Win Poker Strategy

One of the most frustrating things that you can ever be involved in when you are playing poker is to be sitting at a table with a bunch of very tight players. If you normally play this way yourself, you will find that big pots are few and far between and minutes seem like hours as you grind out the day. When you come across this type of table, you have to look at it as a money making opportunity instead of an annoyance and get the play to loosen up.

To do this, you are going to have to change up your game. If you have read anything about poker, you know that you cannot play the same way all the time. In this case, you are going to have to start to force action to get this table going again.

Early on, you will probably find that you are able to pick up a lot of blinds. This will be especially true if you have a tight image yourself. The other players are going to think that you have just caught a run of cards stay out of your way. The only way you are going to get action is if someone actually gets a big hand.

After you have stolen a few pots, it is time to stir up the table a little bit. You need to look at that money as a stake and now you are going to use it to get the action rolling. While you are stealing all of these hands, you can now show one. This is going to get under the skin of some of the players and they will start to wonder how often you have been doing this.

While that one time may not get the table rolling, it will at least put the though in their heads. You of course will do the same thing the very next time that you steal another hand. Play rags and show them. Now you are going to have the bait set and it is time to spring the trap. This is where that small donation comes in.

You are pretty much assured that the next raise that you make is going to put at least one person over the edge. Make it small enough to not risk too much of the profits that you have made. You don’t want all that hard work to go to waste.

The effect of this is going to have more people jumping into hand with cards that they would not normally play. Now while everyone else has suddenly loosened up their game, you go back to playing tight and wait on the hook.

When that big hand comes around, you are going to get paid off. The last impression that everyone has of you is that you are bluffing like a madman. Now you have a hand and you play it the same way that you played those bluffs. You fire and hope someone comes right back over the top of you to get you off of your hand and then you drop the hammer. Do that a couple of times and you can go right back to stealing blinds and limpers as everyone tightens up again.

Bluffing is something that far too many players try far too often. The main reason is that amateur players see these moves on television and don’t realize that it may have taken the player hours to set up that one move on one specific player. The program edits out the hundreds of hands that led up to that point and the ones that were between them and all of a sudden, everyone thinks that bluffing is the way to play.

In order to pull off a legitimate bluff, you should be playing against the same group of people or at the same table for a long enough period of time that you can be all but assured of how they are going to react to your play. For instance, you have a player that is not afraid to play, but has shown over time that unless he has the absolute nuts, he is not willing to play against an aggressive raise that comes over the top of his bet.

What players need to focus on early is getting into pots when they have large hands and when they are in a showdown, time and time again you are showing the best two cards. Once you get into this groove, you are able to bluff early and start stealing some blinds, especially in hands that have a bunch of limpers coming into the pot. You will most likely find that an aggressive continuation bet will lead to a lot of your opponents folding because you have been beating the table.

Now there of course comes the time when you want to show the bluff that you have pulled it off and you are going to want to save this for a big hand. By showing this bluff, you are going to set people on tilt as they now start to wonder how many hands that you have managed to get away with this and how much money they have lost to you with the winning hand.

How you play from that point is going to be a read on the table. Normally, after a huge bluff, the player will tighten back up and start playing ABC poker again as he knows that everyone on the table will probably call him down to make sure he isn’t bluffing again. However, if you can manage to catch a big hand that goes to showdown soon after your big bluff, you are in a dream situation as you are going to have the entire table on tilt trying to figure out what you are doing.

This is when you can really start to make money. Take down one or two hands and then it is time to throw another bluff out there and show it again. More than likely, you are going to have to tighten up at that point, but when you have a hand, you are going to get paid off huge. You can let the table settle a little bit and then start the whole cycle all over again. This mixes up your play and allows you to run the table. Everyone is scrambling to figure out your play. Just stay one step ahead of them and continue to get paid off. Remember to show that bluff after a long string of dominant hands and you will continue to have them shaking their heads and donating money to your stack.

The new school of poker teaches that aggression will always pay off. What a lot of the current younger players don’t understand is that there is a phrase that is missing from that teaching and that is ‘well timed’. When you constantly play the same way, all you do is allow yourself to get set up and eventually get all of your money in during a horrible situation.

We have all been at the table where we have an aggressive opponent who raises on every hand and tries to steal the blinds each and every time they come around his way. He continues to pick up pots because everyone knows that the moment they get into the hand with him, they are going to have their entire stack at risk. This is not a bad thing if you know how to handle him. Turn his aggressive nature against him and force him to make a stand when you know you have the best hand.

If you are suffering from him stealing your blinds every time around the ring, you are contributing to his image. He cannot possibly be getting a winnable hand every time around. As the BB, you know what is coming and you are going to have to take a stand on occasion to get him to back off and prevent you from seeing hands when you are on the blinds. To do this, wait on a decent hand, and then push back. Make sure it is a hand that you can come right back over top of him on a big re-raise because you can be assured that the first couple of times he is going to come right back at your to test your salt. When you catch him bluffing a couple of times, he will learn to back off of your blinds.

The next situation is when you are already in the pot and he is coming back around with a continuation raise. If you have constantly folded to his raises, you are showing yourself as a weak player. This is the image you want as you try to pull off one move that is going to move his entire stack over to your side of the table. When you get the flop that gives you the monster, he is ready to go down.

Assume that you have flopped a set, straight or flush against this super-aggressive player. You are out of position and can let it go to him because you know he throws out a continuation bet each and every time that he has raised. If you have constantly folded to him, he knows that you are more than likely going to fold as soon as he fires again. Let him make his bet and then instead of pushing in your stack and giving up your hand, you will merely put in a minimal raise.

