Play Better Poker

When calculating pot odds while playing poker the equation is quite basic.  It is more or less showing whether you should go all in or not.  In the real world of poker, however, most decisions are not as simple as all-in or fold.  Usually you will have plenty of chips left after the flop or the turn and thus you must factor betting on the later streets into your equations.  This is called implied odds. 

                Implied odds can work either for or against you.  For instance if you call with a flush draw on the turn and the river misses you chances are you won’t put in any more bets, so you will lose the same amount you would have if you were all-in, one turn bet. If you hit your flush on the river though you will probably bet or raise, thus increasing the implied odds you are receiving on the turn. 

                Here is an example of how implied odds work for you.  You are playing $10/$20 Texas Hold’em. The pot on the turn is $50 and your opponent bets 20 at you.  You hold 23 and the board is AK96.  You are pretty sure your opponent has a good hand, maybe something like a pair of case with a good kicker.  This leaves you 9 outs and with 46 unknown card, meaning your odds against hitting are 37 to 9 or roughly 4.11 to 1.  Your pot-odds on the turn are only 3.5-1 however, which would indicate that you should fold.  But your implied odds here indicate a call.

                If the river is a heart you figure to get at least one more bet ($20) out of your opponent on the river, making your implied odds $90 to $20, or 4.5 to 1, which is greater than the 4.11 to 1 odds against your hitting.  If your opponent has a very strong hand, like two pair or a set (maybe he hit two pair or three of a kind with the same card that gave you your flush) he might even bet the river and you can raise, netting an extra $40.  Of course if he has two pair or a set on the turn then one or two of your flush outs might give him a full house and cost you as much as $60, but we will assume for the purposes of this article that the times you hit and win $40 will even out with the times you hit and lose $40 or more, and assume that if your flush comes you will win, on average, one big bet from it.  Thus our implied odds now instruct us to call.

                Whereas implied odds worked for you in the above example they worked against your opponent, and they will sometimes work against you too.  Suppose you have the made hand on the turn and your opponent has the drawing hand.  Now implied odds are working against you.  Your opponent with the drawing hand can bet or raise the river if he hits, but can easily fold if he misses, losing nothing more.  Of course the money in the pot often gives both of you correct odds to continue on.  In that case the best thing you can do is give your opponent the worst odds possible by betting the turn. 

                Remember that poker is a game of incomplete information.  You usually don’t know what your opponent has, and you don’t know how he will react to your actions.  With experience you will learn to read your opponents hands and come to understand how they will react to many different situations, which will help you determine your implied odds. When you are first starting out you would probably be best advised to pay attention to your direct pot odds most of the time.  If a draw doesn’t have the odds required to take a card off, don’t do it.  Chances are that even if your implied odds make the draw profitable you won’t be losing much by folding. 

Finding the leaks in your poker game is simply a matter of observing how your opponents react to you. Do they bet every time you check?  If so then you need to check-raise and bluff induce more.  If you are already doing plenty of that then they are making a mistake by betting too much, so capitalize on it.  Check raise and bluff induce them more than you would do a normal opponent.

                Do opponents call you way more than you would like?  Try bluffing a bit less and value betting a bit more.  If they continue to call you down all the time it will only cost them money.  If they notice what you are doing and start to cal you less then swing back the other way, bluffing more.  Does everyone fold every time you raise preflop?  If so try missing in a few more raises.  Once someone sees you raise 87s in early position you will be amazed at how much more action you get.  And if they continue to fold every time you will keep stealing the blinds, and that is fine too.  Only the top few hands have an expect value higher than a blind steal so be glad whenever you get them. 

                This is where poker becomes a very complicated version of rock-paper-scissors.  If your opponent keeps throwing out rock you have to keep putting out paper.  If he goes scissors you switch to rock.  Always try to compensate for your own weaknesses in a long-term fashion, not by trying to make costly short –term adjustments.  And always try to capitalize on their weaknesses.  If they spot one of your leaks and try to charge you for it, turn it against them.

