The re-launch is more than a year late and I’m extremely embarrassed that it’s taken so long. Deadlines have continuously been missed, so much so that I stopped making deadlines. If you’ve visited the site at any point over the past year or so, you’d be forgiven for thinking that the site was dead. Well, I’m happy to report that it’s now alive and kicking!

The website has been completely re-built from the ground up. All the old poker lessons have been re-edited. Some only required a few tweaks here and there, but many have been partially re-written or replaced entirely. Tons of new content has been added. In fact the poker school section has more than doubled in size. There are videos too…. and lots of them.

A Team Effort

Before I start rambling on about the site, there are some people I would like to thank. I’ll start with the excellent team of writers who have all been a pleasure to work with… Tom “TIME” Leonard, Lou Krieger, Ashley Adams, Barbara Connors, Donovan Panone, Gerald Hanks, David Sasseman, Kelli Mix, Rick “RyckyRych” Perlini and Jennifear.

As many of you will know, Lou Krieger is sadly no longer with us. I just wrote a tribute to Lou, which includes a video compilation that I hope you’ll all enjoy. Lou played a huge role in the development of Pokerology and I showed Lou sneak previews of the new-look site as it was being developed. Even so, I’m sad that he didn’t get to see it go live. We worked together closely and his final contribution to the site was the foreword he penned for the poker school section. Lou was a class act and a good friend.

A special thanks to Ashley Adams (the voice of Pokerology) for his excellent vocal work, continued support and enthusiasm for the site. Also, thanks to Doug Weischadle for his splendid audio production and for providing studio time.

Finally, to all the Pokerology forum members who provided assistance… thank you.

The New Site

The recently updated ‘about us’ page provides a rundown of what we’re about, including the objectives of the site and a bit of background information. Our video tour guide also provides a brief overview of the new site.

The changes to the site should be obvious to our regular visitors. Firstly, the ‘Pokerology Course’ has been replaced. If you recall, it was set up with different levels; beginner, intermediate and advanced, along with three modules of five lessons in each level. It was good for a while, but the structure was too rigid. It’s been replaced by a study guide that neatly brings together the really important lessons on the site – the fundamental concepts that a beginner really needs to know.

Although the majority of our poker lessons are aimed at beginners, there’s still something for everyone. If I had to pick out a favourite, it would probably be ‘Understanding Tilt’ – it’s brilliantly written, in my opinion. We also had some fun with the video that accompanies it, so be sure to check that out.

The introduction of video content is perhaps the biggest change of all. It was also the most time consuming part of the re-development. There’s literally hours of video content to enjoy, both within the lessons and also the additional content in the video library section. There’s still a lot of unpublished video content to be added to the site.

In fact, there’s much more of everything still to come. A few months ago a decision was made to scale things back a little bit to speed up the re-launch. To make sure you don’t miss anything, please sign-up and register – it’s completely free to join. Please be aware that you’ll need to register for the main site even if you’re already a member of the forum. I know it’s not ideal, but they are running on two separate systems. Likewise, if you register for the main site then be sure to join the forum – and then pop in and say hello.

If you’re on Facebook or Twitter then please like/follow and help spread the word.

I hope you all enjoy the new-look Pokerology. Your feedback is appreciated and with so much content I’m pretty certain there are going to be minor errors here and there. Hopefully there aren’t any major clangers. If you do happen to spot any typos, factual errors, missing images, broken links, inaccessible content, etc, then please do me a favour and use the contact form to let me know. Thank you.

Finally, as the late, great Lou Krieger would say…. go forth and raise your game!

The post 3 – 2 – 1 — We Have Lift-Off! appeared first on Pokerology.com.

Lou Krieger was a master of explaining it simply. I say was because sadly, Lou passed away in December after a courageous battle with cancer. He will be deeply missed.

For those who don’t know, Lou Krieger was the author of 11 books about poker, including “Hold’em Excellence: from Beginner to Winner” and “Poker for Dummies” – perhaps the best selling poker book in history. He was the longtime editor of the widely circulated US publication, Poker Player Newspaper. Lou also hosted a popular weekly internet radio show “Keep Flopping Aces” which ran on the Rounder’s Radio network, and later on Hold’em Radio. In short, Lou was a giant of the poker world.

Lou first started writing for Pokerology.com in late 2009. It was always a pleasure to read his many written assignments – always on time, always on point. It’s what you’d expect from such a pro. Lou loved writing about poker and I loved reading his articles.

Just over a year ago I asked Lou if he’d be interested in making some poker strategy videos for the soon to be re-launched Pokerology.com (which re-launched today…. a bit later than planned). Lou thought it was a great idea. It soon became clear to me that we would need to work together to record the videos. We were never in the same room, because I live in London, England and Lou was in Palm Springs, California. The internet was our saviour. I supplied the hand histories and we recorded the video on my computer while Lou watched remotely. The audio was recorded on Lou’s computer, which I later synced up and edited. It’s complicated even thinking about it, but it worked.

We recorded frequently. I spent many a Tuesday afternoon (early mornings for Lou) on Skype. It was great. I particularly enjoyed our little chats before and after each recording. Even when Lou was diagnosed with cancer and was undergoing chemotherapy, he wanted to continue with our weekly sessions. He was always upbeat and positive, friendly and kind. I will remember Lou fondly. He was a class act.

Lou was also a big supporter of Pokerology.com. He was full of encouragement and enthusiasm for the project and he played such a key role in helping to develop the site. Although Lou has left us, he has left much behind. There’s more to come too. Lou’s voice will continue to be heard here at Pokerology.com for a while yet.

Lots of kind words have been said about Lou in recent weeks. Lou’s good pal Nolan Dalla penned a lovely tribute, titled ‘Remembering Lou Krieger’. Another fine tribute is ‘Missing Lou Krieger’, and there are many more. Lou had a lot of friends.

I’m not much of a writer so I’d like to pay tribute to Lou in the way I shall remember him. This past weekend I spent a few hours going through the video archives and I’ve picked out a few of my favourite bits to share. I hope you all enjoy this compilation. It includes just a few of Lou’s many words of wisdom and his lovely turn of phrase:

Thanks Lou!

The post A Tribute to Lou Krieger appeared first on Pokerology.com.

The ability to create notes on the players you encounter is an inbuilt feature on practically every online poker site, yet one could wager that the vast majority of online poker players today do not take advantage of it. Most poker players either rely on a good memory or don’t even change their play based on their opponents. In poker, one of the largest sources of our profits comes from taking advantage of other’s mistakes. By taking good notes you’ll be able to track opponents who have made mistakes in the past and you might even be fortunate enough to see when your opponents make those same mistakes again.

Tracking how your opponents play in certain situations is undeniably profitable in the long run. There are also additional benefits of getting into the habit of taking notes. Preventing boredom is a key reason. Proper note taking will keep you focused on the flow of the game. You may even feel more confident since the added information you gain on your opponents will result in better decisions. The activity of note taking may also reduce the chances of you going on tilt, since you’ll be more concerned with the quality of your decisions.

Proper Note Taking

Now that you know that taking notes is important, how should you go about it? Here are some of the things that you should try to keep in mind when taking notes.

Blind level, Stack Size and Position

Taking notes about the blinds levels is obviously not applicable to cash games, but it’s very important in tournament play. A player can change his play depending on how early the game is (blind level), how many chips he has (stack size) and what seat he is in (position). An example of a note might look like this; “25/50 (1500) CO” or “UTG 30BB 50-100”, whatever order or syntax works best for you.

Devil in the Details

Avoid being general with your note taking. Writing “raised with queens” isn’t very helpful. Along with the information suggested above, you should also record the sizes of a player’s bet. You will often find a pattern that can reveal the strength of your opponent’s hand just by the way he sizes his bets with certain hands and situations. A note might look like “75/150 (3200) UTG 3x = QQ”, which would mean that this player raised three times the big blind sitting under-the-gun with pocket queens. If later you get a note like “75/150 (3300) UTG 2x = KTs”, meaning he raised only two times the big blind with king-ten suited in a similar situation, you might be able to take advantage of this information at a later time with an appropriate move.

