But remember that implied odds apply to limit Texas Holdem poker as well so even here, one has to be a bit careful when identifying a potential “fish”. For the novice, “implied odds” are the estimated number of bets/pot size that will be in the pot at the end of the hand.

Failure to extract the maximum amount of money from the hands that you win is a sure sign of weak play. We all sometimes miss bets and raises but the “fish” are guilty of glaring errors. You no doubt have heard of the term “value betting”. This basically means betting on the end with mediocre hands that you are still quite sure is the best hand and you are also sure that your opponent has a hand that is not only inferior to yours, but that they will also call with it. Weak players are terribly guilty of this and I must see this type of error literally dozens upon dozens of times a day.

There is a lot more that can be discussed here but this is a very involved topic and not something that could be covered in one single series. The definition of a “fish” is very vague as it implies a poker player that is weak. However this is a very grey area as any player who was experienced and technically proficient may be a “fish” in a game full of world class players. But yet a big winner in a small poker game could well be classed as the “shark” in the game.

So in a strange way, a shark can be a fish and a fish can be a shark. What it all depends on of course is where you stand in the particular food chain and how that correlates to the games that you are playing in. If in a certain line up of ten players, you were technically the tenth best player then you would be the fish. If in a different line up of players, you were the best player then you would be the shark.

Poker is a strange game in so many ways. Skill and good play isn’t always rewarded and this tends to tilt many players and this is quite possibly the toughest part of poker. But to know where you fit in with regards the poker food chain is not only a very important piece of information, it may also keep you safe form loss. It isn’t just about technical knowledge either. Knowing poker theory is good but it only counts for a small percentage of the overall game of a skilled player. I don’t believe that poker skill can be found through reading or watching coaching videos, it can only be arrived at by a process of doing it repeatedly.

Carl “The Dean” Sampson

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One must remember with these things that nothing is ever set in stone and most players can and will adapt and change. Once you sit down in any poker game, the playing patterns of your opponents will reveal many things to you. For instance, any player who is calling a high percentage of the time especially in a game like limit Texas Hold’em poker unlike Omaha is a definite fish. There is simply no way that any player can be a long term winner in any poker variation who has a high calling percentage unless it is someone like a very skilled no-limit player who is constantly limping in because they feel that they can dominate the opposition. Many of the hands that players call with are long term money losers. This is very difficult to spot from the play of a very small number of hands, especially when a player is getting lucky with junk.

It takes poker simulation software that can run the same hand in the same situation literally hundreds of thousands of times to see the patterns emerge. Another classic “tell” of a weak player is the failure to take aggressive action of any kind unless the “fish” has a very strong hand or the nuts. Many players who are either inexperienced or weak shy away from raising because it makes them feel uncomfortable. This lack of aggression costs them dear because not only are they losing bets in the pots that they win, they are also losing entire pots by allowing hands that would have folded to stay in and draw out on them.

A player who does not raise at the appropriate times in poker is akin to the blackjack player who fails to take advantage of positive situations by not doubling and splitting. When you have the best of it, you want more money on the table, it is as simple as that. Failure to do this is losing poker and once you have spotted players doing this, make sure you remember them for these people are a major part of your earn rate.

Another example of “fishy” play although a bit more subtle is when players draw to hands without receiving the necessary pot odds. This is especially the case in structured betting games like limit hold’em. Be careful though not to apply this concept to big bet poker because implied odds are far more important in those particular disciplines. In a game like limit hold’em for instance, if you observe a player who is calling bets and raises with totally inadequate hands, then this is a definite fish.

Carl “The Dean” Sampson

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You may or may not see the same faces whenever or wherever you play poker. Obviously on the internet, there are large volumes of players and many will be unknown to you. It is vitally important to be able to classify your opponents very quickly wherever you happen to play. Nearly all of what I will be talking about here will not apply to internet poker sites simply because you cannot see your opponents.

Whenever you sit down in any poker game be it private or casino, you will or at least should be watching your opponents. Weak inexperienced players tend to stand out. You do not need an advanced qualification in psychology to be able to spot a new player. Any player who looks in awe, wonder or perhaps excitement at a poker table as they approach it may be playing poker for the first time. They could be playing live poker for the first time in this era of internet poker or they could simply be playing in a casino for the first time. They might even be in awe of a certain location (i.e Vegas) and be feeling very nervous or excited.

However, this look can be misleading and is certainly not proof of low skill level. This is simply because many internet players have good technical skills at certain forms of poker that may be superior to many of their live opponents. Therefore you will have to accumulate more data either based on the quality of their play or other factors that will be discussed shortly.

