I’ve read many poker books and have made myself a lot of money. I’m a fan of Sklansky and Malmuth. The question is ‘How to Play Big Slick’ in low limit hold’em cash games online. I’ve have yet to see Big Slick explained enough in any of these books.

This is the problem I have and I need it explained by an expert…you. I open with AK suited (or not) for a raise in early position. I get 2 or more callers, but assume two. I do not hit the flop in any way. I bet out to see where I’m at and get called by two players at least. Nothing hits on the turn. Do I just simply give up and move on, or fire another bullet? Do I just assume that one of them probably has something?

It seems more often than not when I bet the turn with just AK, I’ll get called again. If I’m heads up, should I still fire away to the end if the guy just calls and calls. Maybe check and call his river bet?… give up?

First off, you’re reading the right people. Sklansky & Malmuth (and now Miller, who collaborated on Small Stakes Hold’em) are, at least in my opinion, the best poker authors out there.

As for how to play AK, if you haven’t found the information in Sklansky books, I’m surprised (I learned a lot about AK from his books in the past), but I think I can help. In fact, if you do end up reading a relevant section of a Sklansky book, I’d consider it essential that you listen to his advice, even if what I write here differs slightly. I’m someone who learned from reading those books; I’m not someone who can deservedly criticize their strategy.

First, remember that in limit hold’em the only time you shouldn’t at least consider raising AK preflop is when you think that one of your opponents has AA or KK, especially if you think one of them has AA. Usually, you can’t know for sure that an opponent has AA unless they raise at least 3-bet or 4-bet pre-flop. Even some very tight players (who deserve respect when raising), may raise a hand like QQ pre-flop. However, most very tight players won’t cap pre-flop with less than KK or AA, so if you’re sitting with AK pre-flop and a normally tight/passive opponent has 4-bet, you can safely fold. If you see a three bet in front of you, often it is hard to decide between folding and calling. In this case, you need to consider position and who is doing the raising (tight player or loose player?).

You should be aggressive with AK pre-flop, not only because you’re more likely to get rid of a few players (increasing the chance you’ll win the pot), but also because you’ll increase the size of the pot (hence, increasing your total return if you win the pot). I’m sure you understand the need to be aggressive with AK, but some players, when in a rut, will forget and just call.

Let’s run through the scenario you’ve described. You get two callers both of whom have position on you, after raising AK in early position. First, you need to look at the board before you bet out. If you have absolutely nothing, you need to hope that your opponents are in the same boat. If the board is ugly (723 rainbow), you might have a chance that they both missed (maybe one is playing QJ and the other AT, for example). But, if the board was QT2 rainbow, you should know for sure now that you need the J (or maybe your A or K) to win, because you’re facing two callers and two cards in the “playing zone”, which is 9 to ace. This term is what Bob Ciaffone has defined as “the portion of the deck most likely to connect with a player who puts money in voluntarily.” In other words, with two callers who are at least reasonable in terms of the hands they will play, you can expect that your AK is not the best hand on the QT2 board.

Nonetheless, you’ll usually be required to take a stab by the size of the pot (7.5 small bets, assuming the blinds fold, before we adjust for rake). This means that, assuming you’re not raised, between the small chance that both players will fold, the small chance that you’re ahead (and they call), and the moderate chance that you’ll make the best hand by the turn, you’re getting laid the right odds to place a bet. For continuation bets where you have very little/nothing on the flop, usually it is advisable to fire a bet when there are two or less callers. Usually when the pot is contested by 4 or more players, continuation betting is useless, and you should check/fold to a bet.

On the turn after a call, you have to consider whether both your opponents are on a draw that has missed, or if you’re ahead of both. In the vast majority of situations, you’ll be behind when you have two callers and usually, unless you’ve picked up the first part of a backdoor draw (so now there’s three spades on the board, and you have the As), you’ll be drawing quite slim. Often, if you have no reads and no image, you’re better off checking instead of firing. Most people who call the flop in low limit, will also call the turn, and quite often this means you’re committed to firing again on the river, or at least check/calling, which means by betting on the turn you’re committing yourself to two big bets.

Remember that the turn is usually when people make their decision in hold’em, and that while in many tight games this means you should fire again on the turn, in low limit almost no pots are won without a showdown. In low limit, you have to be willing to show down to win, and that means that you need the best hand or you need to make the best hand. As you said, more often than not you’ll be called, and that is always the case with low limit.