Color Codes and Icons

Many online sites have some sort of color or icon system that can allow you to easily mark a player. Take advantage of this feature if it’s available because it will give you a quick indication of how someone plays based or prior observations. When using colors it can be helpful to go with the “stoplight” system, using green on weak players, yellow on more accomplished ones and red to mark the serious grinders and solid poker players. You can use other colors or icons to notate other types of players as you see fit – whatever works best for you.

Condense Your Notes

If you play a lot, eventually you’ll have a sea of notes to go through on many of the regulars you encounter. After a while you can slim down your information. If you have plenty of notes on how a player sizes his bets, just make a short note to that fact. A simple note like “Pre-flop: 3x is strong, 2x is weak” can eliminate a bunch of clutter in your note box for that player.

Keep up with the Game

Never miss what is actually going on in the game, especially when it is your turn. If you spot something noteworthy but are facing a situation that requires your full attention, play the hand. The note taking can wait. Make use of the hand history feature provided by the poker room and go back and review any past hands that you might have missed. Using shorthand while taking notes can be very helpful and later in this lesson will provide some examples you can use.

Just the Facts, Ma’am

Just jotting down “FISH” or “%@&*!^# suck out artist that can’t fold!” isn’t going to help you very much when you see that player again. As much as that bad beat might have hurt be sure to get any information you can out of the hand and move on. That one note might help you avoid a similar fate in the future.

Post-flop and Showdowns

Note taking is for any situation. Pay close attention to how someone plays their draws, their nut hands and their top pairs. Did they trap? Did they check-raise? Did they make a value bet that was smaller than usual? Also be sure to watch out for any hands that have a showdown, even if you were not involved in the hand. Showdowns provide vital information and you’ll often be able to pick up a clue or two on how your opponents play. Take advantage!

Shorthand / Abbreviations for Note Taking

When taking notes it’s best to try and use simple abbreviations. A quick two- or three-letter acronym is quick and easy to translate. Let’s start by looking at abbreviations for position:

Positional Notes

• BB = Big Blind
• SB = Small Blind
• B or BU = Button
• CO or B-1 or 1o = The cutoff or one seat off the button
• HJ or B-2 or 2o = Hijack or two seats off the button
• B-3 or 3o, etc = Notes how far off the button
• UTG = Under the gun, or first to act pre-flop.

Note: If the table isn’t full then be careful when using UTG. While it is important to know when the player was first to act, noting his relative position in regards to a short-handed table is key as well, especially for SNG players. You might use “UTG 3o” or “UTG 6H” to tell you that this was at a six-handed table.

Pre-flop Notes

Please be aware that many of the pre-flop abbreviations that follow are tailored to SNG and tournaments rather than cash games.

• #x = The size of the raise in relation to the big blind. “3x” would be three-times the big blind.
• HBL = High Blind Limp, which is used by Colin Moshman in his SNG books. This is when a player limps when they have less than 25 big blinds in their stack.
• LBL = Low Blind Limp. When a player limps in when they have more than 25 big blinds in their stack.
• OL = Over Limp. This player limped behind others. This can also be written as HBOL (High Blind Over Limp) or LBOL (Low Blind Over Limp) as well.
• HBMR = High Blind Min-Raise. Like HBL, but the player elected to use a min-raise instead. This can be used as a substitute for 2x since it may stand out more in your notes.
• LBMR = Low Blind Min-Raise. Like LBL, but the player elected to use a min-raise instead.
• FE = Fold Equity. This can be used for tournament notes to indicate a situation where you determine that fold equity was a contributing factor.
• AI = All In. Use this anytime a player bets all of his remaining chips. You could also use a short term like “push” or “shove”.
• AIPF = All-in Pre-flop. This is the same as AI except the action was taken pre-flop.
• PM = Pot Mash. This is when a player bets the pot, usually hitting a button in the software instead of typing out a numbered bet. This can be a bet-sizing tell for some situations.
• FSS or CSS = Flat (Call) Shorty Shove. When a short stack goes all-in and a player called rather than raised over him.
• SSS = Shoved over Shorty Shove. A player elected to go all-in as opposed to just calling a short stack’s all in move.
• RSS = Raised over Shorty Shove. Like SSS except the player made a raise that was less than all-in.
• MRSS = Min-Raised over Shorty Shove. This is the same as RSS but the player specifically made a min-raise over the short all-in.
• r### = raised to an exact number of chips, “r333” would mean this player made a raise of 333 chips.

Post-Flop Notes

Here are some abbreviations that you can use in your notes for many post-flop situations, in both cash games and tournament play.

• b### = Bet an exact number of chips.
• CB = Continuation Bet. This can be followed by a number or a fraction of the pot.
• BRR = Bets aRe Real. This means that when he bets he has a hand and is not bluffing.
• RRR = Raises aRe Real. This means the player always raises with his good hands, not as a bluff or semi-bluff.
• POB = Post Oak Bluff. This term was originally used by Doyle Bronson. It is often referred to as a “donk bet”, and “probe bet” is also used. This is used to note a weak lead or min-bet from out of position into a pre-flop raiser. It can be a bet-sizing tell that usually means the player is weak or trying to see a draw cheaply.
• TES = Top End Shover. This player only goes all-in when he has the goods.
• TEC = Top End Caller. This is a player with a tight calling range.
• CFC = Can’t Fold a Chair. This is a calling station or someone who just doesn’t fold in situations that most players should.
• BAM = Bad At Math. This is used when a player is seen folding despite getting very favorable odds to call.

Other Abbreviations for Your Notes

The following abbreviations are probably obvious to you already, but we’ll include them just in case they’re not.

• ## = a pocket pair, (e.g. 33 would be pocket threes).
• TT = a pocket pair of tens.
• AA, KK , QQ, JJ = pocket Aces, Kings, Queens, Jacks.
• KTs = King-Ten suited.
• QJo = Queen-Jack offsuit.
• A7s = Ace-Seven suited.
• 76o = Seven-Six offsuit.
• SC = Suited Connector.
• AX = any hand with an Ace in it.

Note Taking Examples

Suppose you’re playing in a tournament and you saw a player limp in with pocket fours from the button. He had 2,400 chips and the blinds were 30/60:

Here are two notes you could make about to describe this play:

Let’s suppose you saw a player raises four times the big blind at 50/100 from the hijack seat with a 1600-chip stack. The showdown revealed he did this with Queen-Jack suited:

Either of the following notes could be made to describe this play:

Let’s look at one more situation. In this example the small blind started a hand with 2,250 and shoved all-in pre-flop with Ace-King offsuit when the blinds were at 75/150, with an ante of 10 chips:

The following two notes could be made to describe this play:

Conclusion

Having as much information on as many of your opponents as possible will definitely benefit you as an online poker player. While you might not want to take a spiral notebook to the casino with you, there is no reason why you shouldn’t take advantage of the note taking features included in the software by the online poker rooms. Knowledge is power, so make sure you are the one that possesses this power and start taking notes today!

The post Player Note Taking in Poker appeared first on Pokerology.com.

If you ever played pinball as a kid, tilt was what happened when you hit or shook the machine too furiously in an attempt to guide your ball into a desired slot or to keep it in play and prevent it from being swallowed up by that dreaded gap between the flippers at the bottom of the machine. When that tilt sign lit up, it meant game over, and you had to insert more money to keep playing. And tilt in poker gets its name from pinball machines. When you play poorly and irrationally, often because of the emotional response that occurs when your better hand is skewered by an opponent’s long-shot draw, you are off-kilter, unglued, wide-open, and on tilt.

Emotional Responses Induce Tilt

Tilt is not when you make a bad play because you just don’t know any better. If you make what turns out to be the wrong play – but you thought your action through carefully and made as mistake or misread the situation – that’s not tilt either. And some poker experts may disagree with this, but if you make a bad play based purely on the fact that you are overtired and your mind is not as sharp as it normally would be, that is not tilt. Not unless you refuse to acknowledge you’re too tired to play well and stubbornly continue playing poker in a compromised state.