Another sign of lack of experience in either live poker or poker in general is poor chip handling. Fumbling and dropping chips is a sure sign that a player is not used to handling them. Although once again you have to be careful with this because skilled internet players would not have this ability if they didn’t have much live game experience.

Anyone who is ignorant of the rules of the game is likely to be a “fish” although beware of the actor who is trying to throw a smoke screen by pretending that they don’t know. Anyone who is unaware of poker etiquette is likely to be playing poker for the first time or at least is inexperienced. Notice here that I said “unaware”, this is because there are many players out there who simply do not care about poker etiquette. If you do not know poker rules and procedures and do not know what I am talking about when I talk about etiquette, better look out for those gills because I am referring to you. Look out for part three coming soon.

Carl “The Dean” Sampson

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It is however, very true and is an indication that in most poker games, the skill level of the participating individuals can vary immensely. The truth is that many players simply do not even realise that they fall into this category. Because the poker playing population in general is predominantly male, there is the inevitable ego factor involved. Poker prowess is considered a macho thing by many of us males. Many people think that poker skill is something that one is born with, to a certain extent this is true. There are indeed many skills that a top player needs in order to succeed that simply cannot be taught. However, that does not mean that tuition and guidance can be overlooked when you learn poker.

Because many players do not realise that they need to be educated at poker, they do not attempt to seek it out. Poker is abound with famous quotes and another famous one is “you can be the tenth best player in the world, but if you persist in sitting at a game with the other nine players in the world who are better than you then you are going to be a losing player”. This last quote highlights something very important whenever we are on the subject of “fish”. A “fish” or “live one” does not have to be a weak or unskilled player. It is entirely relative to the game that a player is in. No top pro would knowingly sit down in a game with nine other players of superior ability, so the famous quote above is somewhat academic. No top player would ever allow himself to be a “fish”.

Someone could actually have very poor poker skills and be somewhat of a “shark” in their game simply because the other players were worse than them. The conclusion to this is that a lack of grounding in poker theory and knowledge does not necessarily make someone a fish, the flip side to this is that any player can suddenly become one even if they have a long history of winning. It is not necessarily how much poker wisdom you have but how much you have in relation to your opponents that is the important issue here. Look out for part two coming soon.

Carl “The Dean” Sampson

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Hence it follows that a sound knowledge of the game and the tips and tricks of the game not to mention a decent knowledge of its history and origin will certainly help you to play better and also assists in boosting your confidence level.

Although Poker is essentially quite easy to learn, unless you are heading for the World series there’s the risk of online gaming during the early stages that will cause you to lose some money that will be more than negligible. The strategies of winning are another kettle of fish. Developing proficient strategies will prove to you and determine your strength in making money. Therefore it is essential that a good mentor is found, one from who you can learn the finer points by following their strategies, mimicking and watching their every move.
These mentors can achieve this by pointing out select players in the past who have achieved great wealth through playing poker. These subtle hints cannot be gained by reading material alone but by experience and observation of former styles of play.

If you are a newcomer to the world of gambling, would you know how to find a reliable person to teach you all the tricks and strategies of the game? You need to identify an university that’s on line. There are sites that will give you the answers to what resources are available and the numerous ways of sourcing answers to avail yourself of the art of maximizing winnings and reducing the risk of losing hands in the quickest possible manner. The game of poker is worth the trouble of learning just as in any other endeavor. Much practice spent over a good period of time will reward you in quickly learning the finer points of the game. Therefore it is worth the while to spend time in getting a good grounding by means of a formal training.

Being a professional at the game will definitely require a whole lot of practice, just as in any other undertaking. Proficient online winners at poker spend much more time than you can imagine practicing the art of being successful. Much study along with practice is required if you aim to excel in and master the game.

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When playing online poker we have the benefit of clever poker software to help us see these trends, but I am purist who believes the true poker player does not use such pieces of software that could become a crutch. I prefer to spot things myself as this indicates true progress in my poker game. The use of software is not nearly as satisfying.

Much of this two part feature will help the live poker player as well as the online poker player. Remember that bwin.com, my favourite poker site, offers you the opportunity to win satellite poker tournaments to gain seats to many large poker tournaments that offer huge prize money for those players good enough to excel in them. Much of what we discuss can also be used in online poker, particularly the classifying of opponents betting patterns.

Tight or Loose, Passive or Aggressive?