                The luck element of poker makes it infinitely harder than rock-paper-scissors.  If a guy keeps raising you, it could be that he just keeps getting great hands.  It could be that he found that you are a pushover.  Or it could just be that he is a maniac.  Careful study of him and lots of time at the tables will help you determine which it is.  Careful study of the game and lots of time at the tables will teach you how to eliminate your own weaknesses and take advantage of his.

                Furthermore, you are playing an individual game of rock-paper-scissors with every player at the table.  And you are going to end up in lots of multi-way hands too, where opponents have conflicting strengths and weaknesses that you need to avoid or take advantage of.  This can make finding the right play very complicated.  For a game that never gives you more than three options it is rather complex, isn’t it?

                Do be sure to try to avoid seeing weaknesses that aren’t there. This is hard to do and again comes with experience.  I am truly sorry to keep repeating that line, but there really are some things you just have to learn form experience.  You wouldn’t want a college student to read a book on brain surgery  and then repair your aneurysm.  Similarly you can’t expect to read a Hold’em article (or an article on chess, go, backgammon, or any other game worth playing) and be an overnight expert. 

                So play often and as you do, watch your opponents.  See how they react to you and each other.  You can discover holes in other people’s games just by watching their opponents as well as you can your own.  But be sure to walk the fine line between discovering flaws and seeing things that aren’t there.  And always be sure to look for long term solutions to your own problems.  Don’t try to plug up a hold in the short-term by making a bad play.  Just do the best you can for now and try to make a permanent adjustment to your game afterwards.

Most of the biggest errors I see at the poker table are cause by people who see a hole in their game and try to fix it the wrong way. They realize that their opponents are gaining an edge on them due to something that they are doing wrong. They want to fix it but they end up doing a bunch of things they know are bad and end up losing more EV from their bad play than they did from the original problem.  The ability to find solid ways to fix the leaks in your game is what separates a big winner from a mediocre one.  The trick is to always look for long-term solution to the problem; don’t try to plug your holes with bad short-term play.

                The most common problem I see in poker is people worrying about being too predictable. They reason that if they are too predictable, their opponents will always know what they have and therefore always play correctly.  This is caused by a number of misconceptions. First of all they probably don’t know what a range of holdings is and how their opponents go about putting them on one. They think that a good opponent just knows what they have, which is probably brought on by their results-oriented view of their own reading abilities.  You already know about the range of holding since you read my chapter on psychology. 

                Second, they don’t realize that in poker it is often better for your opponents to know what you have than it is to make a play that disguises your hand.  I often see players put in a position where they can either play aggressively and announce to the table that they have a hand and just take the pot down or check and keep their opponents guessing but give them free cards to a draw.  In this case it often isn’t worth the deception to check. They should just bet and take the pot.  You would rather let everyone know what you have and take the pot then keep them guessing but give them loads of extra EV by letting them catch free cards.  What they are doing is making a bad short term play in order to correct their long-term problem.  You often see this problem manifest itself preflop in people who just call a riase from middle position with something like pocket kings.  They don’t realize that even if three-betting kings tells people that they have a good hand their long term profit is still higher that way then letting in a bunch of stragglers.  Don’t be afraid to announce your hand if doing so is the play with the highest EV. And if you don’t want that play to announce your hand then consider three-betting more hands pre-flop from middle position.  Don’t make the terrible short term play of just cold-calling a raise with a big pair, look for a better long-term solution later. 

                Most problems can’t be fixed profitably by short term solutions, especially in the above example.  The problem of predictability, one of the hardest to successfully correct, can only be fixed by playing the rest of your game in a way that makes your play consistently unpredictable, not by routinely making bad plays.  If people realize that every time you bet you have something, then don’t start checking with hands that you should bet since you know free cards can be very expensive.  Instead start betting with hands you would normally check.  Remember, earlier I said that bluffs only have to succeed a small amount of the time to be a good play.  Therefore adding a few extra bluffs into your game, even if they aren’t the best ones, will keep your opponents guessing a lot more and won’t cost you much if anything.

                Also as far as predictability goes, don’t overestimate how predictable you are.  A lot of people give themselves an their opponents much more credit for reading ability than they actually deserve.  Playing decent poker is going to often allow people to put you on a narrow range of holdings, but as long as the range they are putting you on is wider than the range you can put them on, you are going to win.  Focus more on increasing your own reading ability and don’t worry too much about being predictable.  Most people who will think you easily predictable just have no clue what they are talking about. 

