Texas Hold ‘Em Poker Tournament

May 30, 2009

Sit and Go Poker Strategy – Getting It All In Ahead

Filed under: General — Tags: , — Marty @ 12:34 pm

Sit and Go Poker Strategy – Getting It All In Ahead
By Marty Smith 

The phrase “getting it all in ahead” has been used by many pros in their articles and comments which are meant to be used as valuable lessons to players learning the game or building their bankroll. However, getting it all in ahead is used far too often as a strategy in tournaments when given certain circumstances, it actually should be avoided.

Let’s clarify the phrase first. If you put all chips in the pot pre-flop with AA and your opponent calls you holding QQ, well you for sure got it all in ahead. In fact that’s about the best scenario you can hope for as you are better than a 4:1 favorite, and hey I am all up for plays like that.

Similar situations would be your pocket JJ versus a caller with 99. With a pair over pair your hand will do much better than say your AA showing up against suited connectors. But at 4:1 your +ev is so impressive that you should take that risk even during early stage, low blind levels of a sit and go tournament.

Now how about if you had pocket JJ and your opponent had the AcQc and you both went all in pre-flop? Sure you are likely to be ahead and you guessed right but your JJ is only a marginal favorite against AQs. It will win approximately 54% of the time. You got it all in ahead all right, but is it worth it?

Well in a cash game scenario if you did this all the days long, you will come out ahead, but not without some trials to your psyche. In a spot like this, playing sit and go poker tournaments with either hand, I want to see a flop and make sure it’s a flop that either helps my hand, or doesn’t help my opponent’s hand.

Because both are quality hands there is good reason to invest in them pre-flop, but not your whole stack!

In fact, your first concern should be to preserve your stack in early in the early going when blinds are low. Part of the reason for this is that low-entry, online tournament players often over play their hands enough that they create huge pots with marginal situations and although they may be right, there are usually victims in these hands too! But a fair amount of low limit players don’t really care about this either, they just want to play bravado style and show you they were right, even if they get sucked out on. Speaking of suck-outs, in the low limits going in ahead full charge, you better learn to deal with suck-outs in a big way.

The other major point about going all in early is that you often lose the chance to make the money later in that same tournament because you were willing to let it ride. If you really want to play like that, go play in the micro limits or free games because that’s where you can really push marginal edges and not really bother with the outcome. Suffice to say, while building your bankroll pushing 55/45 hands is not going to build your bankroll online.

Marty Smith is webmaster and player that has been playing poker for nearly 3 years now using money won from opponents. He teaches the basics of sit and go poker with a free videos series. He also rates and reviews all the online poker calculator software allowing you to see a product in use before you buy it.

May 26, 2009

How To Play A Small Stack In Online Poker Tournaments

Filed under: General, Mark R Holland — Tags: , , — MarksEzineArticles @ 2:23 am

How To Play A Small Stack In Online Poker Tournaments
By Mark R. Holland 

Something that every poker player will encounter at some point in their career is dealing with a short chip stack in the later stages of a tournament. There are many ways in which you can find yourself in this situation. These include losing a big pot, suffering a bad-beat or simply having no playable hands while the blinds catch up with you.

This article looks at some of the important factors involved in playing situations where you are the small stack. Correct play – along with a ‘never give up’ attitude – can get you quickly back into contention for a major prize!

With less than 10 times the big blind the number of ‘moves’ you are able to make is extremely limited. In fact your decisions will be made before the flop.

With a short stack you are not able to raise and then fold. This is because the ‘pot-odds’ that you are offered to call any subsequent raise are too good. Any hand that you legitimately raised with becomes an easy calling hand if you are re-raised. For this reason any hand that you play and do not wish to ’show down’ should be played with an all-in open raise. This will maximize your chances of winning those important blinds and antes while you are waiting for a premium hand.

Considering when and whether to try and steal the blinds with a short stack involves two important factors. Firstly, your ‘position’ at the table. If the majority of your opponents have already folded then you have an opportunity to steal. However, when you are one of the first players to act there are many potential hands which are strong enough to call behind you – caution is thus advised.

Secondly, the chip stacks of the players yet to act is an important consideration. Large stacks may call with weak hands because they can afford to lose the chips. Smaller stacks may call because they are ‘desperate’. The ideal opponents are those with medium stacks, here losing a hand against you would damage their chances in the tournament. They thus need a very strong hand in order to call.

To summarize, short-stacked poker tournament play is all about pre-flop decision making. Steal blinds from opponents with medium stacks when in late position at the table. Since you would be committed to call any re-raise it makes sense to get the maximum leverage for your remaining chips by moving all-in where possible.

Mark R Holland is an online pro specialising in poker tournaments. For 100’s of quality articles focused on SNGs, MTTs and Satellites visit Online Poker Tournaments today!

May 25, 2009

Art Of The Resteal Part 3

Filed under: General — Tags: — MikeTheMavrick @ 6:16 pm

Just as when making a steal after limpers, you can also make a resteal after a raise and a call or two.  This is known as the “squeeze play” look it up, maybe even check out Dan Harrington’s squeeze play at the final table. This is a move that works best with a very tight image. And just as you might on rare occasion make a large raise, you can make a large reraise up to 4 times the size of the pot. Just make sure that you resteal doesn’t get to force you to commit too much of your chips.  You might make the 4 times pot raise early when you have maybe 150 big blinds but after you know your opponents pretty well.  You would see someone raise to 3 big blinds, and with 4.5 in the pot you would raise to as much as 18. I generally wouldn’t do this unless there are a couple limpers before, or unless someone else calls.

