by Lou Kreiger

First published in Poker Player Newspaper

In poker, as in life, we have default positions that help us put a lot of our decision making on autopilot so that we con concentrate on the really tough choices. We’re not unlike our computers. Every time I open Microsoft Internet Explorer, Hotsheet comes up. It’s my homepage and I don’t have to make any decisions or go through any gyrations to put it right up there on the screen in front of me. It’s my default choice, and I like it that way. Poker players have default positions too. Most of us — when confronted with folding, calling, or raising — choose to call. It’s our default position and represents what we do almost instinctively. We don’t think too much about calling, but we ponder long and hard about either folding or raising. When we default to calling — rather than saving our money for another hand and a better opportunity by folding, or trying to seize control of the situation by raising with a good hand —we’re wrong more often than not. Calling runs on the wrong side of one of poker’s prime strategic tracks: Be aggressive, but be selective. A call is not aggressive, and when you call too often, it’s not selective either. Aggressive play builds pots when you have a big hand, and more importantly, it provides two ways to win. An aggressive player can win by causing his opponent to fold a hand that might have beaten his, and he can win by showing down the best hand. The passive player can only win in a showdown. The need to be selective is obvious. If you’ve ever had a maniac at your table who raises almost every pot, you’ll see him experience huge swings but almost always lose money in the process. There are times to call. But a decision to call should be made only after analyzing the cards you hold, the community cards on the board, and other players’ playing styles. Here are four situations when calling pays. 1. You have a drawing hand that you’re trying to complete as inexpensively as possible. 2. To sucker your opponent into betting with what he mistakenly believes is a bigger hand; then you can checkraise him. 3. To disguise the strength of your hand or take a free or inexpensive card when you’re in the small or big blind. 4. A guy to your right bets when you have a huge hand. Calling will probably attract additional calls from players acting behind you. It may also help you get in a checkraise on a subsequent betting round. Most of the time, however, raising or folding is preferable to calling. Too many poker players call when they should fold. It’s the single biggest mistake you’ll see at the poker table. Here’s why. Players come to a casino to play, not to throw away hands. Like traffic entering the freeway, they merge with the rhythm of the table. Soon they are playing just like their opponents — and calling too much as a result. If you need a default program to guide you at the poker table, try this: Fold more than you raise and raise more than you call. While this aphorism is true for cash games, it is even more important in tournaments, where you seldom want to call. Many top tournament pros almost never call. If they can’t raise before the flop, they fold. This allows aggressive players to pressure their opponents. Because bluffing is generally more effective in tournaments than it is in cash games, a selectively aggressive player can drive his good hands and his bluffs too. When a player has a good number of chips to work with and can afford to lose a hand without becoming so short stacked that he has no latitude left for creative play, taking command of the table by raising the hands he plays is the fast lane to the final table.

by Scott Aigner

First published in Poker Player Newspaper

Several issues ago I presented a hand analysis in which a young man held trip 10’s with a board of 10-10-5-A (he held J-10). The opponents he was up against had started in the blind positions. He had over utilized a concept about blind hands being random and generally weaker than average despite that the flop and turn action was fairly strong with a check raise on the flop followed by a weak bet on the turn, a smooth call by the big blind, a raise by the young man, and a reraise all in by the player in the small blind. The big blind was just calling the whole time up to this point but then he moved all in after the first all in. The young man rationalized that he had already put in a fair amount of his stack and felt he also held outs even if he was behind. My instincts told me that the small blind held trip 10’s and that the big blind had slow played a full house. If this was the correct read then the young man held 3 outs to tie with the small blind (three Aces) and three cards that could win it for him (3 jacks). His pot odds were horrendous given that his last call was 60% of his entire stack. He was a much bigger underdog than he realized.

There are several concepts in play that this young man did not utilize in his analysis. One of these is that players like to trap in poker. The big blind trapped both of his opponents by waiting until he was forced to reveal his real strength.

