popular game, Texas Hold’em.  And if you’re among the millions of players to join these ranks recently, you may even be harbouring your own secret dream of making it big on the poker circuit. But how well do you really stack-up against seasoned poker players? Are you truly a force to be reckoned with, or just a fish waiting to be hooked?

Let’s find out! You’re a fish if…

…you’re unable or unwilling to ‘work’ your opponents.
Unlike other forms of gambling, poker is not a simple, straightforward game about who has the better cards. Instead, it relies heavily on the skill of reading opponents’ subtle and not-so subtle cues (tells), and acting on them accordingly. Do those trembling hands mean that they’ve got the nuts, or are they simply nervous about making the bet? Was that slow call due to indecision or just a bad Internet connection? How should I proceed with these little snippets of insight? Strong players have learned not only to read between the lines of what people are saying and doing but also how to take advantage of that information to yield the best results.

…you let emotions overwhelm your ability.
The stereotypical poker player is a stone-cold, unrelenting and rigid fixture, seemingly devoid of anything that even remotely resembles emotions. While for many aspiring champions that may be the ideal style on paper, in reality, even the best players are not above expressing themselves when it suits them. Indeed, some world-class players have even made boisterous eruptions a part of their table image (think of serial whiner Mike Matusow, or over the top Poker Brat Phil Helmuth - but sponsors love players that stand out from the crowd early in big tournaments!).

But what separates the pros form the soon-to-be-fish-paste is the ability to explode in one instant and rein in those emotions the next. So it’s OK to recoil at the sting of a bad beat at a critical stage of a tournament. That’s natural and even justifiable. But it becomes a real problem if you let that little sting fester and infect the rest of your play to the point of causing some real damage that you can’t recover from.

In reality gambling would not be anywhere near as thrilling without the built-in chance of losing. Poker’s added reliance on skill, strategy and psychology make it even more challenging and difficult to master – but arguably in the long run, even more rewarding. So don’t be dismayed if you’re currently swimming upstream with the multitudes of other fish. Inexperience isn’t permanent and poor play eventually fades with some practice, hard work and determination on your part.

>>If you’re keen to learn to play online poker - or improve your game, we highly recommend Aussie site Poker.com as a friendly poker room with plenty of action without the professionals and hype. Great poker tips and lessons available too - and they still welcome US players.

One of the best ways to practice this bedeviling game is to play “sit-and-go” single-table tournaments on the Internet. I play many of these things a week, at many different stakes, on Full Tilt Poker every week. Playing a S&G tournament will give you final table experience — to win, you’ll have to perform well in full table situations and constantly adjust your strategy and tactics as the play becomes increasingly shorthanded. In my mind, there is no better training tool available for the serious student of the game.

At Full Tilt Poker, the sit-and-go tournaments have a generous structure: nine-handed play, six-minute levels (about 15 hands per level). Three players are “paid” with about 50 percent of the prize money being awarded for first place, 30 percent for second place, and 20 percent for third place. All players start with 1,500 in tournament chips.

Early level thoughts and play:
15/30 Level: I play very, very tight during the first level while I’m getting a feel for the table. At the lower limits (100 buy-in and below) there are always a few players at the table that are maniacal. I try to stay out of the way of these guys unless I get a big hand. I’m not scared to put the chips in the pot with pocket aces, kings, queens or ace-king, but I’m not looking to commit a large part of my stack before the flop without one of these premium hands. I’m looking for betting patterns here that I can exploit at critical stages of the tournament — I’m particularly looking for players that play a very loose, aggressive game from late position. I note these players and plan to take advantage of them later. It will not surprise me to see one player eliminated at this level, but one or two players eliminated early will not change my strategy of tight play.

20/40 Level: Again, I play very tight. It will be rare that I’ll have to post more than three total sets of blinds by the end of this level — if I fold every single hand in the 15/30 and 20/40 level, I’ll still have, on average, about 1,350 in chips at the end of this level. In my experience, the average number of players remaining at the end of this level is about eight: tight is still right.

25/50 Level: I have a tight image now, and I’m ready to make my first move. If a loose player “limps” into the pot in middle or late position, I’m willing to raise and try to win the pot from superior position. I’m willing to try to steal the blinds from late position as well. Remember, I’ve been playing absurdly tight for the first two levels, so my raises will get some respect.