Lets say you’re in the big blind and the button has raised, and the small blind has called.  There’s 7 in the pot. I think a raise of 28 here would be too big, unless you had 200 big blinds.  However, you might still make a similar raise to 21 big blinds. This is still really large and can do a lot of damage, but it’s not so large that a reraise will put you in an extremely difficult situation. Your opponents however, cannot reraise without committing to the hand and being willing to move all in. Of course, the same can be said about a bet that is maybe 16 times the big blind, and you really don’t need to make the bet so big. Really 6-8% of your stack, or the average stack involved is usually going to be the best.  There are situations where you might have around 4 times the pot in your stack and just move in.  If it goes raise call call, and there is now 10.5 in the pot, and you have about 40 big blinds, you might think about moving all in here, IF you should choose to play. Calling is fine here, but if you get desperate or more appropriately before you get desperate, you might want to make a bolder move than usual. With a move like this, your hand needs to still stand up well if you are called since that is a pretty possible result, but if it is too good of hand, your probably can extract more value by raising.  So 77-AA I would move in heere, AK I would move in. AQ I would only move in if I might get called by AJ or AT which usually isn’t going to happen against good players. I like hands like J7-J9 since if I get called with tens I want an overcard, and if I get called with AK or AQ I want live cards, but T9, T8, T7, etc are more likely to be live, but if I am up against tens I am in trouble. suited cards help slightly, but usually the suited cards worth pushing with are too good to not see a flop with in multiway action that could easily escalate to a big multiway all in especially when I still have 40 big blinds in front f me. This isn’t a play you usually want to do, but you can make this with an absolute garbage hand if you are committing about half of your stack and you are either near the bubble or near or at the final table.  The logic is,  if you make a move with a horrendous hand and you get moved in on, you can fold, and just fold your way up into the money and up a spot or two, and with a horrendous hand, folding to a big move in actually isn’t a mistake dispite your odds since it represents such a strong hand.

Now with 1 raise and 1 call it’s a little different if I only have 25 big blinds. I still have enough for my opponents to fold, and I’m not exactly getting great implied odds to call with a suited connector, or a suited ace rag, or a suited king rag, or even hands like 78, 98, T7 j8, q9, KT, and I can’t wait forever. My opponents are going to be more likely to call me with AJ or AT now since I look more desperate, so now I can push with a hand that would have been on the edge before, like maybe AQ.

The situation might look essentially the same, but it’s not.

I don’t like making the squeeze play very often, and it doesn’t really work with me that often. I find it is much better to just wait for a hand, but I definately won’t rule out the possibility of making this move if the situation is right.

(dan harrington on hold em volume 2 says (quote it).

Then explain it.

May 20, 2009

Art Of The Resteal Part 2

Filed under: General — Tags: , — MikeTheMavrick @ 6:47 pm

So if your opponents were raising the way outlined in game theory, what should your response be to make sure you have the better hand?  You should reraise with HALF of the hands that your opponents would raise with since to be better than your opponent’s range, you need to be in his upper 50% of raising hands.

If you played a game with only AK AQ AJ AT and someone moved in with all of them, you would need at least AQ to be able to call if you want to expect to win more than you lost.

So take the raising percentage of your opponent in his situation, and cut it in half.

So if your opponent raises under the gun, respect the fact that he assumes he has the best hand, and just assume he isn’t out of control until you notice tendencies that you can take advantage of. If there’s 10 players at the table even if you are on the big blind and everyone folds, or if you are directly to his left, you are to only reraise with the top 5% of hands, or better. If he raises after 5 people have folded and there are 5 left including himself, you need to reraise half of 1/5 or 1/10 the top 10% of hands or better.

There will be situations where you might reraise with worse hands to try to steal, just as you would deviate from the raise stratey and raise with suboptimal hands.  But for now this is the fundimental idea we will use as our core strategy, and the corresponding chart

Here is the chart:

10:99+,AJs+,AK,KQs
9:88+,ATs+,AK,KQs
8:88+,ATs+,AQ+,KQs
7:88+,ATs+,AQ+,KTs+
6:77+,ATs+,AJ+,KTs
5:77+,A9s,AJ+,KQ+,QTs+,KTs+
4:66+,A9s,AT+,KJ+,JTs+,QTs+,KTs+
3:55+,A5s+,AT+,KT+,QJ+,JTs+,Q9s+,K9s+
2:44+,A2s+,A7+,K9+,QT+,JT+, T8s+, J8s+, Q8s+, K6s+,

-

In addition, you need to realize that you will be in situations where raising will not work effectively, and instead you want to reraise. But no one else has raised.  In this case, if you are the first one in, and you have a hand worth raising, you may limp in, and then if you are raised, you will limp raise with your reraise hand percentage.

So if you are playing at a table with 10 players and were the first to act and you limp with the top 10% of hands, and you are raised by the person in the big blind after everyone else folded, you would reraise according to the situations where you would reraise with 10 players, or with the top 5% of hands. So you would limp in with the top 10% of hands, and limp fold if raised with the 5-10 percentile, but limp raise if you have the top 5% of hands.

Technically you could play even tighter than this depending on how large the raise is and how much you’ll make up for with a limp raise, but you could probably limp raise with the same ratio as the rereraise to raise ratio. Personally, I limp in slightly more when I am unable to effcetively raise without risking being pushed in for a reasonable amount, but I prefer to use this strategy so I am able to occasionally limp with drawing hands in early position, representing that I have a raising hand knowing that I am less likely to get raised.

But if you add this range of hands to your reraise strategy, when the chips are right, and use where appropriate, you will find yourself being able to effectively advance in tournaments as you accumulate chips without being forced in dicey potential all in situations.

