Different playing styles and strategies are required for pot limit and no limit poker if you want to win big. Here’s a Texas Hold’em Cash Game example of how to bet in each game format. My next posting will cover no limit and pot limit tournament poker.

WHAT DO YOU DO?

One player limps (flat calls), you make a raise and both the blinds and the limper call. The flop comes down , and again you bet after the limper checks. Now the small blind calls, the big blind raises and the initial limper re-raises! What do you do?

A lot depends on your opinions of the other players, and how wild they are. Considering this as a possible “deep stack in-the-flesh pot limit” hand and a “short-stacked online no limit hand” throws up divergent possibilities.

POT LIMIT

Against good opposition, you might actually have to throw your hand away. The most likely hand for the limper is 6-6 as he called then called again after you made a raise that was restricted to the size of the pot and the two others came in. That player would then naturally check the flop, letting someone else bet the A or K and re-raising for a massive amount!

It’s likely the small blind has a weaker hand, as in late position he would raise with something very strong to protect the hand, and the big blind could have started with almost anything as he already has money invested, cannot be raised out and was getting very good odds to catch a well disguised hand. The fact that he called could mean he has something along the lines of Ax of hearts.

NO LIMIT

In a short-stacked, no limit game, the format and mobility of your stack means you can raise 10-15% pre-flop should you wish to, and should you think other loose players will call. In such a game you would hope to give a hand like 6-6 bad odds to call, so even if this loose player catches you here in the long term they will lose it back calling with small pairs that miss.

People may well play hands like weak Aces stronger than is advisable in this situation, and could call with any kind of flush draw. So in a wild, short-stacked, no limit game, you would often raise all in to block out draws as far as possible and snare the second best hands, especially if the limper is a maniac or one of the blinds raises instead of him. Even if you end up losing, you have protected your hand well pre-flop and of the other players are so loose and indiscriminate as to put money in with inferior hands, you could end up the winner in the long term.

In my next posting I’ll cover and example of Pot Limit and No Limit betting in Texas Hold’em Tournament play.

Kishan Neilsen

Kishan is a US based online poker professional. Like many online pros, you’ll find him at tables at BetOnline or Bookmaker Poker.

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Most players eventually realize that it’s fun, fairly easy and potentially better use of their time when trying to build a bankroll, to play at multiple online poker tables at once. Early in my career, I played as many as eight games at once on a daily basis. Here are some tips for playing multiple games:

1. Aligning your tables. Online poker software is getting better and better with some sites far better for easy multi-table play than others – some give you the choice of “picture in picture” or separate browser windows for each poker game that you can move independently around your screen, stack, layer and re-size…

Resolution is key for effective multi-table poker (you gotta be able to see those cards!). Most computer systems come preconfigured now for max res. It’s easy to change the resolution of the monitor by clicking on your desktop, then Properties, then Settings. Grab the arrow in the Screen Resolution area and move it to a smaller resolution. If possible use 1600×1200 setting to get up to four games on one screen without overlap. In order to maximise your screen area, make sure your video card and monitor support higher res settings.

2. Once you get into playing more than one game, the best way for you to keep up with the action is to look for hands you can fold automatically. Use advance actions. That will help you pay more attention to the game you have a real hand in.

3. Play the same game at every table. (Not just like Hold’em or Omaha, but also the same limit/ NL and preferably games with similar stakes).  It will help you avoid mistakes in reading and playing your hand, and you’ll find it easier to get into a good rhythm.

4. Most importantly: Track who has raised the pot. Make sure you make a mental (or physical jotting!) of this since it is key to how you will play your hand latter. It sounds simple, but it is really easy to get in a pot and not recall who raised when you’re playing across four to eight tables!

5. Make sure you take some breaks. When I used to play eight games, I was an animal. I would run to the bathroom and every screen would be beeping at me. Take a few breaks. The games will still be there when you get back!

Playing multiple poker games concurrently is a lot of fun and I hope to see you at the table – or tables!

