Pacific Poker

Playing Your Position in No Limit Holdem


02 Nov , 2008 - Posted by Dan Brown in No Limit Texas Holdem Poker

Playing form the blind spot can be the most complicated place to play at the Poker table. Pre-flop you do get to act final and with a price cut which will allow you to get into pots with weaker starting hands in No Limit Holdem Poker.  The story is completely unusual post flop when you will be required to act first on all streets. Feel open to get into pots with weaker hands in these positions, but you need to be conscious that you will have to act first after the flop. It’s hard to give you a variety of starting hands to play in the blinds since the odds will be in your favor a lot of the times. there will be eleven dollars in the pot when it is your turn to act if you are in the small blind playing one / two dollar no limit and four people limp in, so you have to call one dollar into an eleven dollar pot (11 – 1) and those odds are almost not possible to turn down regardless of your cards. Make sure you raise enough to thin the field significantly if you have a monster starting hand pre-flop in a blind position and feel you have to raise. Once more with four limpers, eleven dollars in the Pot Limit holdem and you wake up with a suited ace king you should raise sufficient to take the pot down or play a heads up pot.

Playing in early on position means you will have to act first or early all through the entire hand. It’s intelligent to limit your starting hands in these spots, to make sure that you do not get stuck in pots that you don’t fit in. The big query when playing in premature position is to raise or to just call and there is no perfect answer. A lot of the times you can critic what to do by the way the rest of the table is playing. If you limp at ultra insistent or new tables you may be able to stay for someone else to raise for you in later position and either re-raise them or play a big pot while hiding your hand strength. On the flip side while playing at more skilled or solid tables limping in early position can start out alarms bells for your challengers and force them to either fold or limp in themselves. You can utilize this to your benefit. You may be able to get into the pots with weaker starters.

Watch the table and find out how your rivals are playing. See what happens in early position and make a decision consequently. Don’t get carried away and do something dumb. Feel liberated to open up the range of hands that you are playing. Play hands that you like pocket pairs, suited connectors and suited aces. Sometimes is wiser to continue playing as you were in early position, and you will not feel like you need to get in the action playing in middle position.

You have the option to act last on all streets when playing in late position you are “In the drivers seat”. Playing from the button (dealer) is the place at the table where you can be the most imaginative. Sit back watch the action unfold in front of you and then choose what the best way to play the pot is. You already have the knowledge of what the rest the table thinks about there hands by the actions they have made your starting cards don’t matter as much playing in late position. Everybody folds to you and you have a seven – queen off suit For example your playing from the button. In early position that is a simple fold, but when on the button you may be able to merely raise and take the blinds down. This is called stealing the blinds and since playing in the late stages of a tournament when the blinds are high stealing they could make the variation between winning and losing. One more thing to be aware of is if you every time raise out of late position the other players will stop haughtily you have a good hand and will start to open up there games, as they will be dejected with just giving you there blinds. For example in you have raised from the button all day three times the blind, play all your hands the same so that you not giving off any betting patterns, then if you get pocket aces raise the blinds the same amount.

Playing your position at a Poker Games table can be an easy way to perk up your results. It is imperative to always try and figure out what your opponent thinks you have and move from there. Whether you are playing online or at a casino the information of position will help you at the very least understand what your opponents are doing.

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Virgin Poker

Basic Math in No Limit Holdem


02 Nov , 2008 - Posted by Dan Brown in No Limit Texas Holdem Poker

You do not have to be a mastermind to be able to do most of the math involved in playing no limit Texas Holden poker. It will be relatively easy for you to figure out if you have basic skills, adding and percentages. Learning these basic Poker skills can make those sometimes very hard decisions a little easier.

A few piece of advice on playing pre-flop before you go putting all your money in the middle with pocket sixes. You will hit your set (three of a kind) about twelve percent of the time with pocket pairs. As an illustration if you are playing pocket deuces you will not hit that third two eighty eight percent of the time and you will have a lot of over cards to deal with. You will hit at least one of those cards about thirty six percent of the time if you are holding an ace king pre-flop. You will have a four card flush eleven percent of the time after the flop with suited cards. you will hit a pair thirty six percent of the time and have a flush draw eleven percent of the time so if you have an ace king of spades before the flop.

To turn into a good Online Poker player you need to find out how to put your opponents on a hand. If you are paying attention when you play you will pick up patterns in your competitors and this can take a lot of practice. If you play a lot of online poker keeps notes on the players, who you pick these patterns up on, just lest you run into them at another Poker Games in the future. If you have been playing against a guy for three hours and he’s only raise a handful of times and every time he does he seems to have aces, kings, queens or ace king that is a pattern as an example. When you look down at your hand you see pocket jacks, what should you do the similar guy raise in early position in front of you? Well if you are certain he has one of the four hands stated earlier then you are most likely beat and you should lay down, but he might have ace king. You might also just call and see if you could hit that jack, but you can easily assume your beat if you see an ace or a king. Trust your read and go with it if you call you need to watch out for a pair bigger then yours. The easier it will be to figure out there hole cards, the more you know about your competitor.

Simply the pot odds are the quantity of money in the pot against the quantity of money you have to call to stay in the hand. For instance there is a pot of $10, your opponent bets $1, you now have to call $1 into an $11 pot ($10 pot plus $1 bet), consequently you are getting 11-1 odds. You need to know what your real odds are to use these pot odds correctly. Calculated the pot odds you need to add up the amount of cards you have left in the deck to make you a winner and after you have made the read on your opponent. Every person knows that there are 52 cards in a deck and 13 cards of each suit. The amount of cards left that won’t help you need to add up your outs that are left in the deck (cards you don’t see). If you have a flush draw in hearts after the flop, 13 hearts in the deck you see four of them leaving you with nine outs as an example. You identify what the three flop cards are and the two cards that you are holding leaving you with 47 cards that you have not seen. Nine of those 47 cards will give you 38 cards will not, a flush, giving you the of 38-9 (4.2 – 1) to make your flush.

