Poker Strategy

Position is key

Ask any successful poker player what the most valuable thing is at the table and I guaranteed each and every one of them will give the same answer – “position”.

Position is your place at the table in relation to the dealer button, which in turn dictates when you have to act during a hand. At a ten-handed table the three players to the left of the blinds would be counted as being in early position, the three next to those would be middle position and the last two would be in late position.

So why is position so important? Ten-time World Series of Poker bracelet winner, Doyle Brunson once famously said he could beat the majority of his opponents heads-up, even if they were dealt a pair of aces every hand as long as he had position on them.

Poker is a game played with incomplete information, meaning players have to make their decisions based what they know at any one time. The more information they have, the easier it is to make the correct decision and one of the ways information is gathered is to observe whether a player calls or raises.

Being seated in one of the latter positions at the table allows you to win pots you probably would not have if you were seated anywhere else. If you are sat on the button and everyone folds their hand around to you, you stand a large chance of stealing the blinds by raising with a wide range of poker hands. You can also make a bet or raise when the community cards have been dealt if your opponents have shown weakness. You can even represent a hand stronger than the one you actually hold as you get to act after everyone else has.

Conversely, you can also save yourself chips by folding out hands you would otherwise have played. Imagine for example you are seated immediately to the left of the blinds, known as being under-the-gun and are dealt a pair of fours. You decide to limp but by the time the action gets back to you there has been a call, a raise and a re-raise. You now fold you small pair, without seeing a flop and after investing money into the pot.

Now imagine the same scenario but this time you find yourself in late position. Again, there is a call under-the-gun, another call, a raise and a re-raise. Now you can safely fold your lowly pair of fours, knowing you are almost certainly a massive underdog. This time you have not put any money into the pot. Saving the odd bet here and there can be the difference between a winning session and a losing one.

Tags:
Doyle Brunson, Poker Hands, Position, World Series of Poker

Some Poker Strategies

It’s difficult to address the subject of poker strategy in a short space because entire books have been written on the subject. In addition, professionals conduct classes that might last several days, all with the intention of providing tips, tricks and strategy to make poker players more successful.

In the last couple of decades, a lot of players have turned to professionals and strategists like David Sklansky. He has given us what is widely known as the fundamental theorem for the game. This is general knowledge, available in all of Sklansky’s books.

Basically, this theorem states that you gain if you play your hand as if you could see the opponent’s cards and you also gain if the opponent plays the cards differently than he would if he could see your hand. The bottom line here is that a player should not only play his hand based on all the information available on the table, such as up cards, but should also make an effort to determine what the opponent has, based on how he plays his hand.
A few basics of strategy are possible here, though we have to tie some of them to particular games to make them clear. Every player should understand the concept of card odds, no matter what the game. For instance, in Texas Holdem Poker – if you have two hearts in the hole and the flop (first three cards on the board) contain two more hearts you need only one more to make a flush.

Your playing strategy should be based on the chances of you getting another heart. The odds in this case are about 2 to 1. How do we determine that?

There are 13 cards of each suit. You can see four hearts, which means there are 9 more somewhere in the deck. In our simple example, you subtract the five cards you can see from the 52 cards in the deck. This leaves you 47 cards unseen. Nine of these will help you and 38 won’t. The card odds are 38 to 9 or about 4 to 1. You have two chances to get another heart so you divide 4 by two and get 2 to 1 card odds we originally mentioned.

Your decision to stay in the hand should compare these odds with the pot odds you have in front of you. Again, this is just a simple example but if it will cost you $10 to stay in and the pot will contain $20 that is 2 to 1 and you should stay. If you have 2 to 1 card odds there will be few times when you shouldn’t give it a try. Of course, if the pot has $40 in it, that’s 4 to 1 for your money. Stay in.
That is poker strategy, in its simplest form.

Other key elements of poker strategy include raising instead of calling if you are the first player to act in a round. If you have good cards, such as A-K or a pair, your strategy should probably be a raise. This can eliminate a player or two and give you a better chance to win. It also signals others that you are serious about staying in the hand.

