Information is king in poker. Knowing whether to call the all-in bet requires knowledge, even just a little, of your opponents potential shove ranges and to get this knowledge you have to watch them play. If your opponent is ultra tight, the only way to know this is to observe many hands of their play and watch them only show the best hole cards in confrontations. If you are writing an e-mail, talking on Skype or reading about your favourite celebrity then you are not giving the game your full attention, therefore you cannot be upset if results do not go your way.

There are plenty of good Texas Hold ‘em players out there, as if you did not know. I notice that if I load up a random sit and go poker tournament there are usually decent players and rarely the all-in first hand donkeys that used to populate every poker tournament. Everyone will remember those players, it was double up or bust with any two cards in the first hand of poker tournaments!

Modern Texas Hold ‘em profits require a little more finesse in your approach to the game. Before you play a session get your mental state ready to play hard. This is not simply looking at your hole cards and deciding raise or fold, it is looking at the stack sizes of your opponents and keeping notes on them and using other relevant information to come to a decision. The poker rooms make it easy for you with their player note taking features, so there is no excuse to not doing this essential player research during your play. If you want a game without wanting to concentrate, then use the play money tables because you are at a severe disadvantage not taking notes and observing the key information you will need in complex situations later in the poker cash game or poker tournament.

For example, you are playing a poker tournament and hold $3000 in chips with 77 when the blinds are $100 – $200. You raise to $600 leaving you $2400 behind. You are not pot committed and can afford to fold to a raise if required. An opponent puts you all-in with a re-raise from late position. You must decide whether to call. If you have been watching your opponent, you will know immediately how many times they have gone all-in and hopefully when they did the hand that won the pot for them. Without this you are struggling for a reason to call and probably need to fold. If you know your opponent will probably have less than 77 (if he has shown A6 or K4 in a previous shove) then you can call. Knowing that AA to 99 is all this player would re-raise with makes the easy fold even easier. What if you were concentrating on email? Good luck working this one out.

Learning to quickly read a player is possibly the greatest skill in Texas Hold ‘em or any other variation of poker. The plays themselves are academic and conducted after the decision is made on how to proceed. You will get far more from poker coaching by discussing spots based on poker player reads rather than random calls or folds because you were not paying attention. Everything is relevant from the poker chat to the sharkscope stats to the all-in three bet raise pre flop. They tell a story on how this player operates at the poker table, so pay attention and learn how to beat them.

By Malcolm Clarke

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