Lets say you have AJ under the gun at a ten handed table, with  16 big blinds.  The chart says raise and fold to a reraise, but you know that when you have a rereraising hand, the best you can do is call.  You would rather be on the offense most of the time.  So instead you limp in.  Then you can play the flop, but you are reraised so you fold.  Later with 14 big blinds you pick up pocket JJ under the gun. You know you are going to need more chips than just raising and taking down the blinds, and you don’t want to get moved in on so again you limp. This time, someone in late position noticed you limp folded lasst time, so he raises to 4 big blinds after another player limped.  You move all in and everyone folds, and now you’re back up above 20 big blinds, and now you can throw in your minraises, and 2.5x BB raises as you try to  accumulate more chips before the blinds go up, so you can avoid calling off an all in.

Use the reraise with this range of hands, and the limp raise with this range, or perhaps an even tighter range of hands on the limp raise, and you will find yourself picking up a lot of chips on your way towards a successful tournament.

May 16, 2009

Mixing Up the TAG – Poker Tournament Strategy

Filed under: General, Marty Smith — Tags: , — Marty @ 11:11 am

Mixing Up the TAG – Poker Tournament Strategy
By Marty Smith 

It’s no secret that in the lower levels in online poker your key to success is tight aggressive, especially in the early stages of a poker tournament. Most opponents simply just play themselves out of the tournament way too early by bluffing too much, playing too many hands, and playing too many big pots with marginal situations.

If poker is based on deception, then it goes to reason that the deception has more value when applied successfully in higher levels. I have truly found the couple were leveled you play online poker deception does not carry the kind of value it does when there are bigger stakes involved. Now that’s not to say deception does not have value in the lower levels because if you are playing a tournament you will even find that in two dollar and five dollar buy-in tournaments for example, there are good players. You will have more and more of them at your table as the tournament progresses, because they are employing virtually the same strategy as you are: TAG.

So at some point when you are playing higher levels, or advance deeper into a tournament, deception is an essential requirement of successful poker. However for natural TAG players, it isn’t so easy to come out of your shell and change up your game enough to take advantage of chip up opportunities.

This is where mixing up the tag comes into play, and I have a simple way to inject a little variety in your game, while masking your true identity from your opponents. Let’s face it your opponents are probably tracking your statistics anyhow, and they know you are TAG. So it might be worth a few chips here and there to get involved and, or play some small pots where you are leading the betting with unconventional hole cards. Now I’m not saying you should start playing like a maniac. No, you are still a TAG and that will still get you in the money frequently enough to be profitable. But what you need to do is throw a surprise and in there once in a while, in order to throw your opponents off your trail. And it needn’t cost you a lot.

I do it by selecting a favorite hand, but one with a little chemistry. It could be something like 10-8, J9, 79, etc., and if these hands are suited that would be even better. But just pick one of them and at the beginning of the tournament and decide whenever you get that hand you will play it. Now you don’t have to play it like pocket aces, but maybe more along the lines of AT suited – a medium strength hand that you can get away from if you need to. You don’t even have to be determined to show the hand, but if you win a pot with one of these hands eventually someone is going to take note, and not only that it is going to skew your stats such as VP$IP and pre-flop raising to the point where anyone running software on your strategy is going to have a skewed set of numbers on you.

This is certainly a worthwhile endeavor, because it may actually help to improve your post flop play and if you do it consistently you may very well win some monster pots holding, what everyone else will be thinking are donkey hole cards. Just don`t let the pots get too large, and above all – know when to fold.

Marty Smith has been a winning player online for more than 3 years now and has video reviews of all the online poker odds calculators so you can see them being used before you decide which one is right for you. He also has a tournament strategy video series that is free just for signing up.

May 15, 2009

art of steal part 8.5 (9)

Filed under: General — MikeTheMavrick @ 4:25 pm

=
Ideally you want to be able to just steal blinds so well preflop that you can just give up after the flop and check it down, without ever having to play a pot or risking an all in. However realistically you won’t have them work that well. BUT, you don’t need your blind steals to win that often, as long as you are able to continue onto the flop and win a small pot.

It’s important to recognize how the table generally responds, finding the exceptions, and of course as we discussed earlier, really understanding the players to your left, whom most of your blind steals will be aimed at attacking.

So continuation bets will generally be a part of your blind steal strategy.

So you bet, your blind steal fails, but your opponent checks to you. You have taken control in the hand, and if you have a tight image, your opponent will not really like to take risk calling you. You want to be less likely to bet when someone likes to checkraise, less likely to bet when someone will be likely to call with marginal hands, and less likely to call with someone who is likely to have a hand (is a tight preflop player). In addition, you also should be less likely to bet when you have a draw and can take a free card, or a marginal hand that may be good, but can’t stand a raise. However, there are exceptions. If you can bet a marginal hand and get slightly better hands to fold, and you will only get raised or called when you are beat, you should make a bet for information.

Generally you are not looking to continue with a large bet, whether you have a hand or not. Generally you might bet on 40-50% of all flops. 33% of the time you will hit a pair. 15% of the time you will hit a draw. You might bet half the time when you hit a pair and check the other half, slightly less than half the time when you hit a draw, and usually less than half the time when you miss. Some people like to ALWAYS continuation bet. That might work well for some people in some situations, for example super tight players at higher stakes tournaments. But I prefer to make more blind steal attempts, and play more hands with smaller bets. As such, a continuation bet cannot be happening every time, or I will become very exploitable. In addition to betting when checked to, I will also probably just call about half the time, or maybe slightly more in each situation as well, except maybe only 25% of the time with nothing. I will be willing to fold a decent percentage of the time, and reraise less often when facing a bet. The reason I will call with nothing is to set up a bluff. I will usually do it when I have multiple back door draws, my opponent tends to bet too much, and my opponent tends to fire one bet then give up when he has nothing. This is a good spot to call for information. When I raise, maybe 15% of my raises are minraises. I make these to see if my opponents really hit a peice of that flop, and to give me the chance to bluff on the turn without risking more than calling the bet. Against the right opponent there is very little difference between an opponent checking and me betting, and me calling to bet.