Other elements of poker strategy include bluffing, which is the subject of books and classes. This strategy is intended to get opponents to fold a hand that might be better than yours. Good poker players also consider position at the table in their strategy. If you will act last in a hand, you have a lot of information about what other players are doing before you have to make a decision.

There is much, much more to poker strategy, some of it specific to certain types of poker. Learn as much as you can about the game you choose and develop a solid strategy. The best way to practice poker strategy is to play on Poker Sites.

Tags:
David Sklansky, Poker Strategy

You want me to fold AA pre-flop?

While it may sound like a crazy and unorthodox thing to do, there is a time when you need to fold AA. While you are never likely to fold it in any situation in a cash game, there is a time when you have to let the hand go in either a SNG or a MTT. It is a rare time, but sometimes surviving is better than risking your stack.

Sooner or later you are going to be in a SNG tournament or a MTT and you are going to be sitting somewhere from the button to the BB and you are going to have multiple players that are pushed all in ahead of you. If you are looking at a stack where you are covered by most or all of the players that have already pushed, you are going to have to let this hand go. The time to do this of course is when you are on the bubble. It may be difficult to do, but if you want to make the money, this is a golden opportunity to slide right in there with absolutely no risk.

Let’s say that there are 6 people left in the tourney (of a SNG) or there are only 2 positions left to go for the money in a MTT and you are on the button. Everyone has started the tournament with $2,000 in chips and you are sitting at $1,200 and you are in the BB. Under the gun pushes with a short stack of $1,000 and next position immediately pushes all in with $4,000 in chips. The next player also pushes in and has $2,100 and the button also pushes and has $2,400 in chips. If you double up, you would be looking at $5,800 in chips, but you have to get through 4 hands to survive.

Before you rush and just throw those chips in there, start to break down the hand and really figure out where you stand. In most cases, the short stack is going to be sitting on some type of pair. The big stack will more than likely be looking for isolation and would have two high cards or a pocket pair. The third and fourth players in almost certainly have a pocket pair. Best case scenario, you are looking at three pocket pairs and AK or AQs.

While you are still the favorite on the poker table, your percentages go dramatically down every time someone else puts in their chips. You are not going up against only one hand here, you have to beat all of them in order to be alive. For arguments sake, let’s assume that they all have a pocket pair. At pre-flop, you now have 8 cards that can beat you in the deck. That means that you are actually a severe underdog to the rest of table as any one of those 8 cards can beat you and send you to the rail.

While the ‘technical odds’ have you much higher, AA will really only hold up about 70-80% of the time. In this situation, you are better off dropping the hand and letting other players get eliminated. You can actually make the money right there if the big stack wins, but either way, you are going to be a lot closer to the money and in no risk of being eliminated.

This is not an easy play to make as most people will rush to get their chips in the pot here. However, if you have the discipline, you are must better laying down the hand and letting everyone else go to war. We all know you will get sick to your stomach if the AA holds up, but you can be assured that in most scenarios, it is more likely to go down that it is to win that hand. Take solace in knowing that you made the right call.

Tags:
MTT, Online Poker, Poker, Poker Games, Pre Flop, SNG

Position – the most valuable commodity at the poker table

You know what they say: if you’re unable to spot the sucker at your table within a reasonable amount of time, chances are you are the sucker. The good news is though that it doesn’t take a whole lot to catch up with the other poker players and to leave your sucker status behind for good. All you need to do is hammer a few basics concepts into your head and you’re good to go. About 95% of the players you’ll meet online are not any better than that, and it won’t take much to catch up with them.

First thing’s first: there are a few basic advantages you can secure without ever playing a single hand of poker. Take rakeback for example. Don’t know rake back is? Read around, stay informed. Be the guy who reads, and not the one who follows the pack blindly.

Sign up for a rakeback deal like the Absolute Poker rakeback or the Full Tilt rakeback and get about 30% of your rake back. Once you understand how poker rooms take their rake, you’ll understand why rakeback is so important.