Heads up is trickier. Often, AK will win unimproved heads up, but still you need to consider your opponents possible range versus the texture of the board. A board of QT2 will more often than not, connect more with a caller than 732 will. Heads up is usually about aggression, so if you bet the whole way heads up you might win enough to justify the losses when you don’t improve and they call down with a better hand. One nice thing about heads up is that you can check/call the river and many players will bluff against you, while if you bet the river, usually the only hands which will call you, will beat you, and the only hands that fold, you could beat anyway.

AK sure is a tricky hand, and I can’t tell you for sure how to play every scenario there is, but I suggest you re-read some of your Sklansky books. Small Stakes Hold’em in particular is a good one to read.

Good luck at the tables!

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“Poker is a tough business,” says Erik Seidel. “You can go through long streaks when you don’t win anything.” When things go badly, when you can’t seem to cash in a tournament or win a significant pot in a cash game, you come to understand the importance of maintaining an adequate bankroll.

Just how big should your bankroll be? How much money do you need to ensure that a bad run won’t put you on the rail? We Full Tilt Poker pros agree that the answer depends on a number of factors, including the types of games you’re playing, the level of competition you’re encountering, and your psychological disposition.

As Jennifer Harman says, “Some players can be effective on a relatively short bankroll, but others need more of a cushion. They’ll get stressed out and play scared if they don’t have enough money behind them.” So you need to be aware of your comfort level at the table. If you’re nervous about what you stand to lose in a given pot, you’re probably playing too high for your bankroll. Harman, like most Team Full Tilt members, recommends a conservative approach and suggests maintaining a bankroll that leaves plenty of room for downswings. “If you’re playing $10-$20 limit, I think $10,000 is about right,” says Harman.

John D’Agostino agrees, “You should never play a limit where you feel uncomfortable.” He suggests that a player shouldn’t put more than five percent of his bankroll in play at any time.

The need for a sizable bankroll exits for tournament play as well as cash games. Erik Seidel, a tournament specialist, notes that long droughts are common for tournament professionals and that entry fees can add up quickly.

“If you were to play all of the $10,000 buy-in events, you could spend half a million over the course of year,” says Seidel. “Even top players can have years when then don’t cash for $100,000, so having a proper bankroll is critical.”

“You need a much bigger bankroll in tournaments than you do is side games,” agrees Chris Ferguson. “A lot of people play tournaments without nearly enough. You easily need 100 buy-ins. Maybe 200.”

Playing over your bankroll is fine once in awhile, but all the pros concur that it’s important to leave yourself plenty of money to recover from unlucky hands and the occasional mistake. D’Agostino, one of the top young players in poker, offers one further tip for hanging on to your money. “Don’t play Phil Ivey heads up. I tried that once and I failed miserably.”

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Why is it, more often than not in all ins, the worst hand seems to win a very high per cent of the time, particularly if three are in?

The answer depends on what you mean…If you mean that hands with a 20% chance always win twice as often as that in a three way all-in, then you’re mistaken because that’s not actually the case. Over a very large number of hands (commonly call the long run), that hand in that situation will win 1 in 5 according to the law of large numbers. Unfortunately, we don’t operate in a sample of large numbers – we only see our own hands, and that’s why it looks wrong to us.

Nonetheless, I think there’s something else at the root of your question, specifically about “if three are (all) in”. Let’s take a common example: It’s late in a sit-and-go tournament, and the button pushes all-in with the JT of spades, hoping to steal the blinds. Let’s say the small blind pushes all-in because they have AhQd, and they figure to have the best hand. But you’re in the big blind, and you look down at the AcKh, and seeing that you’ve got a good hand and great odds to call all-in, you put all your chips in the middle.

How often do you expect to win this? 60% of the time maybe? Only 50% because it’s three-way? Ask yourself, in the heat of battle, what kind of odds do you give yourself to win in this situation. Maybe this contributes to the feeling that the weakest hand wins way too often, because sometimes one will overvalue some hand or another.

