Fortunately it is equally difficult for your opponents to tell you how good they are. This means that the weaker players who you win money from will come back to the table for a combination of reasons believing they can beat the game and make money from playing poker. They will assess bad play as bad luck and therefore believe next time things will work out better for them. Often this is simply wrong, but without these types of players at your table you may be unable to win money. I never tell a player he is rubbish, or berate them for bad play even if they put a bad beat on me as I worry they may suddenly realise I have a point and stop playing. You should always give yourself the chance to win your money back.

Analysing your own play is a difficult to do. Often it is best to seek the advice of a poker coach and provide them with your Pokertracker or Poker Office database and let them look at your stats in their own time. You may have to pay them to undertake this analysis but the feedback you get especially if they spot a weakness that is losing you money could be worth much more to you than a small payment for their time and effort. A friend of mine noticed through this process that he was losing a lot of money playing pocket pairs from under the gun. Now that he folds everything apart from Queens, Kings and Aces from that position he is doing a lot better.

If you can discuss poker strategy with a good player this suggests you are technically competent. Your ability and inclination to gamble plays a part as when the pot gets bigger not everyone can play their best poker at that point. The metagame skills you have are very important as you will have guessed reading many of the other articles I have written. It is not just whether you fold, check or raise but how you arrive at those decisions and being in the optimal frame of mind to allow that decision to be made when required leads to profits.

The biggest indicator to your level of poker ability is your results. Although short term results, especially in poker tournaments, can show a high profit from a small sample size it is the ability to win money from playing poker over time that we all strive to achieve and maintain. Consistent cash game winnings point to a consistent able poker player and we all want to show our ability through winnings over time. These winnings emanate from dedication, ability, composure and persistence. All of these things are the ingredients to a good poker player, and you should spend as much time as you can improving in each and every one of these elements.

I play my online poker at bwin.com and constantly take notes, make observations about my state of mind and mental status. I know that if I play the hands the way I can play them I have an advantage over many of the players I encounter online. Poker is a game that rewards good decisions over time and only the good players make good decisions more often. You will make mistakes, but as you learn about why you made mistakes in the past and learn from them this will help fundamental errors being reduced to a minimum and then only variance will affect your short term results.

By Malcolm Clarke

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

The biggest surprise this year has been my performance in online poker tournaments. It makes sense that I have had some decent results as I play an aggressive game where I am happy to get my chips in if I feel I am ahead. I tend to either bust or build a stack and whilst I am trying to tone this down to more predictable and considered play I understand the importance of getting a stack in the early stages. Remembering you must accumulate most of the tournament chips to get even a reasonable cash this keeps me pumping chips into the pots and hoping for cards to hit that win me these pots!

Most poker player’s talk of their bad luck, but to be honest I have probably been more lucky than unlucky in the last few months. I have won myself a tournament ticket to a large tournament in May and have hopes of winning another big ticket for another tournament shortly. I enjoy these types of freerolls in big tournaments because even min-cashing means a lot. But this does not mean I play to cash, I always plan and play to win every tournament I enter, as you should.

Confession time. I must play more cash games because I have severe work to do in order to make them profitable at a level I want to. This takes work, losses, lessons and hard review. These aspects of learning are all things I resist. I am the type of person who does not box because I do not like to get punched, so losing and paying tuition to cash games in order to learn is not something that comes easily to me. That said I have seen much improvement in my game particularly the tough spots where I used to scratch my head and everything I did seemed to work out wrong. Poker knowledge is as much about knowing you are doing something right rather than getting a result every time. But you need to know you are doing things right so not to kid yourself things that are mistakes are bad luck. Thinking you are unlucky is a great disguise for being a fish!

Currently I am clearing my obligations to only include poker and my main job. This way I can concentrate on getting better and creating that all important poker income. My main leaks in terms of effort are eBay, Playstation 3 and blogging. I must be harsh with myself in order to achieve my poker goals. After all, there is much money to be won in the bwin.com tournaments, cash games and player jackpot tournaments that my wasting time playing games is not helping my poker game.

Modern poker requires dedication, talent and time. I plan on moving up a level in the next six months to test out if I am a good enough player or not to win at the online poker tables. Join me and find out if you are too.