A player’s action in the later rounds is usually a more accurate indication of their hand than the initial betting rounds. Only when the player who holds a big hand feels that his opponent(s) is/are trapped does he come to life. Sklansky discussed in The Theory of Poker that once the pot becomes big there is no longer a need to remain deceptive. The big blind laid a perfect trap by slow playing until there was no further need to be deceptive. He held pocket 5’s and had flopped the full house.

Defense mechanisms such as rationalization and denial play tricks on a lot of poker players’ minds. We even hear statements that reflect these defense mechanisms all the time at the poker table. Both can cause us to make further mistakes in our play during the remainder of the poker session but it can also influence our future play as well.

Don’t allow rationalization to trick you into thinking you played correctly or outright deny when you made a bad play. These mechanisms only compound your mistakes over time. By remaining objective you learn from your mistakes and prevent making the same one later on. Sure, it might be bad luck, but don’t just attribute it to bad luck until you have analyzed the situation completely. You just might find that luck had little to do with the actual outcome. Finally, assumptions cause a lot of errors in judgment. Don’t let them influence you too much, especially when the other variables are telling you differently.

This particular situation where you hold a strong but beaten hand is something we all experience a time or two early on in poker. It is one we have to personally experience in order to really understand what had transpired. By remaining objective, the lesson is relatively cheap. But if we deny or rationalize the play of our hand then we don’t learn the lesson and it becomes much more expensive in the future.

by Tom Leonard

First published in Poker Player Newspaper

In today’s column let’s discuss an advanced play that has become very popular in no-limit but also has application in limit games as well. It’s a play that does require you to have some knowledge of your opponent’s tendencies to increase your level of success. It also requires you to be very aware of your opponent’s perception of you. Of course, these are both critical elements to all phases of successful play. We simply must observe and learn how our opponents play while being acutely aware of what image we have been projecting to them. Allow me to outline a scenario to demonstrate the dynamics of the “Call to Bluff” play.

Imagine limping in, or for that matter, raising with an unsuited King/Queen against a middle position limper. Let’s say you brought it in for a raise and everyone folded back to the middle position limper who calls your raise. Ok, you’re going to see the flop with position against a lone opponent. The flop comes a very powerful Ace—Ace—eight rainbow. Powerful for who is the question. Your foe who is out of position bets out and you decide to just quickly flat call. Now you have your lone foe asking himself, “What in Hades can this Bozo have to call with this board?” If you “know”, based upon past observations, your opponent would more than likely have slow played trip Aces in this spot you can feel comfortable that he is trying to buy the pot. If you had raised your foe on the flop he would either have mucked giving up his ruse right then or possibly re-raised either because he saw through your plan and is re-stealing or your read was wrong and he really has a hand.

Raising as a bluff in this situation looks just like what it is……..a bluff. Flat calling will give your opponent pause as he contemplates this strange turn of events. If he checks the turn, you fire a bet into the pot and you will be amazed at how many times he mucks and you win. Of course, if he raises you’re probably in trouble but this course of action will still be less expensive than having re-raised on the flop. This play is an example of recognizing the fact that if you always need the cards to win, you won’t be much of a winner in the long run. Why? Because the cards will pretty much even out over the long pull and if you’re just playing “ABC” tight poker you’ll be just like Shooter, the Kid’s mentor from the classic poker movie, The Cincinnati Kid. Remember when Shooter told the Kid, “The way I play now, just percentages, don’t win much, don’t lose much.” The translation is……Shooter is admitting to the Kid that he’s lost his ability to be an imaginative player who ferrets out and seizes opportunities. He just plays the percentages as in “ABC” poker. Sound fundamental poker but not the type of play that is going to consistently build your bankroll. Playing not to lose is a far cry from playing to win!

Our goal for this time together is to attempt to seize upon opportunities that arise during our sessions. If you hear Mr. Opportunity knocking, then answer the door! Remember, good cards come and go but opportunities to take control of a hand, and win it, crop up constantly. The meek may well inherit the earth……… but damn it, you want to book a win don’t you?