In actuality, you have a 40.96% chance to win in this situation, and the jack-ten has a 36.44% chance, meaning your edge on them is less than 5%. If you ran into this hand 50 times in your life, you’d win about 21 times and the jack ten would win 18. That’s only 3 more hands in 50 dealt out – hardly constitutes a dominant hand. But take the ‘third’ hand out of the scenario, and all of a sudden the AK is 51/49, and a favourite. While still not a dominant hand, it is in a much better situation (being a 3 to 2 favourite, instead of a 3 to 2 dog).

It should become immediately clear why the ‘worst’ hand (JT) can become a potential winner. When the AQ is dominated by the AK, and is sharing cards (the ace), not only does the AQ end up with little chance to win, the AK loses a bit of edge because of the shared cards.

This will often happen in multiway pots: hands which are favoured over the other hands individually, will not be a favourite to win in a multiway pot.

Also, this raises another issue I’d like to draw your attention to: dynamic hand value. Which hands are favoured, and which hands you want to hold, depend on what your opponent(s) hold. Hence, the true value of hands is dynamic. For instance, if it were a heads-up game you would naturally favour pocket tens over holding AK. But if the pot is three way, and you learn that each of your opponents hold JJ and QQ, all of a sudden you’d give your left arm to have AK because your hand’s value is much higher in this situation. Make your opponents hole cards 99 and 88, then you would want TT again.

Sorry to ramble on about hands, but it’s good stuff to consider.

Good luck at the tables!
– Coach

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“Too often, implied odds are invoked as a reason for a play when “wishful thinking” would be the more accurate description of the situation.”

Most players know what pot odds and implied pot odds (aka implied odds) are, and how to calculate them. Just about every poker book or website has a section on the topic. Still, I often see people making mistakes in calculating implied odds – especially when playing online. Too often, implied odds are invoked as a reason for a play when “wishful thinking” would be the more accurate description of the situation.

A perfect example came up in a recent tournament on Full Tilt Poker. The table was short-handed and playing rather loose pre-flop, but tight after the flop. The blinds were getting high, and a hand developed where we got to see a showdown between a loose player who I’ll call “Loosey” and a player I’ll call “Impy.”

Impy had no pair and only an inside straight draw on the flop, yet he called a pot-sized bet from Loosey. Impy hit his straight on the turn, but was only able to extract a small amount from his opponent and ended up checking down the river. Impy’s fuzzy logic on the flop was that, although he was behind, if he hit his hand he’d get paid off at greater odds than it required to chase his four-outer. As we saw in the hand, he got part of what he wanted (the straight), but failed to extract enough from his opponent to make his call on the flop reasonable. Furthermore, Loosey was short-stacked, had top-pair with a weak kicker, and was unlikely to have paid off much more than he did.

So, what can Impy do to improve his game? Here are some guidelines for using implied odds to greater advantage:

Only Play Against Big Stacks
When two players are contesting a pot, their maximum implied odds are exactly the same: the size of the shorter stack. If you and your opponent both have large stacks relative to the blinds and antes, your implied odds are much better than if one of you is sitting on a smaller stack, simply because there are more chips that can be committed to the pot during the hand. Players who are short-stacked tend to play tighter and are less likely to try to pick off a possible bluff because they don’t have any extra chips to spare, unlike a tall stack.

Don’t Play Short-Handed
The more opponents there are at your table, the greater the likelihood that one or more of them will pick up a good hand, be in on the flop, and ultimately pay you off when you hit your draw. In short-handed or heads-up situations, you have to get very lucky: first you have to hit your hand, then you have to hope your opponent has a good enough hand to pay you off. My advice is, unless you have a really good read on your opponents in the hand, don’t even consider implied odds unless you are at a full 9- or 10-handed table.

Play Against Tight-Aggressive Players
Implied odds are greatest against tight-aggressive players. Why? Because these are the players who are likely to have strong hands after the flop, and are likely to commit a lot of chips to defend their good hands. Tight-aggressive players are also going to be involved in smaller pots on the flop, and will check-raise more often than loose players when out of position. This gives you free-card opportunities, which improve your implied odds. Psychologically, once involved in a hand, tight players may have a harder time letting go after the flop than loose players who are always in action. Over time, those loose players are going to have a harder time finding a reason to play with you after the flop.

The key to playing against tight-aggressive players after the flop is to keep the pot as small as possible until you hit your draw. If they put a lot of pressure on you, you’re better off folding your draw and waiting for a better situation. Not every hand can be played profitably after the flop.

