The toughest thing in poker is  to have when you are short stacked is discipline. If you have been card dead and find yourself on the brink of elimination, you know you have to make a move, the question is when. A lot of players will look for any pocket pair and shove, but you have to be a bit more selective than that. Avoiding certain hands and certain situations is the key to giving yourself the best shot of making it through your all in hand.

When you are on full table with a lot of big stacks around you, you must avoid pushing with a small pocket pair. First off, there is a very good chance that someone else will have your 66 covered with a higher pocket pair in later position. The other thing you are probably going to be looking at is multiple callers. The more people call, the more odds the next person is getting to throw in their chips. Everyone likes to be in on a big pot, so you are just asking for trouble here.

The only time you should really consider shoving with a baby pocket pair is when you are in the cutoff or button position. You only have to get through 2 or three players at that point and it is worth the risk. If you have to try and beat anymore than that, you are giving yourself a very slim chance of survival.

The other reason that you do not want to push with this type of hand is because the possibilities of losing is endless. You are going in with baby cards and you are in danger as just about anyone calling you is not only going to have two live cards, but you are also in risk when the board pairs as you can get counterfeited. If we had a buck every time a small stack got booted out of a tournament because of this we would be rich.

Another hand that is deadly to go in with is A-rag. Again, you are in fear of the big stacks here and anyone with chips and an A is going to make this call. You are also going to get called with just about any pocket pair as well. If you go into the flop with only one live card, the rail is more than likely your next destination. No, you are much better off shoving with a hand like QJ than you are A2. You probably have two live cards there and are also opening yourself up to a straight draw.

The one thing that you have to remember when you are short stacked and shoving for your life is that even if you are behind going in, you want to have live drawing cards that can get you back ahead in the hand. A rag and small pocket pairs are just not worth the trouble. Take a second to think about what you can hit before you shove those chips in there.

You are sitting in the middle of the deal and you look down at AJ and you think you have a monster. You need to think again before you throw those chips into the middle of the poker table. You are sitting on a hand that has you set up for nothing but heartache. When you are sitting on AJ in middle position, let it go.

One of the biggest mistakes a lot of beginner players make is flat calling an early raise with AJ. The only time you really should do this in this spot is if you are suited. If you don’t hit your flush or are on a flush draw, you are in pretty bad shape even if the A hits. Now you are in a position where you may raise or call the hand down and still end up with a loser.

You are really going to have to know your table mates and be very careful if you are in after a raise. You have to look at the position because it dictates what kind of hands people are going to raise with. You have to know the player to decide if they are capable of playing any two cards or they are playing ABC poker. If they are a steady player and fire at the flop and turn, you are looking at a loser.

You are in an even worse scenario when the high card on the board is a J. You are pretty much obligated to play out the hand and once again, you could be starting down the barrel of a shotgun. Again, you are facing an early raise and other than the AK that may have made the raise, but you very well may be looking at AA, KK or QQ.

When you are in this spot and either raise or bet after a check, the move from the other player is going to be come back over the top of you. Now you are faced with a decision for your chips and you have to decide if you are going to put your faith in nothing more than JJ.

One thing a lot of players fail to register at this very moment is that they were coming in against a raise and then you were check raised. Before making a knee jerk bet, consider what just happened. You made a bet that basically told the other player that you had hit our jack. They have to figure you for AJ or KJs in your hand from the position that you made the original call from. They know what you have, it is a matter of you realizing what they have.

If they make a strong move over top of you, you can be all but assured that their original raise was with an over pair and they are playing against your emotions that you will automatically push back on their bet. It is the perfect trap and the only way that you can avoid it is by NOT playing AJ in the first place.

Playing more than one table at a time is something that a lot of beginning players may find intimidating, but it is something that you are going to have to do if you want to be a successful online poker player. If you keep popping from table to table, you are hurting your chances more than helping them. A lot of this also comes down to bankroll management and actually playing at tables that your bankroll can handle.

To get started, let’s assume that you are starting out with $100 in your account. If I asked a group of beginning players what level they would all play with this amount of money, most of them would probably say the $.50/$1.00 No Limit or the $1/$2 Limit tables. This is where the problem lies. Realistically, you should never be buying into a table with more than 5% of your total bankroll and to be playing at those levels, you are committing at least 50% of your bankroll to one table.

It may be a little painful to hear, but you really should be playing at the $.05/$.10 level with this kind of a bankroll. At this level, you are not only protecting your bankroll from being lost in one bad session, you are also able to multi-table and give yourself a realistic shot of making a profit in online poker.

With so many tables going and so many different players, the chances of you being able to pick one table out of all the ones that are available and win at it are slim to none. However, if you are playing on at least 4 tables at the same time, you can counter the variance and actually make a profit. If you don’t believe it, give it a try at the very lowest levels until you can get used to playing on multiple tables at the same time. Start with two tables, then keep adding one until you can do anywhere from 4-6 tables at the same time.

