The Poker Lab Rat

Full Tilt Poker recently released a revolutionary new form of online poker: Rush Poker*. If you’re not familiar with the game, I encourage you to give it a try. Instead of the players sitting in a 6 or 9-handed game, they are seated in a game that has up to 2,000 players in it. All players are seated at a normal table, but as soon as you decide to fold, instead of waiting for the hand to finish and playing the next hand against the same players, you are immediately seated with a different group of players and play your next hand. This allows players to play around 300 hands per hour instead of the usual 80.

The excitement level isn’t the only thing that makes this game different than normal online poker. Playing against a different group of players each hand means you will need to make a few other adjustments to your normal ring-game strategy to succeed at Rush Poker*.

One big mistake that is tempting to make is to play too tight, waiting for only premium hands. It’s easy to find yourself folding any marginal hand, as you will have a chance to get a monster the next hand with no waiting. But, you must not forget that you’re still paying blinds. And if you tighten up your starting requirements too much, those blinds will eat away at your stack. In fact, I would suggest that opening a few speculative hands (like suited connectors in middle to late positions) is a good way to try to steal a few blinds. However, you should give any 3-bet a lot of respect. Players won’t be as likely to 3-bet light when a new hand is just seconds away.

One habit that is harder to break is playing off a table image. In Rush Poker*, you don’t have one. Just because you have stolen a few blinds lately, doesn’t mean you should be worried your opponents are aware of it. In fact, they have no way of knowing, as they weren’t seated with you when you were making those steals. If you just slow played a big pair, don’t be afraid to try it again next time. Instead of worrying about protecting your table image, you should be ruthlessly exploiting basic strategy and punishing what should be the more predictable hand ranges of your opponents.

Playing good poker is all about making the proper adjustments to your strategy, given different playing conditions. Rush Poker* presents very different conditions than a regular ring game, so making the proper adjustments will be a must. Make those adjustments, and you’ll find yourself having a lot of success while you have loads of fun playing the fastest game on the Internet.

* Patent Pending

ABOUT HOWARD LEDERER:

Howard has won 2 WSOP Bracelets and 2 holds WPT Titles. Howard “The Professor” plays an analytical strategic game based largely on complex mathematical poker theories. He was 2003 WPT Player of the Year and he plays online exclusively at Full Tilt Poker.

For the latest views and reviews on FullTiltPoker.com online poker room check out:

>>PokerLabRat.com’s Full Tilt Poker Review
>>Full Tilt Poker Review and Rating at GoonersGuide.com

Compare Full Tilt to other US-friendly online poker sites - or just visit FullTiltPoker.com for a look around!

One theme you’ll see throughout our Tips From The Pros series is that when you’re making a move, your actions need to tell a plausible story. Some stories can be simple. For example, if you raise pre-flop and then follow up with a bet on a King-high flop, you’re telling opponents that you’re happy with the progression of the hand and maybe you have A-K or K-Q.

In confrontations between advanced players, the plots can get pretty complex as a hand progresses. For this tip, I want to talk about a hand I played on the television show Poker After Dark, where I both told a consistent story and found a flaw in my opponent’s tale.

I was playing in Poker After Dark’s “Commentator’s Week”. With blinds of $200/$400 and my stack at about $14,000, I was on the button with 10s-7s and the action was folded to me. I made a standard raise to $1,200, trying to pick up the blinds. Chad Brown folded in the small blind, but Gabe Kaplan called from the big blind.

The flop came Ah–8s–2d, and Gabe checked to me. I put out a bet of $1,300, keeping with the story that I raised with an Ace pre-flop and was following up after hitting top pair.

Gabe called, so I had to assume that he had some piece of the flop, maybe an 8.

The turn paired the 2. To my surprise, Gabe then led at the pot, betting $3,000. At this point I was really confused. What story was Gabe telling? Did he have a 2? That seemed unlikely, as I thought he would be more likely to check to me, hoping to get more value with a check-raise. It also seemed like a strange play to make if he had an 8.

I decided that there was a good chance he was simply trying to pick up the pot with a bluff. Or he could’ve had a weak Ace. At this point, I decided I could pick up the pot with a bluff. To do that, I needed to keep my story consistent. What would I do if I had the hand I was representing, a hand like A-Q? I’d probably just call Gabe’s turn bet. So that’s what I did, knowing I’d have to bluff the river.