Erick Lindgren

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Knockout Bounty tournaments available at a few top Poker rooms (such as BetVictor Poker and Paddy Power Poker) – can add a fun and exciting new wrinkle to tournament poker. While it’s important to go after the bounties at the right times, you have to keep an eye on your overall goal: winning.

A lot of players will forget this and risk way too much as they try go after bounties. You have to be wary of these players and adjust your game accordingly. You will often have to tighten up as your opponents are willing to play a wider range of hands in pursuit of Knockout Bounties. While everyone else is pushing with a wider variety of hands, you need to play smart and remember not to stray too far from your normal game plan.

Of course, there are times when you should be more aggressive in trying to take down a bounty. If another player at your table is short stacked, by all means go after him, especially in the early stages of the tournament. If you’re in the small blind and a short stack is in the big blind, you should force his hand with pretty much any two cards. In this case, the small risk in doubling him up is outweighed by the reward of taking down the bounty.

Inversely, if you find yourself short stacked in a Knockout Bounty tournament, you should be willing to push all-in with a narrower range of hands than you might otherwise play in a non-bounty tournament. Remember, everyone at the table is going to be gunning for you and your bounty, so you want to give yourself the best possible chance of having your hand stand up so that you can rebuild your chip stack. To that end, you should also be more wary of bluffing and of trying to steal blinds with a marginal hand, because you’re probably going to get called by at least one player, regardless of what cards they’re holding.

In the later stages of these tournaments when you’re getting close to the money, my advice is very simple – forget about the bounties and just play your normal game. If you’ve made it this far, you don’t want to make any unconventional or risky moves just for the chance to take down an additional bounty. The risk simply doesn’t justify the reward and your chips are just too precious to throw around when first-place could be within your grasp.

So go ahead and gun for a bounty when the opportunity presents itself, but don’t go out of your way trying to take another player out just for the fun of delivering a knockout punch. Remember, even in a Knockout Bounty tournament, there’s no sweeter reward than to be the last man standing after the final hand is dealt.

A former Wall Street Trader, Erik Seidel holds 7 WSOP Bracelets

Read more poker tips from professional players  or check out the latest poker room reviews on what’s hot and not about the top rating online poker sites.

Becoming a professional poker player is a big decision. Here’s a quick quiz to see how you’d fare.

What sort of bankroll do you need to turn pro?
A) $10,000
B) $1,000
C) $100
D) Six months worth of outgoings

ANSWER: If you answered A, you’re on the right track, but you need to see your bankroll in context of the games you’re playing and what you’d expect back from it. If you said D, don’t even think about it – you shouldn’t be confusing bankroll with the money you need to live.

What game are you going to use as the launch pad for your professional poker career?
A) $0.50/$1 no-limit
B) $200/$400 limit
C)  $50/$100 no-limit
D) $2/$5 limit

ANSWER: Being realistic and disciplined are as important as being ferocious on the baize. If you answered either B or C, you’ve been watching too many films and so have an unrealistic idea of the nitty-gritty of being a poker pro. If you answered A, don’t give up your day job unless you’re happy living out of a cardboard box and eating dumpster-style. The $2/$5 game might not sound particularly glamorous, but working your way up carefully is the way to a successful pro career.

What is your rationale for turning pro (what are your reasons)?
A) I can’t stand my day job
B) I’m winning constantly online
C) I love the game and want to spend all my time learning and improving
D) It looks like a fantastically easy way to make a million

ANSWER: If you answered D, don’t think you’re going to make an easy million from poker. Unless you make it into the ‘premier league’, being a pro is about hard work and learning. Winning isn’t enough either: you need to have the right attitude to make a go of it day in, day out, without a career to define your life. If you answered C, you made the wise choice and there may be hope for you!

You’re suffering a particularly bad run of cards. Do you:
A) Keep plugging away. The cards are bound to turn.
B) Switch games and burn some money at your ‘tilt’ games
C) Switch off your PC and take the dog for a walk
D) Meditate and try to regain a positive attitude before you play again.