In addition to offsetting the variance, you are also more likely to play steady poker instead of trying to get cute. You learn to play the numbers and stop trying to make the moves that you see on television that just never seem to work for you. You may not make a huge profit at each session, but you will at least be making a profit instead of flushing your roll down the drain by playing at a limit you should not be at and putting it all on the line on one table.

Give it a try and see if it works. You are going to be pleasantly surprised at the results and can gradually work your way up in limits as both your bankroll and ability to play multiple tables improves. Remember, ABC poker goes a long way when you have 6 tables rocking at the same time.

Getting to any final table is a great accomplishment in poker. When you get down to the final three or four, the play can get difficult and the swing from first to third is still pretty dramatic. Regardless of the chip lead that you have, there are times that you have to start thinking about doing a chop and taking the safe way out to ensure that you don’t lose too much money with one mistake.

One situation where you may want to start to discuss a chop with the table is when you know you are overmatched. Let’s face it, some people just don’t have what it takes when it gets down to this amount of  poker players to make the moves that are necessary to take down the tournament. When you look around the table, even if you have the chip lead, and see that each of these players have been outplaying you all night long it is time to start talking.

As the chip leader, you are actually in the strongest position to discuss a chop. For those that are short stacked, the added income will usually be welcome and you are locking up a second place finish for the most part. In most cases, you will want to recommend a weighted chop that will allow you to get more money from the prize pool since you have the most chips. Make it reasonable and you will often find that the rest of the table will be receptive regardless of how good they are.

Another situation to consider chopping is when the blinds have started to dominate the stacks. You never want to be in a position where you are forced to be all in or close to it when the blinds start coming around. If the stacks are even, everyone else is probably thinking the same thing. Take the prize pool and divide it up evenly by the remaining player and let everyone walk with second place money. The swing is too great from first to third to take the chance that you will look down at 72 when the blinds hit your stack.

Some people will consider the thought of even thinking about chopping to be a sign of weakness. However, they have probably never walked away from a tournament after having a chip lead with a bad beat that sent them out in third place. If you have that happen once, your opinion of a chop changes.

Something else to consider if the table seems a little reluctant, but the chip counts are fairly even is to divide up the chips and leave a little extra for the winner. For instance, there are four people left and the prize pool has $11,000 in it. Everyone is even, but people still want that big payday. You can suggest to chop the pot to a four way split of $2,500 with an additional $1,000 going to the overall winner. Everyone agrees, play will loosen up because that fear of getting knocked out with the bottom pay is now gone. The winner still walks away with more money than everyone else and everyone is a winner. Sometimes chopping is not such a bad idea.

Folding hand after hand on a full table can get to a lot of players. The sheer boredom of waiting for cards to come can be a bit much for people and this is where the sloppy play starts to make its way into you game. If you want to see more action and be able to loosen up your play without paying so much of a penalty, you should try 6 man tables.

Shorthanded play is something that not many people are very good at. The reason for this is that when you are playing in a live casino, you are generally at a full table the entire time. Online poker offers you another option that cannot find in a brick and mortar casino and that is the shorthanded table.

When you are playing shorthanded, you have to be able to open up your play if you are going to be successful. AA, KK and AK are no longer needed to fire in a raise under the gun. With only 5 other players in the game and 2 of them on blinds, you now only have 3 other players to get buy before you can steal those blinds. In shorthanded play, AJs, A10s and middle pocket pairs become much more powerful in early position. These are hands that you are supposed to fold on a full table, now you are going to raise with them.

Having less people on a table also means that fewer people stand a chance to hit the flop. You will often see people make some incredible calls on short tables. The infamous, “how can you call with that kicker?” is a pretty popular rant from someone who is banging away at the pot with his KK and then he sees a A2 get flipped over and loses it.

If you are on a full table, calling down a raiser with middle pair is probably not an option. When you are playing short, you may actually want to make a move on the pot at this time unless the flop shows an A or a K. If you are sitting on 78s to flop of 10-7-3, you may very well be good if you are heads up. Can you even think of making this play on a full table?

Shorthanded play takes a lot of practice, but when you become proficient at it, you can add tons of cash to your bankroll. It will help you play better during those late night hours at the casino when people start heading out and it will also help you do better in tournaments when the field gets narrowed down and tables are constantly playing short. Loosen up your game and don’t be afraid to mix it up and watch the cash start to pile up.

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!

Suited connectors are a hand that comes under much scrutiny in the poker world, but it often from those that do not understand the value of how to play the hand. These are cards that can be played from virtually any position at anytime and can bring a huge bounty. You will often hear the player that loses to them scream that they could not believe the winner went in with those two cards. Blah, blah, blah! If you know how to use them, they are serious weapons.

The first reason suited connectors are so valuable is that they have a ton of flexibility. Right off the bat, you can make a flush or a straight with them. Furthermore, if you do make a straight by using both of them, it is often the nuts and a windfall of cash will come your way.

To be honest, the only time you are going to fold these cards is when there is a monster raise right in front of you. You will have no idea who is going to call behind you and therefore the odds may not be there to make the call. However, if there was a big raise and you are in late position and there are two or more callers already, get those chips in and here is why.