Tilt is when you play poker poorly, making even a single play that you know is bad strategy, because your emotions are interfering with your ability to think clearly.

Tilt Triggers

The events that can push a poker player to go on tilt, known as tilt triggers, are as diverse as the players themselves. The most common culprit is a bad losing streak, but other well-known triggers include bad beats, trash-talking opponents, and being card-dead for a prolonged period of time. Beyond this, there are other factors – drugs, alcohol, lack of adequate nutrition or sleep, problems at home – which can make a player much more vulnerable to tilt before he even sits down to play. We’ll look more at the various tilt triggers and how to recognize them in the second part of this series.

Knowledge is Power

That’s the tricky part. This is a perfect illustration of the old saying “Knowledge is power” because you cannot even begin to overcome tilt until you realize that you’re on it. Simply put, any time you become aware that you’re making a particular play for an emotional reason – a play that you would not be making if your emotions were in check and your thinking was clear – then you are on tilt.

If you make a crying call on the river because you can’t stand the thought that an obnoxious opponent might be trying to steal the pot, you are on tilt. If you re-raise with a second-rate hand because you’re impatient to score a big pot, you are on tilt. If you check a hand that you know is worth a bet because you’re fearful of risking more chips, you are on tilt.

How Long Does Tilt Last?

Tilt can be as brief as one stupid play in a single hand, or it can persist for months or even longer. But the most typical scenario is that it will last from the moment you start tilting until the time you quit the poker session because you’ve either come to your senses or run out of money / chips.

Everyone Tilts (Some More than Others)

Everybody. No poker player has ever been immune from tilt. The best poker players just don’t tilt nearly as often, or as severely. This is because many seasoned poker players have become somewhat resistant to going on tilt, after years of experiencing fluctuations of luck in the game. Getting this resistance to tilt should be the goal of every poker player.

Tilt and Certain Poker Games

Is tilt more likely to happen in certain types of poker games? It’s more about the player than the game. Some personality types are just more vulnerable to tilt than others. That said, poker games with faster action and higher stakes are more likely to induce tilt, if only because the triggers in these games are more potent and more numerous.

The Consequences of Tilt

Tilt is always a very serious leak in anyone’s poker game. Any time that you’re on tilt, you are making -EV decisions and playing the game poorly. If it’s a mild, short-term case of tilt, you might escape with little-to-no damage. But the longer tilt drags on, the uglier the picture gets and the more certain it becomes that you’ll lose a significant chunk of your money. In a serious case, the tilting player will lose every chip he has on the table and then some.

For the majority of poker players, taking a break from the game – whether it’s for a few hours or a few days – is enough for them to cool down and come to their poker senses again. But for a few hardcore tilters, who for whatever reason refuse to acknowledge they have a problem with tilt, the emotional interference persists into the next session, and the next, and the next. And for these unhappy few, tilt can bring total financial ruin.

The Different Forms of Tilt

There are many different forms of tilt. So now it’s time to meet the members of the tilt family…

Berserker Tilt: the Fast and the Furious

The quintessential form of tilt, poker’s version of a total meltdown. It’s the easiest to recognize and the hardest to overcome. Berserker tilt is loose-aggressive – with a big emphasis on aggressive. Frustrated and angry at losing, the tilting player attempts to steamroll his way back into profitability by betting and raising at everything that moves. Virtually every hand he receives is a candidate to be overplayed as he calls with garbage, overbets with hands that barely warrant a call, and shoves out one ill-conceived bluff after another.

More than any other kind of tilt, berserker tilt can inflict massive financial damage in a very short space of time. Unless the tilting poker player comes to his senses or gets miraculously lucky (both unlikely scenarios) he is primed to lose every chip he has on the table and more before he finally quits.

All forms of tilt come in varying degrees of severity and duration, but there is really no such thing as a mild case of berserker tilt. The end result is almost always grim as the berserking player ultimately slinks away from the poker table with his bankroll eviscerated and his confidence shattered.

Lily-livered Tilt: Fright Club

Not as easily recognizable as berserker tilt, lily-livered tilt is thematically its opposite. Tight-passive in nature, it’s almost a stealth form of tilt, flying under the radar and inflicting harm before the poker player has a clue what hit him. Oftentimes, the player won’t even realize that he’s been on tilt until much later – if ever. And that’s what makes lily-livered tilt so dangerous.

The poker player under the spell of lily-livered tilt is constantly searching for any reason to fold and resisting any reason to bet or raise. Like its berserking cousin, lily-livered tilt is usually triggered by a bad loss, most likely by a full-blown losing streak. But in this case the tilting player responds not with an angry determination to win back his money, but rather with a white-knuckle fear of losing even more. Yet he cannot bring himself to quit the game, so instead he plays like the ultimate nit.

In contrast to berserker tilt, the lily-livered variety typically doesn’t cost the player a massive chunk of his stack in the short-term. Its destructive power comes more from the long-term forfeiture of all the money that the player could have won and should have won if he’d been betting and raising normally. In attempting to curtail his losses, the tilting player will ultimately minimize his wins.

Winner’s Tilt: I’m King of the World!

While it may seem like an oxymoron, winner’s tilt is a very real problem for some poker players. The strong emotions aroused by winning can be just as mind-clouding as any form of poker despair. Winner’s tilt can degrade your game in one of two ways. In the first case, the player who has been cruising along and comfortably crushing the game begins to feel invincible and so he plays too loose-aggressive. Flush with a large stack of newly-acquired chips and convinced he can do no wrong, he routinely overplays his hands, putting in too much money with weak cards and setting himself up for the inevitable fall. At best, he gives back a small portion of his winnings. At worst, the losses make him angry and he slides down into berserker tilt.

Winner’s tilt is also a problem when the victorious player falls in love with his newfound wealth and cannot bear the thought of losing it back. Wanting to “lock in” his win without actually having to quit the game, he attempts to protect his stack by playing weak-tight poker .

Frustration Tilt: The Need for Speed

A watered-down version of berserker tilt, frustration tilt can happen after a player has been card-dead for a long period of time. The result: loose play. In an effort to force the action and make something happen, the player makes sloppy calls that he would never normally make – for no other reason than he is sick and tired of folding.

For obvious reasons, frustration tilt is more likely to happen in a live poker game, where the player is limited to playing one table at a time. But online players are not immune. Even with multiple tables all going at once, long dry stretches of mediocre cards and missed flops can occur, creating a fertile environment for frustration tilt. And while frustration tilt may seem innocuous enough compared to other more virulent forms of tilt, that’s a deception. There is no such thing as an innocuous form of tilt. All it takes is one loose call to produce one nasty loss, starting a downward cycle that ends in berserker tilt.

Something-to-Prove Tilt: Long Day’s Journey Into Spite

Another offshoot of berserker tilt, the something-to-prove variety occurs when a player feels antagonism towards his opponent(s), usually as the result of trash-talk and/or an embarrassing loss. Like berserker tilt, this involves a lot of loose-aggressive play – just not quite as mindlessly off-the-hook – and unwise bluffs aimed at the object of the player’s derision. Those things alone are a potent recipe for disaster.

The something-to-prove tilter also falls prey to fancy play syndrome, executing over-elaborate plays in a desperate attempt to show everybody what a great poker player he is. If he’s lucky, the extra-fancy plays will merely cost him a little EV; if he isn’t, they’ll cost him his entire stack.

Despondent Tilt: Point of No Return

This form of tilt happens when a poker player has crossed what Mike Caro calls the “threshold of misery.” When a losing streak has been so brutal for so long that the player no longer believes he can win and just about every ounce of rational poker reasoning has been beaten out of him. Mired in self-pity, the despondent player effectively throws up his hands and abandons any pretence of even trying to play well. Or win. He has given up. He could leave the game of course, but one of the main hallmarks of tilt is the player’s stubborn refusal to quit. So instead he stays and almost literally throws away his money with loose-aggressive play – emphasis on loose because for the most part he’s too beaten-down to get very aggressive.