Another Ace fell on the river and Gabe checked. Once again, I wanted to keep my story straight. What would I do if I rivered the full house, Aces full of 2s? I’d bet small, trying to extract some additional value from a player with a pocket pair or an 8. I bet out $3,500, only about one-third of the pot, and Gabe quickly folded.

When the show aired, I learned that Gabe had Qs-Js, and was simply making a play at the pot. He, too, was bluffing. But had I not bet on the river, I would have lost the pot to Gabe’s two-pair with a Queen.

As you play, keep in mind that your opponents will be attempting to piece together the stories you tell them. Do your best to tell them the stories you want them to hear.

Howard Lederer

Howard Lederer plays poker online at FullTiltPoker.com. For the latest views and reviews on Full Tilt Poker online poker room check out:

>>PokerLabRat.com’s Full Tilt Poker Review
>>Full Tilt Poker Review and Rating at GoonersGuide.com 

Compare Full Tilt to other US-friendly online poker sites - or just visit FullTiltPoker.com for a look around!

In a typical nine-handed, one-table Sit & Go that pays out three places, the most critical juncture of the tournament comes when four players remain. Three of those players will turn a profit, and one of them will go home empty-handed. It goes without saying that there’s no more disappointing place to finish in a nine-handed Sit & Go than fourth.

It’s a volatile time when your stack is getting short, the blinds are getting high and everyone’s looking to cash. To get the most out of Sit & Gos, you’re going to have to learn how to master the bubble.

On Full Tilt Poker, first place gets 50% of the prize pool, second place gets 30% and third place pockets 20%. But don’t let that 20% fool you. It’s not really 20% for third, because once you get down to three players, 60% of the prize money has been locked up and actually already paid out. Essentially, the last three players are only fighting over 40% of the prize pool as the other 60% has already been paid out. That’s why it’s so important to make sure you get into the money. You’re going to have to make some tough decisions and tight lay-downs to make sure that you get a piece of that 60%.

Here’s an example of a hand you would play very differently on the money bubble in a Sit & Go than in most other instances. You’re second in chips with 3,000, the blinds are 100/200, and you’re dealt Ad-7d in the big blind. The chip leader is on the button and raises to 600; the small blind folds and you call the extra 400. The flop comes Q-8-3 with two diamonds, which is a pretty attractive flop for your hand. You check, and your opponent does exactly what you didn’t want him to do: put you all in for about double the size of the pot. You’re getting slightly better than 3-to-2 pot odds on a call for your tournament life.

This is a situation in most tournaments where, if it was early in the Sit & Go or if the money bubble had already burst, you would call. But this is a special situation. You are on the bubble and 60% of the prize pool is about to be awarded. If you call here, you’re probably about 50/50 to be the player that finishes on the bubble and gets none of that 60%. This is one situation where you need to really let the structure of the Sit & Go influence your decision.

Once the bubble bursts, your approach should change dramatically. Look again at the payout structure: the last three players are fighting over the remaining 40% of the prize pool. If you move up from third to second, you get another 10%, but if you move up from third to first, that gets you an extra 30%. That’s three times more reward for winning than for just moving up a spot. So your goal now becomes to do what’s necessary to finish in first place and not be too concerned about going broke and finishing in third.

You should be willing to put your chips at risk to give yourself a stack that can lead to a win. If you pick up a hand like J-9 or Ace-rag and it looks like someone might be pushing you around, take a stand. Put your chips in the middle. You don’t want to be anteing off your chips, limping up into second and then not winning.

In these structures, the initial goal is always to cash. Once you’ve cashed, the goal is to go for the win.

Here are the latest stats on Howard Lederer:
He holds 2 WSOP Bracelets and 2 WPT Titles, and was named 2003 WPT “Player of the Year”.  Howard “The Professor” Lederer plays online exclusively at Full Tilt Poker - join him at a table sometime.

For more on FullTiltPoker.com visit PokerLabRat.com for the latest Full Tilt Poker Room Review

If you’re looking for a better return on your time at the poker table, check out Big Money Sundays at FullTiltPoker.com. Big Money, Guaranteed. Play on Big Money Sundays, when the largest guaranteed prize pools of the week are at stake. You can satellite into any of these tournaments with just $1 or 50 Full Tilt Points. Very cool. [Hope to see you at a table - Mike]

Poker is a game of choices. Some of these choices are fairly straight forward and simple while others take a lot of thought. The thing is that when all is said and done, there may not be just one correct path to winning a given hand; it’s all up to you to decide what road to travel.

