Posts Tagged ‘texas holdem poker’

Beating the Bully at the Holdem Table

Monday, March 22nd, 2010

If you have a bully at the table in a tournament or No Limit game you’re in luck: he or she may intimidate less confident players but, if you play your cards right, should provide you with an easy payday.

First of all, note that there is a difference between a player that is strategically aggressive – and a bully. When you have the biggest stack at the table, it’s important to remain aggressive. A smart player also varies his or her approach, to keep other players guessing. A bully is someone who is unreasonably aggressive, betting big early and often in an effort to scare off the competition and build a stack with small pots.
If you are confident that you are really facing a bully, there are certain strategies that can help you defeat them.

BAIT THE TRAP: One approach to dealing with a bully requires that you adopt a conservative approach, getting out early if you have a suspect pair, and generally confirming the bully’s suspicions that you can be intimidated. When you do have a really good starting pair or see a strong hand developing, try to get the bully to do the betting. Position is important here and should be factored in. Move in slowly. If you bet big early the bully will probably fold. Let the bully build the pot – like a raccoon moving into the trap, then spring it at the last moment.

FIRE WITH FIRE: The other way to deal with bullies is to bully them. This a technique that works best when you can afford to lose a few large pots, usually after you’ve been at the table a while. If you start out aggressive, and lose a few big pots you may not be able to stick to this strategy for long. So again, begin conservatively and, when you have a reasonably large stack, switch gears and bully that bully around.

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Holdem Poker Tournament Basics

Monday, March 22nd, 2010

First, understand what a poker tournament is. It’s not a battlefield. It’s not a debate. If there is a modern analogy, it might be the so-called ‘caged match’ in so-called ‘professional wrestling. Ten men enter and only one survives. But that analogy is not perfect, as the truth is that five, ten, sometimes 25 or more entrants survive every tournament very well thank-you. Maybe it’s like the popular TV show, “Lost”. You’ve landed on an island in the middle of nowhere and you have to find a way to survive. You only have so much food. There are beasts in the jungle. And your fellow passengers are not to be trusted.

Survival: That’s your first objective. You need to make it to the next hand, and from there to the next table, and from there to the remaining tables, and so on.. To do that you can’t just sit on the beach and wait. You have to get off your butt and do a little exploration of the island, take a few chances. You have to find food (chips), water (chips), and to a way to deny these necessities (chips) to the other passengers. So what’s your strategy?

Weapons: What do you have in your arsenal? What makes poker interesting is that everyone has access to the same weapons: rules of the game, knowledge of the odds, insights into character: it’s how you handle those weapons that makes the difference. Your weapons are only as effective as your expertise in handling them. Know the odds, and know your opponents (or at least be actively assessing them as you play)

The Stack: As you move through a tournament each level will bring with it a new crop of generally more skilled players, bigger blinds, and greater pressure. At all times you should be aware of your stack, and how to protect it. While you need to have a consistent strategy and stick to it, that strategy must be adapted to circumstance. You won’t take the same risks in the early part of a tournament as you will toward the latter stages. Be patient, but know when to strike. And when you are confident you hold a winning hand, work the table to build that pot.

Energy and Focus. The difference between a champion and a good player is often very simple: focus. We’ve all seen the speed skater heading toward the finish line suddenly ‘lose an edge’. He may have been the strongest and the fastest, but a momentary lapse of focus and everything is lost. You may have the greatest knowledge of the game, a sure-fire strategy, and a big stack of chips but if you lose focus, aren’t paying attention, and let yourself get pulled into a duel with another player who is paying attention, that may be all she wrote. To maintain your energy and focus in a long tournament take advantage of any breaks to eat well, drink water (never alcohol), stretch and revive. If you get a chance, take a relaxed walk around the block, a bathroom break, and maybe wash your face and brush your teeth. (Back at the table though, don’t let anyone know how refreshed you feel..)

Strategy: No one can tell you what your strategy should be: you know best what works for you. Of course there are plenty of examples (books and books) of strategies that have worked well for others, and a familiarity with these approaches is important. More important to tournament success however, is that your strategy is not obvious to others. Especially at the beginning of a tournament, or when you first sit down at a new table, it’s important to mix it up. Be aggressive one hand. Limp into another. Make a bad play or two. Remember, the good players are paying more attention to how you play, than their own cards. If you don’t mix it up, especially in the beginning, the good players will soon figure you out and – no matter what cards you are dealt, will minimize your effectiveness.

Be Lucky.

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When to Bluff in Texas Holdem

Monday, March 22nd, 2010

It’s not really when to bluff. It’s when not to bluff!

Don’t bluff early and often. There are always exceptions but early in a game or a tournament you probably don’t have a good sense of who you are playing against, what their tendencies are and – just as importantly, who they think you are. If you play it tight early on, when and if you choose to bluff the other players will give you a little more leeway.