The Not-so-Final Analysis

You could be the smartest poker player in the world – know every aspect of poker strategy, read your opponents flawlessly, be able to calculate complex odds in seconds – but in the end all those skills won’t do you a bit of good if you go on tilt. Poker is a game where money and ego are constantly on the line. If you have red blood in your veins, you can fall victim to tilt. It’s impossible to be a long-term winner at this game if you don’t know how to handle tilt, but you cannot know how to handle tilt until you’re aware of it.

You must be able to recognize when it’s happening to you, when you’ve started to make poker decisions based on emotion – be it anger, fear, frustration, whatever – rather than clear, rational thought. It can help to have a friend, coach, or some other impartial observer, watch your game and alert you to those times when you’re leaning precariously over the edge. But ultimately it comes down to you.

Now that you know how to recognize the different forms of tilt, the next step is knowing what to do about it. How to put the kibosh on tilt, or better yet, prevent it from happening in the first place. We’ll talk about that in the next lesson on dealing with tilt .

The post Understanding Tilt appeared first on Pokerology.com.

Then there are other poker players, who may not appear to be much different at first glance, that are likely to be playing very differently, especially if they are skilled players. While beginners are considering their own cards and not much else, skilful poker players are thinking on at least two and probably three levels. It’s impossible to succeed at hold’em poker if you don’t.

A beginning player will be looking at the cards he’s been dealt and say to himself, “A pair of Aces … sweet,” but more than likely it’ll be something like, “I’ve been dealt … another essentially worthless hand. I’ll have to toss it away.” That’s an example of playing a card-dependent strategy. This is what most beginning players do – they raise with big hands and fold the weak ones, but there’s more to consider before making a decision.

If on the other hand you’re playing against a skilled opponent, he is thinking not only of his own hand, he’s also thinking about what you were dealt. That’s called second-level thinking. And if he’s also thinking about what you think he has – that’s called third-level thinking – and making his decisions based on all of these assessments.

The Different Levels of Thinking

In order to get beyond the cards you need to be thinking about your opponents and the situation you’re presented with. Here are the basic levels of thinking:

• 1st Level – What cards do I have?
• 2nd Level – What do my opponents have?
• 3rd Level – What do they think I have?
• 4th Level – What do they think I think they have?
• 5th Level – Yes, you can keep going and going…..

Theoretically we could keep going to deeper levels of thinking, but you’re only going to find a very limited percentage of players who are capable of thinking this deeply – and if they are, they’re probably over thinking the situation anyway.

While getting to deeper and deeper levels of thinking does mark a more mature stage of poker skill, the best players recognize if their opponents are even capable of thinking that deeply.

Adjusting Your Strategy

What separates the good players from the great is their ability to recognize what level their opponent is thinking on and adjusting their strategy accordingly.

If I know, for example, that my opponent only thinks about his own cards and will raise before the flop with J-J, Q-Q, K-K, A-A as well as A-K, A-Q and K-Q suited, I can fold if I have a hand that doesn’t slot into the top half of his probable holdings, and I can bet or raise anytime he checks with a weaker hand. If he checks all his weak hands and folds when I bet, I have a big advantage. If he calls because he doesn’t want to fold his hand regardless of what I might have, I’ll simply bet my good hands for value and he’ll call off all his money with cards that don’t figure to be as strong as mine.

Even if I know my opponent is starting with a bigger pocket pair than I have, sometimes I can still play against him and gain an edge. Let’s suppose I have and he has . I can call before the flop if I know my opponent is prone to keep calling with hands like pocket Aces or Kings, just because they don’t come around that often and look so good when they do. Most of the time, I’ll have to fold on the flop because my small pair probably won’t improve.

But if the flop is my opponent will bet his Aces, figuring that I’ll fold. My edge is that by thinking about each hand on a deeper level, I know with near certainty what my opponent has, but he has no idea about my hand. If my opponent is playing his pair of Aces for their intrinsic value, and doing so without a single thought about what I might have, I might be able to take all his chips – and that’s the objective of no-limit hold’em.

Third Level Play

If first level play is the elementary process of considering the strength of your hand, and your hand only, and second level involves thinking about what your opponent might be holding, third level play involves making a determination about what your opponent thinks you have in your hand. Most poker players talk this talk but far fewer walk the walk.

If your opponent is reading you as you’re reading him, and you can take whatever steps are needed to plant a seed in his mind that you have a very different hand than whatever it is you’re really holding, you can simply play off the way your opponent reads you, and the actual hand you have is of little importance.

For instance, if you can convince your opponent that you have a huge hand, you can bet or raise, secure in the knowledge that he will fold because you know that your opponent has convinced himself that you have a huge hand.

If you’re able to convince him that you are horribly weak but really have a very big hand, you can play off of your opponent’s read of you and allow him to do the betting until the time is right for you to put the hammer down and take all of his chips. That’s third level play, and very few of us do it as well as we’d like to.

Thinking Takes Time

There’s a lot to grasp here, and if you’re a beginning player you don’t need to absorb all of it in one fell swoop. It’ll take time. But from the get-go, if you realize that your opponent is thinking about what you might be holding as well as thinking about what you figure he has in addition to playing his own cards, you’re already getting a leg up on the learning curve.

Just knowing this concept is a big plus for beginners. If all your playing decisions – do I bet, call, raise, fold, or reraise – are predicated only on the strength of your own hand, you will play predictable poker, and therefore become a target for exploitation.

Ideally you should be thinking one level deeper than your opponent. If they are only thinking about their cards, you need to be at the next level thinking about their cards – but stop there. If they aren’t capable of going to the second level to put you on a hand, you shouldn’t be trying to represent something different.

But just by thinking about it, and reviewing hands you’ve played in terms of third level thinking, your game will improve by leaps and bounds.

The post The Levels of Thinking in Poker appeared first on Pokerology.com.

What makes a bluff successful? You have to know how to pick your spots. There are six general matters you need to consider when deciding whether or not to bluff: your opponents, your image, the betting history of the hand, your position, the strength of your hand, and the size of the bet. Let me address them each in turn.

Your Opponents

Ultimately, your opponents determine whether a bluff will be successful. If you bet and he folds – your bluff works and you win the hand. If you bet and he calls your bluff fails.

So how can you control what your opponent does? You bet your hand; he bets his. What can you do to affect his behavior?

There are many different types of poker players and you need to pick the right opponents to bluff against. Ideally you want to have only one opponent to bluff against. While there are times when your bluff will work against an entire lineup, most of the time you want it to be head to head. Similarly, you want to avoid bad targets for your bluff. You don’t want to bluff a guy who is so bad that he doesn’t think about your bet when he decides to call or fold? You don’t want to try to bluff a guy who is too loose to lay down his hand to your bet – even if he thinks you have him beat. After all, if he’s too bad to think about what your bet means – then he’s too dumb to lay down his hand no matter what you do. So don’t bluff a guy who calls too much. As the saying goes, it’s easier to bluff a good player than a bad player.

Along those lines, the recent history of your opponent needs to be taken into consideration as well. Some players get hammered so badly in a session that they tilt and become fatalistic. They’ll give away the rest of their stack with any kind of draw. They don’t make good targets of your bluff – even if normally they’re a good player. Conversely, if a guy has just won a large pot and is stacking his chips – or if he’s getting ready to leave, or is really close to even, — he’s probably thinking more about preserving his stack – and may make a great target for a bluff – even if he’s not normally too swift. So at that point he’d make a good bluffing taret.

Your Image

Your table image plays a large part in whether your bluff will be successful. You need to be aware of what it is in order to exploit it. If you’re seen as a tight player your bets will more likely be believed as representing strength. Your bluffs will be more likely to succeed. On the other hand, if you’re perceived as a wildman – who throws his chips around like a drunken sailor (or even better – if you are perceived as a drunken sailor) – your bluffs will almost surely fail – since you’re likely to be called. Take your image to others into consideration and make your bluffs accordingly.

Betting History of the Hand

Bets are not viewed in a vacuum. They are part of a narrative. Your bet, to succeed against perceptive opponents, needs to fit into that narrative to be believed. Your good opponent is not likely to believe that your bet on the river means you hit your flush if your betting up until that point didn’t indicate that you were on a flush draw.