With that in mind, we asked Team Full Tilt’s Howard Lederer and Chris Ferguson to share their thoughts on one of poker’s trickiest decisions – the coin flip. Should players be willing to put everything on the line in a coin flip situation? Here are two different sides to the coin flip question:

Chris Says:

For the most part, coin flips are something that I tend to avoid. You never want to take on a negative EV proposition, so you can pretty easily fold a hand like A-K when you’re certain your opponent is holding a high pocket pair like Jacks or Queens. Some players are willing to take a negative EV coin flip early on in a big tournament in order to accumulate chips, but this is an incorrect decision (unless you’re trying to catch an early flight or make like Ivey to the golf course).

Of course, there are a couple of situations where pressing a coin flip can be the right move. For example, if you think your opponents are better players than you, then it might be correct to take a coin flip. When you’re outclassed in a game and are certain that you’ll be outplayed after the flop, taking a coin flip can help even the playing field.

By that same token, you should be willing to press a coin flip situation every chance you get against a player who thinks he’s better than you. Make him avoid taking the coin flip by raising and putting a lot of pressure on him to make that decision. If he really thinks of himself as the superior player, he’ll want to avoid that situation and keep folding until he gets the chance to try and outplay you after the flop. He may think he’s the better player, but if you put a lot of pressure on him, you may end up outplaying him.

Howard Says:

I think people try to avoid them too much, especially after they’ve already committed chips to the pot. If the pot has 1,000 in it and you have to put your last 500 chips in to make the call, you’re getting 2-1 on your money – yet people dodge this situation all the time. It’s just wrong; you should love to take 2-1 on a coin flip even if you only have a 48% chance of winning.

When you have a hand like A-K and you could be running into Aces or Kings, committing chips to a coin flip is obviously not something you should be looking to do. But at the same time, when you’re getting 2-1 on your money in a likely coin flip situation, I think its right to take the flip. It’s a pretty big disaster if you’re holding Jacks and don’t want to flip against something like A-K, but it turns out your opponent has pocket 9s.

The whole point of a coin flip is that yes, sometimes you have the classic A-K versus Queens race. But what about all the times you have A-K and the other player has A-Q. When you have a hand where you aren’t in a coin flip, you likely have your opponent dominated, and you should take that proposition every time.

With that said, there are obviously times when you should not be looking to take a coin flip. When you’re in a situation where you have a lot more chips than your opponent, this is a good time not to take that flip. The more of an advantage you have over the other player, the less willing you should be to take the coin flip. Avoid that situation by not committing too many chips to the pot and waiting until after the flop to outplay the competition.

As you can see, there’s no one right way to approach a coin flip situation. There are always two sides to every coin.

Join top professional poker players like Chris Ferguson and Howard Lederer online at Full Tilt Poker.

Playing and chatting to a pro is lots of fun. These guys usually interact well - they started out as newbies or wannabes too… The Full Tilt Poker site rates highly for high stakes cash game play but also offers some excellent tournament poker. It is popular with players from all over the globe now, including Americans from all States.

Check out the latest detailed poker room review of FullTiltPoker.com here
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New bill to stop implementation of unworkable UIGEA regulations 

New legislation - H.R.5767 - introduced by House Financial Services Committee chairman Barney Frank and Republican presidential aspirant Ron Paul, if approved, will effectively curtail the further operation of the UIGEA.

According to a statement from Frank and Paul, HR 5767 introduced this week seeks to prohibit the Federal Reserve Board of Governors and the Treasury secretary from “proposing, prescribing, or implementing any regulation that requires the financial services industry to identify and block Internet gambling transactions.”

Both Congressmen claim the UIGEA unduly infringes upon personal freedoms. “The ban on Internet gambling infringes upon two freedoms that are important to many Americans: the ability to do with their money as they see fit, and the freedom from government interference with the Internet,” Representative Paul said.

And on the same subject but from a different source, it is great to hear the professional players getting stuck into this crazy political situation:

According to a recent article in April’s Bluff Magazine, four proposed bills are currently “floating through” Congress that could help legitimize online poker in the United States. Howard Lederer (on the board of directors of the Poker Players Alliance) is quoted as saying that he “believes that poker players will get some tangible results by the end of next year”.

Howard Lederer, Chris Fergusson, Barry Greenstein, Chris Moneymaker, Annie Duke, Andy Bloch and Vanessa Rousso were among the top professionals as members of the Poker Players Association, that met individually with about fifty members of Congress.

Roussou is quoted as saying “I found that the majority of Congress people are actually misinformed on what poker is. They see the old image of smokey backroom gambling.”