Most bluffs will be called, thus you shouldn’t bluff all the time.  If you can’t bluff all the time when is the correct time to bluff then, the time that will make the most money?  The correct time is when its going to work.  If you bluff one in seven times,  then it stands to reason that you should pick the most opportune time to bluff.  This is called selling a bluff.

                Selling your bluff means bluffing in a position and hand where your opponent believes that they can put you on a good hand. The better an opponent feels your odds of having a good hand are, the better your chance that he will fold.  Say you find yourself on the river and you think that it might look to your opponent as if you have made a hand, then you should be much more likely to bluff compared to if your previous actions hadn’t  given your opponent any reason to suspect he is beat. 

                This is most often one of the biggest mistakes I see new players make.  They play hands very weak the whole way through and then, at the very end, decide to just bet a ton when a horrible card comes.  They are going to get called on their bluff nearly every time because their opponent does not believe they have a good hand.

                Here is an example of when you sell a bluff properly selling a bluff. Suppose your hand is something like J-10 of diamonds and the flop is 9-8-4 all non diamonds.  Your opponent bets the flop and you raise to see a free card.  The turn is a horrible card and the board is now 9Hearts, 8 of clubs, 4 of hearts, 2 of spades. Your opponent checks and you follow with a check.  He then realizes that you raised the flop for a free card.  The river puts a 3 of hearts on board making it look like there is a flush draw.

                If you opponent checks, you might want to try and bet.  You have great reason to believe he suspects you of a draw, and a flush draw would be a the most likely hand for him to put you on.  Your opponent would be  inclined to fold something here that has you beat.

                That is how you sell a bluff.  Select the right place and position to do it.  Most bluffing spots are no good and will end up costing you money over time.  I do not recommend for most players to even attempt bluffing.  But when you spot perfect place to bluff and you do go for it… It is beautiful.

The decision of whether or not to call another player’s bet is generally pretty easy.  In general, if you have any shot of winning the pot, you call.  Making  tough lay downs on the river is not the way to win at limit poker.  If the pot is raised and you have to cold call two bets to show down that is another story, but in instances where you have any hand at all and the pot is decent sized, you are probably going to call, especially if there is no chance of it being raised.

                This somewhat makes up for the overlay I mentioned when value betting the river earlier.  Any good opponent knows that should call often on the river.  If an opponent knew your hand, then you could never value bet the river since he would just fold when you are beaten and raise when he has you better, giving him an infinite overlay.  Of course he doesn’t know what you have, and that makes a big difference.  Now he has to call a lot of hands where you have the best holding and fold some of the ones where you are bluffing as well.  This keeps the overlay you are really giving him down to a reasonable level where you can still value bet at times.

                So remember that the higher the odds you are getting (and when calling on the river we use only direct odds since there are no implied odds) the more likely you should be to call.  If you are getting nine to one then you only need for your opponent to be bluffing or value betting a weaker hand one in ten times for a call to show a profit.  If you opponent doesn’t have a one in ten shot of being on a bluff in most situation then there is probably something wrong with him.  In that case you would, of course, fold your weaker hands, but against the vast majority of people the chances of their bluffing will be high enough for you to call most hands of any strength at all on the river.

                Also remember that calling on the river shows your opponents that they can’t bluff you which is a good thing.  You don’t want people bluffing at you unless they are the type who do it far too much, in which case they probably won’t stop no matter how many times you snap them off.  Against most people, though, you want to discourage that sort of play.  I recently called a couple people down the whole way in a high stakes game with pocket deuces and won pots.  You would be amazed how everyone, including long time expert players stopped bluffing at me and checked me into hands or let me hang around with junk that they could have bluffed me out of the pot with. 

The player who is last to act has many advantages. The first is that he has more information with which to make his decision than anyone else because he has already seen what everyone else has done in the betting round. For instance suppose you hold a hand like 67 of diamonds before the flop and you only want to play if you can see the flop for one bet with a few other limpers.  If you are in first position and you limp in with this hand, the betting may be raise and re-raised behind you, or perhaps one player will raise and everyone will fold. But if you hold the same 67 in the last position, you will know where the betting stands and how many other players are in the pot.  Preflop you still have the blinds to act behind you, but you know that if you limp in on the button there will generally be no raise. 