By Malcolm Clarke

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

100 Big Blind Stacks in Low Limit Games

I differ from Harrington on Cash Games in that I still play speculative hands when the stacks are a bit smaller than the recommended 200 big blinds. As I play lower stakes games I find players generally buy-in shorter than 200 big blinds anyway but do not adjust that well to these slightly smaller stacks. I am not saying that 100 big blinds are especially short but you should be playing differently to 200 big blind stacks. I will still play mostly premium hands and some connectors in position and I am looking to hit the flop hard and win my opponents entire stack.

What Can You Win?

If you are limping in with a low pocket pair, for example, like 6-6 to hit your set you know that when you are called you will face overcards most of the time after the flop and even without them on a 2-3-5 board you have the wheel to worry about and straights. Your goal is to hit your set. Your opponents stack size should be about 25 big blinds to make it worthwhile for you to compensate for the times you lose when you hit your set; they fold rather than call, and the times you miss hitting your set and are forced to fold. Realise that if you play to hit a set and win 5 big blinds from an opponent about to bust out of the game, it is good you won the pot but you made a mistake chasing a set in this spot.

Playing Deep Stacked Players

Deep stack play is what the professionals love to play because you do not reach a spot betting half pot and pot where the last bet is always all-in. Often it works out this way, but not necessarily. This leaves room for creative and skilful plays and separates the good poker players from the weaker players.

You should bet the pot and be aggressive when the stacks are deep. You will get some folds, some calls and when you win your opponents entire stack this will make up for the time when you lose chips using this aggressive method. Harrington on Cash games volume 1 proves this theory by using tables and math to show why you should play this way. Even as a general concept you should know putting your opponent to a tough decision is the way to beat the game. The math just happens to agree.

I recommend you read the book Harrington on Cash Games volume one and two which goes into great detail on some of things to think about whilst you refine your online poker strategy. Perhaps we will sit on the same online poker table in the future; I play at bwin.com and would highly recommend it as an online poker room with good software and games.

By Malcolm Clarke

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

To win at poker, in my opinion, you need to enjoy each hand you play. I have a notoriously low attention span and in truth I enjoy writing about Poker every bit as much as I enjoy playing my hands. For a serious cash game player, they are aiming to win a solid hourly rate and multiply that winning rate into large amounts of cash by playing many hours. It is the win rate over time that decides what you win, not one big session.

Players should be aware that using heads up display and poker software will change your experience of poker. If you are a multi-table cash game player with heads up displays everywhere you are in for an intensive poker playing session. After one or two hours of this type of playing, even without taking into account wins and losses you will be mentally fatigued.

For a casual player I would recommend playing no more than three hours per night if you hold a full time job. If poker is your job, then playing between four and five hours is recommended. Casual players can certainly play this amount of poker in their spare time, but can they sustain this playing time over many days and months without getting tired and making errors? Only they know, but initially they will not know! It is important to start small and build yourself up. Your results and your sanity will tell you when you have reached your own personal limit of what is a tolerable amount of poker for you to play.

My professional poker friend aims for 3000 hands per day playing six days per week. He plays between twelve and fourteen tables for around 3 hours per day. He plays around 1.25 million hands per year. Even at a small winning rate including rakeback and frequent player points he clears a good profit per year at moderate stakes. Because he has played for so long and understands and works on his game he can rely on his win rate. We should all aim for this type of quality knowledge about our own poker game.

Session length, session frequency and the type of games you play are entirely up to you, but I recommend investigating what is a good type of game to play for you and where your time playing poker is best invested. Many players shy away from the cash games and prefer playing Sit and go poker tournaments. Providing they win, whatever they choose is the right choice for them and who are we to argue with that?

As with most parts of poker, bankroll management is a factor. Poker is a great game to play and enjoy but if you are losing lots of money that you cannot afford to lose it is instantly a problem. Know your limits and stick to them at all times. We have all felt the pinch of danger that goes with playing too high but it is not profitable in the long term. If you are thinking about the money you are not thinking about the hands. Many high stakes players we look up to are guilty of this too.

Whatever length of poker you play, keep it controlled and keep learning. Try playing at bwin.com to get a thorough evaluation of your poker skills at their attractive tables where some of the best online poker plays gather to battle it out for big pots.