Incorporate Bluffs and Semi-Bluffs
If you are drawing on the flop, you should be betting and raising instead of passively checking and calling to hit your hand. This gives you two ways to win by:

Forcing your opponents to fold, or Hitting your draw. This is called a semi-bluff. The only time you should play passively is if you think a free card will help your situation more than getting your opponent to fold.

Another thing to remember is that you are definitely going to miss your draws more often than not. In these cases, you should sometimes be bluffing, but the question is, how much and how frequently?

Let’s say the pot has $100 in it and you have $100 left, and you are deciding whether to bluff on the river. You’re giving your opponent 2-1 odds to call you, which is exactly how often you should bluff in that situation (two times for every one that you don’t).

How do you choose the right balance between keeping the pot small after the flop and playing aggressively as I am advocating here? That’s the art, and it requires lots of practice and a good read on your opponents. You may want to pick up Sklansky’s Theory of Poker to learn more about optimal bluffing frequency and semi-bluffs. By employing these techniques correctly, you can vastly increase your implied odds and positive expectation.
Rafe Furst

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On rebuy tourneys, would you suggest rebuying at the very start of the game to have a bigger stack to press the other players immediately? Will they tend to play loose and call big bets if they know they can still rebuy?

Most online rebuy tournaments, and especially low buy-in and unlimited buy-in require a significant change in optimal strategy during the rebuy period (almost always the first hour).

Although I admit I’m far from an accomplished tournament player, my strategy has always been to play loose/aggressive without going psychotic – I still pick my spots. But, this strategy only works if you have a decent stack and are attempting to build a bigger stack. So, in direct response to your question, I would definitely rebuy immediately, and I always do when playing in unlimited rebuy tournaments.

The reason is this – you are not trying to play tight/aggressive style as you would in a regular freezeout tournament. Rather, since rebuy tournaments are about accumulating a large stack of chips before the break, you want to take gambles and give yourself opportunities to double and triple up. Players are more likely to play loose/aggressive against you because they can just rebuy if they lose all their chips, so you have to adapt to this and try to build a stack. If you compare a freezeout and a rebuy, you’ll note that at the first break the average stack will usually be proportionately double or triple the size for the rebuy versus the freezeout, and since optimal strategy in a tournament requires a keen attention to stack sizes, this means you need to try to build up a big stack before the break.

In a tournament with starting chips of 1500 or so, I like to make sure I have at least a 10k stack before the end of the rebuy period, including the add-on which I always take. Of course, if you never get the cards to gamble with, you can’t build a stack, but what I am saying is maximize your chance to press other players and to move all in with decent cards (eg. any pair tens or better heads up, AK or AQs etc.) because you want to get action.

If you play this loose/aggressive style, you should be able to accumulate enough chips that when the tournament becomes a freezeout, you’re in decent shape instead of shortstacked. As a result, you may have to rebuy as many as 8 or 9 times, and I’ve heard of people having to rebuy even more. Usually, you’ll average 4 or 5 buyins, as you’ll buy in and rebuy immediately (2 buyins) and you’ll have to do it all over again (another two buyins) quite often, plus one more buyin for the add-on.

So my suggestion is to figure the cost of a buyin at about 5x its initial entry fee. So if you’re usually a 10+1 player and that is all you’re bankrolled for, play the $2 frenzy and not a 10+1 rebuy, because rebuys are much, much more expensive to play than freezeouts. Above all, play rebuys at a level where you don’t feel any pain in rebuying.

Of course, if you’re trying to build a stack and with 10 minutes left in the rebuy period you get busted, depending on the average stack you might be better off quitting and waiting for another day, than trying to double-rebuy because you need some time to build a stack, and building is all that rebuys are about in the first hour. After that, revert to your usual smart, TAG style and you’ll find that you should have enough chips to play optimally without having to take any serious risks because there will be a lot of chips versus the blinds in both your stack and that of your opponents.

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What is the best strategy in a turbo tournament?

In a turbo multi-table tournament, you should play the very early blind rounds the same as you would a regular freezeout mtt. However, when the blinds begin to get large in relation to the average stack, you should be much more concerned with pre-flop starting hands, and be willing to push good pre-flop cards all-in, even if it’s just a coinflip.