The first classification you should make is the overall style your opponents use. A poker player who plays tight plays few hands, usually in position and you can guess that the hands he does choose to play are probably the high pairs like AA, KK, QQ, JJ, and TT down to 66. The other hands that are likely holdings are AK, AQ, AJ, KQ, KJ and QJ. Really tight players may not play anything lower than 88 or KQ. Loose players will visibly play a lot more hands and be constantly involved in pots. This suggests their range is significantly wider than the tight player and a very loose player could literally have any two cards. Whilst this makes them vulnerable to stronger hole cards, they can catch concealed monsters so these players are by no means weak if they know what they are doing.

Passive or aggressive play links in with their overall tight or loose style. A tight player must put their chips into the pot aggressively to make up for the blinds they lose and the multiple hands they fold due to their tightness. Aggressive players raise and bet three quarters to a full pot most of the time so it is expensive in terms of chips to contest a pot against them. This forces opponents to make a decision early on how they wish to proceed in the hand. Think of Tom “durrrr” Dwan in cash games, he builds the pot and makes his opponents uneasy about playing against him because they know a bit pot is coming.

If you spot a player that is playing tightly but then passively when they enter a pot this suggests they are “scared money” and not willing to gamble enough to accumulate chips. An aggressive style against this player should pay dividends. Watch the hands revealed at showdown because sometimes a tight player is not passive, but playing trappy and slow playing strong hands. This is also a beatable style because when they are betting strongly it is with either a marginal hand or a bluff. I used to unwittingly use this style and wonder why I did not get action on the hands I checked in rather than bet. It was because the opponents knew I was strong, because otherwise I would be betting!

We have much more to discuss in this article. Please click on Part 2 for the next section of this feature.

By Malcolm Clarke

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At the end of the day, people deserve to be told how it really is. There were times where I sometimes used to think was it all worth it and limit hold’em makes you have these thoughts more than any other form of poker in my opinion. Gambling for a living is not really what it is cracked up to be and after thousands upon thousands of hours in the trenches playing both blackjack and poker then I should know.

But even for most of the players who beat the game, poker is still a negative sum game emotionally. I guarantee you that if you won $1000 today and lost $900 tomorrow that you would be feeling more upset about the $900 loss when compared to how happy you felt about the $1000 win. This will be the case with many people even though the net result over the two days is that you are ahead by $100.

The number of players who are beating online poker is very small. But beating online poker is only part of the equation anyway. Even if you succeed which at least 90% of you don’t then surely even for it all to be worth it anyway then you need to be earning a certain amount to merit all the grief and stress that it causes. This is why I only play at the $25-$50 level whenever I play no limit because playing any lower just does not motivate me.

Let us take a really successful limit hold’em player who is playing multiple tables with good rakeback and earning $1000 a week. I have seen figures as low as 5% for how many people are +EV in online poker so for anyone to be earning $1000 a week represents a serious achievement that perhaps no more than one player in every hundred could emulate and that figure is probably way too high. Personally I would not expect one player in a thousand to earn that kind of money who plays online. But let us say that you are earning that kind of money, is £500 a week ($1000 at this time of writing) enough to be sitting around a computer screen all week enduring bad beats and horrible runs when you could easily earn that kind of money doing something else?

I think that for it to be worth your while then you need to be able to earn money in online poker that would be beyond your capacity to earn in any other occupation that is available to you. This figure differs from person to person but another answer to the problem is not to play full time but part time and to fit your poker playing around other things.

This creates a far better balance to your life than merely watching cards go around a computer screen all week. But there are players out there who do earn serious six and even seven figure sums from playing online poker and even in limit hold’em. But that is no different to people in all fields. The top footballers earn mega wages as do the top golfers and also the top poker players but how many people fit into each of those categories?

But the bottom line here is that limit hold’em and the sheer nature of it will well and truly mess with your mind and you need to be aware of this and ready for it for when it happens.

Carl “The Dean” Sampson
Author – “Winning Cash Game Poker”

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Such is the respect given to Jennifer in the poker world she was asked by Doyle Brunson to write the chapter on Limit Hold’em when he was collating information for Super System 2, the sequel to his best-selling Super System book released in the 1970’s. Jennifer has gone on the record to say she was surprised at this request but was honoured to oblige. Many readers have said this particular chapter in the book is very useful and among the highlights of the poker book. Most of the high stakes professionals say that Jennifer is the best female player of all time.

Primarily a cash game player who admits to enduring swings of over $1 million in one day playing high stakes poker Jennifer has also manufactured a good reputation as a poker tournament specialist with over $2 million in live cashes in tournaments all around the world. She is the only woman to have won 2 WSOP bracelets in open events and these wins were in 2000, where she won the $5,000 No Limit Deuce-to-Seven Draw event for $146,250 and in 2002 where she won the $5,000 Limit Hold’em even for $212,440. One bizarre quirk in her poker tournament record is that Jennifer has never cashed in the main event of the WSOP.