This move is the equivalent of the playground push. He pushed you and you have finally had enough and pushed back. The problem for him is that he thinks he is the bigger bully here and will generally give you one more push. This is exactly what we want to happen as when he comes right back over the top of your weak raise, you put every chip you have in the middle of the table. Whether he calls or not, you are making a monster profit on the hand. The other thing that gets accomplished here, especially if he is a younger player who thinks that he knows it all, is that you have shaken his confidence.

You have a player that has not been outplaying people, he has just been running them over. In his eyes, he has been as good as Doyle Brunson and now someone has gotten the best of him. With any luck, the move will upset him and have him out for revenge. This is when you can start to print money as he will be going in with anything in an effort to get his money back. Tilt is a beautiful thing when you are on the other end of it. Set him up and then take him down. You may look weak all night, but that doesn’t matter if you are the one walking away with the chips at the end of the session.

Re-buy tournaments can be a lot of fun, but they can also kill your bankroll of you are not careful. Many poker players get excited about the guarantees and then figure that it is only $x and it’s no big deal as long as they don’t re-buy and add on. The problem is, unless you get very lucky very early you are dooming yourself to failure by playing at a limit that you cannot afford to re-buy at.

The first hour of a re-buy tournament is far from a normal tournament. While you may think you can play conservatively and get away with not re-buying, you are going to be put to a decision time and time again by more aggressive players with huge bankrolls. When you have a $200 bankroll, you cannot play in a $10 re-buy and expect to do well.

You see, the problem is that the people with the large bankrolls have a tendency to treat this as a 5 or 6 buy in event. So in order to be effective, you need to buy into tournaments that you can do the same thing with. Playing $1 and $2 buys ins would be more to your liking.

In most cases, the first hour of play is all about getting your chips in with the best hand and hoping they hold up. Whether you like it or not, you are more than likely going to have someone at your table that is willing to throw their money into the pot every time they play a hand. This is far from a recommendation that you should play that way, you just need to realize that every time you put chips into the middle of the table, you just may have someone come over the top and put you on a decision.

The question is how do you play against this? First and foremost, don’t ever buy into a re-buy tournament unless you can take advantage of the first re-buy right off the bat. You start the tournament with double the chips and if you do manage to double up, you are well on your way to a monster stack.

You also need to plan on purchasing a double add on at the break. Anyone who plans on winning this will be doing an add on and you will fall 4,000 chips behind everyone else in the tourney if you don’t use it. Plan on it! Finally, expect to have to re-buy at least once before the break. That is a total of 6 re-buys that you should plan on paying for.

Now you can start to see how only having enough money for the buy in is a problem. A $10 re-buy should be treated more like a $60 buy in. No while you can play in a $6 tournament with a $200 bankroll, you have no right getting into a $60 tournament. You are going to be playing scared the whole time and we all know that scared money never wins.

In regards to your actual play, keep it the same way you would play normally, just expect to have some extra chips in the pot and definitely expect people to be all in on draws. Since they can re-buy, they are going to have no fear about tossing those chips in there. If you are willing to take a little risk, you can take advantage of this and use it to build a stack. If you get a little unlucky, you can either drop out or buy back in and take another shot.

Remember, when you are playing in a re-buy, expect to pay at least 4 times the buy in overall and preferably 6. Expect to be put on a decision for all of your chips at any time and when you see a draw, if you plan on buying back in if you lose your stack, exploit the situation to get the other player on the draw to put all of their chips in the middle. When your cards hold, you will find that you go into the break with a huge stack. When everyone comes back and play gets back to normal, you will be at a huge advantage and ready to make your run for the final table!

While most players look at this as a perfect slow play opportunity, the board and amount of players left is going to dictate exactly how you proceed when you flop a set. Now before we go any further, you need to realize the difference between a set and trips and yes there is one. Trips is when there are two cards matching one of your cards on the board. If you have a set, the board has a card that matches the pocket pair you are holding. You would be surprised at how many people confuse the two and what the different betting strategies are for both of these hands.

The first thing that you need to look at is the board. Is there a flush draw or straight draw on the board? Is the board loaded with over cards that you may have t deal with? The second issue is how many players are left? Are you head to head or are you dealing with 2 or players? All of these factors combines are going to dictate exactly how you play out your set.

Let’s assume you are holding 77 and the board hits 7KQ rainbow. You are looking at 2 over cards and a possible straight. This is a dangerous hand in poker and regardless of where you are and how many people are in the pot, you are going to hammer away. If you are first, lead out with a pot sized bet and try and get isolation with someone. If they come back over top of you, come right back at them. If they are sitting on their own set, it is just bad luck and you are going to have to deal with it, but you are not getting away from this hand.

Now if you have the same flop but 2 cards are suited, you need to take away the odds of the flush draw and actually want to bet more than the pot. It is important that you observed where the action originated if there was any pre-flop raising. I say this because you are going to assume that person is going to call you and you need to make a bet that is going to be enough to take the flush draw that is out there behind that player. Put them on a decision for all their chips if you have to, but do not allow a draw to get in cheap and take this pot away from you.

While both of these scenario’s have you at risk, the ideal situation would be a flop like 2-7-Q. There is not straight draw and no flush draw here and you would only have one over set to deal with and that is unlikely. If there are multiple players in the hand, you will either lead out if you are first to act or raise your opponents bet to get isolation. Bad things happen when you go into a turn with more than one person and you want to avoid that.

If you are head to head, you are in the perfect check raise position if they made an original raise. You can even get away with a smooth call if you in position as you can lure them to bet on the turn and then come over the top at this point. Once you have them head to head, you want to milk every penny that you can out of them. This is the ONLY time that you can risk slow playing your hand.

Remember, the board and players are going to dictate how you play out your hand. Do not get caught up in all the glory and excitement of hitting your set or get greedy. There is never a bad time to take down a pot. Slow play too much and you are just asking to get beat.