                Being in late position has other advantages as well. One is that it gives you much more control over the pot.  If everyone checks to you and you decide to check then you get to see the next card (or showdown) for free.  If you check in early position,  people behind you can still bet.  Similarly if you are in last position and the first position player bets, then you can call knowing that there will be no raise.  The first position player and all of the other players in the pot have to consider the possibility of a raise coming from behind them if they decide to call, but you do not.  Position can also help you capitalize on your good hands.  If you are in early position and you hit a good hand, you have to decide whether to bet or to check-raise.  If you try to check raise but nobody behind you bets then you miss a bet.  But if you bet and someone calls in a situation where you could have check raised them you missed a bet as well.  If you are in a late position your decision is fairly easy-you simply bet or raise.

If you are like me you have been sitting at your computer on a friday night, making up some snacks on a tournament break and just had that moment.  That moment where you go what am I doing? Its friday night.  Why am I sitting at home playing poker.  So I put together a list of the ten signs you might be spending too much time playing poker online and on 2+2

10. You cant remember the last time you “sweated” in a real gym

9. You have debated the merits of tiling versus resizing tables.

8. You know what every stat in PokerTracker means

7. You have described something at work or in school as a +EV move

6. Your friends keep giving you gamblers anonymous pamphlets despite your protest that you actually MAKE MONEY playing online

5. You have tried every flavor of hot pocket ever offered and have a favorite of those.

4. You are disappointed whenever you play live poker. Why would anyone only play one table at a time?

3. You describe everyone else as “donks”

2. You can’t remember when you read a book that wasn’t related to poker.

1. You don’t multi task anymore. You mega task.

Your in a game of Hold-Em and were dealt Pocket Aces.  Things are pretty sweet right?  Until the flop comes and there is a flush draw that you don’t have.  Great.  Preflop play is more or less cut and dry.  Most players are going to fold 7-2 off suit instead of seeing the flop and bet big with AA. The flop is where things start to get difficult though.  The greatest change in the game occurs when the flop comes down since now three of the five cards are down.  Playing the flop correctly is most of the times going to decide whether or not you win the hand. 

                The first key to great flop play is play tight!  If you missed the flop do not be afraid to fold.  Putting more money into a pot you don’t think you can win is always a mistake.  If you had QQ and the flop comes A K 2  and one of the players ahead of you bets a substantial amount, you should fold.  Yes what you had preflop was one of the top ten hands in the game so it sucks to let something that good go but putting any more money in is a mistake.  (unless of course you think they are bluffing.  Remember that all advice in poker is situational.) If you missed your flush or straight draw stop chasing it!  If you were going for a flush and only got one card, the odds against you at this point in time are 25 to One against.  Seriously, fold a lot on the flush and save yourself a lot of money. 

                The second key is to be aggressive.  The minimum you should be betting on the flop is three times the big bet.  That bet is substantial off to scare of anyone just calling to see the turn.  It is a good feeler bet too.  It is likely that anyone with a monster hand will re raise you here. Do not get the idea of slowplaying a hand here.  It is never a good idea to let people see another card for cheap so you can “trap” them.  If they were chasing a flush or straight draw and caught it now you are in trouble. 

                The third key to proper flop play is recognizing what situation you are in and playing it from there.   There are three types of situations you could be in.  A trash hand, a made hand or a drawing hand are the three situations you can end up in.  A trash hand is a hand that has nothing going for it anymore and no real chance of improving.  These hands should be trashed.  A made hand is a hand that is already made.  For instance if you had a pair of twos and hit a third two.  A made hand is when you think you have the best hand on the board right then.  A made hand should always be raised.  Pay attention to the other players and look for what they are doing.  That will give you great indicators of how strong your made hand actually is.  A drawing hand is a hand that is not yet made but has strong possibility of being completed.  there are two ways to play a drawing hand.  If you have lower odds than the number of players remaining in the game you should try and see the turn for as cheaply as possible.  For instance there are 5 players in the hand and the odds that you will hit the card to make your hand are 1 in 6 then you should try and see the turn for as cheaply as possible.  If the odds that you will make your hand are smaller than the number of players in the hand you should try and get everyone to put as much money as possible in the pot.  This is because mathematically it works out that if you have a 1 in 5 chance of winning (5 people in the hand) and a 1 in 6 chance it does not add up to bet a lot.  Reverse the situation and mathematically you are going to win in the long run. 