When someone raises out in early position, there are usually 2 scenarios. The first is that they have a pocket pair and are trying to whittle down the field or they have big cards like AK or AQ and want to eliminate the chasers. When there are multiple callers, they are more than likely also holding similar cards. The more people that call, the better your chances of hitting are as the bulk of the big cards should be in your opponent’s hands. You are sitting there with two live cards and endless possibilities, especially if you are holding onto a hand like 67, 78 or 89.

These cards are also great to have when you have a bunch of limpers in the pot ahead of you. You can make an aggressive raise and hope to either steal the pot right there or hit it on a continuation bet after the flop. You are pretty much committed to betting again unless the board comes out that you have no shot of improving on. You are also going to know where you stand if anyone calls you.

Now the beauty of these cards is that after the flop, you can get away from them relatively easy if you don’t hit, especially if you only called going in. You get out painlessly and wait for the next hand. However, when you hit, that over pair or AK/AQ will often have a hard time letting their hand go. AA and KK get tunnel vision and don’t even realize there is a low straight on board. After all, you could not have possibly called their 4x raise with 67! The next thing you know, you are scooping the pot and they are letting out a barrage that warrants and exorcism.

Do yourself a favor and start playing those suited connectors. Keep track of the results and you will find that you make more money with them than just about every other hand you are dealt.

We have gone over how to play this very tricky hand in the two most dangerous positions, early and middle, and now it is time to go over how to play them from the catbird seat. Regardless of their size, small pocket pairs in late position can be very effective if you vary your play and take advantage of weak players at the table.

Late Position

When you are in the cutoff or button position and you look down at two matching cards, you have a huge advantage. Unlike early position, you don’t stand to throw money in the put on a lot of occasions and have someone else come right over you. If they do, it is probably because they were slow playing a big pocket pair and were waiting for someone else to make a raise. In most cases, it will be a sizeable raise and tossing your hand to the muck is a no brainer.

However, that is usually the exception to the poker rule and if player are only showing moderate strength in front of you or limping in, you can steal a ton of pots by playing this hand properly. Once again, let’s assume that we are looking down at 99, except this time we are sitting on the button.

First scenario has everyone folding to you. You have only the blinds to beat and if you are playing aggressively all day, this move may get you a hit back from the BB. If not, unless he is sitting on a hand, he will more than likely fold. Made it a big enough raise that he has to really think about protecting his blind. Usually a 4 or 5x blind will get it. However, if you have been stealing, expect him to fight back and possibly come back over the top. In most cases, you can come right back at him and take down the hand. This is where your knowledge of the players comes in and will dictate to raise or fold. Just calling is not an option here.

The next scenario is when you have several limpers and the betting gets back to you. I am a strong believer in that if you are playing any cards other than small suited connectors, this situation warrants a decent raise. This way, the blinds are not getting odds to call and if it gets back around to the limpers, they are going to have to think twice about throwing more money in with their KJo. A big raise here is a cause for concern and calling will be dictated by odds. You are not really worried about callers, be more worried about how that board comes out.

If you get a board that is stacked with over cards and you have multiple callers, you are dead in the water. Your best bet is to hope it gets checked to you and then possibly hit the turn. Throwing a bet to three over cards is asking for trouble and a loss. Now if the board only shows one over and you have limited callers, meaning two or less, you can put out a continuation bet of at least half the pot to see where you stand. You may be able to take it down right there. If you get a caller and there is no draw, be very careful on the turn as you may have someone who hit with a weak kicker. This is a dangerous spot to be in. All under cards is a no brainer pot sized or better wager.

Best case scenario is that the board hits and the set hits the board. You are going to be in great shape to make a huge hit here, especially if you have multiple callers. With an aggressive raise, the table will probably check around to you. Even if they don’t, your philosophy on betting is going to be the same. Your bet should be about ¾ of the pot. It is slightly more than a normal continuation bet and just enough that if you manage to get one caller, you may just get others to follow.

The dream situation is that there is one over card and someone has managed to hit it. You see a board of 29J and after you make your bet, your doomed opponent that is looking down at his AJ thinks he is about to crush you and comes right back over the top. Depending upon your stack, you have a couple of options here. If he has a lot of money and you are similarly armed, you may just want to smooth call and let him fire on the turn. This will allow him to think he is the best and then when he makes a bet on the turn, you can push. Odds may dictate that he has to call and you get to felt him and take down a huge hand.

If either you or your opponent is looking at a stack that is right around the pot, the flop bet is the time to get the money in the pot. Say the pot is about $500 and you have $350 left and your opponent is sitting close to that. He fires a $225 bet at the pot, there is no need to waste anymore time here. Push your stack in and he has not choice to call. With there being $1050 in the middle at this point, his last $125 gives him better than 8:1 and he would have to be a moron to let the hand go.

Small pairs in late position are absolute dreams. They have a nice chance to create a big pot, scoop a lot of blinds and allow you to get out cheap when the hand goes bad. You may take a hit every now and again with them, but if you play this way, you will come out way ahead of the game at the end of the year.