“When politicians see a losing proposition, they will abandon it”, Lederer said. “Once we accomplish some sort of national regulatory framework for online poker, I don’t think the PPA is going anywhere. You look at the National Rifle Association or Christian Rights groups, and once they have success they don’t just disengage. I would imagine poker players will be active for some time to come.”  (The PPA has a membership over 900,000 members - and you can join too!) 

“The bottom line is if poker isn’t a game of skill then I’ve been getting lucky for 36 years” Robert Williamson III

The Poker Players Alliance (PPA) is an American nonprofit Interest group formed to “to speak with one voice to promote poker, and to protect the players’ rights. The PPA aims to get laws such as the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006 overturned either through political or judicial means.

If you’re US based and looking for a good safe online poker room, check out the latest comparison of the top poker sites for Americans at PokerLabRat.com. 

This dude is GOOD! Howard Lederer has claimed one of the most prestigious titles in tournament poker, the Aussie Millions $100K No-Limit Hold‘em Main event.

Lederer out-played what many would consider an elite field of 25 top poker professionals, that included fellow members of Team Full Tilt* Phil Ivey, Chris Ferguson, Andy Bloch, Gus Hansen, Allen Cunningham, and John Juanda.

Having entered the final table as one of the short stacks, Lederer demonstrated great patience and timing to slowly accumulate chips to become the chip leader with just three competitors remaining. After starting heads-up play with a 2-1 chip advantage over second-place finisher Mark Teltscher, it took more than and an hour of heads-up play to take out the title and the $1.25 million first-place prize.

The final hand pitted Lederer’s two pair of Aces and Jacks against Teltschers two pair of 7s and 8s.

The victory is the largest single tournament payday Lederer has ever earned, bringing his career tournament earnings to nearly $5 million.

For the latest tips and poker advice from Howard Lederer

*Team Full Tilt is a select group professional poker players, including Gus Hansen, Chris Ferguson, Phil Ivey, Howard Lederer, Erick Lindgren, Erik Seidel, Andy Bloch, Phil Gordon, John Juanda, Mike Matusow, Clonie Gowen, Jennifer Harman and Allen Cunningham who have collectively won 32 WSOP bracelets.

Full Tilt Poker offers all players the opportunity to learn, chat and play poker with the best poker professionals in the game.

Full Tilt accepts players from around the world including the USA and has a growing reputation for some of the best cash game poker on the Internet.

This poker blog post is based on discussions between Annie Duke and her brother and poker mentor, Howard Lederer.

Now anyone who has sat in at a poker table knows there is skill in poker, but the general consensus has been that there is a preponderance of skill, not that poker is a game that is all skill. Arguments for this have centered on the fact that good players, in the long run will come out winners, but in the short run, anyone can win.

So the argument has been that poker is a game with a significant luck factor, but over the long run the law of large numbers will play out and the better players will win. But is this really true?  Howard has come up with a very compelling argument that the answer to this is actually NO!

Say we program a machine so it knows the rules of Texas Holdem Poker. It knows that you’re dealt 2 cards. It knows that a flop, a turn, and a river comprise the community cards. It knows that you can check, bet, call, or raise on any given street. It knows the rules and mechanics of the game. But let’s also say that we programme the machine to play with no skill at all. This means the machine will randomly choose an action at any given decision point. Now, remember that on any given street there are up to 5 possible decisions (a bet and four raises) and our machine will behave randomly – how do your think the machine would do? Terribly, obviously!

If you put our machine into a short even like a sit-n-go, against 8 skilled players, it would lose every time. The skilled players would quickly come up with the most effective strategy against the machine, which would be to raise the minimum against the machine every time. This would always put the decision back on the machine for the lowest risk; 1/3 of the time the machine will fold, 1/3 of the time it will call and 1/3 of the time it will raise. And the machine will do this regardless of its hand. It will be as likely to fold aces-full as it will to fold nine-high. It will be as likely to call with top pair as it will be to call with five-high. You can see pretty quickly that our unskilled machine would never win, even in the short run.

Howard’s argument shows that poker players tend to drastically overestimate the luck factor in poker, mainly because, in general, we are playing against very skilled players and whenever we close the skill gap between opponents in a skill game, it appears that there is more luck involved.

Take baseball as an example. No one argues baseball is not a game of skill. And the same thing happens in baseball when we narrow the skill gap. If we take the Yankees and pit them against a Little League team, then the Yankees will win every time. But pit them against an equally skilled major league team, say the Red Sox, now luck appears to play a much larger role. But it is actually factors like injuries and the weather that become a more important part in determining the outcome of a game. While the better team will win over a series of games, the outcomes of a single game will appear to be determined by luck, but is actually due to factors outside the direct control of the teams.