By calling I risk the bet that I would have made to bluff, but if my opponent is predictable enough, he will check the flop and fold such a high percentage of the time after he checks, that I will not be taking on much more risk. In addition, I get to see another card. If it brings up a draw, and my opponent checks, I can consider it just about the same as if I had bet on the flop and got called, then picked up a draw. In this case I would normally check to try to peel one off on the river. The difference is that since it’s not a failed bluff attempt by me, but potentially one by my opponent, I might bluff a draw just slightly more often, but not much.

If I catch a big draw on the turn however, it’s a great spot to occasionally take the freecard if I think I can get paid off when I hit.

I also think opponents generally bluff too much on the flop, and moves like checking good hands in position, and calling with nothing, will allow you get more value, and/or information.

if you show them weakness by checking, not only do you have a chance to pick up a monster hand, but you also have the opportunity to make them think they can bluff you.

One very interesting concept that works against a lot of opponents is to call when you may not quite have the odds, but there are several cards that will look like you hit a big draw.

Your opponents might even KNOW that you call when you don’t have the odds, but now they’ll still have to respect the scare cards, because they know you like to draweven when you might not have the odds.

So if you have 4s6s on a 7d5s9d board You can represent the flush draw, or a different straight draw, or like you had the straight all along. So your opponent might bet to price out a draw. But you call. Now your opponent might think you could have a set or a bigger overpair than his. Or a straight. Or a JT of diamonds, or AK of diamonds, or a J8 of diamonds, or T8 of diamonds, or 97 for two pair… THere’s a lot of cards you could already have, so your opponent MUST procede cautiously. Now the turn comes a ten of spades. Bingo. Now if your opponent shows weakness you can represent that you had a jack 8, if your opponent checks, or that you had 86 and were slow playing it. You could represent T8 if the jack comes, You could represent any 2 diamonds if a diamond comes. If another spade comes, your opponent might check, concerned that you had 68. When this happens, you’ll want to check and take the free card, because your opponent will never put you on a backdoor draw, and if he’s scared of you hitting back door draws, you can just make bluffs insanely profitable, More than likely if you start to represent these draws, opponents will call and raise you, and when you actually DO hit your draw, whether it’s a long shot draw, or a big draw, your opponents will now be almost forced to pay you off because they know you could potentially bluff. It’s actually MORE likely that the flush card comes to complete an imaginary flush, than it is for you to make a real flush. With a real flush the cards are in your hands, so you have 2 less cards you can hit.

And if an 8 comes, you MAY have the best hand, if a 3 comes you very well could have the best hand If you pick up a flush you will most likely have the best hand.

The art of the blind steals involves the ability to win when your steal attempt fails, but not the necessity. You will work to really just pick up enough pots preflop that you will not have to fight after every small pot, however, if you have the opportunity and it’s profitable and it doesn’t require much risk, go ahead and go after those small pots, and you will find it very easy to continue to pick up chips and avoid danger.

May 11, 2009

The IRC Method Part 3

Filed under: General, IRC Method — Tags: , , — MikeTheMavrick @ 7:07 pm

 

Now that you not only have the fundimental raising and reraising strategy down– but also a way to exploit opponents weaknesses, and play what your opponents don’t have, and can’t call– you will be able to advance without taking on significant risks.  But it’s probably not going to be quite enough and you may need to take on slightly more risks as you advance on through a tournament. More importantly, you need to know your “tools” and understand that they aren’t always available.

It’s one thing to tell you to raise with certain hands, and which of those to rereraise with if you are reraised, it’s another to provide you with a strategy for how to adapt as your chip stack and your opponents chipstacks change with the rising blinds.

You will need to recognize that the reraise and the rereraise won’t always be available.  Sometimes you will raise and your opponents reraise may end up getting you “pot committed” where the odds dictate you must call, even though you cannot be certain that on average you have a better hand than your opponent.

You will want to avoid getting into these situations without a big hand, so you need to pay attention to how many big blinds you have when you make your raises.

You will have to not only adjust your raise sizes, but adjust the hands that you raise with. See “throwing the jabs” for an idea of how this might work.

The idea is this…the entire philosophy of your strategy begins on being able to rereraise if you are raised to make up for what you lose by folding. BUT If you reraise and are pushed all in, they have taken that move away from you. In otherwords, you will be forced to either call all in with only a slight edge, or fold like you normally do and actually lose value in the long run and have no more equity than the strength of your hand vs theirs.  But you cannot call without the right pot odds, and if you do so even if it’s profitable, it still has to be profitable enough to make up for what you lose all of the times you fold in order for it to be an overall profitable situation.  Once you are pushed all in, you may have a hand where calling is profitable, but your opponent can push all in more often, and because you’ll have to give up a lot when you fold and not gain as much when you call, in the long run you will lose if you put yourself into this situation.

Unfortunately this may make you exploitable. Each situation is different, but there’s no point in having a system if it requires more thought then poker itself. There’s enough things to think about, so we’ll simplify things. Remember we are after the best simple winning system, not the perfect system. There is not a perfect formula for poker unless you can put numbers on the intangibles, but doing so still requires the skill of estimating those intangibles. So the IRC Method will be a system that allows skill, and allows you to deviate from a mechanical strategy. It is the magic wand, your you yourself still have to be the magician. It can’t make you a better magician, but it can make your magic more potent.