                Playing the flop is the first really tricky part about hold-em.  Most of what you want to be doing on the flop is raising or folding. Most beginners make the mistake of playing hands past the flop that they really shouldn’t.  Figure out what situation you are in, fold the hands that should be folded and be very aggressive.  Do these things and you are on your way to being a winning player. 

As the writer of this site you may wonder where I play poker online. I would undoubtedly tell you if you are just learning poker the place to be at is 888 poker! Seriously their freerolls and free money games will teach you everything you need to know! If you then decide that you dont want to play for real money then your out nothing! If you do decide to its easy to deposit and safe. Check them Out

Poker is not a game of luck. Sure luck is involved in what cards come your way. Not every hand you get dealt is going to be Pocket Aces. However by skillful plays that puts you only playing hands that are mathematically expected to be profitable, the luck is taken out of the equation. There will be times when you win hands you should not and times when your mathematically favored hand loses. This is not luck but rather variance. Once you understand this, you will realize that you can WIN poker in the long run through good play. The five basics to playing poker are these

1. Fold More

2. Fold some more!!!

3. Play in Position

4. Be Aggressive

5. Be Patient

Steps 1: I guarantee that you are too loose of a player. While you are just a beginner at playing poker you will feel the urge to get involved in a lot of hand just to see some action. Yes on TV they play a lot more hands but you are not a top poker pro and you have not spent years fine tuning your ability to read situations. Because of that I recommend you only play a select few starting hands, and if the flop comes full of scare cards, don’t be afraid to fold there as well! The biggest mistake most people make in poker is playing too many hands and playing the hands they do play too far into the pot. Just because you have put a lot of money into a pot doesn’t mean you can’t fold.

Step 2: Fold some more!!! Seriously most top players are only playing about 20% of the hands they get. I know it just feels like you are sitting there losing money to the blinds but I swear you will get paid off when you do hit the right cards. Once you get the hang of being rock tight you should start expanding and bluffing more when you are in the right places to do so. This will disguise when you have an awesome hand.

Step 3. Play in Position. Okay so this one is the first semi difficult concept you will have to master to become a great player. You HAVE TO play in position. You should play tighter when you are the small blind, big blind or first two or three players after that. If you are in the middle you can play a little looser and if you are the last one or two players or deal you can play even loser still. This is because as you go further around the circle you will know more. As the big blind you wont know if anyone behind you is going to move all in so you would not want to try and limp in with a small pair. However if you’re the dealer, if you can limp in for 1 or 2 big blinds go for it since if you hit trips on the flop you can easily win. The more you know about how the people before you have bet the more you know about how you should bet. Thus always play in position

Step 4: Be aggressive. The only way to win money is to spend money. It seems counterintuitive to keep betting more and more but the only way to win pots is to bet more. You should almost never check. You should either raise or fold. If you allow more people to see the flop cheaply when you have a monster hand you are allowing them to win. Here is why. Say you have AA and they have 22. You check preflop and they see the flop for 1 BB. They hit another 2 and you lose. If you have three bet or put in another large raise they would not have called and you would have won the pot. The more you raise the more people you force out of the pot and the greater the odds are that you win. This concept is easy to read but it is hard to put into action. Be confident when you think you have the best hand and start being aggressive.

Step 5. Be patient. It is frustrating sometimes to wait for just the right situation but doing anything less will not be profitable in the long run. So work on being patient. Do not get involved in hands you can’t win. It will be hard, but I guarantee the fat payout you get will be worth it.

Following these 5 steps will not make you a World Series of Poker winner but It will certainly make you a better player than the average joe on the street. Remember poker is a game of skill and in the long run can be beat! Who knows maybe one day with a lot of hard work and practice you will be a WSOP Champion!