By raising the flop with the J-10 then our hero not only finds out where he stands in the hand but he also saves a lot of money in the hand as well. Take the situation where the big blind led out with an $18 bet on the flop and our hero raised to $80 instead of calling. To many players, this may seem like an overly aggressive action with such a marginal hand but that is exactly the point of the raise.

I see players get sucked into losing their entire stacks in situations like these and it is so pointless. Now after you have raised to $80 on a broken board like this, any opponent who remains in the hand from that moment on has a hand that can likely beat top pair with a ten kicker. You can simply check the turn behind if they called your flop raise and checked the turn or fold your hand if they re-raised on the flop or called and then bet the turn. But look at the difference in the amount of money that is expended after you have raised on the flop.

As long as you can get away from your hand after your opponent either calls your flop raise or re-raises then this pot has only cost you $92. That is bad enough but far better than merely calling the hand down and losing $206! But imagine the carnage that could ensue if instead of the harmless 2c arriving on the river, you hit a ten or worse still….a jack!

This is where you are at serious risk of losing your entire buy-in and the cause of this was not finding out where you stood on the flop and letting your opponent dictate the betting.

But raising the flop lets you win the pot in numerous other ways as well. It could make your opponent even fold the best hand if they have a poker hand like K-J for instance. It will almost certainly win you the pot when your opponent is holding junk and folds but do not despair at this and think that you have missed an opportunity to extract extra money by raising them off the hand.

The fact remains that it is a better poker play to raise with a marginal hand on the flop than it is to simply call down to the river in a game like no limit hold’em where calling down to the river with a second best hand can get very expensive in this form of poker. But also, calling down tells you absolutely nothing about the relative strength of your opponents hand. Are they trying to bet you off the pot? Or are they betting out with a strong hand in the same way that Doyle Brunson advocates in Super System.

It is also worth mentioning that Super System is perhaps the most widely read poker book on the planet and especially the no limit section that Doyle wrote so I would imagine that there are an awful lot of players both live and online who are emulating Doyle’s words in that book and it is getting the same way now with the Harrington on hold’em series.

But raising in this situation lets you find out when your opponent is deadly serious about their hand and knowing this will prevent you from being stacked in many situations that will crop up both in live poker games and online games because with regards to this particular concept then there is no difference in where you are playing poker.

Carl “The Dean” Sampson
Author – “Winning Cash Game Poker”
Why not quantum leap your poker game with pokertracker?

The small blind led out with a pot sized bet and the big blind folded and I called. I felt that the small blind betting into two players like this indicated a made hand and this had to mean a straight. So a raise would not only fail to take the pot but I wasn’t even certain that I had the best set. I decided to wait until the turn to see what happened and the turn card brought the 2s making a flush possible.

The small blind bet out again and I re-raised the pot. The reason that I did this takes some explaining but it has to do with me representing the flush. My call on the flop could have been made with a wide range of holdings of which a flush draw was one of them. The lone ace of spades in my hand meant that I wasn’t in any danger of running into the nuts.

The only hand that I had to fear was top set as I had the nines and a player who had top set may not lay their hand down to this kind of pressure when in their own mind they had ten outs to improve. But a player who just had a straight and nothing more could easily believe in their own mind that they were in fact drawing dead when a flop caller suddenly comes out firing. I put my best confident face on while making the play and I could sense that my opponent was watching me.

It must have been no longer than about fifteen to twenty seconds but my opponent eventually folded their hand. But I have made this pressure play numerous times in various different guises. To be able to pull it off requires several things. Firstly you need to know what type of hand that your opponent could be holding. This can be far easier to do in Pot Limit Omaha than it can in a game like hold’em like in this situation for instance where a player bet into two opponents on a straightening board. This tends to represent a straight far more in PLO than it does in hold’em.

Then you need to know what type of player they are and if they are capable of laying down a hand. If they cannot do this or they are too weak to do this then you have no fold equity in the situation whatsoever and will end up having to make a hand too often. Before anyone asks, no I don’t always get these plays right but then again who does? Sometimes my decision making seems so bad that I sometimes despair that I can actually play the game but it all seems to come good in the end.