30/60 Level: This is a very, very small increase in blinds from the previous level. Much of the strategy from the 25/50 level still applies. I am very careful here to not raise the blinds of short-stacked opponents without a premium hand. Short stacks here will be about 350-500. If I raise a player with that stack and they move in, I’m 100 percent committed to calling them because I’ll almost always be getting the correct odds to do so. However, having a sub-premium hand in this spot is a recipe for becoming a short stack. I’ll take a shot at stealing the blinds if it presents itself.

40/80 Level: By this time, there are usually seven players left in the tournament. I’m going to loosen up my starting hand requirements just a bit, but I’m still going to be very selective preflop from early position. Remember, this is an extremely small increase in blinds from the previous level. I no longer consider limping a valid strategy preflop. If I’m ever going to play a hand and I’m the first to voluntarily commit chips to the pot, I’m raising.

50/100 Level: Usually, there are five or six players left in the tournament at this level. That puts the average chip stack at around 2,600 or so. Players are not feeling the “squeeze” unless they have about 1,000 in chips or fewer. But I still have to loosen up a bit because the blinds are coming around very quickly. “Sitting out” for the entire level will be catastrophic to the stack — I’ll lose at least three sets of blinds for a combined 450 loss should I get too tight here. I try to pick up at least one blind steal during this level. If there are still seven or eight players left in the tournament, realize that big conflicts are coming — a raise and a reraise virtually force the players all-in.

Five players remaining:
With just two spots to the money, this is a great time to get aggressive. In my experience, there are usually five players left in the tournament at around the $80/$160 level of blinds. The average stack at this level is $2,700.

1. If I am below five or six big blinds at this level ($800-$1,000 in chips) I will play very aggressively and just take a shot at stealing the blinds or doubling up. I find that most players are waiting for players to bust out and are unwilling to commit $800 to the pot to do so. I particularly look to steal the blinds from players with average stacks — they can afford to fold and are unlikely to want to commit a large number of chips to the pot.
2. If I am a big stack ($4,000-plus) at this point, there will be at least one or two small stacks. But I realize that the small stacks are still capable of inflicting some damage. Even a loss of $800 at this point in the tournament can bring me from big stack back to average. I’m looking to steal from the average stacks and get the money in with the best hand against the small stacks. If there is another big stack at the table, all the rest of the players remaining will have small stacks — I am very careful not to get into a situation where I can get squeezed and frozen out of the pot (i.e. the “Fish and Chip Sandwich” play).

Four players remaining:
One spot left to the money, most players in the sit-and-go will play far too tight for the blinds. Instead of raising three times the big blind, I find that a minimum raise will often get the job done — any raise is enough to get the remaining players to fold. I am very careful here about playing a hand from the small blind if the big blind is a short stack — this is often a way to get caught in the chip sandwich. The real key to a four-handed game is to make sure that if you put chips into the pot, you’ll get to see the flop if you don’t have the best hand or you’ll get all-in before the flop with the best hand. One of the worst things that can happen to you in a four-handed game is having to fold the hand after raising the pot — with the big blind often at $200, a preflop raise of three times the big blind ($600) will always be nearly one-fifth of your stack.

The bubble bursts:
After the bubble has burst and the sit-and-go is reduced to three players, it is time to get very aggressive — the shorter the stack, the more aggressive you have to be. Remember, if you have the shortest stack, you’re expected to go out in third place. Give yourself a fighting chance to win by taking a stand early and often.

Try to be the player that makes the last move. If you’re the last player to put chips into the pot, you have some “folding equity” — your opponent has a chance to fold an inferior hand. With that in mind, consider making a “stop-and-go” play with 6-8 big blinds:

• The player on the button raises to three times the big blind.
• You just call.
• No matter what the flop is, you move all-in for the rest of your chips.

Remember, your opponent is pot committed if you raise all-in before the flop and you will not be making the last move — your opponent is definitely going to call. By waiting for the flop, there is a good chance that you can get your opponent to incorrectly fold. Your opponent, playing any two unpaired hole cards, will only flop a pair or better about 32.4 percent of the time. If your opponent misses the flop, there is a good chance you can take down the pot with the automatic post-flop all-in. If they don’t miss the flop, you were unlikely to win the pot anyway.

Heads-up:
If you get to heads-up, realize that the blinds will nearly always be quite significant and that both players will have an average of about 15 big blinds. Heads-up is tough, and with the blinds so big, it is even tougher. I recommend playing almost every single hand you’re dealt when you’re on the button — raise 2½ times the big blind with about 65 percent of the hands, limp and just complete the blind 30 percent of the time, and fold 5 percent of the time. When limping, make sure that for every three times you limp with a bad hand you’re willing to fold to a raise, you limp with a good hand you’re willing to move all-in with before the flop.