In turbo tournaments, you must be the aggressor and be willing to gamble, in order to accumulate chips enough to survive the quick pace of the blinds.

A similar strategy adjustment is necessary for sit-and-go turbo tournaments as well, although in those tournaments, at the end you must be even more willing to gamble because the blinds will rise quite quickly relative to the total chips in play, and the tournament will be shorthanded (unlike the MTT) meaning you have even less time to wait.

Be aggressive and try to get in situations where either you are ahead when you go all-in, or it is a coinflip with dead chips in the pot (chips in the pot from players no longer contesting the pot).

Just remember never to raise pre-flop an amount which leaves you with less than 2/3s or what you started the hand with, unless you also push all-in when making that raise.

Good luck at the tables!

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One of the great things about online poker is how easy it is to change your game from say, Omaha to Stud poker – without having to leave the table. I personally find that if I’m having a bad run at Texas Holdem rather than dropping down the stake levels, changing to a different game often sharpens my thinking and results in more bankroll building play. For me anyway it works sort of like a cold shower and jolts my mind into having to think about the game and my opponents play options and actions.

Some of the more innovative online poker rooms let you play a cool new style of poker called ‘Mixed Games’. These special tables let you play a variety of poker games without ever changing tables. Mixed Games keep you entertained and engaged in the action as the games change on you every 10 hands!

These mixed tournaments are often categorized as:

• HORSE (Hold ’em, Omaha Hi/Lo, Razz, Stud Hi, Stud Hi/Lo)
• HOSE (Hold ’em, Omaha Hi/Lo, Stud Hi, Stud Hi/Lo)
• HA (Hold ’em, Omaha Hi)

Here’s a pro tip from Jennifer Harman on Playing Mixed Games.

Despite what you see on TV, there’s much more to poker than just Hold ’em. The great players are judged by how they play all the games. In the big cash games at the Bellagio, we play an assortment of games every night and at the World Series of Poker, they’ve introduced a $50,000 buy-in HORSE tournament that attracts many of the world’s top professionals.

Full Tilt has recently introduced Mixed Games and it’s a great opportunity to experience the fun and challenge that comes from playing a variety of games in a single session without putting a huge dent in your bankroll. While a lot of fun, mixed games do have some challenges and, for this tip, I want to give some suggestions that will help you starting out.

One of the hardest things for new mixed games players to become comfortable with is the flow of play. With games switching every 10 hands, it can be difficult to instantly adjust your thinking in order to concentrate fully on the game at hand. It will take some time and experience, but eventually, you’ll be able to go from Omaha Hi/Lo to Razz and be ready to play your best as soon as the games switch.

Until you’re comfortable with the game flow, here are some pointers that can help make the switch to mixed games a little easier:

• Be sure you’re playing the right game! I play a lot of HORSE Sit & Gos at Full Tilt Poker and, in almost every one, there’s a player or two who makes the mistake of playing Razz when the game is Stud, or vice-versa. Even in the big game at the Bellagio, this sort of mix-up happens all the time.
• Work on your weakest games. If you find that your Stud Hi/Lo game isn’t as strong as it could be, spend some time at the Stud Hi/Lo tables and work on improving your skills. Put in enough hours at each individual game so that you’re grasping the subtleties of all of them when you play a mixed game.
• Play stronger in your best games than in your weaker games. You may be a master at Stud and feel you can play a lot of different hands well in that game. But if your Omaha Hi/Lo is relatively weak, you’ll need to tighten up in that game and play only premium starting hands. Look for starting hands like A-A-2-3 suited or A-2-K-Q that offer the potential to make both the nut high and nut low, allowing you to scoop as many pots as possible. Or in Razz, for example, stick to starting hands with three cards of 8 or less – if that game isn’t your strength.

If you’re anything like me, you’ll find that it’s tough to go back to any one game once you start playing mixed games. You’ll miss the mental challenge and fun that comes from this type of poker.
Jennifer Harman

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“Every piece of information you gain at the table is something you can use to your advantage.”

I talk a lot at the table. I like meeting people, and poker tournaments give me the opportunity to chat with a lot of nice folks. The conversations I have between hands are not just pleasant – they can also be informative. What a player shares about himself will often determine how I’ll play against him down the line.

