Strategizing for short stacks

You need to win more pots than your opponent. This means you’re going to have to play your hands aggressively. Any decent hand will require a commitment if you’re betting first. You can adopt one of the two courses for bluffing in such circumstances.

Fake a weak hand when you have really strong cards to let your opponent raise the blinds high and steal the pot or bet heavily on a weak hand to induce the bluff that you are strong, beware that all this might backfire.

If you judge that your opponent s a tight player then get stealing as much as you can before he or she calls your bluff, but make sure you do so on the safer side as you are still in the soup and the last thing you want to do is over commit so much that you end up parting with more than you intended to in case the bluff is called.

On the other hand if you have judged your opponent to be an aggressive, then your options are even more limited, do not make any moves that might result in your downfall, just be patient and wait till the right time comes.

However, as if this is not enough, you might soon be forced into making moves not at all to your liking, like going for an all-in or go in for a raise again when you have so much to lose. The only solace you can draw from the entire situation is that it is a lesson learnt and hopefully you will never take the same steps in any game to end up in such a soup where all you pray for is to draw even, especially if it is a head to head game.

Pot odds – Time for some math – I

How you can cash in on your prowess in math to get an edge over your opponent in poker. It is a simple case of calculating pot odds and implied pot odds!

A fundamental understanding of the principles of probability is all you need to have to work this out. If you have these numbers that is pot odds and implied pot odds at your finger tips then there is nothing like it.

You can now more accurately calculate how much you need to raise the blinds by, how much to bet and when that is, help you arrive at precise decisions in the limited time you have at the table super quick not to mention the fact that over time you will end up laughing all the way to the bank again and again and again!

The better news is that this is not half as hard as it is made out to be, even if math scares you witless! You might balk at first glance but gradually as you start making those profits and see how beneficial it would be things will start falling into place and you will grasp the math pretty quickly.