Conclusion:
All in all, sit-and-go tourneys are a great way to practice the skills necessary to win a big poker tournament. It is a mini-tournament that very closely simulates all the stages of a bigger, longer, uncut tournament. When I’m playing at Full Tilt Poker, I know that my practice will pay off not only for my charity (I donate all my online winnings to the Cancer Research and Prevention Foundation), but also in better results in the big tournaments.

>>You can play Phil and other top poker pros online at Full Tilt Poker.

Good US citizens, so fond of that heinous private recreational activity, online poker, may at least cringe at this joke:

A number of US players unsure of the implications of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act and frustrated by the recent fervour that anti-gambling crusaders are using to prevent payments being processed, have been looking for ways to wean themselves off the game of poker, and indeed gambling for money.

One guy has tried by going along to his local card room and standing behind his friend as he plays instead of joining in the game. It’s been pretty tough getting started but now he just watches the action with a gleam in his eye and tries to pick the run of cards.

He never bets any real money as he only plays an imaginary, fantasy game and bets in his mind. When asked how he’s going he replies (with a sudden facial spasm) that he has only lost his mind three times.

When you hold a pocket-pair preflop, it’s nice to know the odds of whether or not someone behind you holds a bigger pair.  This article offers a ‘quick and dirty’ method for making that calculation.

I was playing in a sit and go tournament at Full Tilt a while back with my fiancée looking on. We were down to three-handed, all the stacks were about the same, though I was the short stack. The blinds were very high — the average stack was about 12 big blinds. I had 2-2 on the button. I raised all-in and was called by 6-6. I went broke.

“That was a really bad play, Phil. How can you go all-in there?” she said.

I protested vigorously: “Honey, it is well against the odds that either of my opponents will have a higher pocket pair. With only 12 big blinds, I’m either all-in or I fold in this situation. Doing anything else is just crazy, I think. Especially because we’re already in the money, and the difference between second and third place isn’t very significant.”

“Well, I think it’s much more likely for them to have a pocket pair. What are the exact odds?” she asked.

I didn’t know off the top of my head, which just seemed to give her more ammunition for her argument. It is hard to argue odds when you don’t know them. So, I set off to do some math so I could “prove” to her that I was right. In the process, I “discovered” a general mathematical formula that everyone can use when arguing with a significant other.

I’m calling this rule the “Gordon Pair Principle” (GPP). I’ve always wanted a theorem named after me, and so here it is. A few years back, I got zero credit for naming the “Rule of 4 and 2,” and I’m a little on tilt about it. Now, I’m not claiming that I discovered the “Rule of 4 and 2,” but I do claim naming it and referring to it in print as such for the first time (see my book “Poker: The Real Deal”).

So, here goes.

The Gordon Pair Principle
Let C = percent chance someone left to act has a bigger pocket pair Let N = number of players left to act Let R = number of higher ranks than your pocket pair (i.e., if you have Q-Q, there are two ranks higher. If you have 8-8, there are six ranks higher)

Some examples:
You have pockets 10s and there are six players left to act. Someone will have a bigger pocket pair about 12 percent of the time.

You have pocket kings under the gun in a 10-handed game. You’ll be up against pocket aces (and probably broke) about 4.5 percent of the time.

Now, this formula isn’t exact, but it is a damned close approximation. It’s definitely close enough to use when arguing with your significant other. Of course, I showed her this calculation after about an hour of work and she still thinks I made a stupid play despite the fact that my 2-2 is the best hand there 88 percent of the time.

Good luck at the tables!

Phil Plays at a number of online poker rooms including Full Tilt Poker, Poker.com and Doyles Room Poker

There are many factors that affect your decisions at the poker table. Obviously, the cards you’re dealt often dictate whether you’ll even consider getting involved in a hand, but they’re just one part of the equation.

Once you’re playing, things like your physical state can also affect your play. If you’re hungry, tired or even a little drunk, you’re not likely to play your best, and your decisions may not be as smart. Emotion is a factor too. When you’re winning, you often feel like you can make any hand you need to win a pot. When you’re losing, however, a continued string of beats can seem unbearable. This can lead to tilt and keep you from playing at the top of your game.

