When beginning poker players are describing a hand they’ve played, they usually start by saying what their hole cards were before moving on to talk about the betting. A professional player, however, would never describe the dynamics of a hand without first talking about his position at the table because in games like Hold ’em and Omaha, position can be even more important than the cards in your hand.

Simply put, you want to play more hands in late position than you do in early position. By doing so, you’re going to make more money over the long haul. Why? Because in late position you will have much more information to work with than you would if you were in early position. You will be able to see who folds and who raises, and if someone raises you will have a much better sense of how much it’s going to cost you to play your hand. When you have to act first, you have none of this information to work with.

There are three simple reasons why playing a hand in late position will be more profitable in the long run than playing the same hand in early position. First, you will end up folding some winning hands in early position that you wouldn’t have folded in late position. Secondly, when you have a winning hand in late position you’re going to make more money from it than you would with the same hand in early position. Finally, when you have a losing hand in late position you will lose significantly less than you would with the same hand in early position.

Here’s an example of what I’m talking about. You pick up pocket Jacks in middle position and raise four times the size of the big blind. The button calls, and the flop comes Q-7-2. You make a continuation bet two-thirds the size of the pot. Your opponent calls. A blank comes on the turn. Now what are you going to do?

Because you don’t have position over your opponent, you’re now in a very difficult situation. If you check and your opponent bets and you call, you could end up losing a big pot on the river. If you opt to fold, you could be folding the best hand. Even if you call the turn bet and you and your opponent check it down on the river and you win the hand, you’re going to make far less than you would have if you had been last to act. Whenever you play a hand out of position, there is a much greater chance that you will have your profits minimized or your losses maximized or that you will get bluffed out of a pot.

Having poor position is such a disadvantage that if I’m sitting under the gun at a full table I will often fold a hand as strong as A-Q before the flop. With so many players yet to act behind me, one of them could easily pick up a hand that has me dominated, like A-K, Aces, Kings, or Queens. Even if my A-Q is the best hand at the table I won’t make very much money off it in this position, and if it is second best I could end up losing a very big pot.

It’s the exact opposite when you’re in late position. Now you’re going to want to play as many hands as possible because getting to act last on all the betting rounds is such a huge advantage. If everyone folds to you on the button, you should often raise with any two cards. If the blinds fold, you win the hand. If they call, you still have two ways to beat them after the flop, by continuing to show strength if they show weakness or by showing down the best hand. Team Full Tilt member Andy Bloch says you might play fewer than 10 percent of all the hands dealt to you under the gun, but you should play more than 50 percent of the hands dealt to you on the button.

Having favorable position is just as important after the flop. Not only can you take pots away from players who show weakness, you can also control the size of the pot. Smart poker players want to play big pots when they have big hands and small pots when they have small hands, and having position on your opponents allows you to do that. If you flop top pair with a weak kicker, bet, and get called, it’s often a good idea to check the turn in order to keep the pot small.

The power of position in poker cannot be overstated. Whenever you’re dealt a hand, you should take into account your position at the table even before you evaluate the strength of your cards. Even in the most basic limit games, you’re going to make far more money when you have position over your opponents than when you don’t.

Bill Edler

Bill Elder’s professional poker career includes one WSOP Bracelet, one WPT Championship and more than $3 million in career earnings.

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Many players new to online poker find multi-tabling – playing more than one table at once – intimidating. While it might seem this way at first, there are several things that you can do to get the most out of your experience right from the start.

One of the first things to consider is how to arrange your tables. Tiling your tables so that they’re beside each other without overlap lets you see the action at every table at all times. A second option is cascading your tables. This is particularly useful if you have a smaller monitor and are playing lots of tables. Personally, I prefer to tile my tables so that I’ve got a better view of all of the action at once – I find that I time out a bit more and miss out on some good opportunities when I’ve got them cascaded and can’t see everything at once. Try both formats and decide which works best for you.

Take advantage of the FTP Hand Replayer to learn from big pots. This gives you the chance to review how your opponents played their hands and then make player notes for future reference. You can make notes by right-clicking on the player and entering information about their play, like “bluffs too much” or “very aggressive player”. Save your notes and use them to identify players to avoid or players you’re willing to get into pots with.