So how do we combat the all in move once we’ve raised and been pushed all in? Well other than calling we can’t… Which is why we should be making the all in move before they can to prevent us from getting into that situation, or not raising or reraising in the first place.

Where you’ll need to call your opponent if he should move in, due to pot odds, you’re often better off moving all in yourself.  This is true whether you’re raising, reraising, or rereraising. Be careful when making the all in move though not to give your opponent too much slack to wait for a hand.In general a move in should not be more than 5-6 times the bet or about 3-4 times the pot. Ideally you want it to be 3.5-4.5 times the bet on a reraise or rereraise, enough to deny your opponent decent pot odds to call, but not so much that he can easily fold.  Make sure your bet is ALWAYS putting your opponent to a difficult decision, rather than just some of the times. Even if you have a good hand, your goal is to make sure your opponent is in a difficult situation, where he’s not sure whether he should call or fold. Your hand does not matter, because you are trying to avoid being predictable. If you were to minraise only your big hands, and move all in with your worst hands your opponent would be able to adjust. That’s not a bad thing if you know when your opponent is going to adjust and can stay one step ahead of him, but that’s not something that I can easily put into a system.

We will cover hand ranges to push with in situations later, but for now the issue is setting ourselves up so we can push in on our opponent. For now just know that if you will be forced to call an all in, or at least where calling all in seems like it will be the best option with any hand you are going to raise or reraise (or rereraise), you should generally just push all in before you give your opponent the chance to.

If you have 50 big blinds, you know that if you raise 3 big blinds and someone else makes it 9, a rereraise to 27 is essentially the same as moving in besides psychological effects.  But a reraise from 9 big blinds to 50 is larger than you will want.  When you have a big hand, you want your loose opponents having an excuse to call when they think they have odds and when you have the lower range of your reraise hands, you’ll want your tight opponents to fold when they definately have odds. Most of the time you’d rather have your opponents fold so you can accumulate chips in an uncontested pot and live to see another hand without your life at stake… but you don’t want to move in when you have too many chips, because then there’s less value and you may be risking more than you need to even though your chance of success will be good.

Going from 9 big blinds all in to 50, is an ok size, even though ideally you may wish for either there to be more chips in the pot, or less chips at risk in front of you. The real concern is that your opponent only raises like 7 big blinds. Now your all in move is getting too big, but if you reraise to 21, you still are getting pot committed.

So even before you make the raise, to allow yourself to be reraised from 3 to 9 you need to think, “I’m an average stack or below… if I raise and someone reraises, I want my all in to be reasonable when I have an all in hand” It doesn’t matter what hand you have at the moment, if it’s a raise hand you need to treat it the same way, whether it’s a hand you actually will be moving in with or not.

So the solution would be to raise 4 big blinds. Your opponent can certainly move all in for 50 and you don’t mind folding as that’s an over push. If he bets 12 big blinds, your all in bet would be 4 times his bet. IF he elects to bet 16, your all in bet would be just over 3 times his bet.  If he only bets say 9-10 big blinds, like I said, the all in for 50 is still okay, but now you have control over the situation, and it’s very difficult for your opponent to put you in the akward spot by raising small or raising big.

A quick trick in determining if a raise will be too much is to just multiply the times you need to fold by the percentage favorite you will be.  You can’t know this for sure, but you can assume optimal opponents and figure out based on their range of hands, how strong your hand will be. If you have poker stove this can be done quickly, but if not, just a “best guess” is fine.

For example, If you have 50 big blinds, and are raising 4 big blinds, lets say you fold 3 times before you can call. Most likely you’ll be a decent big favorite on the 4th, but you’ll have given up 12 big blinds from folding your 4 big blinds.  On the 4th however, not only will moving in gain the 12 back when you push, but even if your opponent decides to just call you’ll still probably be a favorite. But what if rather than raising 12 big blinds he pushes? you’ll still have to fold the same amount, but now you’ll have to call an all in eventually. If you wait and just call in with a rereraise hand, you’ll give up 12 big blinds. So when you call you need to make back the 12 big blinds. so your 50 big blinds plus your oponents 50 big blinds, plus the small and big blind, plus antes, makes up about 102 big blinds.  From that 102, you need to win back your 50, plus the 12 you lose from folding 3 times a total of 62.  That means you need to be about a 62/102 or about a 61% favorite when you call. If you fold more, you will need to make 50 plus 16 or 66 back out of the 102 in the middle or a 65%.  If you instead call earlier by 1 hand, you will give up 8. 58/102 is 56.8%.

[table to be inserted] # folds=folds before calling

#folds % needed

1  52.9%

2 56.8

3 60.8

4 64.7

5 68.6

6 72.5

7 76.5

8 80.3

We know before the flop you can never expect to be more than 80% favorite, unless your opponent plays a very skewed strategy, such as when your opponent only moves in with any ace and you have aces, so this is as far as we go.

Now compare this to only raising 3 big blinds.

1 52.0%

2 54.9%

3 57.8

4 60.8

5 63.7

6 66.7

7 69.6

8 72.5

9 75.5

10 78.4

Now where you would normally only be able to fold 3 times and on the 4th have to make back 12 big blinds and need to be 61% to gain that back, you can instead raise 3 big blinds, fold 4  times and on the 5th time you need to be 61% since after 4 hands you will have only given up 12 big blinds. This shows why against “all in or fold” opponents, the propper adjustment to exploit your opponent is almost always to raise smaller.

If you have no idea if any of these are attainable, or have no idea which one is more correct, you’ll need to download pokerstove at (pokerstove.org? pokerstove.com?).