Using this kind of information against your opponents is one of the keys to becoming a winning player. If you know they’re a little tired or a little tilted, you can determine if they’re likely to call a well-timed bet or bluff.

For example, let’s say you river the nuts and want to induce your opponent to put more money into the pot. What do you do? The answer often depends on your opponent, and what size bet you think you can get them to call.

One factor to consider is how well your opponent is doing in the game. Are they winning or losing? Let’s say you know a player sat down with $500 and they now have $710. This player is much more likely to call a bet of $140 to $170 on the river than a bet of $220 or $250, because the additional money pushes them through what I like to call their “pain barrier”.

For your opponent, calling a $170 bet means they’ll still be up for the session, even if they lose the pot. Calling $220 or more means they’ll be down. For many players, the psychological difference between these two scenarios is huge, even if they don’t realize it.

There are other factors that can help you manipulate your opponent’s pain barrier at the table. For example, a player who is sitting with case money (i.e., they don’t have any more money in their pocket or stored in the cashier) is much more likely to be pushed off a hand by a big bet if they’re holding any kind of marginal hand. The pain barrier becomes even more effective if you know your opponent is about to quit the game. They might have had a phone call from a spouse or be going to dinner soon; then the $250 bet in the situation above works even more often, as most players don’t want to finish their session on a losing note.

Obviously, using the pain barrier won’t work every time but, if used properly, it’s a great weapon to have in your arsenal.

Joe Beevers

>>Joe plays online at Full Tilt Poker, meet Joe and many other top professionals over the tables today! You might as well learn from the best…

By Mike Caro

Sometimes we get so involved in thinking about deeper and deeper poker strategy that we forget to refresh our memories about some of the most powerful, basic, and profitable concepts. One of those topics is poker seating. I believe the concept is so important that almost any skillful player who is neglecting this aspect of poker can expect to see profits increase by at least half by faithfully acting on this powerful poker truth. Here’s the script for my audio lecture…

I teach that choosing the right seat in a poker game is one of the most important factors in increasing your profit. I’m right.

You see, there’s no such thing as a lucky seat in poker. Luck is always apparent after the fact, looking in the rear-view mirror. But there’s no rational reason to suspect, in advance, whether you’ll be lucky or unlucky. It’s all random. And that applies to poker seats as well as to poker people.

Looking back, there are hot seats and cold seats; lucky seats and unlucky ones. But before that good luck or bad luck happened, there was no logical reason to suspect that it would. The lucky seat could have turned out unlucky and the unlucky seat could have turned out lucky.

Superstition:

So, when I talk about choosing the right seat, forget about finding a lucky seat. That’s just superstition. And I don’t allow my students to practice superstition at the poker table.

Well, if there’s no way to determine which seat is lucky, why bother thinking about selecting or changing seats at all? A seat is a seat, right?

No, I didn’t say that. I said you can’t determine lucky seats, but you can determine winning seats. You can determine profitable seats.

Here’s the deal. In poker the action happens clockwise, coming from your right, moving to you, and continuing to your left. Visualize the action. Here it comes from your right. Now it’s your turn. Now the action passes to your left. That’s poker.

And, you know what? When you get to act after someone else, you have an advantage. We call this a positional advantage. It means you get to see what another player decides to do first and then you act. It’s always to your advantage when your opponent acts before you do; it’s always to your disadvantage when you act before your opponent does.

That’s important and I’ll repeat it. You always have an advantage when your opponent acts first; you always have a disadvantage when you act first. This concept is so powerful that if you could put a weather satellite up in space and point its camera down on a poker table, you’d see the money mostly flowing ’round and ’round the table in a clockwise direction.

OK, so far, that’s not a big revelation and just knowing it isn’t helpful. So, let’s make it helpful. At first, you might think that a seat doesn’t matter, because positional advantage evens out. After all, for every player who sits nearby to your right - giving you a positional advantage — there’s a player who sits nearby to your left - taking advantage of you. True, so very true.

Which opponents belong where:

But here’s the trick. There are certain types of players you can profit from more than others by using your positional advantage. And those players belong on your right. And there are certain players who harm you less than others, because they don’t make the most of their positional advantage. And those players belong on your left.

Now, there’s a lot more to seating in poker than that, and I could write a huge book about just the nuances of attacking blinds, getting walks when you’re in the blind, sandbagging, and much, much more. And it all fine-tunes our strategy for knowing what seats are best and how to get the most out of the seat you’re in relative to the types of opponents sitting nearby. But we’ll save that for another day and talk about the most profitable seating consideration right now. This is where the gold is buried.