When you play multiple tables and catch big hands at more than one table at a time, you need to make sure you get maximum value out of each one. To begin, you should be aware of how you got into the hand – experience will help with this. Occasionally, if I’m playing too many tables, I’ll be in the middle of a hand and wonder how I got there. That’s what you want to avoid. Play a comfortable number of tables so you don’t limit your capabilities. Over time, you’ll be able to handle more tables.

It’s also important to keep track of how many tables your opponents are playing. If a player is at more than one table, it’s likely that he’s a regular Multi-Table player. This is important because it affects the way your opponents play. Most Multi-Tablers will play fairly straightforward and won’t make elaborate bluffs. When I’m only playing one table, I’m more likely to make an aggressive move than when I’m playing four tables or more.

I’d also recommend that you buy in for the maximum amount on each table and keep it topped up so you can capitalize on the power of a full stack. Generally, I think it’s a good idea to top up when you lose a pot – I like to stay as deep as possible. When I get into a big pot for full stacks, I’ll usually have the best hand and I want to be able to get as much value as I can – I’d rather have a full stack than 90% of a stack so that I get maximum value from that situation.

Keep these things in mind as you start multi-tabling and you’ll find it’s not as intimidating as it initially seemed.

Mike McDonald

Mike McDonald – has over $1.8 Million in Career Tournament Earnings.

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With all but the most powerful of hands, you always can justify just calling, rather than raising, when you’re in a blind position. Remember that you will be in poor position throughout future rounds of betting (except if you’re the big blind against only the small blind). This gives you less of an advantage than it may seem, and makes a raise questionable.

Also, when you’re in a blind, it costs you less voluntary money to call than it costs other players. This means you’re often getting a good deal to call, based on pot odds (the amount in the pot versus the amount it costs to call). But when you raise, the proportion of the money you’ve already blinded becomes less significant, and your pot odds diminish. It’s hard to justify reducing pot odds with marginally strong hands when you’ll have poor position on future betting rounds.

Do this: When you’re conspicuously winning and faced with a borderline decision between checking and betting, bet… AND between calling and raising, raise.

But… when you’re conspicuously losing and faced with a borderline decision between checking and betting, check… AND between calling and raising, call. These adjustments works like magic, and they’re pure profit.

This poker tip is from poker professional, Mike Caro

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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

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The Difference Between Aces And Kings In Hold’em
In hold ’em, you hear a lot of talk about aces and kings being the ultimate hands. That’s true, but don’t be too quick to put them in the same category, as many players do. A pair of aces before the flop logically belongs in a category all to itself.

Here’s how often each hand wins against nine opponents holding random hands when everyone stays to the river…

A-A = 31% (21 percentage points higher than a fair share)

K-K = 26% (16 percentage points higher than a fair share)

What really makes the difference is that, when you consider actual betting strategy, A-A is much more likely to gain extra bets and to stay out of trouble. For this reason, in the hands of a professional, A-A can be almost twice as profitable as K-K overall in a full-handed game.

That’s something to keep in mind.

Are Kings Almost As Profitable As Aces In Hold’em?
Kings are nowhere near as profitable as aces in hold ’em. Although the difference is much slighter between smaller adjacent pairs, such as eights and sevens, there’s a very large gap between aces and kings in terms of profit when played correctly. Averaging all situations together, figure aces to be worth about 40 percent more than kings.

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A lot of outstanding poker players will tell you the cornerstone of pre-flop play is consistency. That approach works for many top players, but I don’t necessarily subscribe to that theory.

Particularly in short-handed play, I believe in mixing up my raise amounts. When playing at a 6-max table, sometimes I’ll min-raise, sometimes I’ll make it four times the big blind and sometimes I’ll limp. It all depends on who’s behind me and who’s already in the pot.

Here are a few examples from a recent $10/$20 No-Limit Hold ’em 6-max ring game that will illustrate what I’m talking about:

HAND ONE: I was sitting in the cutoff with about $2,000 in chips and holding A-J. The under-the-gun player had only $539 in front of him and limped in for $20. I’d normally raise the size of the pot there, but the thing about short-stackers is that they don’t usually put money in with the intention of folding. I didn’t want to raise to $90 and have him go all-in. So this was a situation that called for a limp. I limped in, the small blind folded and the big blind checked. The flop came Q-10-2, giving me a gut-shot straight draw and an over-card. The big blind checked, while the short-stack weakly bet $25 into a $67 pot. I raised to $75, and both the big blind and short-stacker folded.