By Malcolm Clarke

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Very briefly, the challenge stipulated that I start with $20 on my favourite poker site bwin.com and the idea is to carefully build that into something more substantial. Surely my years of writing about poker stand me in good stead for this challenge I thought, but there were initial teething problems when I first sat down at the poker tables. Most of the problems were my own approach to the lower limits and until I had a semi-tilting chat session over Skype with a poker friend of mine I feared the challenge was going to end in failure. I would be pretty embarrassed to have to admit that.

My first sessions started with me being too liberal from early and middle position and it is vital for the lower limits and micro limits in particular that you are tight. There is no room for making fancy plays at this level, something I was woefully ignorant to in my early hands. When you have a good hand you bet and when you do not, you fold. It is really as simple as that and therefore your sessions are decided largely on your cards. Players are inclined to call with anything so checking the flop to barrel on the turn does not do you much good. I am just sorry it took 25% of my bankroll to confirm this concept I was already aware of in my mind!

$5 down with my bankroll begging me to re-evaluate I took a break and looked over a few hands. I was disgusted to see the sorts of hands I write articles about and criticise. Not good for an aspiring poker writer and player to admit so I gave myself a harsh verbal bashing and returned to the tables. My friend over Skype said “When you get something you bet, bet, bet like a madman”. What he meant was bet hard and do not be overly creative. A heavy dose of that strong poker pill immediately cured my fancy-play-itis and I returned to the bwin.com virtual felt a new man.

After much more simple poker that was a little boring I emerged a winner from those games and less than a dollar down overall. A 5% tuition fee was a small price to pay in order to learn that the fancy plays must be backed up with a solid foundation of ABC poker. I hope to carry on from where I left off and continue to improve my bankroll. Confidence is key in poker and I finished the session at the right time and am looking forward to my next one.

Stay tuned for more updates on my poker challenge and perhaps we will face off on the bwin.com poker tables in the near future.

By Malcolm Clarke

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Many successful live players have failed online and vice versa of course and wondered what the reasons were. Well you need to understand that if you play 20-40 limit hold’em in a live card room then it is not going to be the same online despite the fact that you are still playing 20-40 limit.

Your poker game should be workable in any environment and this was why I needed to add this because any player that can really only play in one or the other is quite handicapped, a bit like a car driver who can only drive automatics and not manuals. For instance many players who have only ever played live poker and especially the older ones can struggle with the vastly accelerated pace of online play.

Especially when those audio prompts start to kick in which I find really off putting when I am contemplating a big decision in a big NL Texas Holdem pot. When that starts to happen, it is very easy to just get swept along with the momentum in some kind of “brain freeze” where all you end up doing is staring at the screen blankly. Likewise if all you have ever played is online poker and you play in a real card room, you have been playing entirely in an environment where showing your emotions does not matter because no one can see you.

But behaving in a way that makes your hand strength an open book to savvy street wise players has turned many a good online player into a live game loser. Also the mentality of the players can change as well from site to site, do not make the mistake of thinking that all of the sites are the same. This was another mistake that I made early in my career. I used to assume that the players on any one site would be more or less the same mix….wrong.

I was a very good Limit Hold’em player early in my career and yet I was struggling to get ahead early in my semi-professional career (before I turned pro). Then the reason for me dragging my heels struck me. I was playing on a site that was populated very heavily by Americans and the players over there are far more skilled on average at Limit play than anywhere else, I mean that is the form of poker that they are brought up with. The Europeans just do not play limit poker in any quantity, it is pot limit over here and pot limit Omaha especially.

Then it hit me, my edge would be seriously diminished by playing against more skilled players, sure I was earning money but it wasn’t enough. I am a far better Limit player now than I was then and I have to confess that this may have attributed for part of the problem at that time but the fact remains that you want to be playing on a site where your edge is at its maximum.

So I shifted my action to European sites whenever I was playing Limit Hold’em and never looked back. Suddenly I was playing the same game but this time against Europeans who did not understand that game on average as well as the Americans. Now that I have switched to playing No Limit, the game is so widely played and so well known that I cannot see any discernable difference between the players in Europe from America on the whole.

Also even in No Limit Holdem poker games, there are subtle differences from players that come from different countries. Some are more aggressive than others, some like to limp in and see flops while others will only enter the pot raising. It is well worth being aware of the geographical location of the players on your table and what this could potentially mean.