See you next “TIME”.

by Paul McGuire

First published in Poker Player Newspaper

One of the best ways to gain an edge playing online poker is to purchase different types of software and tools that will help improve your game. Some programs can graph your bankroll, analyze your hands, track the progress and skill level of other players, and help monitor your day-to-day progress as a poker player.

Poker Tracker (www.pokertracker.com) is a program that allows you to track your play in both ring games and tournaments on sites such as Party Poker, PokerStars, FullTilt, Ultimate Bet, Absolute, Poker Room and their network, Doyle’s Room, Cryptlogic and their network, and any rooms on the Prima Network. You import all your hand histories and store them into a database. Poker Tracker allows you to combine your screen names from other sites in order to give you a complete status of your play.

Poker Tracker tracks your starting hands and various combinations, then tells you the results on each hand. You will see which hands are costing you the most money and which hands win you the most pots. You can see how many times you won with two pair, three of a kind, a flush, etc. You can also monitor your play by position in both full ring games and during short-handed play. Poker Tracker will tell you if you are playing too many hands from early position or not defending your blinds enough against steal attempts.

Poker Tracker allows you to keep tabs on your opponents, which is my favorite feature. You can find out who are the best and worst players at your table and adjust your play accordingly. Poker Tracker keeps tabs on every player that you’ve played with including detailed stats on how often they see the flop, raise preflop, check raise, and see hands all the way to showdown.

I use Poker Tracker to play back my hands graphically, like pro football players watching game film of their last game. That’s a great way to see where you misplayed a specific hand, so you can make the necessary adjustments from that point on. You can replay individual hands or watch your last tournament hand-byhand. Poker Tracker can be an overwhelming program to learn at first because it gives you so many options to choose from. I suggest that you also pick up Poker Tracker Guide (www.pokertrackerguide.com), which is supplemental literature to Poker Tracker. Sort of like a version of Cliff Notes, Poker Tracker Guide was written by two well-known poker bloggers, HDouble and Iggy, for beginner online players. The authors explain how you can gain an informational advantage over your opponents by optimizing the Poker Tracker software.

The most informative chapter in Poker Tracker Guide is the section on how to auto-rate your opponents based on their system. I adhered to their suggestions and tagged players accordingly. With the help of Poker Tracker Guide, I was able to find out which sharks I should avoid and which donkeys I should attack. Poker Patterns (www.pokerpatterns.com) is another excellent program that should be used in conjunction with Poker Tracker. Here’s the explanation on their website: “Poker Patterns has filtering options to display graphs just as you want them. Choose specific Users, Limits, Poker Sites, Specific Starting Hands, and many other filtering options. Also, display by Hand, Date or Session.”

Poker Patterns recently added a Player Search feature that allows you to filter opponents by nine different criteria. Poker Patterns is constantly being updated and upgraded. The programmer often incorporates suggestions and ideas that you can send him in their forums.

Poker Tracker Guide and Poker Patterns both enhance your knowledge on how to use Poker Tracker. You should get these inexpensive tools and programs as soon as possible.

by Tom Leonard

First published in Poker Player

Most everyone can remember a schoolyard bully from their past. Why was this individual a bully? Because he was big enough and strong enough and possessed the disposition that he could bully weaker individuals. Some things never change and having the tools to be a bully is one of them. When you find yourself with a huge chip advantage in a tournament you need to be the bully. Some players when well ahead in a tournament go into a shell to protect their stack. They believe that they can sit back and wait for premium hands because their stack is deep enough that the blinds won't cripple them. Well, chips are power and are the strength you need to become the bully. To sit back and not bully the smaller stacks is sheer folly. Nobody liked the bully in the schoolyard but in poker you're not looking for adulation, you're looking to win. So, I think we've established that you need to be the bully and not rely on others to knock out weaker opponents. You want and need those chips. Hell, you don't want your weaker opponents to get stronger and become more of a threat. When you possess that big stack, just like the popular TV show, you have the FEAR FACTOR. Stealing becomes significantly easier as your large stack has an implied threat to it that makes many opponents hesitate to tangle with you. Even if you're called you're usually not too much of an underdog and can still win the hand. If you lose some of these pots and feel the table's image of your "Fear Factor" is beginning to wane you can always slow down for a while.