HAND TWO: I had A-10 off-suit in the small blind. The same short-stacker, now down to $464, raised to $70 on the button. He could easily have been making a button steal, so I figured I was likely ahead of his hand range. I decided to re-raise him and go with the hand. The big blind had about $1,600 in front of him, and that was a crucial factor in my raise amount. After the short-stacker made it $70, I raised to $230, and both the big blind and the short-stacker folded, giving me the pot.

I see a lot of people making huge raises in that situation, making it $400 or so to isolate against the short-stacker. There’s really no reason to do that – if the big blind wakes up with a premium hand and re-raises me, I don’t want to play that A-10 for $1,600. I’m fine betting half the size of the short-stacker’s stack, which mathematically commits me against him, but still gives me the leeway to fold if the big blind puts in another raise. You don’t really need to throw in $400 in that spot, because betting $230 accomplishes the same thing and can save you $170.

HAND THREE: There was a new player at the table two seats to my left who was somewhat reckless and unpredictable. He’d already doubled up once and built his stack to more than $4,000. I had pocket eights on the button, but with this potentially frisky player in the big blind I had to be careful. I made my open-raise smaller than usual, only $50, for a very specific reason: if the big blind re-raised me, he would only make it $175 or so instead of $240.  This $65 savings definitely adds up over time. As it turned out, both blinds called, a King and a Queen hit on the flop, and I didn’t win the pot. And that’s okay. Even though my reduced pre-flop open may have invited the blinds to call, had I hit my set I could have potentially won a large pot off of the big blind.

HAND FOUR: Again, I was on the button against the same reckless player in the big blind, and it folded around to me with A-5 off-suit. I chose to min-raise to $40 because I didn’t feel like an extra $10 or $20 was going to change the big blind’s mind about whether to play the hand or not. Also, making this smaller open allows me to 4 bet without pot committing myself. The small blind called for $30 more, and then the big blind raised to $160. I wasn’t convinced he was raising with a big hand, but I decided to give him that one. The player in the small blind called, allowing me to watch the hand play out.

The flop came 2-5-6 rainbow, the small blind checked, and the big blind moved all-in. The small blind called and tabled 9-9, while the big blind showed 6-3 suited, good for top pair and a gut-shot. As it turned out, the big blind hit another six on the river and won the hand.

Depending on your opponents’ styles of play and the stack sizes at the table, there are times to raise big, there are times to raise small, and there are times to limp. Next time you’re at the table, consider mixing up your raises. Consistency has its place, but sometimes, consistency can cost you money.

Paul Wasicka

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As a Poker Pro and trainer,  one of the great benefits of my job is being expected to keep a hand in the game and actually play some poker now and then. I need to apply the ideas and techniques that I learn every day while working with some of the best players in the world. At-the-table research is essential; that’s what I tell my wife and my boss, and so far they’re buying it.

This summer, the “research” went well. I won a $500 buy-in tournament at the Venetian and had a couple of other cashes. All-in-all, I think I played well. I’m happy to have successfully implemented some of what Allen Cunningham, Chris Ferguson and others taught me.

But that’s not to say my play was flawless. I was especially displeased with a crucial hand I played late in Day 1 of the tournament I won. I played it badly, but I think I learned from the mistake.

I was sitting with around 200,000 in my stack, and the blinds were 1,500/3,000 with a 500 ante. At the time the hand took place, I was on a downward trajectory. Two short-stacks to my left had moved in on me after a couple of steal attempts and, after 13 hours of play, I was getting tired.

Then, in early position, I saw Ah-Qs. I opened for a raise to 9,000 and was ready to call an all-in from either of the short stacks. But they folded, as did everyone else until the action reached the blinds.

The small blind had been on a heater, tripling his stack in the previous three orbits. My read on the big blind was that he was a quality player: tight, but smart and not weak. Both blinds called.