Conversely, here’s an example of your bluff following a believable “I made the flush on the river” narrative. In a relatively tight $2-5 game, your early position opponent with a deep stack raised pre-flop to $20. You, also with a deep stack, called with . The flop came . Your opponent bet $35 and you called. The turn was the – making the board . Your opponent bet $50 and you called. The river was the . Your opponent checked. You bet $100. That story is the story of a flush draw turning into a flush when the river card hits. Your pre-river action made it look like you actually hit a flush on the river.

Strength of Your Hand

Pure bluffs – when a hand has absolutely no chance of success unless your opponent folds – are less likely to win you money then bluffs that are combined with hands with the possibility of improving as the hand develops. These are generally known as “semi-bluffs”. I think of them as bluffs with a back up plan – a way to win even if they don’t win outright as a bluff.

Here’s an example of a semi-bluff. It’s the flop. You have . The flop is . You bet. On the one hand you have nothing. If your opponent folds you win. It would be a successful bluff if that happened. But even if he calls you have a chance of getting hitting a ten or a heart on the turn or river and winning that way.

As you can see, a bluff with a backup plan, known as a semi-bluff, is better than just a pure bluff. So take that into consideration when pondering whether or not to bluff.

Your Position

The position you are in relative to the remaining player or players in the hand is an important consideration. Generally, you want to see how your opponent reacts to the board before you decide to bluff – making late position more advantageous than early position when bluffing. If he checks you can often presume him to be weak and bet. If you have to bet or check first, you won’t have the advantage of seeing his reaction to the board.

In poker, however, few things are always true. Sometimes, it may be better to bluff from early position. If, for example, you are against a rather sophisticated opponent, who understands that bluffing is generally more likely from late position, you may be more likely to fool him into folding a superior hand by betting in early position.

Bet Size

In no limit it’s important to think about the size of your bet when you are bluffing. Ideally, you will bet the least amount necessary to get your opponent to fold. But what is that amount?

It may seem that the more you bet the more likely your opponent will be to fold. As a practical matter this is rarely true, however. It’s better to think in terms of thresholds beyond which opponents will not call. And you want to get as close to the threshold as you can.

Here are some examples. The pot is $100. The flop has missed you. Your opponent has checked, indicating weakness. As a rule of thumb, knowing nothing else, a bet of 50% of the pot will generally be enough to get an opponent to fold if he hasn’t hit his hand and isn’t on a draw. There’s generally no need to bet more than $50 in this situation to push your opponent off of his hand. Realize, of course, that every situation is different. If you have reason to suspect that your opponent is on some kind of draw, a larger bet, perhaps one the size of the pot, may be necessary to get him to fold. If you know your opponent to be especially tight, an even smaller bet might be sufficient – perhaps as little as $25. Similarly, if your opponent is a calling station, no matter how large you bet you may not induce him to fold – meaning you shouldn’t attempt a bluff at any price.

Here’s another example. It’s the river. The pot is $300. You’ve read your opponent for a flush draw. The river is not suited so no flush is possible. Your opponent checks. If you’ve read your opponent correctly, there’s no way he will call a bet of any size. On the other hand, you have nothing so you can’t risk checking it down. You can safely bet as little as 25% of the pot and expect a fold. Why risk more, in case he has deceived you with a monster? If he comes over the top you can lay down your bluff without having lost more than $75 on the bluff.

Conclusion

There’s a time and place to succeed with bluffing, which is a complicated matter. Yet novice players often fall into the trap of bluffing far too much. It’s important that you consider all the factors in this lesson to before you attempt to pull off a bluff.

If you’re new to poker and are just starting out then it’s best to avoid the temptation to bluff. By studying the lessons here on Pokerology you’ll learn much more about the concept of bluffing, along with many other successfully poker strategies. When you combine this knowledge with valuable playing experience, the art of bluffing will become second nature.

The post Poker and the Art of Bluffing appeared first on Pokerology.com.

In this lesson we’re going to give an overview of probability and how it relates to poker. This will include the probability of being dealt certain hands and how often they’re likely to win. We’ll also cover how to calculating your odds and outs, in addition to introducing you to the concept of pot odds. And finally we’ll take a look at how an understanding of the math will help you to remain emotional stable at the poker table and why you should focus on results, not decisions.

What is Probability?

Probability is the branch of mathematics that deals with the likelihood that one outcome or another will occur. For instance, a coin flip has two possible outcomes: heads or tails. The probability that a flipped coin will land heads is 50% (one outcome out of the two); the same goes for tails.

Probability and Cards

When dealing with a deck of cards the number of possible outcomes is clearly much greater than the coin example. Each poker deck has fifty-two cards, each designated by one of four suits (clubs, diamonds, hearts and spades) and one of thirteen ranks (the numbers two through ten, Jack, Queen, King, and Ace). Therefore, the odds of getting any Ace as your first card are 1 in 13 (7.7%), while the odds of getting any spade as your first card are 1 in 4 (25%).

Unlike coins, cards are said to have “memory”: every card dealt changes the makeup of the deck. For example, if you receive an Ace as your first card, only three other Aces are left among the remaining fifty-one cards. Therefore, the odds of receiving another Ace are 3 in 51 (5.9%), much less than the odds were before you received the first Ace.

Pre-flop Probabilities: Pocket Pairs

In order to find the odds of getting dealt a pair of Aces, we multiply the probabilities of receiving each card:

(4/52) x (3/51) = (12/2652) = (1/221) ≈ 0.45%.

To put this in perspective, if you’re playing poker at your local casino and are dealt 30 hands per hour, you can expect to receive pocket Aces an average of once every 7.5 hours.

The odds of receiving any of the thirteen possible pocket pairs (twos up to Aces) is:

(13/221) = (1/17) ≈ 5.9%.

In contrast, you can expect to receive any pocket pair once every 35 minutes on average.

Pre-Flop Probabilities: Hand vs. Hand

Players don’t play poker in a vacuum; each player’s hand must measure up against his opponent’s, especially if a player goes all-in before the flop.

Here are some sample probabilities for most pre-flop situations:

Post-Flop Probabilities: Improving Your Hand

Now let’s look at the chances of certain events occurring when playing certain starting hands. The following table lists some interesting and valuable hold’em math:

Many beginners to poker overvalue certain starting hands, such as suited cards. As you can see, suited cards don’t make flushes very often. Likewise, pairs only make a set on the flop 12% of the time, which is why small pairs are not always profitable.

PDF Chart

We have created a poker math and probability PDF chart (link opens in a new window) which lists a variety of probabilities and odds for many of the common events in Texas hold ‘em. This chart includes the two tables above in addition to various starting hand probabilities and common pre-flop match-ups. You’ll need to have Adobe Acrobat installed to be able to view the chart, but this is freely installed on most computers by default. We recommend you print the chart and use it as a source of reference.

Odds and Outs

If you do see a flop, you will also need to know what the odds are of either you or your opponent improving a hand. In poker terminology, an “out” is any card that will improve a player’s hand after the flop.

One common occurrence is when a player holds two suited cards and two cards of the same suit appear on the flop. The player has four cards to a flush and needs one of the remaining nine cards of that suit to complete the hand. In the case of a “four-flush”, the player has nine “outs” to make his flush.

A useful shortcut to calculating the odds of completing a hand from a number of outs is the “rule of four and two”. The player counts the number of cards that will improve his hand, and then multiplies that number by four to calculate his probability of catching that card on either the turn or the river. If the player misses his draw on the turn, he multiplies his outs by two to find his probability of filling his hand on the river.

In the example of the four-flush, the player’s probability of filling the flush is approximately 36% after the flop (9 outs x 4) and 18% after the turn (9 outs x 2).

Pot Odds

Another important concept in calculating odds and probabilities is pot odds. Pot odds are the proportion of the next bet in relation to the size of the pot.

For instance, if the pot is $90 and the player must call a $10 bet to continue playing the hand, he is getting 9 to 1 (90 to 10) pot odds. If he calls, the new pot is now $100 and his $10 call makes up 10% of the new pot.