Carl “The Dean” Sampson
Author – “Winning Cash Game Poker”

Six years later and Durrrr has never had to re-deposit, building a bankroll of many millions of dollars and a reputation as one of the finest cash game players in the world at the highest stakes. But is this reputation justified? Results certainly suggest that it is. Dwan has an average record in poker tournaments and is one of only a handful of poker players who have forged their reputation from solely being a ring game specialist. Dwan is a cash game prodigy, in every sense of the word.

Dwan has his critics. Success in poker is usually judged by tournament success and he has not really had any of that. He is unconcerned with winning WSOP bracelets and prefers to sit in the highest stakes cash games instead during the World Series. When he was bashing players up during online poker games, people said that he would be unable to take on the best and win. Players like Doyle Brunson, Phil Ivey and Gus Hansen soon found out Dwan was the real deal when he started dominating the live games too. They quickly realised this player was here to stay.

His cash game success was tested when he issued an open challenge to everyone except close friend Phil Galfond for a multi-table cash game contest. At the time this was considered the big news of the poker world. With 33,000 or so hands played of an allotted 50,000 Dwan is leading Patrik Antonius by $2 million. He was considered crazy to offer three to one on a $500,000 bonus if he wins, but now he seems certain to collect from Patrik when they eventually finish this challenge.

To be considered great you must return from adversity. Life is easy when things are going well. Durrrr was tested in November 2009 when he suffered a horrific series of losses to Isildur1. According to pokertableratings, Tom lost $6 million between August 2009 and December 2009. People were claiming he had been found out and could no longer beat the online games. Durrrr managed to avoid tilting (amazing when you consider the losses he endured) and he has gone on a recovery run and has won about $5 million of that money back so far in 2010. Just last week he is reported to have made a profit of over $1.2 million. He will be a far wiser and more rounded player having had the experiences he has had over the last six months.

He is fearless, talented and has a wealth of online poker and live poker cash game experience. Every single top player respects his abilities at both Texas Holdem and Pot Limit Omaha. Players like Phil Hellmuth, begrudging at best in praising other player’s talks very highly of Dwans poker ability as does poker legends like Daniel Negreanu and Phil Ivey. Not many players can match these boys as top players, but Dwan is now part of that elite group of players.

Does it matter how good he is? Would you relish seeing Tom Dwan sit down at your cash game table with a large stack of chips? I guess he would say he is good enough.

By Malcolm Clarke

I am writing this book not to tell you how to play cash games although many people will buy this book expecting to be told how to play cash games. This book will teach you an awful lot about cash game poker but that is not its primary objective. What I want to get across is not just how to play cash games but also what to focus on in order to become a winning player. I need to stress the importance of selecting your own path not just in life but in poker too.

Some players irrespective of how good they are or how much money they have will never play highstakes poker despite loving the game. For reasons that are too complex to go into, many people just are not cut out to play poker beyond certain levels. This is why it is sheer folly to assume that just because some player is now playing $300-$600 heads up no limit hold’em or Omaha on bwin Poker who started out playing $1-$2 and worked his way up, that you or anyone else can do the same.

It is important to read and study as much as you possibly can but it is also vital not to cut short that studying time. In essence you are putting yourself through a self imposed apprenticeship when you undertake to study poker. It is not like going to college or university, there are no tutors to guide you in what to learn and what not to learn and in what order. It is also important as well to revolutionise your game by using tracking software like Poker Office for example.

As a total novice setting out on your long road to expertise, you will read many books and articles and not be in a situation to have a counter opinion. This is normal simply because of your level of poker knowledge being so low.

You will basically have to accept what authors say on face value even though it may be wrong or out of date or whatever. But it is a bit like when you are growing up and the day dawns when you realise that the parents that you admire and love who you thought were always right about everything now suddenly appear to have flaws.

This is a part of our development that we reach at a certain age but it is a stage that cannot be rushed, it will simply happen with time…..evolution not revolution.

During my poker life, there have been countless situations where advice that I believed to be sound once upon a time suddenly appeared to be incorrect when I became aware enough to know the difference. The problem is that advice that can be good for one may not necessarily be good for someone else. Look out for part four coming soon.

Carl “The Dean” Sampson
Author – “Winning Cash Game Poker”

In No Limit Hold’em calculating implied odds is harder because after the flop opponents usually do not invest a great deal with a bad hand. They have a clear idea whether their hand is any good and because the bet sizes increase quickly after the flop it crystallises their decision making. Like many other things in No Limit, classifying your opponent and understanding their potential range is a big part of deciding on implied pot odds.