The flop was brutal: Ac-Jc-Th. I connected – no doubt about that. But it could have easily hit one of my opponents a whole lot harder. The small blind checked, and then the big blind bet out 18,000.

I tried to interpret the action: what would he bet with? I came up with a vast range. A big draw was a possibility—maybe even Kc-9c for an open-ended straight flush draw. Bottom set and two pair also seemed possible. I also thought there was a chance that he had flopped the nuts. It would be a great time bet out with the Broadway straight. That bet might force me to raise if I had two-pair or a set. I’d be committed to the pot quickly.

If I’d been thinking really clearly at the time, here’s the thought process that I might have come up with: Jay, you could be ahead here, but there are way more hands you’re losing to than beating. And even those that you are beating you’re not that far ahead of. Just fold. It’s okay to get semi-bluffed now and then.

A slightly worse, but still reasonable, way of thinking would have been something like this: Define your hand, Jay. You can raise, and then see what happens. Make a decision once you see how everyone reacts to your aggression, and use that information to make the best choice.

Sadly, however, my thinking had devolved, and this was the best I could do: Shoot. I dunno. Folding doesn’t feel right. I could be ahead. Raising sounds really dangerous, though. Hmm. Errr. “Call.”

And that’s pretty bad. All the systematic thinking I’d been employing for hours went out the window at a crucial moment. I called because I couldn’t think of anything better. Not surprisingly, the hand didn’t work out well, and I lost a lot of chips. I was lucky to rebound from an error of this magnitude.

As I looked back on the tournament in the days that followed, I realized that this wasn’t a unique misstep for me. I have the tendency to fall back on a call because I’m out of ideas. I can’t come up with a plan that I really like, so I settle on a call. In these cases, the call isn’t a strategic choice; it’s a sort of compromise between raise and fold that has none of the advantages of the more extreme actions.

The call, like every other action at the table, should be a weapon. Gavin Smith and Erick Lindgren are masters of purposeful calls – Gavin wrote a great tip on the subject.

Since that tournament, I’ve been more cognizant of my reasons for calling. If there’s a sound strategic advantage for calling, fine. But if not, I’ll look to other options.

Jay Greenspan

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In the second week of the 2004 Series, I just missed a final table, finishing eleventh in a $2,000 Limit Hold’em event. Daniel (Negreanu) went on to win that tournament for his third bracelet. What I remember most about that tournament was a hand that came up about eight hours into Day One.

“Syracuse Chris” Tsiprailidis had pocket queens, Cecilia Reyes Mortensen was dealt pocket kings, and I looked down at two aces. Not surprisingly, the betting got capped preflop. I really didn’t know what Chris had, but I put Cecilia on kings.

When Q-4-4 flopped, Chris bet out with his full house, queens full of fours, and both Cecilia and I just called. I suspected Chris for the boat at this point, but the size of the pot was sitting on the borderline of being worth a call to try to spike an ace. When the turn came with a king, Chris bet out again and Cecilia ?at-called. The pot was huge by then, but I was sure Cecilia had kings and was laying a trap for us both with her kings full.

In a cash game, you still might make a call, but saving a bet in a limit tournament is a lot more important. Although I was almost sure I was beaten, I went in the tank for awhile with my aces, wondering if I could be wrong. If there were two boats against me, they would clearly pay me off if I hit an ace on the river. This one pot would ensure that the winner would go deep in the tournament. I eventually called, hoping for a miracle ace on the river.

Miracles do happen! When that big fat perfect ace hit on the river, Syracuse Chris led out again and Cecilia raised. I reraised. Chris immediately showed his pocket queens to the spectators sitting behind him and folded. Cecilia went into the tank for about three minutes.

“I can’t believe I only called on the turn. I know you have aces. How could I play this so badly?” she moaned.

These were not deep stack tournaments in 2004; saving one bet at this point in a tournament could make a huge difference, but she finally made the call. I showed my aces full, Cecilia showed her kings full, and Chris flipped over his folded queens full.

Everyone at the table went wild when they saw the cards, and tournament players from the other tables came over to stare at the board.