Experienced players compare the pot odds to the odds of improving their hand. If the pot odds are higher than the odds of improving the hand, the expert player will call the bet; if not, the player will fold. This calculation ties into the concept of expected value, which we will explore in a later lesson.

Bad Beats

A “bad beat” happens when a player completes a hand that started out with a very low probability of success. Experts in probability understand the idea that, just because an event is highly unlikely, the low likelihood does not make it completely impossible.

A measure of a player’s experience and maturity is how he handles bad beats. In fact, many experienced poker players subscribe to the idea that bad beats are the reason that many inferior players stay in the game. Bad poker players often mistake their good fortune for skill and continue to make the same mistakes, which the more capable players use against them.

Decisions, Not Results

One of the most important reasons that novice players should understand how probability functions at the poker table is so that they can make the best decisions during a hand. While fluctuations in probability (luck) will happen from hand to hand, the best poker players understand that skill, discipline and patience are the keys to success at the tables.

Conclusion

A strong knowledge of poker math and probabilities will help you adjust your strategies and tactics during the game, as well as giving you reasonable expectations of potential outcomes and the emotional stability to keep playing intelligent, aggressive poker.

Remember that the foundation upon which to build an imposing knowledge of hold’em starts and ends with the math. I’ll end this lesson by simply saying…. the math is essential.

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That’s all you can win—and all you can lose. Let’s assume you’ve been dealt and come out betting $6, which is a typical raise of three times the big blind. We’ll assume you are called by one opponent and both blinds fold. Now the flop is . You think your pair of queens is the best hand and come out betting.

Let’s say you bet $8, a wager of slightly more than half the pot. Your opponent, who began the hand with $25 and called your initial wager of $6, now has $19 remaining. What do you think he’ll do? He’s not likely to call your bet. With only $19 left, he will either fold or raise all-in, because an all-in wager stands some chance of inducing you to fold. Your bet on the flop means your opponent would only have $11 remaining if he called, and if he does call, he’ll probably face a call for the remainder of his chips on the turn. He’s much better off raising and getting all his chips in right now, rather than calling his money off in dribs and drabs throughout the hand.

Your opponent’s big advantage to raising all-in, rather than calling now and then having to call for the remainder of his chips on the next betting round, is that raising gives him what players refer to as fold equity. That’s another way of saying that as long as there’s some chance that your opponent’s raise will convince you to fold, in the long run he’s better off moving all-in than he would be by simply calling your bet and then calling another wager on the next betting round.

Suppose he does raise all-in. You’re probably going to call because he can’t hurt you all that much even if his hand is better than yours. In fact, it’s tough to think of why you would fold under these circumstances. After all, if your opponent was fortunate enough to flop a set, you still have an opportunity to improve and win the pot, and the cost to call is reasonable because he doesn’t have many chips remaining. Moreover, he might have a hand like K-J and thinks his pair of jacks is the top dog, when in fact, you’re still ahead of him. When you think of the hands your opponent might be holding that would motivate him to raise under these circumstances, the majority of them are currently running behind your pair of queens.

Now let’s assume the same hands, but this time you each have $500 in front of you. The effective stack size is now $500 instead of $25, and that’s a big difference. You could win $500, but you could lose that much too. It’s a far cry from the $25 effective stack size in the previous example. Your risk is precisely 20 times greater than it was before—$500 as compared to $25—and that increased level of risk should point you in the direction of increased prudence.

Suppose you make a slightly-more-than-half-the-pot $8 wager and your opponent raises $150. You have an overpair to the board, but realize that even if you call his $150 wager, you can expect to see bets on the turn and the river designed to put your entire $500 stack at risk. Unless your opponent is a complete maniac—someone who bets and raises huge amounts with nothing at all in his hand more often than not—discretion is usually the better part of valor and folding is the best play.

Even though your pair of queens figures to be at the top end of the hands he would raise with, it is certainly not better than all of the hands he might hold. So there’s some room for doubt that didn’t exist in the earlier example. Well, to be very precise, the level of doubt might be the same in both examples, but the cost is really quite different. If your opponent was fortunate enough to flop a set in the example where he only had $25 remaining, you couldn’t get hurt very much if he raised with a hand that happened to reside at the top of his potential holdings. But in a situation where the stacks are big and each of you had $500 potentially at risk, folding an overpair is usually a better decision than calling off all your chips.

Putting All Your Chips at Risk

You will find some opponents who will go all-in regardless of the cost with a big pocket pair, particularly pocket aces, and that’s a major leak in their game. Big and pretty as they are, aces are only one pair, and if his opponent flops two pair or a set, he’s looking to take every chip from the guy willing to go to his grave with aces.

While you’re not going to crack an opponent’s pocket rockets all that often, you don’t really have to. If you have an opponent who is willing to play top pair or an overpair for all his chips, all you need do is have this confrontation once a day or so to ensure that you have a healthy return on your investment at the poker table.

Many poker players make it a point never to go broke with one pair, except for situations where they are short-stacked in a tournament and have to make a stand in an attempt to double up or go home. But under normal circumstances, many of your opponents will not put themselves in a position where they have to confront the possibility of going broke with a single pair—even if it’s aces.

But some players are willing to put all their chips at risk with one pair. Players who were reared on fixed-limit hold’em seem to really suffer from this problem. To limit hold’em players, pocket aces are generally a through-ticket to the river, barring some odd board like four of a single suit that doesn’t match yours, or a four-straight on board with a bet and a raise before the action gets around to you. But those are rare birds and limit hold’em players generally play a pocket pair of aces fast and strong regardless of the board.

This affliction also bedevils very tight players too. They play so snugly that when they finally pick up a premium hand they are unwilling to release it, since they fold so many other hands with regularity. These players are often smart enough to understand they can be in trouble with one pair—even when that pair is aces—but are often emotionally unwilling to release the kind of hand their tight, rocky play has been waiting for all session.

Playing Through Multiple Streets

One of the expensive lessons learned when taking up no-limit poker is that decisions made on one betting round impact those made subsequently. In a fixed-limit game, a bet on the flop or the turn is sort of independent of what might transpire on subsequent rounds. Sure, your opponent might bet the turn if he bet the flop, but the amount of his bet is a known quantity and can easily be factored into a play-or-fold decision on that earlier betting round.

But whenever an opponent bets or raises on the flop or the turn in a no-limit game, there’s a good chance he’s going to make an even bigger wager on the next betting round. When all of your chips might be at risk on subsequent betting rounds, you have to consider the potential cost of impending bets when considering a decision to call now.

This has the effect of implied odds being leveraged against you. A call made at the price of a few chips when you have a drawing hand must be made with a considered awareness of what you intend to do if you miss your draw on the current wagering round and your opponent fires a very big bet at you subsequently. If that happens the cost to take a card off and see the river will have gone up dramatically, and the odds against completing your hand with only one card to come—as compared with the odds against making your hand with two cards to come when you’ve just seen the flop—have just gotten significantly longer.

The Short Stack Specialists

You’ll find many poker players – particularly those who play online – actively seek out no-limit games where they can buy in for a short stack. There they employ tactics designed to double up whenever they can while minimizing big losses specifically because they do not play a big enough stack to put their bankrolls at risk.

A short-stacker might look to buy-in to a cash game from between 15 and 30 big blinds. That’s a big difference from the maximum buy-in, which can range from 100 big blinds to an unlimited amount. Because of the difference in stack sizes, short stacked and deep stacked players are essentially playing different games for different stakes at the same table, and whenever there are two deep stacked and one short stacked player contesting a pot, the side pot is likely to be much larger than the main pot.

Because a short stacked player has little leverage over the actions of his more deeply stacked opponents, he has to play tight poker, while the deep stacked players can employ a looser style, using their stack size to pressure other players while manipulating the pot odds offered to them.

A tight-but-aggressive short stack strategy works best with a minimum of seven others at the table. If the table is short-handed, a short stacked specialist will be hard pressed to keep up with the cost of the blinds paid while waiting for big, playable hands. In addition, short stack strategy works better against loose opponents. Our short stacked specialist is looking for opportunities to go all-in for his short buy-in, and hoping for two or more callers when he does.