Your main consideration should be to place the loosest and weakest players on your right, because those are the ones who supply the most profit. Many players are always eager to call a single bet, but they think twice about calling a raise. These are typical loose players who lose the most money in poker games. And you’ll get the biggest share of their losses if you sit immediately to their left (so they’re on your right), thus maximizing your positional advantage.

Why it works:

Let’s look at a ludicrously simple example to illustrate this point. Someone has made the first bet. You’ve got a good hand and are playing an aggressive style, which means you raise frequently to earn extra profit. Suppose your loosest opponent is on your left, holding a weak hand, and acts after you. You raise. Now your loose opponent thinks, “Well, I would have called just to see if I could get lucky, but now I’m going to fold, because even I’m not stupid enough to call a raise.” So, assuming you’re going to win this pot, how many bets did you just gain from this loose opponent? None, right. He folded. But now suppose he’s on your right and you act after him. He calls, because it’s just a single bet and that’s the kind of guy he is. Now you raise. It gets back to him and he thinks, “Wow. I shouldn’t have played this garbage, but it’s just one more bet to me now.” So, he calls. Now, how many bets has he put in your pot? Two. And that magic happens only because he was sitting on your right and not on your left.

The one other seating consideration we’re going to learn today is that tight, un-aggressive players belong on your left. They’ll still have a positional advantage against you, but they won’t profit from it very often, because they don’t play many pots. They simply won’t interfere with your strategy as often as other players, so you can afford to have them on your left.

So, today we’ve learned two important keys about seating in poker. You want the loosest opponents on your right and the tightest ones on your left. Of course, you won’t always be able to select or change seats, but you should keep this advice in mind and use it whenever you can. Again. Loose players belong on your right. Tight players belong on your left.

Mike is one of the regular professionals online at Doyles Room - you can win great bounty prizes each week by being the player skilled (or lucky) enough to knock him out. If you’re new to Doyles Room they’ll even  rebate your first $55 buy-in to a Weekly Bounty Tournament.  Doyle plays in the event along with Mike Caro, Todd Brunson, and celebrity guests like Pamela Anderson, Nicky Hilton (?!) and Kevin Connolly.

>>Play free, play for real or just learn to play at Doyles Room
>>More info on Doyles Room and how they rate here

I’d like to share some strategies for playing short-handed Limit Hold ‘em.

You’ll probably know that hand values change in short-handed play and that it’s proper to play a greater percentage of hands than would be wise at a full ring game. In these games, I play a lot of hands. So many, in fact, I’ve gotten the reputation of being something of a maniac. But there is a method to my madness. By the end of this article, I think you’ll agree.

Button Play

In a three- or four-handed Limit Hold ‘em cash game, I will raise about two of every three times I have the button. The quality of my hand is essentially irrelevant. The position raise puts me in control of the hand and, even if I’m holding total trash, the pressure puts the blinds in a spot where they need to catch a piece of the flop.

For example, say I raise on the button and the big blind calls with a modest but playable hand, maybe Qc-Td. Now, if the flop comes with any Ace or King, the blind is going to have a very difficult time continuing with the hand if he checks and I bet the flop. In fact, the blind is going to have a very difficult time continuing on any board that doesn’t contain a Queen or Ten.

If I follow up my raise and bet the flop with, say, 7-high, and get called or check-raised, it’s very easy to lay down the hand. I know this is going to happen at times, but I pick up the pot often enough to make the constant button aggression profitable.

Small Blind Play

When playing against opponents who raise frequently in position, I’m sure to respond with aggression in the small blind. If I’m holding a hand that’s likely best at a three-handed table - something as modest as A-9 might qualify - and I’m facing a button raise, I take control of the hand and three-bet. That puts additional pressure on the big blind. If I only call the button raise, the big blind will be getting great odds (5:1) to call the additional bet. And I’d far prefer to play the hand heads-up.

After three-betting from the small blind, I follow up with a bet on the flop almost 100 percent of the time. Since I represented a big hand pre-flop, I want to put my opponent to a decision immediately. Once I see how my opponent reacts, I can decide how I should proceed with the hand. I’ll have to give it up sometimes, but the pressure will force a lot of folds.