You’re playing $1/$2 No Limit Holdem and you call the raise to $5 from an antagonistic player pre flop with a King Queen of clubs to play heads up (you and one other player in the Pot Limit holdem ). The flop comes Seven of Hearts, Jack of Clubs and 10 of Clubs giving you a royal flush draw. You read your opponent as weak (small pair as best). You think your King (3 outs), your Queen (3 outs), your straight draw (8 outs) and your flush draw (9 outs) are all good and your opponent bets into you $5 bringing the pot up to $18 and it’s your turn to act. The odds of making your hand are 1-1 and this gives you 23 outs, and with 47 unseen cards. The pot chances are 18-5 (3.6-1), which means you are getting a great price to call or make a raise. Adapt your outs and odds accordingly, and If you raise and your opponent makes the call maybe you need to change your read. Perhaps your King and Queen aren’t good maybe your opponent spiked a set, minus the six outs and readjust.

As you see the math isn’t overly tricky and with practice it can become second nature to you. Knowing the math will compel you to progress your game and will make your life easier.

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Virgin Poker

Women can be Tricky Poker Players


21 Oct , 2008 - Posted by Dan Brown in Texas Holdem Tips

When playing women men need to be careful. There was player in a
Limit Texas Holdem tournament in 2007 in Las Vegas. There was a very well brilliant middle aged woman that a lot of men liked to flirt with. She was not drop dead gorgeous or anything like that, but she had a certain aggressive way about her that men were drawn to.

She almost always won the pot on the river if they were challenged past the flop. She literally flirted her way out of a guy betting into her a couple of times. One time, she looked at the guy, reached down and squeezed her breast together and gave the guy a sly look while he was reaching for Online Poker chips. The guy laughed so hard that he resolute to check and the river card finished her draw and she won the hand.

In another instance another happened to flop a straight, but there was a possible flush draw on the board. She touched the player’s arm and went, “You would raise little old me would you?” as she bet out and the Poker player went to raise and replid, “Pot.” She just gave him a stare as to say, “I can’t believe you did this?” She called the bet. The turn fell a blank and the bet was checked to the player. He potted again and the woman folded.

Unfortunately she has worked her routine so well that they fall for it for the men. Women in Poker Games today have not only learned how to play the game, but some have begun to play the player by using men’s own hormones against them. Women even advise that other women use this as a tactic. Annie Duke mentioned in her biography that other women must utilize this tactic.

Watch a few things about her if she is overly flirty or chatty with the other men when you see a fairly attractive woman sit down at your poker table. Pay attention to whether she changes the way she acts while she is in a hand and when she talks to them. Women will do everything from start somewhat off-putting conversations to give puppy dog eyes to their male opponents.

Older women distract their male opponents or younger opponents and will actually try certain “friendly” techniques to try. This older woman player in Atlantic City is the master of “playing friendly.” She is really a very nice lady away from the table, but when she draw more free cards by smiling and talking polite than any other person. When she wants to bet she goes from friendly to the “you better not call me” face.

Not all women are going to use these types of tactics in the poker tournaments. Some will try and hold their own with the men at the table because of either personality or because they want to earn your admiration. Every situation is different as with all things poker. Women can be just as tricky as guys. These examples were prearranged to help you look out for some possible pitfalls when playing against female opponents. The difference is that women frequently have more self-discipline and have a few more tricks that their male opponents.

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Virgin Poker

A Short Stack Play


21 Oct , 2008 - Posted by Dan Brown in Texas Holdem Tips

Working a short stack is part well timed antagonism and part luck. You must begin with knowing the opponents at your Online Poker table. Which are the players that you may be able to take from, who are the players that will call your bet with any two cards and are there any chip leaders at your table are some of the things you should keep in mind. A chip leader will take an opening to knock you out other than someone middle or lower in chips may not risk smarting their stack. So you would want to try and select on the players with middle to lower stacks if you can.

To begin with, when you are the short stack and you pick up a big hand, there is only one move. And that is well thought-out an all-in. Do not lay down yourself up with a tricky decision after the flop. Make your Poker opponent to the test by putting them to the risk doubling you up. If you pick up a hand, get as much value for it as you can for the reason that you are getting to the point where you almost have to move in with any two cards.

After that, if you are short and approaching desperation mode, especially if the antes go up and if you are close up to the end of a level, occasionally it is clever to remain until the level change. This will place more money into the pot pre-flop. If waiting will make your shove worthless, do not do this. There was in an event once where a poker player had a practical hand to draw near with on the final hand of the level but with the deed chose to wait until the next level in the Poker Games since the blinds and ante’s would be up. Because he was nowhere near the blinds, he could give a few hands while the antes were not too bad. He picked up a suited ace and moved in during the first hand of the next level. He in fact doubled up and called, but because he waited a level, he picked up an extra 525 that he wouldn’t have had if he did not wait.

In addition, you could do with being the antagonist in the pot. The instance above actually had the player a better ace the previous hand before he moved in, but there were numerous players in the pot. With this to a great extent action, it would be hard to promise a heads-up game for all my chips. You want to be the first raiser or the first person into the Pot Limit Texas Holdem. This will allocate you to at least apply some pressure.

You need to make some moves in order to get some Texas Holdem poker chips when short stacked. You will not always be knocked out and successful, but the times that you are doing well will pay off and in addition help out to put up your icon as a survivor.

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