Utilizing your large chip stack to be the bully is paramount to winning tournament play. To have amassed the chips in the first place and then not use them as a weapon is the epitome of wimpy, survival type tournament play. Sure you might get some of your stack eaten away but to sit back and go into a shell is not the way you will ever win a tournament. Be the bully and use those chips to attack. Attack the weaker stacks and you might just grow your own stack. Of course catching a few lucky cards can certainly help the effort but you can't sit back and just wait for premium hands. We've all heard the old adage of "I'd rather be lucky than good". Well wouldn't you rather be lucky and good?

Our goal for this session is to embrace the title of this column when playing in a tournament and when we find ourselves with a large stack to become the bully. Resist the impulse to go into a shell to protect your stack. Remember, in a tournament, if your stack is not growing—-it's shrinking. Use your robust chip position and its implied threat to bully and attack your weaker opponents unmercifully.

Keep putting the weaker stacks to tough decisions and you'll find your stack growing and growing. Bully yourself right to the final table and then to first place. Oh, and if your aggressiveness winds up knocking you out of a tournament or two please don't whine. It's so unbecoming. See you next "TIME".

By Scott Fischman

When playing limit (Omaha and hold’em), if I am consistently averaging a profit of 2-3 BB/hour over a pretty good length of time, is it a good indicator that it’s time to move up to the next level (bankroll allowing, of course)? Do you have any other tips about when to “move on up to the Eastside”?
Thanks for the advice,
Mike

A great question, and not just because of the reference to The Jeffersons!
“Earning average” has never been a major factor in my decision to move up in levels, mostly because comparing low-limit to middle-limit games is apples to oranges. At the $3-6 hold’em table, success often comes down to catching cards while playing tighter poker than your opponents. You are going to need additional skills to succeed at $10-20 games, where you need to be able to sniff out bluffs against smarter, trickier competition.
In other words, don’t move up just because you are beating the game — move up when your bankroll and skill set allow it, and you can find a game with players you can read.
You can pay more attention to your results as you look to move up through the middle limits into the higher limits — you want to be winning consistently, feeling confident, and building a bankroll that allows you to play in a comfort zone. There are other significant factors to consider, however. Who is in the game? Are the pots big enough, the players loose enough to make you money? It’s better to stay in a $30-$60 game that you are drilling than to move up to an $80-$160 where you are eking out a small profit. Don’t move up because your ego tells you that you should be playing a bigger game — move up when it’s a good real-money decision!
Single table sit-n-gos. I do well with them, and they seem to be great practice, but I was wondering if they are something that can be played for long-term profit?
-Matt
Absolutely! I built my initial online bankroll playing sit-n-gos. Yes, they are also good for practice, but there shouldn’t be any distinction between the two: You are always practicing, even when you are playing for profit. If you can find a sit-n-go that you like, put in the hours.
I have noticed a strategic decision that comes up frequently at sit-n-gos and other tournaments with blind structures that go up quickly: When I am able to build a big stack, I am looking for spots to pick up the blinds without a contest, sometimes — if my opponents are tight or I have otherwise managed to keep steady control of the table — regardless of what I am holding. What should I do when someone “plays back at me,” moving all in when I have raised with a weak or even a moderate-strength hand? I am often getting good pot odds, say 2-to-1 or more, to call their bet, but calling and losing will take away my ability to continue to steal blinds. What is the correct play?
-dubbeemin
You’ve hit upon the primary difference between cash game and tournament strategy: Preserving power in a tournament can often be more important than doing something just because you have the right odds to do it. If calling and losing means a loss in your ability to steal in a future situation, don’t do it. You’re not only risking a potential loss in power, but if you call with junk — for everyone to see — you’re likely going to face an even more significant loss in the respect department. It’s going to be much easier for people to play back against you when they know that you are pushing with junk!
It’s okay to fold when opponents push back at you. Eventually, someone will do it when you have the goods, and you can punish them accordingly. If too many people are pushing back at you, then you may not have the “control” over the table that you thought you did: Time to readjust your strategy!