Similarly, when you hit the table and you get down to actual play, you need to keep reading. If you do that, you’ll become a reasonable player within an amazingly short period of time.

One of the basic concepts that make a difference between reasonable players and suckers is starting hand selection. Another such concept, possibly an even more important one, is that of the position. Texas Holdem Poker is a fixed position game, which means certain players will enjoy an advantage over other players, simply on account of the position they have at the table. Here’s how position really works. The dealer button is the point of reference when it comes to position. Because the dealer button moves around the table in a clock-wise direction with every hand, nobody will be stuck in a certain position for good. You will still be able to secure lasting advantage over an opponent by sitting down on his immediate left, because that will mean you’ll have to act after him most of the time.

Anyway, here’s how the positions are allotted in relation to the dealer button. The person sitting on the left of the dealer button is the SB, the guy on his left is the BB. Except for the first betting round, these are the people that will act first on every street.

The position on the left of the BB is called Under the Gun. He is the guy who has to act first in the very first betting round. These are all early positions which force the players to act blindly and thus to lose value on their starting hands.

The best position to be in is the button. The button is the last to act on every street. The cut-off is a late position too, which carries the possibility to foil the blinds-stealing plans of the button. As far as the other positions are concerned: the closer they are to the UTG the worse they are.

Here are some of the strategic advantages that late position offers you at the poker table:

- If offers you numerous and cheap possibilities to steal blinds and to bluff.

- It offers you information in the form of reads which you’ll be able to deduce from the betting patterns of those who act before you.

- Value betting properly will be a cinch from late position.

- You’ll have control over the size of the pot. This is probably the most important advantage that position offers you: it gives you control. Most of the advanced strategy moves require that you have control and your success rate sky-rockets every time you’re in control in a hand.

- Your starting hands gain additional value when you’re in late position.

If you need an illustration of how position works in poker, take a look at the hand histories of the durrrr challenge. You’ll see an obvious trend surfacing: both players (Tom Dwan and Patrik Antonius) have logged most of their winning hands while in position. They both lost more when out of position.

Given the fact that these two are currently among the best cash game players in the world, this statistic should say plenty about the importance of position in poker.

Tags:
Betting, Blinds, Bluff, Dealer, Late Position, Patrik Antonius, Pot, Rakeback, sucker, Table, Texas Holdem Poker, Tom Dwan, Under the Gun, UTG

When to put your chips in on a draw in a tournament

This is something you see quite a bit in tournament play, especially poker online. However, there are good times to do this and bad times. Remember, just because you won the hand does not mean that it was the right play. There are several situations when it is okay to get in there on a draw, you just need to know what they are.

Let’s get the time that it is not good to throw your chips in on a draw. Let’s say you see a flop that has 2 cards to a flush and your hole cards are suited. You fire out a bet and someone comes right back over top of you to put you all in on a call. What do you do here? Odds aside, you have to let the hand go. You are going to see arguments for both sides of this, but the bottom line is that this is not a cash game. You cannot re-buy and you are risking everything pretty much knowing that you must improve or you are gone.

On the flip side of that, you get the same flop but hold position on the other player. He fires out and you are short stacked and decide to come over the top of him and go all in on a draw. This is actually a good play. You have two ways to win this hand. Your opponent could fold thinking you already have the made hand and of course if he calls, you are still alive with a 35% draw. The difference in the two situations is that you are being the aggressor and putting someone else on a decision.

Finally, you can also make this call when you are stacked and not in danger of putting yourself at risk by covering the bet for the all in. In most cases, you don’t want to risk any more than about 25% of your stack and you have to make sure you are getting odds for the play. You are going to need to see about 2:1 to make the call off of the flop and about 5:1 to make the play on the river. If the odds are there, make the play.

Draws are great when you catch them, but they are way to overrated and lead to a lot of early deaths in tournaments. A good way to keep your head straight about it is to remember that you can always push on a draw, but you should never call on one. You only need a chip and a chair to stay alive. Putting your money in on a hope and a prayer will more than likely get you to the rail rather than to the final table.

Tags:
Chips, Online Poker, Poker Tips