Carl “The Dean” Sampson

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

For those of you who play poker online sites like bwin have a vast array of satellites to play in and it is a good investment to try and win a seat to something larger. If you are one of the many poker players chasing a life changing win, trying to win a satellite is a good place to start.

To win a satellite poker tournament you must play for the win, as only the winning player or a very small proportion of the participants are rewarded with either a package or seat to the bigger tournament. Of course you should be playing every poker tournament to win but not every player takes the risks that they should to build a stack. Playing satellites will teach you the type of poker tournament strategy you need to succeed and act as a refining tool to the type of aggressive strategy online poker tournaments in 2010 demands.

A Few Strategy Tips for Satellites

Try and be the aggressor as much as possible. Because satellites pay only the top one or two spots with prizes this polarises normal tournament strategy. Normal poker tournament strategy says that you should be very tight when calling off all-in shoves or raises but you can open up to take pots as the aggressor. Satellite tournaments demand this strategy cranked up a few levels.

As the late Amir Vahedi said, “To win you must be prepared to die.” Sitting back and waiting for good cards is fine for cash game strategy but you simply do not have the time to do this format to wait early in the satellite tournaments. Observe your opponents very carefully and steal as much as you can. Against mid-sized stacked players in the blinds they are primed for a steal. Do not worry that they might have a hand, players will fold around 85 – 90% of their hands so the chances of them fold make the steal attempt profitable in the long run. If you call you could still win even if you are dominated going to the flop, turn and river.

Towards the end of the satellite your goal is to survive and not risk your chips until you absolutely must. Risking your tournament life and gambling to get a stack is not optimal as the larger stacks can afford to gamble, lose the hand and still remain a strong favourite for the tournament. Unfortunately all of the other players benefit from the chip leader having a smaller stack without taking any risk even if you do win and double up. It is better to wait for a good hand. Note the shift from early tournament chip accumulation to late tournament survival; it is an important concept of poker satellite tournament play.

Satellites can lead to big online tournament tickets, magnificent holidays and chances to play in big tournaments. Imagine what even a minimum placed cash in a poker tournament would mean for your bankroll if under normal circumstances you could barely afford to play in it! Now imagine going on to win it, you can only do this and have a chance if you win your seat in a satellite!

By Malcolm Clarke

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

But take that same A-Q on a flop like A-7-2 rainbow and you could end up losing your entire stack if you are pinned underneath someone else’s A-K. The penalty for being dominated in no limit Texas Holdem play can be very severe and many novice players get themselves into all kinds of trouble when they flop a decent but second best hand.

Brunson discusses the trouble hands pretty well in Supersystem and I would advise anyone who is contemplating playing no limit hold’em either online or in a live card room to study them.

But despite the fact that much of the information that is in Supersystem is either very well known or past its sell by date, it is still beyond any shadow of a doubt…..a great book! It literally set the standard for which many other poker books followed. The old saying about “standing on the shoulders of giants” applies perfectly here.

I remember reading an interview from the 2001 World Series of Poker winner Carlos Mortensen some while ago who stated that the first time that the read the book, he could not believe that Doyle Brunson was literally giving away the secret of just how to play no limit hold’em.

Fine praise indeed from one of the most respected players in the world of tournament poker, an ex world champion and World Poker Tour winner to boot. In fact Supersystem was such a popular book that it led to a new updated version being published in 2005 called Supersystem 2.

The no limit section was left largely untouched but there was valuable input on a whole host of games from some of the greatest names in the modern game.

People like Johnny Chan, Daniel Negreanu and Doyle’s son Todd who is a world class player himself and regular plays in the big game in Las Vegas. The new version included the very popular Pot Limit Omaha as well as an updated section on limit hold’em written by Jennifer Harman.

Supersystem for me is the greatest of all poker books because it broke barriers and introduced to millions of people strategies that had previously been top secret and which were only in the possession of a handful of people world wide. There will never be another book like it that will have the same effect again in my opinion. For me this book will become the “bible” of poker books if it hasn’t already.

Carl “The Dean” Sampson

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

This is certainly the case with online no limit poker games. Many players do not necessarily buy in for the maximum amount anyway and all of the online poker rooms impose limits on the amounts that players can buy in for and this limit is usually set at one hundred times the big blind.