ANSWER: Getting into a bad run is easy; getting out of it is more difficult. If you answered A or B, you’re going to burn yourself out very quickly. You need to clear you head and maintain a healthy balance in life. I don’t care how you achieve it – C or D are both great answers!

Good luck at the tables,
Kishan Neilsen

Kishan is a US based online poker professional. If you’re USA-based he recommends both BetOnline Poker and Bookmaker Poker for building a bankroll.

For more info check out the latest online poker reviews and ratings on these sites:

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You’ve probably seen Phil Hellmuth show an opponent the nuts, or Johnny Chan advertise a bluff – but these guys are not your average players…they’re legends!

The only time it is mandatory to reveal your cards is at the showdown, and until you too have achieved legendary status, this is probably the only time you should. If you opponent folds to a raise, showing him you had the nuts is not always going to help you. It may reinforce your image as a tight player, but it also instils confidence in your opponent. Now he knows he made the right move and doesn’t have to agonize over the hand. (Come on guys! – I’m almost sick of typing “poker is a game of incomplete knowledge” and giving away info about your play style, needlessly, is crazy!).

Advertising a bluff doesn’t always have the desired effect either. Most intermediate players know that you only showed a bluff so you could set them up – and the great players will just eat you! The next time you bluff you’ll have to think about what your opponent is thinking, based on your earlier advertisement. But he is thinking about what you think he is thinking about. Then you get into triple reverse psychology and the next thing you know your brain short circuits and you can smell burnt toast (which might be better than your usual wet dog smell).

You always want your opponents to second guess themselves, to never be sure if they were right or wrong. Inspire doubt in your opponents, not confidence, and you will have an advantage.

Kishan Neilsen

US based Kishan plays his cash game poker online at BetOnline Poker. Check out this friendly, more boutique style poker room. With less hype, but plenty of action. Online Gambling Specialists BetOnline offer some great sports and race book betting, plus popular, safe casino gaming & poker play. They’ve been around in various forms since 1991 and are well regarded by industry commentators for North American betting action.

Tilting in poker is for losers. So how can you stop tilting?

Tilting in poker is your biggest enemy. You can be a crack pot odds calculator. You can be the best in the world at reading people. You can know opponents’ betting strategies as if they were your own. But if you don’t have your emotions under control, whether you’re playing in-the-flesh or online, you will go broke.

You’re A-game can be one of the best in the world, but if you tilt regularly that will not matter, because if you are a tilter, you are not playing you’re A-game a good portion of the time.

Poker is a game of cold, calculating decision making. Every time the action is to you, you have to make a decision. If you make better decisions than your opponents, you will win. Simple.

Everyone knows you should never make an important decision when you are emotional. We make poor decisions when we are angry or hurt or sad. When you are emotional at the poker table, the same thing holds. We make rash decisions there too. When we are tilting, the chances that our opponents are making better decisions than we are is much greater. And when we are making worse decisions that our opponents, we lose. It doesn’t matter how great you’re a-game is if you are playing your C-game a significant portion of the time.

So how can you stop tilting? I mean your aces lost again, right? For the fifth time in one session, some bozo called you as a 5:1 dog and you lost. Who wouldn’t tilt under those circumstances? The answer should be YOU.

You need to look at poker as one long game spanning your whole playing career. In the long run we all get dealt the same cards. The people who play those cards best win in the long term. The people who don’t play those cards the best lose in the long term. In the short term, a bad player might suck out on you five hands in one session, but it’s those very suckouts that make them losing players. If you are in a game where people are consistently getting their money in bad, while you are getting your money in good, it doesn’t matter whether you are losing some of those situations; you are the favorite in the game – and the game is good.

The next time someone calls your all-in with 7-4 and cracks your aces, instead of getting angry and dejected, rejoice! If no one ever sucked out on you, it would mean that you’re not playing in a good game. Rejoice that opponents are willing to get their money in so bad against you. That is what makes poker a game you can win at. That is what makes you better than other players.