When Andy Beal decided to challenge the entire poker playing community at stakes of $100,000 – $200,000 poker professionals were forced to pool their resources to challenge the banking king in 2006. Jennifer was part of “The Corporation” of poker players who played Andy and subsequently beat him for over $10 million. Andy has not returned to challenge the poker players since that time. Jennifer played well throughout but it was Phil Ivey who overturned a $10.6 million deficit to Beal into a $6 million overall win.

You would be wrong, however, to dismiss Jennifer as a lucky poker player who has led a charmed life. She has had more than her share of problems and has had to bounce back from numerous health difficulties including organ failure. In 2004 she was forced to take a year off from poker when she suffered from kidney failure. Her niece donated a kidney to Jennifer that saved her life and she fortunately made a full recovery. During her time off she founded Creating Organ Donation Awareness (CODA) and she is also an active fundraiser for the NSPCA. She has raised well over $1 million for charitable causes she supports.

Jennifer is involved with Full Tilt Poker but is one of the less high-profile members of the team. She continues to play high stakes cash games and according to reports, continues to be profitable in the highest stakes cash games. She regular appears on TV shows like Poker After Dark and High Stakes Poker.

By Malcolm Clarke

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But there is one very large problem with big pairs, weak players overplay them in games like full-ring and end up getting all in when their hand is dominated by a bigger pair. This nightmare situation is easier to walk into with queens as you have both kings and aces as potential threats. In fact QQ is only a slight favourite against hands like AKs and AK. In full-ring poker games then these possibilities arise more frequently than what you imagine and when you get stacked while holding KK against AA or QQ against KK then it has the capacity to tilt some people.

Tilt is bad enough at the best of times but it can be absolutely fatal when you are multi-tabling. I was playing in a deep stacked NLHE game yesterday at NL50 road testing “The Vulture” system when the following hand came up. A player limped under the gun and I raised from middle position to $2.25 with K-K. The small blind three bet to $9 and the original limper shoved all in for their remaining $47. What was I to make of this? Some players would say that folding kings here is impossible and especially at this level.

While it is true that NL50 is not a level full of great poker players, they are all too aware of hand values. A limp re-raise is a powerful play at the best of times but a limp four bet all-in shove is another matter entirely. If I was new to this level then I would certainly have called with the kings but I folded them. But the small blind called and showed QQ while the UTG player had the obvious AA. Many players will be critical here of my play and calling may have been correct but in this environment based on what I had observed over many thousands of hands then calling felt wrong.

But having hands like 7-6s can prove immensely profitable in their own right and you never have a problem folding hands like these post flop if you don’t connect. But hands like KK and QQ can be really problematical if you constantly go for your entire stack in deep stacked no limit full-ring and you will come to realise this as you learn poker. In four bet pre-flop situations then you will be against AA far more than QQ when you hold KK. I have got stacked several times with KK against AA in these situations in very quick succession and it is not a pleasant experience and it really puts you to the test when you are multi-tabling.

Carl “The Dean” Sampson

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But in cash games where you have a relatively deep stack of say 100 big blinds and so does your opponent then things are a little different. Let us say that an early position player raises and a middle position player calls and you elect to call on the button with a hand like A-K. The flop comes A-Q-9 and the UTG player leads out with a strong bet of near the pot and the other limper folds.

Raising here would be very risky and probably a bad play all round for several reasons. Firstly a raise reopens the betting and allows your opponent to three bet or move all in. If you are raising with the best hand then your opponent will fold all weaker hands but if you are doing so with the worst hand then you could likely get pot committed here and end up losing your stack.

Having top pair top kicker makes it too soon to fold at this stage but a raise is overplaying the hand. In other forms of poker like limit for example then reopening the betting in this way with the worst hand is not as bad from a theoretical standpoint and you will come to understand this as you learn poker. If you have outs then the raise still has plenty of equity so it isn’t that much of an error. But a raise in no limit play is a substantial commitment.

It can be this way with far stronger hands than top pair top kicker. Let us say that you have 5-5 on a board of J-10-5 rainbow. Your opponent bets the flop and you raise and they call and the turn card comes and is the Ad and they lead out for another bet again. Here I think that it is a mistake to raise with bottom set and you may already be drawing to only one out if your opponent has a bigger set. Raising here reopens the betting and allows your opponent to not only get away from a weaker hand but to also pot commit you to the hand.

Some may say that you are committed to losing your stack on this board but in very deep situations then I think that this hand is one that can be got away from against decent players. The lesson here is that you need to be very careful about reopening the betting except when you hold the very nuts or close to it.

Carl “The Dean” Sampson

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