Poker Tips

An Exciting Satellite Lesson

Sometimes we make good plays that don’t work out well, and sometimes we make bad plays that turn out for the best. Recently I made a play that seemed proper at the time I made it. I actually thought another player had made a serious error, and I wanted...

Playing Poker Professionally

It’s probably safe to say that anybody who has played a few hands of poker and won a few pots has at least considered the possibility of playing for a living. The explosion of poker on television with its multi-million dollar prizes only makes this notion stronger.

Flopping a Set – Too Many Opponents

Part One of this series discussed the classic slow play, and how to use it to advantage when you flop a big hand in a fixed-limit holdem game. This Part Two addresses another situation where waiting until the turn to show aggression is advised, but for a very different reason.

Wait Until the Turn – The Classic Slow Play

When do you raise a big hand that you’ve flopped? When do you check-raise? The answers to these questions might give you an insight into your game and take you to another level. Consider some of these situations carefully, because they happen more often than you think!

Multi Table Tournaments: Analyzing Payouts

The steep payout structures of online MTTs affect the ideal strategy dramatically. A steep payout means the prizes increase rapidly as you get closer to first. The lowest ITM (in the money) players often receive little more than their buy-in plus a little extra.

Multi Table Tournaments: Bubble Play

Part one of this series analyzed the payout structure of online MTTs. This second part gives a detailed example of how to approach the bubble of an MTT with the payouts in mind. Let me give you a recent personal example. I was playing in the Poker Stars $55,000 Guaranteed...

Common Mistakes by Beginners

Like any game involving cards, poker does involve a lot of luck, but if you are new to playing Texas Hold ‘Em, then you are also playing a game that takes a lot of skill. This is the hot game in America right now, and as such everyone wants to play. That being said...

Playing on Tilt and the Winning Poker Hand

The game of poker is certainly an exciting one, and playing on tilt can make an already exciting endeavor even more so. There are many ways to tilt, and it is important for the player to know how they work. Most poker players have witnessed firsthand the devastating....

Poker Bonuses - Supplementing a Growing Bankroll

Building a bankroll through low-limit grinding isn't always as easy as beginning (or recovering) players would hope for. The games can be high-variance thanks to the random collection of players who show up ready to gamble on every card they're dealt.

Playing on a Small Bankroll

If you're a small-stakes player who's serious about building a bankroll and moving up to bigger games, you're in for a bigger challenge than you might know. Starting off with a small deposit only leads to bigger things through plenty of hard work and effort.

Learning from The Pros

One of the nicest things about covering no-limit hold'em tournaments is that you get to see the full spectrum of styles that make up a tournament field. Most players know the truism that there's no one style of poker that is guaranteed to win, and there's nowhere else...

A Primer for the Shorthanded Limit Hold'em Maniac

One of my favorite games to play at lower limits is shorthanded limit hold'em. You get to see more hands per hour and the pots tend to be larger than they are at full ring tables of the same limit. Those are great reasons to play, but not the best - the best reason to play is that...

Low Limit SnG Usual Suspects

One of the beautiful things about low-level sit-and-go tournaments is the shorthanded table experience you get without having to sit through four days of a major tournament to get there. Then there's the fact that you have a 1-in-3 chance of making money every time you sit down...

Tournament Endgame Plays

Players who aren't accustomed to making it deep into tournaments, but find themselves there anyway, often miss great opportunities for improving their standing due to inexperience in the late stages of a tournament. These mistakes can end up costing them their own chips...

Poker Etiquette

Online poker has been a mixed blessing in a lot of ways. On the positive side, people who live far from casinos and don't want to play in underground games can enjoy a safe game of poker from the comfort of their own homes. A lot of new players have been brought into the game this way...

Endgame Tips

While some players seem to have an instinctive knowledge of how to wield the big stack in the endgame, the vast majority who find themselves in this position for the first time don't know what to do with all their chips. Wielding such power incorrectly can make those...

Maximizing Expectation

People play poker for many reasons. Some people just enjoy tossing chips around and don't care whether they win or lose. Others enjoy the challenge of matching wits with other players, relishing the rush they get when they make a big bluff or slowplay a monster.

Tournaments vs. Cash Games

Many of today's newer poker players come to the game through television exposure - not too surprising given the explosion in poker programming over the last three years. This means they're accustomed to the style of play they see in tournaments, rather than that of the cash games...

Playing Large Tournaments

There are few things that characterize the poker boom better than large live multi-table tournaments. When over 800 players entered the WSOP Main Event in 2003, it was a record field for the most prestigious tournament in the world. Now, it's not unusual to find fields of a similar...

Bankroll Management

As a poker player, your bankroll is your lifeblood. Without it you can’t play – it doesn’t get any simpler than that. Despite this simple truth, many people don’t see bankroll management as a skill of the same importance as being able to calculate pot odds or read your opponents.

Limit Hold'em - Tightening Up

When relatively new players who are most familiar with no-limit hold'em sit down at a limit hold'em table, the game can sometimes confuse them. Those players who have been successful playing a loose game at low-level no-limit hold'em are at the biggest risk when they sit a limit hold'em table.

The Importance of Table Selection

Lots of players pick up the basics of poker within a relatively short amount of time. After all, there really aren't too many variables to consider when trying to figure out the mechanics of the game. A relatively intelligent person can pick memorize starting hand strategy and learn how to manipulate position pretty quickly.

Trouble Hands - K-J

One of the mistakes that many beginning poker players make is assuming that any two face cards combined will make a great starting hand. Sometimes this can be attributed to the basic advice many players are given when they start out in hold'em - "play any cards that add up to 20 or more in blackjack."

Trouble Hands - A-Q

While playing at the Tropicana in Atlantic City earlier this year, one of the older players at my 1-2 no-limit hold’em table lamented how much times have changed. He noted that fixed-limit poker used to be the first stop for new players because at beginners’ limits it’s very difficult to go...

Using Bonuses To Build Your Bankroll

Building a bankroll is one of the most important things a poker player can do. A sufficient bankroll allows you to play the game of your choice on a regular basis without fear of going broke. It also allows you to keep your poker money separate from the rest of your finances...

Multi-tabling Tips

Online poker is the same in most respects as live poker, but in many other ways it's also a creature all its own. There are some players who don't play well live but crush the competition online, and vice versa. The best path, of course, is to be a player who can play well no matter the environment.

Use a Simulation Program - Poker Academy Pro 2.0 Review

The old wisdom for becoming a good poker player says that there's no substitution for experience. For many people, just learning to read the board well enough to stay out of traps takes many thousands of hands that can end up being very costly. Even if you're good enough to catch on...

Kickers and Side Pots

Two of the concepts beginners struggle with are kickers and side pots, so here is a brief explanation of these common occurrences at the poker table: Kickers: In poker, the goal is almost always to end up with the best Five card hand, but sometimes the winning hand isn’t composed of all 5 cards; for example when you have Two Pair...

Stay Away from Tilting

Ever become so angry or frustrated with an opponent’s play that you call a questionable hand just to make a point? Don’t worry, you’re not alone! Everybody has, at some time or another, let their emotions go at the poker table, and it usually does nothing but cost money. That’s what this tip is about, the dreaded loss of control known as Tilting.