I won’t get into details of every example, but lets just run through one.

here()link()

 

The issue is that the more hands you fold, the more you have to gain in order to get back to even. If you fold too often, you won’t ever be able to make that back at least as a function of that system when you’re faced with opponents who have recognized this and can exploit you. That doesn’t mean it will be incorrect to fold, even if your opponents do exploit this tendency, especially if you can make that back in other ways like after the flop, or you can take advantage of your opponents eagerness to push you all in and just play fewer hands and raise less.

But for this system, we want to design it so that the “baseline” of the system is not exploitable, that way you can deviate from teh strategy where neccesary, but first you must learn this strategy and the adjustments that should be made.

 

SO if you have 12 big blinds, you can’t really raise without going all in.  If you have 50, size your raise so that an all in makes sense if you’re faced with a reraise.  But what if yo’re facing a raise and you OR your opponent haas 18 big blinds? Don’t reraise them unless you’re willing to risk all of your chips, and usually you’ll just want to move all in yourself.

In addition to this you want to to generally be able to put in moves like discussed in “throwing jabs” so if your opponent puts in a reraise, you can get him pot committed pretty easily IF you wanted to, but if he moves all in he’s going to be making a big over raise.

You are actually going to be adjusting your strategy at a few points when a rereraise will get you pot committed, but doing so might just be slightly more risk than you want, and when you can’t rereraise to push someone off of the hand. In these cases you focus more on the reraises.

We will eventually discuss calling vs raising as well, which will eventually turn out to be a big part of the IRC method as you develop your skill. For now just know that you generally want to be folding if a raise will allow your opponent to move in on you for 3-6 times your bet. You always want to be the one moving all in, not calling all in. You generally want to be putting in a bet that is less than 7% your total stack, but if possible never over 15% unless it’s all in. (Out of neccesity you might need to make a big 20% reraise but you don’t need to worry about this until later on) You should be aware of what 7% of your stack is, and when you have a large stack, you should be aware of what the average 7% of your opponents most likely to raise you is. If it’s too complicated just stick to 7% of your own stack.

Although all in and folding in these situations is often the best move, more advanced players can do more calling to keep the pot small and avoid being put all in rather then just folding or pushing more. I decided to leave calling out of the equation for now, because whether you call or not will often be dependent upon 1)your abilities over your opponents 2)the blind structure 3) the current blind levels 4) your chipstack. Fortunately the IRC Method will put all of this into consideration.

But first, in the next post you need to learn how to make the adjustments so you know if you should even get yourself into the all in or fold situations in the first place. Using this, you will know how good your hand needs to be to get all your chips in. Not only that, but once you hear about that, you will have a reference point that you can use to adapt what hands you play when your chip stack is constricted. So the next time you are in an “all in or fold” situation you know if your hand is good enough to move all in.  But if it’s not that’s still not the end of the story, you will need to know whether to fold or call. All of this will be uncovered over the next few posts in this very revealing series.

Poker Strategy – Effective Use Of The ‘Continuation Bet’ In Texas Holdem

Filed under: General, Mark R Holland — Tags: , , , — MarksEzineArticles @ 11:11 am

Poker Strategy – Effective Use Of The ‘Continuation Bet’ In Texas Holdem
By Mark R. Holland 

There are many occasions in Texas Holdem Poker games where you will raise before the flop, and then find that your hand did not connect with the community cards in any way. A standard ‘move’ is continue with the aggression you have shown before the flop. Betting out even when you have missed tells your opponents that you have a good hand and may win the pot uncontested on many occasions.

While continuation betting is a valuable weapon in every poker player’s arsenal, it must be used correctly to show a profit over time. These raises should also be mixed with ‘value bets’ – by making the same bet when you are really strong it becomes difficult for opponents to get a read on your hand.

The three areas listed below will help you to ensure that your continuation bets are more effective.

1) Ensure As Few Opponents As Possible

The ideal number of opponents to continuation bet into is just one. Unpaired starting hands in Texas Holdem will miss the flop 66% of the time. Against a single opponent a bet after the flop will show a profit even if you get raised the 33% of the time your opponent does hit. While it is possible to continuation bet into 2 opponents, any more than this should stop you doing this. There is just to high a probability that one or more of them hit the flop

2) Good ‘Flop Texture’ For Continuation Betting

Some flops are more dangerous than others for continuation bets. For example a flop of 10-J-Q of one suit compared to 2-7-J of 3 different suits. The number of draws and high cards should determine your betting frequency after the flop. Since opponents are more likely to play high cards and suited cards a flop containing these is more dangerous than a ‘raggy’ flop with widely separated cards.

3) Your Table Image / Bet Frequency

If you continuation bet every time that you make a raise before the flop then opponents will (rightly) start to become suspicious. They will know as well as you do that most flops will miss most hands and assume that your bets are bluffs a large percentage of the time. If you find yourself in a position where your continuation bets are being played back at often then this may be the reason – slow down for a round or two!

To summarize, continuation betting is a powerful poker strategy, taking the pot a large percentage of the time when you have shown strength before the flop. Good strategy for these bets involves being aware of the number of opponents still in the hand, the texture of the flop and the image which you have established at the table.

Mark Holland is an online poker pro and publisher of high quality strategy articles on a wide range of poker variations. For profitable insights into Poker Strategy for all forms of Online Poker Tournaments check out his sites today!

May 9, 2009

Stealing The Blinds Part 7

Filed under: General — Tags: , — MikeTheMavrick @ 6:12 pm

A large bet like a 3 or 4 times the pot bet is a LARGE steal that will be made with a different hand. Of course, it will be made with a different hand at a passive table as well.  Generally, I am going to make this play against a tight passive table, and not make it very often. But I may make it against a more loose passive table since I may have to make it larger, but I will also make it against a tight aggressive table if it’s high percentage enough. I will also make this at a table that tends to like to make looser calls WHEN they think they can break a big pair.  Some players might play suited connectors BECAUSE they think I’m on a big pair and that they can bust me for all of my chips when they hit. They think that it’s going to cost them a lot, but if they get that dream flop it will make up for everything they lost and then some. In reality they’re fooling themselves, and most likely I’ll take it down after the flop, or fold if my opponent moves in.