And poker is no different. Good poker players will overestimate the luck factor in poker because they forget exactly how skilled their opponents are. The fact is that most players are very skilled at hand selection and betting theory, even in the smallest games, compared to the totally unskilled player – like our machine.  As in baseball, the more skilled your opponents are, the more it appears that luck determines the outcome in the short run.

To take that baseball analogy further, if we stick the very best poker professional in a $0.50/$1 NL game, that player will crush the game just as the Yankees will crush the Little League team. If we pit that same player against other top pros, the best player will win in the long run, although the short run outcome may be determined largely by factors outside the player’s control.

The interesting thing is if we took the same unskilled machine and programmed it to know the rules of lottery, it would perform the same as a human being. This is because there is no skill to the lottery. Once you know to fill out the appropriate number of numbers on the slip, and pay the attendant – you’re good to go. There is nothing more to the game – and yet lotteries are excluded from the current [US] anti gambling legislation, and poker is at risk. Seems illogical to me.

Poker is a game of skill. It is a game in which the outcome is determined by skill as much as baseball is. Once we understand this, it is clear that poker should be set aside from gambling legislation that deals with games of chance since it clearly is not a game of chance. It is just a matter of getting people to truly and deeply understand the difference between games of skill and games of luck.

Annie Duke

Annie and her brother, Howard Lederer, both play online poker at FullTiltPoker.com.

Check out the latest FullTilt Poker review here or visit PokerLabRat.com for more comment and tips by professional poker players.

During the World Series of Poker, players are confronted with massive fields. For example, in the 2006 WSOP, nearly 2,800 players bought into the first $1,500 No Limit Hold’em event. Throughout the Series, it was common to see starting fields of 1,500 to 2,000.

Many players who are accustomed to playing in smaller tournaments can be overwhelmed by the prospect of competing against so many people. Some feel they need to make major adjustments to their games in order to be competitive. They play faster than they normally would, playing marginal hands and looking for the opportunities to gamble.

I think this is a big mistake. You should never alter your strategy to compensate for the size of the field. When you sit down to play in a tournament, you should concentrate only on things you can control.

Whether you’re playing against 200 or 2,000 players, you should be focused on how you’re going to beat the other players at your table. Let the rest of the tournament take care of itself. If you manage to make good decisions against your opponents, you’ll have the opportunity to accumulate the chips and survive as the field dwindles.

If you manage to stick around, you’ll have the opportunity for a nice payday. But if you gamble excessively in the early stages and bust out, you’ve got no chance at all.

In any tournament, the determining factor for whether you should play a given hand is the size of the blinds. If you have 10,000 in chips and the blinds are 50 and 100, there’s no need to play A-J in early position. But if you have 10,000 in chips and the blinds are 1,000 and 2,000, you need to move in with that same hand. It’s the blind structure that should determine how you play, not the number of players in the event.

In the WSOP Main Event, I’ve seen a lot of players feel pressured by the vast size of the field. But it’s a false pressure. The Main Event has a great structure. The blinds increase slowly, so you can play patiently and look for your spots.

You can’t win any large event in the first hour on the first day, so don’t worry about what’s happening elsewhere in a tournament. Play your game and do your best to beat the players at your table. It’s the surest path to success in any tournament, no matter the size of the field.

Wisdom of the Pros: A Lesson from Full Tilt Poker by Howard Lederer.

Play Howard Lederer online – like many of the top professional players Howard plays exclusively at FullTiltPoker.com. Tables highlighted red in the poker room lobby have a pro seated. Check it out!

Also check out the full archive of tips from professional poker players online at PokerLabRat.com here.

“Stud-Hi/Lo is a complex game that presents players with decisions that they’re not going to encounter in Hold’em or in any other high-only game.”

In split-pot games, beginners are often cautioned against playing hands that have them drawing to half the pot. But in Seven-Card Stud Hi/Lo, a situation sometimes arises where drawing with a modest chance at the whole pot and an even smaller chance at half the pot is clearly the correct play.

Say you’re playing eight-handed, $4/$8 Stud Hi/Lo, with a $1 ante and a $1 low card bring in. You’re dealt 2s-5d-5c and, with the low card showing, you bring it in for $1. It’s folded to a player showing a King, who completes to $4. Everyone else folds; you call and head to Fourth Street.