Big Blind Play

The big blind is the only place where I’m content to call bets pre-flop. In fact, a call is my usual reaction to a button raise. If I start with a moderate hand, I can see the flop and decide how to proceed. If I start with a strong hand, like pocket Aces or Kings, I’ll still call and look to check-raise the flop. I don’t like to three-bet from the big blind because it tends to announce my hand. My opponents know that I’m starting with a very big hand.

Overall Goal

As you can probably tell by now, I believe that aggression is key to success in short-handed Limit Hold ‘em. I think the constant bets and raises create two dynamics that can be exploited for profit. First, by being the aggressor, I have the opportunity to pick up a number of pots where both my opponent and I miss the flop.

Second, the aggression has the tendency to lead opponents to make some very bad decisions. After some time, opponents may call bets on every street with nothing more than Ace- or King-high. When they start doing that, I can tighten up and only bet hands that are likely to be winners at showdown.

At times my style may look maniacal. But in short-handed limit play, it works.

John

[John D’Agostino is Nicknamed “Jdags” if you come across him onsite at Full Tilt Poker. He has won 2 WPT final tables in the last 12 months]

John, like a growing number of poker professionals and aspiring poker professionals plays exclusively online at Full Tilt Poker. Click through on the link below to see if Full Tilt Poker is right for you!
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While playing on Full Tilt Poker, I have said that there are three topics I won’t discuss in table chat; politics, religion, and whether online poker is rigged. That’s because many people’s opinions on those topics are hardened and not amenable to friendly or productive discussion.

Away from the table, I’ll venture a couple of comments about improbable events in poker. While not direct instruction in the tactics and strategy of play, these comments may help you take “bad beats” in stride — and that, in turn, is an essential part of poker maturity.

First, let’s consider what most would view as a typical “bad beat” — a lower pocket pair winning against a higher pocket pair in hold ‘em, such as KK beating AA. When those hands share one suit, the chance of the worse hand winning is about 18%. The chance of the lower pair winning twice — that is, the next two times that such hands happen to go against each other — is about 3%. If in one session of play, a lower pocket pair beat a higher pocket pair twice, that might seem a little, well, weird to some players.

Consider another situation involving chance. When two dice are thrown, the chance of rolling “snake eyes” (1-1) is about 3% — about the same as a lower pocket pair beating a higher pocket pair twice.

Suppose there were 600 craps tables using standard, unaltered dice with nine players around each table — a total of 5,400 players — and these tables operated for a three-hour “session.” How many players would observe snake eyes being thrown at least once? The statistical expectation result is not important. The point is that it’s easy to intuitively see that a large number of players would.

Further, do you think some players might see snake eyes thrown several times in an evening — say, three or four times? (That is equivalent to six or eight poker “bad beats.”) And if some of those players would be inclined to report their observation on forums and in chat, then it might seem to some as if the dice were “fixed.”

Let’s go back to poker. Recently, I played a hand of No-Limit Hold ‘Em on Full Tilt Poker. An opponent four seats in front of the button open-raised pre-flop. It was folded around to me in the big blind, and I called. I semi-bluff check-raised the flop, continued with a semi-bluff bet on the turn, was raised all-in, and called the raise. I made my draw on the river. After the hand my opponent chatted:

opponent: ur horrible steve
opponent: why the [****] did u call that?
opponent: horrible that this site rewards that

(Confidential to opponent: I know these comments were made in the heat of the moment after a big loss and don’t necessarily reflect your considered view.)

Let’s take a look at my call on the turn. I held Ad Td; my opponent held Kd Kc. The board was Qd 9d 7h Jc.

With my opponent’s actual holding, I had 16 outs to win the pot on the river, making me a 1.75 to 1 underdog. Of course, it could have been worse for me against other holdings, but even the worst case for me would have been to be up against K-T (a made straight), and then I would have been only a 3 to 1 underdog.

After my bet and the opponent’s all in-raise, I was getting pot odds of 3.7 to 1 to call, so the call is clearly correct. But it seemed to my opponent — and to at least one observer — that I made a bad call, and that my winning with a 36% chance to do so when I called was a bad beat for my opponent.

The moral of this story: While “bad beats” (low-probability events) do occur, sometimes a closer examination of a poker hand can change first impressions and allow you to continue to play with a cooler, clearer head.

Steve Brecher

Steve, like many poker professionals plays exclusively online at Full Tilt Poker. There are around 35,000 players online at peak times at Full Tilt across many thousands of tables - at all stakes, including Freerolls.

Hope to meet you at a table soon!

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