Continuing after the flop when these attempts fail is important, but not necessary.

Against a tight passive table, I can sometimes define my opponents bet even more, getting my opponents to play even tighter, and it’s a high percentage move. If low cards come, I’ll occasionally take ONE more stab at the pot since my opponent probably will have something like TT or better, or AK. He might also call with 88 and 99 and AQ as well. But in either case, a Low card flop is more favorable since it’s more likely that my opponent has an ace or king and possibly a queen. Of course if it’s a K25 flop, I’m also going to take one stab at the pot after the flop. But an ace high flop, I might decide to back off of.

After that I’m done with the hand. I can really do this with any hand since I’m playing what my opponent DOESNT have, but I actually prefer making it with the broadway and medium broadway card because I know when my opponent hits say a set of queens and I have KJ that it’s possible that I can hit a ten on that flop and have an open ended straight draw, check it down, and hit my straight and bust my opponent for a lot of chips. If I have a king and it comes all low, I prefer the delayed continuation bet. This means that rather then following up with a bet after the flop, instead you check the flop with the intention of betting the turn if checked to.  Since I have a king, I know it’s less likely that my opponent will hit a king if he has one. So if he has Ace King I don’t mind letting him hit. Besides, chances are he’s going to call on the flop anyways, but on the turn he may not. In addition I may even give the appearance of slow playing.

If a king hits the turn it’s less likely he has it. So if a King comes on the turn, I’ll check it down and hope to crack his kings by pairing a kicker, or possibly induce a bluff if he doesn’t have a king. On the river I MAY make a small bet if I think he will call with a lower pair. If a low card comes I’m betting on the turn. The “delayed continuation bet” is more effective because now I can make a smaller bet and get my opponent to fold AK or AQ when on the flop it might take a larger bet to get that result. In addition, if my opponent has a pair of 8s there’s more potential scare cards. A tight opponent that called a large bet either has something big to begin with like a big pair, or he has AK or AQ, or a smaller pair. If I was beat to begin with, He’ll call or check raise, and I can fold, but at least this way I get a chance to hit a king, and a chance to bet if my opponent checks. My opponent may still fold 88-TT if there’s an overcard or two. He will probably fold AK or AQ on the turn to a small bet where he wouldn’t on the flop, and he may just call with a big pair figuring I either have a hand he has crushed but will otherwise fold to his bets, but I may bluff again, or I have a monster and putting in more money can only hurt him. In this case, he’s just going to call with JJ, QQ or KK and maybe even AA, and I can give it up if I’m called and still potentially win with a king, and if he does choose to call with 88-TT I can still win with a jack.

Since I bet the flop, my opponent would have reason to expect that he can only get more out of it if he checks, so now I can flip over my cards for only one half the pot bet, and I can see all 5 without paying that much, especially considering my preflop raise. I have a chance to beat an underpair in a situation when I might normally have to fold.

If I have T9, I could hit a KQJ flop, and my opponent could very likely have AK, AQ, JJ, QQ, KK. This makes these hands more powerful, especially when you are both very deep stacked. Now I might not want to get it all in, because if the board pairs, or if a ten comes, I’m not going to be very happy, and if a ten doesn’t come and the board doens’t pair, I’m probably going to get it all in. I realize that I don’t have AT, but my opponent probably doesn’t either. If he does, so be it I misread my opponent anyways and don’t deserve to win the hand.But if the board pairs, it will be very hard for me to fold if I build up a big pot, but if I keep the pot small, I can avoid an all in. Better yet, my opponent is probably not going to be able to avoid an all in if he has a set, and if I show weakness, he might just decide I’m on a draw and decided to bluff.

The weak ace gives me a chance to check it down, and beat his KK or QQ, or JJ, or TT. I actually have a 30% chance of beating any pair other than aces. If an ace hits I will check it down and hope he doesn’t have AK or AQ, but if he does, I haven’t risked anymore. If I pair my kicker, I’m betting for value since it’s more likely he has AK or AQ since pairs are dealt less.
I can still gain a LOT of value without risking all of my chips this way.

At a loose passive table, I take a shot preflop, and I usually can check it down, and if I have a decent hand bet it for value. Sometimes there’s no point in pricing out draws on the flop, if your opponent will call a big enough bet on the turn and river anyways. It also will allow you to get called more when you have a draw and check if your opponents know you might give free cards.

Tight aggressive table, it doesn’t really matter what I have since my opponent will call or raise.  Then again, I might just freeze them if they have AK, AQ or JJ or TT since the raise is so large. But I am just going to give up the hand unless they give me the odds to hit a draw which they probably wont. If they check I might try one more bet, but a check with the intention of folding is likely the best play on the flop. On the turn if I’m checked to again, then there is a chance that betting is the best play but probably still not, unless my opponent almost never check raises or slow plays.

If I do happened to get called by a tight player I prefer to have an ace if he flat calls with pairs and checks down, a suited connector if he calls with monsters like AA or KK trying to slow play, otherwise, if he bets the flop aggressively, I have to hit a big flop or fold, so a small pair if I’m deep stacked, or suited connector If I’m really deep seem to be the best. Usually If possible I avoid the aggressive players.