Both you and your opponent pick up a 7. He bets $4 and you call. On Fifth Street, you pick up a Jack and he gets a 4. You have [2s]-[5d]-5c-7h-Jc and your opponent shows [x]-[x]-Kd-7s-4c. At this point, you’re pretty convinced that your opponent has a pair of Kings. You look at your hand and see that you don’t have much, a low pair and three to a low. You might be tempted to fold if your opponent bets, but that would be a mistake.

The action so far has already created a significant pot. There’s $8 in antes, and another $16 from the betting on Third and Fourth Streets. You’ll need to call bets of $8 on Fifth and Sixth Street to try to make your hand, so it will cost you $16. If you manage to make two pair and it holds up, you’d win about $50. That’s a pretty good price.

The odds here are so compelling that even if you were playing Seven-Card Stud Hi only, you’d have to consider calling your opponent down. You’d have a 30 percent chance of cracking the Kings, which isn’t quite enough to justify calling against an over-pair. However, if there was a chance that your opponent was bluffing, then calling would be okay.

However, Stud-Hi/Lo gives you an additional way of getting money out of the pot. You’ll go runner-runner to a low often enough so that your pot equity increases to about 37 percent. Those odds are way too good to consider folding.

Stud-Hi/Lo is a complex game that presents players with decisions that they’re not going to encounter in Hold’em or in any other high-only game. If you’re looking to improve your Stud-Hi/Lo game, play some hands online, and then try running some computer simulations to see if you’re making the best mathematical decisions.

Howard plays online exclusively at FullTiltPoker.com. Join him at a table sometime soon. US Players are still very welcome.

 ”Playing the other games will develop skills that will simply make you a better poker player.”

The recent poker explosion on TV and the Internet has created a flood of new players who are serious about developing their game. Sadly for them, television is sending a skewed message. No-Limit Hold ‘em is the game of choice when the game is shown on TV, and it’s easy to think there is only one game out there. While no one would argue that No-Limit makes for the most exciting television, there are many dangers associated with playing only one game.

First, you run the risk of getting bored, and boredom will lead to a stunting of your poker development. Enthusiasm is a critical ingredient for a successful poker career. When I spend time around the best poker players in the world, the one thing that they all share is a genuine love and passion for the game.

Next, you might be missing your true poker calling. As it happens, my best game isn’t No-Limit Hold ‘em - it’s Limit Hold ‘em. Had I not tried playing limit, I would never have found the game I am best at.

There are reasons why all the biggest casinos in the world feature multiple games!

Stop by the big game at the Bellagio in Las Vegas and you’re liable to see No-Limit and Limit, with games ranging from Seven-Card Stud to Deuce-to-Seven Draw. The best players in the world simply love to play poker. To deny themselves the pleasure of playing some of the best forms of the game would be unthinkable. They also know that if they play just one game, the specialists in a particular game (who are not nearly as good overall poker players) would be able to sit at their game and win. If you want to climb to the top of the poker world, you better become a great poker generalist. If you insist on limiting yourself to one game, you’ll never make it.

Even if your ultimate goal is to become an accomplished No-Limit Hold ‘em player, I encourage you to at least play a lot of Limit Hold ‘em. Too many No-Limit specialists get by with almost no post-flop skills. To get good at limit Hold ‘em, you will be forced get more comfortable playing after the flop. Getting free cards on fourth street and making close value bets on fifth street are just two of the skills you’ll be working on. And those skills are transferable. Developing these skills in limit Hold ‘em will allow you to play your hands with all your options available. And your No-Limit results will improve dramatically.

Playing the other games will develop skills that will simply make you a better poker player. Skills that have subtle value in No-Limit Hold ‘em are very important in the other games. Acquiring these skills will have profound effects on your No-Limit game, even though you might not even be aware of their importance now.

Playing Seven-Card Stud will definitely teach you the value of free cards. It is a fundamental skill necessary to succeed at the game. In Pot-Limit Omaha you will learn the power of position and the power of the semi-bluff. Seven-Card Stud 8/Better is a game where you need to learn how to narrow the field at the right time. The number of players in a pot can make a hand go from a fold to a raise. Razz? Well, if nothing else, it will teach you how important patience can be when things aren’t going well.

The world of poker has a lot more to offer than No-Limit Hold ‘em. And if you start to explore that world, I am confident you will enjoy the game more. Getting good at each game will take time, so start out small and read what you can. Have fun; a new world awaits.

Howard Lederer

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