by Richard Burke

First published in Poker Player Newspaper

LindaMae swung past me muttering, “I don’t know how he does it because my daddy told me never draw to an inside Straight, but George did it and won a big pot on the River, having raised before the Flop with a three-gap, suited connector and acted like he played the hand correctly, smiling as he stacked a big pot at that $2-4 Hold’Em table I just left because I couldn’t stand it any longer.” “Stop,” I said, patting a chair, “park your caboose on this siding here, and let off steam by telling me what happened.”

On the button in a ten-handed game, George raised pre-Flop with [7d]-[3d]. The Small Blind called. In the big blind with [Ah]-[Td], LindaMae called. Five limpers called. Eight-handed they saw the dealer flop [6s]-[5c]-[Th].

Holding Top Pair, Top Kicker, LindaMae led with $2 after the Small Blind checked. Five called. The dealer turned the [Ac], making the top Two Pairs for LindaMae. She led with $4. Four called. The dealer put the [4s] on the table. LindaMae saw the possible Straight, deemed it unlikely, and led with a $4 bet. Everyone folded except George, who raised. She called; George showed down his 2nd-nut Straight and stacked a $75 pot after the toke, house rake, and bad-beat drop. “How could he play that hand so badly?” she asked.

Your daddy’s advice is correct for Draw, I told her. But for Hold’Em, with its three rounds of betting before the River and typically many limpers at its lower limits, the pot odds can make drawing to an inside Straight profitable.

George is a rational player, I told her. He had a 15% chance for a good Flop (3.3% for Two Pairs or Trips, 11% for two diamonds, plus a small chance for a Straight or better). When five players limped, George counted on them to call another bet, and gambled that you and/or the Small Blind would also call. Post-Flop, George had 4 outs: any Four out of the 47 unknown cards would make a Straight. At his turn to act, his pot odds were $39 for $2, an easy call. Post-Turn, George had three clean outs, (the 4f would have put three trumps on the tableau). His cards odds were about 1 in 15 (3/46). His pot odds were about 16 for 1 ($67 for $4) because he was sure you would call his bet if he hit the Straight. His expectation was positive, and even if the 4f did appear, someone’s having a Flush wasn’t certain. “Why didn’t he fear that someone held the nut Straight?” she asked. George knew that his 2ndnut Straight would win 82% of the time, I told her. (“Straight Skinny,” Poker Player, March 7, 2005, p. 18.) When you led the betting when the dealer turned the Ace, he put you on Two Pairs. Then when everyone else folded to your River bet, he knew that he had the better hand.

George knows that bigger pots pre-Flop always give him better pot odds on the Turn and River. He knows also that when holding gapped connectors, inside Straight draws are more likely than openended draws. Knowing George, I asked her, don’t you think that he raised pre-Flop in part because he suspected he might need big pot odds on the later streets. LindaMae didn’t answer, which I took to mean,”Yes, he made a great play raising with those rags.”

by Steve Rosenbloom 

First published in Norwalk Advocate

Poker Strategy By Lou Krieger

First published in Poker Magazine

Sitting back in the comfort of your living room and analyzing poker hands is much easier than accomplishing the same task in the heat of battle.  When you’re analyzing a hand after the fact, you’ve got all the time in the world to cogitate on your dilemma and you’re under no pressure at all to make a decision right now.  But in a game, decisions have to be made promptly.  Take too long choosing a course of action in a tournament and an adversary is liable to ask the dealer to put the clock on you. Not only is this likely to result in rushing your own thought process at the very instant your mind is begging you to slow things down and ask for another minute or so, but an opponent’s request to clock you is very likely to get you thinking about a ticking time clock rather than the hand you’re trying to analyze patiently.  And that’s a double whammy.  It can put you on tilt and freeze up your analytical abilities in the process.