How many are you up against? Forget who you are playing against for now, just count heads. It’s always easier to bluff one or two, than five or six. The point of bluffing is not to fool some of the people some of the time: it’s to fool one or two people every time. If you bluff early and before too few have folded, the odds are against you.

The Flop. Don’t bluff if the flop has given too many people a shot at a good hand (unless of course, it’s given you a great hand. Then again, that’s not bluffing..) When you bluff after a ragged flop your chances are better, because their chances aren’t too good to begin with.

Down and Outs! Smart players don’t often bluff without some chance at a decent hand. A good time to bluff is often when you are hoping to draw to a straight or flush from an otherwise undistinguished hand. You still have a few outs that could bail you out if your bluff fails.

Odds are ‘Stacked’ Against You. Don’t bluff if your heads-up opponent can afford to lose. If he or she buys the bluff, you’re probably not going to be winning a large pot and, if you lose, you are probably going to be headed home.

Take Your Medicine. Luck often overrules skill. Odds are a great bluff will run head-on into a great hand every so often. When that happens hit the re-set button. Don’t change tactics, or drop bluffing from your repertoire. If you work at bluffing as hard as you work on the other aspects of the game, it will serve you well.

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Counting Your Outs in Texas Holdem Poker

Monday, March 22nd, 2010

Successful Hold’em players are often depicted with cigar smoke circling round their heads, and a cocky expression on their face as if they have occult mental powers that enable them both to know when their opponents are bluffing, and what the flop has in store.

The truth is that they do have knowledge that you don’t possess – yet. The truth is that their cockiness comes, in large part, from knowing the odds.

Come on, admit it: even if you are fairly well versed in the value of various power poker hands, you really don’t know the odds that you will be able to make a particular hand. And without that knowledge you really don’t know when or how strongly to bet. If you’re not confident of your chances – especially from the flop forward, you probably won’t stick around long enough in each hand, to have a shot at big winnings.

The skill you need to develop is called ‘Counting the Outs’.

Outs are cards that give you the hand you are hoping for.

For example… you are dealt two diamonds and on the flop two more diamonds appear. Assuming that there’s no possibility of a better hand for you than a flush, how many outs do you have? In this case counting the outs is simple: you have four of the 13 total diamonds available, so there are nine possible outs.

Consider the difference between going for a ‘gut-shot’ straight draw and an ‘open-ended ‘ straight draw. The ‘gut-shot’ draw is missing one card in the middle to complete the draw. Only one card can make that draw happen – so you have four chances (1×4), or outs. The ‘open-ended’ draw is four cards that can make a straight if they get the right card on either end. Therefore there are eight outs (2×4).

Which is the better bet? The gut shot, or the open-ended straight draw?

Let’s make it even simpler. After the flop all you’ve got is a pair of Twos. What are your odds of getting a third, to make a set? How many Twos are in the deck? Four! Minus the two you already have, you are left with two Outs. Get it? And if you have only two outs (or chances) to make a set, that’s not exactly something to bet the house on.

Of course what makes poetry interesting is that, if you know the odds of the outs, and your opponents knows that you do, it becomes a bit easier to bluff. But that’s another story, for another time.

For now, make yourself a chart of possible hands and flops, and figure out the outs.

Remember too, that as you are figuring out your outs, you should also be considering what your opponents might be able to do with the flop. It may be that some of the cards that you are looking for, could make their hand as well. The rule here would be to subtract those cards from your total outs.

Once you know your outs, you’re going to be in on some big pots. Once you know your outs that guy with the cocky, close-mouthed grin – that guy will be you!

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Texas Holdem Poker Spring Training?

Sunday, March 21st, 2010

That’s what poker needs: spring training. Most sports have a pre-season. A month or two when its fans can bask in an optimistic sun, gather autographs, head to the beach- confident that this year will be different.

But poker just goes on and on, without regard to the light, without a concern for the weather, with not even a nod toward Puxsatawney Phil’s prognostication. And that can be depressing. Especially now, in the dead of winter.

In poker the game is never called because of rain or snow, or even darkness. In poker the darker the better.

But does that bode well for this new, universally accepted, globally practiced game? Perhaps when it was just Doyle and Amarillo and Telly Savalas, the excess of poker was a big part of its appeal. But today – when anyone can sit in at the main table, there seems to be a clear need for a poker pre or post-season.

Wouldn’t it be great to head to – lets say, Albuquerque in the off-season (August/September), enjoy the mountain air, and watch the top players just fooling around. Maybe it could be a mini-season with all pots going to charity? Maybe there could be an all-card playing pre-season where Bridge players and Pinochle fanatics and Poker players mixed with tarot card readers, and bubblegum card collectors.

Sure I know, poker players want to maintain the mystique, but that mystique will always be there because it comes from the players, from their characters, their idiosyncrasies. Poker is now as mainstream as horse-racing, as accepted as Jazz. It needs to find both its season, and its off-season. It needs to realize it is a part of the everyday and, so as not to wear out its welcome, it needs to take a little break every now and then.

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