Conclusion

Determining the effective stack size is critically important in every hand you play. Without an awareness of how much potential risk exists based on the stack sizes, a player can easily get into more trouble than he’s looking for. It’s been said that poker is a game of money played with cards, and without being cognizant of stack size and the amount of money at risk on any given hand, a player can be in grave danger and not even realize it.

The traps of stack size are easy to avoid. Just estimate your opponent’s stack size—and always be aware of how many chips you have too—at the beginning of a hand. You needn’t be precise about it. A good estimate is all that’s needed to help you avoid the dangers of playing too small a hand for too much money, or playing too weak a hand to survive as a short stack specialist.

The post The Importance of Stack Sizes appeared first on Pokerology.com.

The speed by which the blinds increase can also vary; 15 minutes in a regular SNG, every 5-7 minutes in a ‘turbo’ SNG, and levels as short as two minutes in a ‘super turbo’ SNG. While stack sizes can also vary, most start with 1500 chips, though a number of the super-turbo formats can start with as little as 100 in chips.

The purpose of this lesson is to provide an overview of the basic strategy that’s required to become a successful low-stakes no-limit hold’em SNG player. We’ll look at basic strategies for the different stages of a typical single-table SNG, with particular attention to the bubble phase of the game. We’ll also throw in a few hints and tips along the way.

Key Concept: The Value of Your Chips

Before we jump in and begin discussing various SNG strategies, the most important concept to know is that the value of your chips in a SNG is non-linear. What does this mean? Well, in a cash game you might buy in for $100 and your chips will retain that value throughout the time you are at the table. If you were to win every chip on the table you’d be able to cash in all your chips at their face value. But this does not happen in a SNG. The winner of the SNG will have all the chips at the end, but unless the structure is winner-take-all he will not win all of the money.

Let’s assume you are playing a single-table SNG with a typical payout structure of 50% for first, 30% for second, and 20% for third. In this case, the winner will have all of the chips and the end of the game, but only receive half the money. Two other players will take home a slice of the prize pool despite not having any chips at the end.

In a SNG your last chip is always going to be the most valuable chip. The more chips you have, the less valuable that first chip is going to be when compared to your last chip. In other words, the ratio of the dollar value of your chips in a SNG is non-linear. Does this sound overly complicated? Well, don’t worry about the math involved right now. Just being aware of this concept is the most valuable knowledge a SNG player can possess.

The Stages of a SNG Tournament

Let’s break down a typical single-table SNG into several key stages and discuss some of the ways you might approach them for improved results.

The Early Stage

A typical low-stakes SNG will feature mostly weak and passive play during the early blind levels. Just like in a cash game, the most preferable style of play is the one that is the opposite of the table. With that in mind the most common course of action is to play a tight-aggressive (TAG) style of poker. This means you should mostly be entering the pot with raises, and only limping with the occasional small pocket pair or speculative hand once a few players have already limped in too. You should play your big hands strongly and get value for them against opponents that are willing to pay you off. Even a hand as weak as top pair can reap a nice pot against the weak and passive players that are often found playing these games.

The Middle Stage

Once the first few players are eliminated and the blinds have increased a few times you will typically see the table tighten up. This is especially true if you’re playing in a turbo tournament. While some of the players with large stacks might continue to limp in with their weak aces and suited holdings, you should stick with a TAG style of play.

The first few levels of a SNG leave room for a bit of post-flop manoeuvring, but the middle stage doesn’t offer such freedom of expression. Paying attention to how your opponents have been playing now becomes more important. You should be able to detect which players are willing to gamble a little and which are going to be scared to bust out. Watch for situations that you might be able to take advantage of this, however be sure that you have a hand that is capable of standing up to resistance. Play your strongest hands for maximum value and you will be surprised how often you’ll be paid off.

The Late Stage

This is the time when stack sizes become shallow in relation to the blinds and aggressive play becomes the order of the day. All-in shoves pre-flop are frequently the only move available and the chips can often move around the table as players fold to aggression. With a nice chip lead you should be able to control the table, especially when a couple of players are struggling with shorter stacks and are more concerned about outlasting each other – which is sometimes the correct play! At other times you will need to be selective with your spots and use the fold equity and any leverage that your stack might still possess.

The Independent Chip Model

The bubble phase of a SNG is when the concept of ICM (Independent Chip Model) comes into play. ICM helps you to determine what kind of hand ranges you can push or call with. Remember, the chip values in a SNG are non-linear and ICM is the method that is used to mathematically determine the value of our chips in relation to the prize pool. You don’t need to be good at math. Just knowing the basics of how the math works in certain situations is the key to manipulating players on the bubble of a SNG.

The following is a brief overview of what a generic strategy might be for the bubble stage of a single-table SNG that pays the top three positions. This is all based on the concept of ICM:

Chip Leader

Your chips and the leverage they provide is your biggest weapon. Generally you will want to take advantage of the existence of the short stack by attacking the players in second and third, especially if the short stack is getting desperate in chips.When the short stack has folded you can usually raise with impunity on the others.The fear of busting out before the short stack is what they fear most, so use this knowledge wisely.

Second Place

When you’re in second place you’ll be able to bully and attack the player that is third in chips, particularly if you’re seated to his right.Although you will need to be very wary anytime the chip leader has acted or is still in the hand. You should also pay close attention to the position and potential play of the short stack. While you can still take on the other players remaining in the game, you will need solid holdings to cross paths with them.

Third Place

Most beginning SNG players are going to be too scared to play when in third and will elect to try and outlast the short stack and “fold to the money”. By accident, these players find themselves to be using the correct strategy. If you and the short stack are close in chips you will need to be more aggressive since there is no guarantee that the other player will lose a hand anytime soon.However, in most cases it is unwise to play too loosely, especially when calling raises.

Fourth Place

Depending on your exact situation, you are going to have to make a move on some pots or risk losing any fold equity you still possess. The best player to attack is the player that’s currently in third-place. However, do not be too shy about potentially facing anyone. Time is running out and the shorter your stack becomes when compared to the blinds, the more desperate you may need to become. Do not have the fear of not cashing, since being in fourth place means you wouldn’t be cashing right now anyway!

A Few SNG Strategy Tips

There are many weak and passive players to be found at the low stakes SNGs and you should be taking advantage of their tendencies. For every poor play you encounter there is a good counter play.

Here are a few tips and tricks that you might be able to use during the course of a typical SNG:

• If your opponent calls too much, bet more for value.
• If they call too much, don’t bluff very much, if at all.
• If they fold too much, bet and bluff more frequently.
• If they chase draws incorrectly, charge them more.
• If they call all-in raises too lightly, shove all-in more.

Not all of these SNG plays are based on math – quite a few are geared more toward taking advantage of how a random player would generally behave. It’s important that you always pay attention to the tendencies of your opponents, including their hand ranges and the level of aggression they exhibit in their play. If you find an opponent who plays two-pair like it’s the nuts then use this information by shoving all-in with your sets, straights and flushes on the river. In the long run you’ll get paid off more this way then by making a value bet – unless the board makes a straight or flush too obvious. Likewise, if you find an opponent who plays top pair like it’s the nuts then be sure to play your two-pair hands very strongly.

Conclusion

The key points to take away from this lesson is that in general you should play a tight-aggressive style during the early and middle stages of a SNG and be taking advantage of ICM-friendly situations later on in a SNG. Remember to always be aware of not only your chip stack but also those of the other players and their positions at the table – and where appropriate, use your chips as weapons.

Simply knowing that chips stacks are always changing in value as players bust out of the game will give you a huge advantage over your opponents, particularly during the bubble stage of a SNG. Depending on ICM, position and what you have learned about your opponents will often dictate your decisions much more often that your cards might. Understanding such concepts in addition to paying attention to the tendencies of your opponents will help you become a successful low-stakes SNG player.

The post A Basic Strategy for SNGs appeared first on Pokerology.com.