Implied odds are about calculating what you may earn in bets in the future if you continue in the hand and improve. It may not be worth gambling for improvement if hitting that card results in zero pay-off. There are many considerations you must make. What hands could your opponent have? What could he think you are betting with? What is your table image? What is his stack size? Opponent dependant, the same spot against two different players could yield very different implied odds.

Let us assume that in a hand you hold Jh-10h and you enter into a pot at blinds of 100/200 with a stack of 10,000. You raise to 600. Another player with the same stack size as you calls from the big blind. The flop is Kh-4h-2s. Your opponent bets into you with an 800 bet into the 1500 pot. The pot is 2300, costing you 800 to call. You have slightly worse than three to one pot odds which is not good for the flush draw. You know, however, that your opponent probably has a King or pocket queens to make this bet. If you believe the opponent will continue to bet if a flush card hit on the turn then your implied odds are good. If you think your opponent will only bet if a heart does not hit your implied odds are bad and therefore you should fold here giving your opponent credit for not continuing to bet in the face of a bad board texture.

Implied odds are not the only consideration in a hand. You should note in the example above that the opponent bet into you as the aggressor which indicates either real strength or lack of appreciation for position. Your information about the opponent whether this is the strength or ignorance of his play will help you make your decision on what to do. Players taking one shot to win the pot then giving up on the turn makes implied odds much smaller and chasing drawing hands more difficult due to the aggressive way online poker usually plays out.

Correct use of implied odds is deciding what you expect to win if you hit your hand. If you expect to win nothing due to the flop, scare cards or the tight style of your opponent and an obvious flush on the board may lean you to make a fold. You normally have more implied odds against loose players or amateur players. Professional tight players do not expose themselves to such leaks and implied odds are harder to manipulate. Put a simpler way, good players are harder to trap into betting when they are behind in hands.

You should consider implied odds as part of your hand reading and opponent classification. It is closely related to value betting and bet sizing. It is the relationship between extracting as much as possible from every winning hand and minimising losses when the expected reward is too small to make the gamble worth it.

By Malcolm Clarke

Hand History Reviews

This is a really powerful way to improve your poker game and something many players neglect. I should do more hand analysis sessions than I currently do. You can buy Poker Tracker for around $80 and this is a great investment for any player wanting to improve to the next level. You can configure the program to automatically put your hands into the program for analysis.

The program helps you see which hands you struggle to win and in which position, what hands are your most profitable and you can even replay the action in a specific hand to analyse how you could have played differently and if this would have been better or worse for your results. Reviewing hand histories is something only the serious poker players do and something recreational poker players should be doing.

Study Poker Strategy

Learning the required poker strategies to win in certain situations is paramount to your success. Rather than just playing your cards, learn to play your opponents. Read the poker books on spotting tells made by opponents that are written by the likes of Mike Caro and Joe Navarro, particularly if you play live poker. For online poker specialists, learn to multi-table and employ proper conservative bankroll management. If you have aspirations on becoming a professional poker player than doing this type of thing is a real step towards achieving your goal in poker.

Goal Setting & Planning

Take some time to write down everything you want to achieve in poker. Be realistic and practical. I would prefer to see players write “Win $5000 per month for the next six months” or “Play 2000 hands per day for the next month and show a profit” than “Win the WSOP Main Event”. But if this really is your goal then write it down. Think practically about making enough for a living and then start thinking about prestige achievements and raising your profile.

Next write down exactly where you are right now and devise a step by step plan for achieving the goals. Then go and do it. Each day check that you are attaining your goals and if you look after the small achievements then the bigger achievements will follow. You automatically become a more dedicated poker player and in turn the improvements in your poker game will be evident in your long term results.

All of the above techniques for taking poker more seriously should improve your level of poker play. Nothing comes easy and doing things the easy way is known as the easy way for a reason. Dedication requires effort, but it will be worth it when you start regularly beating the cash games and winning the bigger online poker tournaments. Your bankroll and lifestyle will thank you for the change you make from being a recreational poker enthusiast to serious poker player.

By Malcolm Clarke

Deep stack no limit is a complex game where a player will hold over 200 big blinds in their stack. You are not following a poker tournament strategy where you are limiting yourself to the “top ten poker hands” and folding everything else. In a cash game, most hands like pocket pairs, suited connectors, one gapped hands and any Ace are playable in the right situations. Position at the table becomes very important as does specific deep stack poker concepts.