For example, say I’m playing in a $10,000 tournament. I ask the young person to my left how he bought into the tournament and he tells me that he won a $30 satellite. Based on that piece of information, I can make some assumptions. He’s probably not especially experienced. Most active players don’t bother with low buy-in tournaments. He likely doesn’t have a huge bankroll, so he’d probably be perfectly happy to cash in the event; he doesn’t need to win to feel he had a successful tournament.

Against this player, I’m probably going to run some bluffs when I think he’s only got a moderate hand. I’m also going to be willing to make some pretty big lay-downs against this guy. I seriously doubt he’s going to put in a lot chips without a very strong hand.

Now imagine that I ask a man at my table how he got into the tournament and he tells me he bought in directly. I ask him what he does for a living, and he says he’s a bookmaker in Dallas.

I’ve got to assume that this guy’s willing to gamble. He’s probably not afraid of a big bluff or a big call. Against him, I’m going to have to call more liberally and avoid making any of my own big bluffs. I may even check some reasonably big hands to avoid getting raised off my hand.

These are just two examples of what you can learn by drawing your opponents out and listening carefully to what they have to say. Every piece of information you gain at the table is something you can use to your advantage.

Gavin Smith – nickname is “Birdguts”

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In poker “Bad beat” means having a hand with an outstanding chance of winning, only to go on to lose. A number of poker rooms offer a progressive jackpot for bad beats – and some players like to join these specifically designated games to try for the prize pool.

You register for play at specific ‘bad beat’ cash game tables and a jackpot contribution is drawn from each hand – and usually displayed as a separate chip stack. The jackpot is struck when a bad beat hand qualifies – and all raked players in that hand generally earn a portion of the pot – with the player with losing bad beat hand generally walking off with the lion’s share ~50% of the prize pool.

Different poker rooms apply different definitions to a ‘bad beat’, and these rules generally fall into 3 categories of ‘bad beat’.

• Category 1 bad beat:  Both the bad beat and winning hand must be the best possible combination of five cards. In cases where the same hand can be created multiple ways (for example player has AK and the board shows AAKKQ) the player’s hole cards will take priority. Both the bad beat and winning hand must make use of both hole cards. A full house must be beaten by a four of a kind or higher.
• Category 2 bad beat:  The same as type 1, plus any four of a kind, whether the bad beat hand or winning hand, must contain a pocket pair.
• Category 3 bad beat:  The same as type 2, plus a full house may not make use of a three of a kind entirely on the board.

Here’s an excerpt from an odds table by “the wizard of odds” that demonstrates the bad beat probabilities of each bad beat hand under all three types of rules. The most stringent rules, the “Bad Beat Type 3”, are generally the most commonly found at online Poker rooms.

The table is based on a ten-player game in which players never fold and are the result of random simulations of about 2.5 billion rounds each. (Go the Wizard!)

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This item may be a little basic for most poker players, but we thought it good background for those just starting out.

There are two main styles of play in poker: loose and tight.

A loose player will tend to play a lot of hands, usually paying to see the flop, and often play right to the River, even with a mediocre hand. Players at low-limit or Play Money tables tend to play very loose, and though it isn’t the most favorable way to play, they will often profit from sheer luck. A tight player can make a lot of money at the looser tables, but if the tables are too loose they can lose money simply by losing to bad players with the odd lucky hand. In order to do better at the looser tables, play more suited cards and more small pairs, but if your hand doesn’t improve make sure you’re ready to fold.

Tighter players take more advantage of starting hand selection to increase their chances of drawing a winner, which is why tighter players tend to play much fewer starting hands. Tight tables are usually less profitable because fewer players will pay to see the flop, particularly on high-limit and no-limit tables where the players are especially tight and logical.

On top of these styles, a player can be called passive or aggressive, depending on their betting style. Passive players are usually quite predictable: they don’t raise often, usually preferring to check or call, but when they do raise they’ve usually got a good hand. Aggressive players, on the other hand, are much more unpredictable: they tend to raise frequently, making it harder to tell what they’re up to.

The way a player plays off the starting hand, combined with their betting styles, create the four common categories of players: loose-passive (“calling stations”), loose-aggressive (“maniacs”), tight-passive (“rocks”) and tight-aggressive (the ideal type of player).

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