Poker is a game of observation. Therefore the first step to defining a player’s playing style is to observe their general tendencies. This factor is the central core of poker success. Learning your opponents’ proclivities is a must if you intend to become a winning player. Every action an opponent takes means something. Why from that position did player x raise or just call? It cannot be stressed enough to pay attention, especially when not in a hand (which should be the majority of the time) to learn how your opponents think and act.

Defining Poker Playing Styles

Each poker player can be broken down into two primary factors which will broadly define their playing style. They are as follows: tight vs. loose and passive vs. aggressive.

Tight vs. Loose

This first primary factor is shown in a player’s starting hand selection

• Tight poker players usually play a small number of only the best hands.
• Loose poker players will often play a wide variety of hands.

Being tight or loose doesn’t necessarily refer to how somebody plays their hand, but merely the selection of hands that they play. They’re either going to play a tight range of hands or a loose range of hands. How they play those hands – whether it is passive or aggressive – is going to dictate how you play against them.

Passive vs. Aggressive

A players passiveness or aggressiveness is displayed in their risk tolerance.

• Passive poker players tend to avoid confrontation and play with a fear of losing.
• Aggressive poker players raise more than call and are not afraid to put chips at risk.

By observing your opponents you’ll be able to categorize them based on what you see. Each poker player you encounter will have some degree in which these factors make up their personality but you have to start somewhere. The first step is to determine whether they are tight or loose. If an opponent folds most of their hands then mark them as tight. If they tend to play a lot of hands, mark them as loose. The next factor to determine is whether they are passive or aggressive. Do they call and check more often than they raise and bet? If so, mark them down as passive. If they bet and raise a lot you can mark them down as aggressive.

The Four Basic Poker Playing Styles

By assessing these factors you will typically see four general playing style combinations:

• Tight Passive
• Loose Passive
• Tight Aggressive (TAG)
• Loose Aggressive (LAG)

Knowing these broad characteristics will help you to figure out what a player has based on his betting action in a particular hand. If a loose-aggressive player is betting and raising you are less likely to credit him with a strong hand than if a tight-passive player raises or re-raises, since it’s something they don’t usually do.

Let’s examine these four basic playing styles in more detail:

The Tight-Passive

A typical tight-passive player generally doesn’t play many pots and will often just call pre-flop when they find a hand they like. They will play so tight that when they do play, everyone else folds. So, when they have a good hand they can’t make any money. This type of player is sometimes labelled as a ‘rock’ or a ‘nit’ and the general style of play can also be referred to as ‘weak-passive’. They are easy to bluff and will frequently fold to scary board cards, such as an Ace. The really timid players can also be paralyzed with fear and won’t take shots. This is because they tend to play with a fear of losing. Observant players who have identified a weak, predictable player will always be on the lookout for situations that can be exploited simply because the tight-passive player folds too frequently to aggression.

The Loose Passive

Loose-passive players like to limp into lots of pots. They will call raises “just to see a flop” and will remain in the hand whenever they hit any of it, however marginal. They seldom take chances or become aggressive in their plays and they tend to be “calling stations” when they do. Their whole approach to playing poker is to watch and let others do the risking. Many beginners or even players who’ve played for a long time can fall into the trap of just calling, calling and calling. This is especially true in low buy-in games. They are very obvious to spot and are easy targets. Unlike the tight-passive players, you’re not going to be able to bluff them – you never want to bluff a calling station! But when you do pick up a hand that is fairly strong, you should bet for value and milk as much out of them as you possibly can.

The Tight Aggressive (TAG)

The tight-aggressive player generally doesn’t play many pots. They are selective and generally only play the best starting hands. Unlike the tight-passive players, a tight-aggressive player will play their cards strongly. They are patient and wait for the best opportunities to strike but they are not afraid of betting. The best tight-aggressive players are often labelled as ‘sharks’ because a tight-aggressive style is frequently effective, regardless of the game variation or betting structure. Most observant opponents will avoid clashing with a tight-aggressive player since they’ll assume that they have the best hand and will fold under the pressure.

The Loose Aggressive (LAG)

The loose-aggressive player tends to raise or re-raise a wide variety of hands pre-flop and will often bet on most flops. They can be extremely difficult to read because they play such a wide range of hands. In no-limit hold’em there are some very skilled players who employ a loose-aggressive style of play to great effect. They use their chips as weapons and are constantly applying pressure on their opponents. They will bluff a high percentage of the time and are hard to play against. However, at the extreme end of the loose-aggressive scale is the ‘maniac’ who seemingly raises without rhyme or reason. The maniac’s tendency to overplay his hands means you will almost surely show a profit in the long run against this type of player.

Tricky or Straightforward?

Be aware that nobody fits into very neat or specific groups. Once you’ve put players into an initial category you’re ready for the next step – which is to determine whether or not they are tricky. This is not always easy because poker players tend to fall on a continuum that ranges between extremely tricky and completely straightforward. However, it’s an important step because once you put them somewhere on the scale you can begin to intepret their actions with greater accuracy. For example, let’s suppose a tight-aggressive player raises pre-flop from early position. If he is a straightforward tight-aggressive then you can credit him with a strong hand, such as a premium pair. If you’ve determined that he’s a very tricky player then he might also be mixing it up by raising with two big cards or a suited Ace.

The key to all of this is observation. You really need to observe the players at your table and pick up on their tendencies and understand what type of plays and decisions they make based on their personality types. If you can, start to classify them into some of the groups we’ve discussed. It then makes your decisions a lot easier and more profitable.

The Importance of Aggression

Remember that poker is a game of aggression and this is especially true of hold’em. If you don’t want to be aggressive, then you shouldn’t play — or at least you shouldn’t expect to win. Poker is all about conflict and it’s not a game for the weak. This is why an aggressive style of play is critical to success. This is a central truth of the game that we all deal with every time we sit down to play. We’re trying to beat the other player and take their money. As the late great Jack Straus once said “I’d even bust my own grandmother if she played poker with me.”

There are obviously times when it’s good to be deceptive and just call pre-flop with a premium hand or check-call a strong hand after the flop. Even aggressive players do this on occasion, but the big difference is they’re mixing up their game – unlike the tight-passive player who only calls when they should probably raise, due to a fear of losing. As the old poker saying goes, “Scared money never wins“.

The biggest downside to a passive style of play is that it only offers one way to win the pot – when you have the best hand. An aggressive style of play gives you two ways to win – when you have the best hand and when you force your opponent to fold the best hand, thereby abdicating the pot to you. For example, if you were aggressive pre-flop, depending on what cards are on the flop, you can continue your aggression by betting and often winning the hand even if you miss completely.

Which is the Best Playing Style?

We’ve already discussed the importance of aggression and why it’s almost always best to be aggressive. A good solid strategy of tight and aggressive play is generally rewarded with a profit. There are some experienced players who have great success by adopting a loose-aggressive style of poker. However, for the majority of players a tight-aggressive approach is usually the most profitable. This style of play is also undoubtably the best way for beginners to start out playing poker since it teaches good habits such as patience and discipline. The tight-aggressive approach also works well as a “default position” and players often build a strong skills base by starting out with such a playing style.

Ultimately though, you should choose a style of play that is the most profitable for you and that suits your personality. In fact, your style of play at the poker table is often shaped by your personality away from the table. Some people can play very differently to their actual personality, but most will revert to type. For example, there are some players who we could label as ‘loose-aggressive/passives’ – these players will raise a lot of hands pre-flop but will often give up on the flop or turn. Typically these are former tight-aggressives or tight-passives trying to experiment with looser play but are not comfortable committing to their aggression – because it’s against their nature. So the best advice we can give is to find what works for you by playing poker and gaining experience on the felt.

It’s also important to point out that the best poker players adjust their style to the players at the table and the conditions of the game. It’s often said that if you’re playing on a table full of tight players then you should loosen up, whereas if you’re playing on a table full of aggressive players then playing a tight game and catching them in the act is an effective strategy. Always be observant of the players at your table and the conditions and adapt your style of play when necessary. It’s what good poker players do.

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