This would equal $400 in a $2-$4 and $2000 in a $10-$20 game etc.This means that unless someone wins and gets ahead, that it can be quite rare to find a player with 200-300 big blinds on the table. Players tend to be less fearful when they have less to lose and it is this factor that would blunt many of Brunson’s strategies.

Plus there is another factor that also needs to be considered. Many people have now read Supersytem but even more importantly, the general thesis has been roughly replicated in many other areas of poker literature including books, magazines and websites. This means that most players now see the importance of aggression in poker and can also see when other players are stepping out of line.

What this means in a nutshell is that ultra aggressive poker will simply not be tolerated now like it was when this book was first written. Plus I dare say that it was the sheer presence and reputation of Doyle that enabled him to get away with many things a good percentage of the time simply because many players dared not tangle with him in a pot without a good hand.

It is very difficult to attain this level of intimidation in online poker where your opponents are merely staring at an avatar. In many of the games that I play in, unless you achieve the correct level of aggression then you will find that your opening raises will be getting re-raised frequently.

The fact of the matter is that if you raise to $70 in a $10-$20 for example and the player on the button re-raises to say $240, then that $240 will represent a much higher percentage of your opponents stack than it would have done in the games that Brunson would have been playing in.

In some cases it could represent as much as a third of your opponents stack and many players will get pot committed far more easily thus making it more difficult to get them off the hand.

But many of the stratagems and advice still holds good today all these years later. The section where Doyle talks about the small connecting cards and the dangerous trap hands is still highly relevant in today’s online games. It does not matter where you are playing poker or against who, it is still crucial to your overall chances of success to balance your game.

Carl “The Dean” Sampson

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

The hand I played was in a micro-limit cash game. The $4 I lost on the hand is not painful, although considering it is 200 big blinds that does make it sting a little! I held QQ in middle position and was first to act. I raised to $0.07 and my opponent made it $0.24. I decided to raise yet again and made it $0.72. My opponent went all-in for $2.07. This is where I capitulated and I called off with Queens. He showed Aces and they held. Conducting a hand analysis of this hand I realised the error of my ways. This article is designed to make crystal clear the things I did right and the things I did wrong in the hand.

The raise to $0.07 with the big blind at $0.02 was standard to the game I was playing in and had become the standard raise. My opponents re-raise from late position to $0.24 could have been made with anything better than AJ in my view because he would be in position on me if I called which gave my Queens a decent chance of being the best hand. I was aware of this and decided to test him with a re-raise of my own to $0.72. I was aware of bad flops like Kxx or Axx that out of position could cost me the hand even if I was best so I decided on this second raise as it represents real strength. He instantly went all-in and I made the call. I reasoned he was trying to bully me off the pot in position but I admit I did not think it through properly.

There are two errors committed here. Firstly, I forgot about just how many big blinds were being risked here. My play could easily have been made with kings or even Aces, so assuming that my opponents are terrible at the micro stakes and still calling can never be justified by logically looking at the action in the hand so far. Secondly, I simply had to fold. I had invested 120 big blinds and had been told “You are losing” even with Queens. I became married to the hand and paid the price.

In this position in the future I must consider the question, how often can he be holding tens, or AK here? Even with AK I am racing with only a 55% chance of success. As it happens a flat call would have probably earned him my stack due to the flop and all of the money would have been in on the turn by the time the King hit that in a small pot would have slowed me down. But the re-raise then all-in play is almost always a big hand. I had no reason other than pathetic hope that he was making this bad play. My raise to $0.72 was good, it got me the information I needed but like a fool I did not use it!

I learned a lot from this hand and it is a mistake I will not repeat. This hand also taught me the value of hand history review because this and other hands have highlighted strange moves I make that need fixing. Testing myself at the micro-limits, even if I end up losing down there is far better value paying my tuition in cents rather than hundreds of dollars. This hand could have been a smaller loss, sometimes it is a success to lose less.

Watch Allen Cunningham for real life examples of damage limitation. He is probably the best in the world of getting out of the way in cash game hands when he is losing. I accept that in low limit games the outcome may have been different, but as Texas Hold’em games online get tougher action similar to what is described above will result in Aces or Kings more often than not.

Learn from my mistakes, I certainly have.

By Malcolm Clarke

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.