Focus on what suckouts mean for the quality of the game you are in, and bad beats will seem less like emotionally-charged disasters and more like bright neon sign flashing “Great Game” and with an arrow pointing to your table.

Another pro tip from the renowned poker professional, Annie Duke.

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Having read and analysed poker books and tips from professional players for years in an attempt to keep building on my own game, some consistent themes keep creeping into the advice for poker play.

Here are today’s “lucky 7” poker tips:

1. Let the good times roll
A fun game is a good game. If everyone at the table is having a great time, then they will come back to play with you again and again (and won’t mind losing their money to you).

2. Go hard or go home
Aggression wins tournaments and that’s where the real money is won. The meek may finish in the money frequently, but smart, aggressive players WIN tournaments.

3. Know your enemy
(or as Mike Caro has it “Know your customer” as you’re gonna sell them your hands)
Don’t underestimate your opponents. With the large fields of today (both in-the-flesh and online), you may not know many of the faces/names. If you don’t recognise them, you cannot assume that they are not great players!

4. Lesson’s over
School is out – try not to educate your opponents at the table. Giving lessons only hurts your chances to win their money. (That said in order to “Let the good times roll” sometimes you need some leeway here!)

5. Taking the bait
Don’t bluff the unbluffable. If you bluff at a player, make sure it is someone that can lay a hand down!

6. Getting what is yours
Remember not to leave any dead money on the table. Make every attempt to maximise your chances to win each pot that you’re involved in. Don’t worry about winning every pot; do whatever you can to win the pots that you’re involved in.

7. The ego trap
Check your ego at the door. Keep your head. Make it personal by all means but play it smart with a financial game plan (especially if you’re playing cash NL games!)

Kishan Neilsen

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Here’s a poker article that I could relate to – we’ll probably get slapped around a bit for republishing it – but I thought it was worth sharing.

It’s called “Here’s $200 darling, buy some new genes!” and it’s by Inside Edger and all round poker trooper, James Hipwell.

I’ve been a lying, cheating scumbag for quite a while now. Or so my girlfriend tells me, sometimes even in a good-natured way. Without wishing to dwell on my multifarious faults she accepts many things about me that others wouldn’t but what she finds absolutely deplorable is my current obsession with poker.

I mean, why? My claims that it’s merely a card game, and one based on skill rather than luck, always fall on deaf ears. What does her strict Presbyterian upbringing find so offensive about it? Obviously she doesn’t want me to splurge my monthly bankroll on one evening of no-limit hold’em but it’s not like she’s even particularly pleased on the few occasions that I do win.

Most women are pre-programmed, normally by their mothers, to loathe games of chance. Normally, if you delve that far into people’s family histories you will find a gambler lurking somewhere. Tales of these unlucky blighters, who more often than not blew the family fortune in a game of brag or something, have travelled down the years to play havoc generations later. They exist as cautionary tales and woe betide anyone in a family 200 years later who might just show the smallest sign that he has inherited the fatal gambling gene.

I didn’t ask my girlfriend whether there had been gamblers in her family, thinking it must be a given. Why the irrational hatred of the beautiful game on the baize? But what I did do was try to give her a sense of why I enjoyed playing poker so much.

I told her about the adrenalin-pumping, mind-lazering buzz of poker. I talked about how part of the thrill of poker is not just winning or losing, but the little shifts of power that you have with your opponents to try and show them who’s boss.

But even I’m bound to admit that at the end it all comes down to money. Let’s face it – not playing for money isn’t an option and that’s what our loved ones really can’t stand. People who cheerily suggest, “Hey, let’s play for matchsticks!” miss the point entirely – unless you’re living in an ice age and you’re playing for the last box of matches on Earth. The whole thrill of poker is intimately tied to financial risk.

If there’s no real risk, everyone bluffs, no one folds, and the best hand always wins. Snoooooore. The whole point of the game is that. Often, the best hand loses. It’s the best players who wins. It’s all about reading people, deceit, bravado, and self-control. So the fact that my hands shake perceptibly with excitement when I draw a full house is probably one reason I rarely have much luck in the game. That and the fact that I keep revealing my tells!