Mike

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Phil Hellmuth has probably offered the best advice that a novice player can learn. In his book “Play Poker Like the Pros”, he explains that a good way for a new player to play poker is to only play the top 10 hands. Those hands consist of A-A, K-K, Q-Q, A-K, J-J, 10-10, 9-9, 8-8, A-Q and 7-7. Every other hand you get should be folded, as you learn about the importance of patience and getting into hands with good cards.

This tight style will afford you lots of time to read your opponents and try to learn how they act as they play their game. When you do get one of these hands you’re supposed to play it aggressively because you’re likely to have the highest winning percentage at the time. This top ten hand method works best at a full table of nine players, or early in a tournament setting.

As your game progresses you can start to widen out the hands that you will play. But playing the top ten hands will keep you in the game longer, allowing you watch and learn, instead of going broke from playing too many hands.

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If you want to become a complete poker player, you need to learn how to play all the variations of the game. You should do this because it’s no good being the world’s best Hold ’em player when the biggest sucker in town only wants to play Seven-Card Stud. Ideally, you want to be able to play whatever game looks to be the most profitable on any given day.

When I first started playing poker, Five-Card Stud and Five-Card Draw were two of the most popular games, but now they’re both almost completely dead. They got replaced by Seven-Card Stud, which has also decreased in popularity. For a while No-Limit Hold ’em looked like it might be dying out because in the high-stakes cash games the tightest players always won, but it proved to be the perfect game for television so now it’s the most popular game. Because of how prevalent Hold ’em has become, I would advise beginning poker players to start out by learning its many variations, including Limit, No-Limit, cash games, and tournaments.

After Hold ’em, you should learn how to play Omaha, particularly Pot-Limit. Limit Omaha doesn’t work very well because deciding whether or not to call a bet on the river when a third flush card hits and you make a Queen-high flush isn’t a very big decision if you only have to call one bet and there are twelve in the pot. But if you’re playing Pot-Limit and your opponent bets the size of the pot on the river, whether you should call with your Queen-high flush or not becomes a much more difficult decision. In general, Pot-Limit games require a bit more skill than No-Limit games. Because you don’t have the all-in move to fall back on, you have to be equally capable of playing before the flop and after the flop.

Next you should learn the Hi/Lo games, particularly Stud Hi/Lo and Omaha Hi/Lo. Another good game is 2-7 Triple Draw, a tremendous action game that’s catching on very quickly. Like the best card games, it has a lot of mathematical elements to it, but there’s also a lot of card reading and bluffing involved. In 2-7, a drawing hand with one card to come is almost always an underdog to a hand that stands pat, so if you have a 9 and you can force your opponent to break his 9 you’ve gained a big advantage.

Beginning poker players are lucky nowadays because they can learn and practice all these games online. When I was starting out, most poker games were private games and you had to pay your dues just to get invited to play. If you were a winning player and you wanted to get invited back, you needed to show up on time, be nice to the suckers, and you couldn’t quit when you were winning a little bit. Even then, there might not be a place at the table for you the following week.

Contrast that with today’s world where you can play on your computer at home any time you want. Playing online offers an unprecedented level of convenience. Let’s say you’re about to go the movies and your girlfriend’s just gotten out of the shower but she’s taking forever to dry her hair. You can actually play an entire Sit & Go while you’re waiting for her. Sit & Gos can be very profitable. They’re also an ideal way to test out new strategies. By studying your hand history afterwards, you can see what worked and what didn’t. You can make notes about how you fared with a big stack and how you did with a short stack, and you can develop new ideas to try out in the future.

I still enjoy playing live because one of my skills is the ability to read people, but there are little tricks you can pick up that will help you gather information about your opponents when you’re playing online. If you’re playing at a single table and one of your opponents is multi-tabling, you can bring up all the tables he’s sitting at and watch how he plays. If he suffers a bad beat on another table, it could affect the way he plays a hand at your table, and you can take advantage of it.

For beginning players, online poker offers a convenient way of gaining a ton of experience in a very short period of time. If you choose to go this route, I suggest you take the time to learn all the games available to you so you’ll never have to pass up an opportunity to play against a big sucker just because he wants to play a game you’re unfamiliar with.

ABOUT STEVE ZOLOTOW: His Nicknames “Z” and “The Bald Eagle”, he has 2 WSOP Bracelets and is a renowned game theorist.

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