And finally, against the trapping opponents, I’m simply the one that’s going to outsmart them. If they are likely to call with a draw trying to hit, or a big hand trying to trap, I’m going to beat them. How? first by betting to take it down to see if they have a hand worth trapping, then giving up. Also, by drawing to the better straight or flush.  So suited broadway cards are actually good, and high suited aces are good. I’ll generally bet these if my opponent checks, even if I have a draw. But the difference is, I’m betting maybe half the pot. If my opponent missed and has no draw, they’ll fold.  If They have a draw they’ll probably call, but now chances are, I’m drawing to the better hand.  If they call with a set, I still can check it down and try to hit.
If they ONLY like to draw, or if they draw and trap but are loose, the solution is to not only draw, but bet your draw once, and throw an additional bet on the river if you’ve missed your draw, because chances are they missed too. Also, if you’re in position and you have a backdoor draw, you can either go for the delayed continuation bet and if you pick up a backdoor draw check and try to hit if you think your opponent will make a huge bluf, and bet if you think your opponent will fold, or you can beet the flop when you have a backdoor draw, check the turn if you hit a draw, unless you think another bet will work.
Usually you don’t want to put in more bets then you have to, especially after a large preflop bet.
2 bets should be the most after the flop, and ideally you won’t have to make any, but if you do it might just be 1 on the flop or turn. Against someone who draws you probably should at least try to keep them out if you don’t have a better draw.
If you hit, you may just want to move all in or make a huge bet since the only thing that will call you is either a lower straight or flush or a set, and a trapper hardly can get away from his monsters, or a small bet since he may just “call for information, or call with an ace high or small pair. The bet will have to be really small, so unless you’re short stacked the best move is usually going to be just an all in. You probably won’t get called, but when you do, it will be worth it.
If I have ace high, and think it’s likely my opponent missed, I might just check and take it down , generally I will bet just because I don’t want to have to turn my hand over. If my opponent is smart enough, he will stop drawing with lower flush draws. A large bet is often reasonable since my opponent might have hit a small pair and might fold.  Of course if my opponent also slow plays monster hands, then I could get burned so it might be okay to just check, flip my hand over and win, even knowing that my opponent gains information that he might use.

May 5, 2009

Art Of Blind Steals Part 8

Filed under: MTT, MTTs — Tags: , , — MikeTheMavrick @ 3:22 am

Now that you know how I’ll play in various situations on a LARGER steal attempt, lets talk about what each bet might accomplish.

The large bet gets the better hands to fold and it works a higher percentage of the time. By making the large play, it defines your opponents hand more most of the time (provided you use it sparingly). It also may freeze your opponents who normally might raise, and when an opponent just calls you when he’s got you beat, he’s made a mistake.

It deceives opponents to think you have a big hand, and to make a poor play. It gives you two ways to win, by playing what your opponent doesn’t have, and playing by what you DO have. It gives you the option to continue on the flop against predictable opponents, but most likely this play is one that is only going to be a one move or two move shot. If it’s more, it’s probably because you’re moving all in, and taking on huge risks. The only situation I can think of is if you’re at one of 2 crucial points in a tournament when you’re either looking to go big or go down swinging. Near or on the bubble, and before the final table (2 or 3 tables left). You would make it because you’re looking at getting in position to win. Normally I generally prefer the delayed continuation bet on this one if my opponent will check twice in a row, or I will check down with a draw, or play aggressively if I hit. It isn’t likely my opponent will check twice in a row with a hand, but it isn’t too unlikely for them to check twice after calling a large bet if they think you’re capable of slow playing.

The advantages that a big bet has over a small bet is it gives you a wild image, while making your opponents more predictable, and it will give your big hands more action. In addition, it will often make your small raises more effective.

The smaller raise will not need to work as much to be as effective, and it will force aggressive opponents with the pot odds to either raise a hand that they shouldn’t or call when it’s uncomfortable for them to play passively. The small bet is intended to give your opponent the chance to make a post flop mistake for all of his chips, or a preflop mistake to allow you to take down a pot with minimal risk. IT allows you to use your position, and works well against opponents that tend to check if they miss and fold to a bet, and bet if they hit.

The smaller raise is one that usually requires more post flop skill, and should generally grow and become part of your strategy. The small raise basically contains all of the moves as the large raise and then some. It requires much more sophistication, and generally is more of a “post flop steal” that may occasionally work before the flop. It’s essentially a limp in that shows strength against opponents who will fold on the flop unless they’ve hit big, pairs and ace high is generally going to be the best hand at the flop, but that doesn’t mean that you might not want to play suited connectors, because if he plays aggressively and stays in, he probably is more likely to give you a lot more chips. Players that don’t fold, you want to play suited connectors and check it down unless you hit big, otherwise don’t try to bluff them with a small bet, if at all ever. Knowing when to steal the blind, and how to do it requires skill.

And finally, the standard raise is the balance between, but it generally will be more of a target for reraises since it’s a decent amount of chips, and doesn’t look like it can be a strong hand. the minraise looks strong like you want action, the large bet looks strong because you either have JJ or TT and don’t want to see a flop, or you have a big hand and expect to get action and want to extract more. The standard bet might look weak to some people. But it might also look strong, and it might mean nothing at all. Because it’s in the middle, it’s tough to gauge what it might mean to your opponents… as a result, they might wait for a hand. However, a 3 or 3.5 times big blind is still good to have as a randomizer, when you have a decent hand that is normally playable in most situations. You want to randomize your raises often, and make the occasional large raise or small raise based on the situation, but every once and a bluemoon just to randomize things. Generally if you bet either larger than usual or smaller then usual it is because you have a purpose behind it, not just to mix things up.

Learn to randomize your raises, as well as use your raises for a steal attempt, and you may find yourself doing significantly better in tournaments.

Older Posts »

Powered by WordPress