I’d be better off it poker were just a fad for me, a passing fancy I’d eventually set aside for more mature pursuits, like bowls or bridge. But while the World Series of Poker may very well follow Pot Black into the museum of pop culture curiosities, another generation’s way of creating sporting celebrities out of middle aged men with beer bellies, I’m afraid my love affair is going to live on. I guess my only option is to get better – to save my relationship at the very least.

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You make a strong raise mid-way through a tournament with A-K and the flop comes A-7-4 rainbow. You bet half the pot and your opponent goes all-in. Do you fold or call?

In a cash game you raise three times the big blind with Aces and get two callers for a flop of 4h-5c-8c. Both check and you bet the pot, after which both call. The turn is 10d, they check and you bet the pot again, one player calls and the other now raises all-in. Do you fold, call, raise or go all-in?

In the above hand, the last player folds and the player who pushes all-in on the river for two-thirds of the pot when it comes the 7c. Do you fold or call?

[scroll down for the recommended play]

ANSWERS
CALL like a flash. You’ve obviously caught someone on a bluff or weaker Ace, and can expect to be ahead 99% of the time.

FOLD. It’s hard to imagine how you can be ahead here as you are likely facing trips, a made straight or a flush draw in some combination. Get out while you can.

FOLD. Your opponent has played it like a draw throughout and the 7c completes both flush and the straight. It would take some ingenuity to end up in a situation where you could bluff here, so it’s probably best to just surrender to the inevitable and swallow your pride.

This blog posting was from bet365Poker.
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When it comes to advice about poker, my attitude is very simple: seek it out, absorb it, but while you’re at the table, forget it.

I’m a firm believer in learning the game by playing the game. I’m not saying there aren’t a lot of great resources around to help players improve their games or that poker books and tutorials don’t have their place. They do. However, the problem I see with people who rely on these kinds of aids is that they end up playing poker like someone else or – even worse – like everyone else.

One of the things that makes poker great is that it’s a game where there’s really no right or wrong way to play. Every player has their own approach to the game and the key, in my opinion, is to take the things you learn from other players and incorporate them into a style of play that works for you.

There are some players who take a very mathematical approach to the game, and for them, it works. They study the odds and make decisions based on whether they think they’re getting the right price to commit their chips to a pot. It’s a solid way to play, but the fact is, it’s not the right approach for everyone. What’s more, even the best of these players will tell you that math only takes you so far.

Calculating the odds can certainly help you decide whether you’re making a smart move, but it doesn’t take into account who you’re playing against. There are many times when you can do all of the math you want and your decision still comes down to intangibles and a feeling about your opponent or the situation you’re facing. Does this guy have a hand? Can I push him off the pot? Am I getting myself into trouble here? Even if the odds say you should play, your gut may be telling you something else, and that’s something you can only develop by playing.

Relying too much on other peoples’ advice can actually make it harder to develop this kind of reading ability because it tends to clutter up your head. You get so focused on thinking about odds, probabilities and strategies that you forget that you’re playing against someone else and that you have to try and figure out what he or she is doing. Are they scared? Will they fold to pressure? Are they a maniac? In my opinion, these are the important things to keep in mind during a hand.

It’s been said before, but it bears repeating. Poker isn’t about the cards; it’s about the players and the situations. Winning players understand that sometimes you have to take chances. Sometimes they work and other times they don’t. Whether you win the hand or not, you have to make the play that you believe is best.

At the end of a hand or a session, go back and study the things you did well and be honest with yourself about where you made mistakes. Don’t, however, overanalyze how you could have played a hand differently because this can negatively impact how you approach your next hand or session. Identify your mistakes, learn from them, and move on. Just because some play or move didn’t work the way you wanted doesn’t mean you were wrong to try it. As I said before, there are just some things that you have to learn by playing.

So here’s my advice. Read this tip. Read other tips and poker books. Talk to your friends. Absorb as much information as you can. But at the end of the day you have to trust your instincts and play your own poker game – not someone else’s.