Deep stacked games are complex because you are forced to play all three streets of action. In short handed games, even tournaments, you are generally all-in very quickly which eliminates some of the decisions that define the skill edge for the quality poker professionals. This is why the pros love it when you play deep stacked games as they can maximise the advantage they hold over a weaker player.

You need to ensure that in a big confrontation you hold a good hand. As standard betting in any form of poker sees the bets get progressively bigger as you are betting in relation to the pot size (especially in No Limit), your hand strength must be adequate to what the betting is telling you your opponent might hold. Patience and position are important. There is a big difference between getting away from a 50 big blind bet on the turn acting last or making a 50 big blind bet and being forced to fold with the same hand.

Hand values change dramatically in deep stack poker. In a short stacked game you are like to raise with AQ and if you hit your top pair you go all-in knowing you are likely to be ahead. If you lose you do not lose a lot because of your limited stack size to begin with. Try this with a deep stack, however, and playing three streets of action with this hand will see you lose big pots and win small ones. Hands like 9hTh become more valuable because of implied odds if you hit big. It is concealed and likely to be strong in a big hand versus big hand situation. In a 200+ big blind pot, top pair does not normally cut it.

Rather than think of big hands think of “big pot hands” and try to play them in position. Pot control is a massive part of No Limit cash games when played with deep stacks because you want to win small pots with the small pot hands and win big pots only when you hold a monster. You need to avoid getting into raising wars on bluffs anymore than necessary. You can afford to wait for hands and not worry to much about the blinds as when the big pot hand does arise you can get your money in knowing that any win will more than make up for previous blind losses.

Position and patience really is the key to playing winning deep stack cash game holdem.

By Malcolm Clarke

There is a benefit to helping other players. Poker can make you feel isolated due to the dog eat dog nature of it. Everyone wants your money and are prepared to lie, cheat and manipulate you in the various options available in poker to get it. The problem with poker is the long term winners tend to get all of the money. If you help players improve or look to improve then you can keep them in the game and increase your chances of winning. It can also lead to other opportunities.

Players look back to the days in 2004 – 2007 when there were thousands of new players and money was easier to win playing online poker and wish the online poker environment was similar today. They miss the fact that losing players will not keep playing bad poker forever. They will improve, seek lessons or simply stop playing after the pain and suffering of being a losing player for many years suddenly leads to an epiphany that they are not cut out for poker and they seek different, more profitable endeavours with which to dedicate their time and money. If they stop playing poker you stop being able to profit from them, so helping people can help you.

Helping a player learn keeps them playing when the despair of not understanding the concepts leads them to consider not playing. Even if they are a winning poker overall you may still hold an advantage over them so do not feel guilty in offering advice. Never encourage people to gamble and be ethical in the advice you do give. Do not say, “Keep playing you are a great player” when they are clearly not such a good player. Do say “You made a few mistakes tonight if you want a few pointers I might be able to help you improve a little”. Read the last quote carefully and offer any help after a poker game has finished.

Not every player who wants to learn goes away and puts in the necessary time and effort top become a great player no matter what help they get so you will not start producing unbeatable opponents just because you coach or help them. Poker coaching can be a nice additional stream of poker income that can boost your bankroll.

Away from the table having a successful poker website or series of articles regarding online poker sells you as a person of knowledge and authority on the principles of poker. This can help you approach a website for sponsorship. Some of the better known players get paid up to $35,000 per month to play poker. They are told to buy into events and promote the sites. Would that suit your lifestyle? A recent thread on a poker forum I participate we were all universally agreed that each of us would love this sort of opportunity.

As your status rises in the poker world opponents recognise you can play the game and this can help your poker strategy for getting through poker tournaments and acquiring chips. Would you feel good if Durrrr sat at your table online and started to play cash game pots with you? Most poker players would be a little worried when Tom sat down. As you are recognised as someone who understands the game despite the fact you offer advice when asked people realise that you know what you are doing. They will respect you and this gives you the advantage.

By Malcolm Clarke

Readers may think this is an easy question; you would rather be good at everything of course! Certainly longer term profits can be made at cash games when you are a skilled player who takes the time to learn the game thoroughly and always plays at the maximum concentration level they can. But many players prefer not to take the route of grinding through millions of poker hands for a living. Many choose to shoot for the big score.

2006 winner of the World Series of Poker Jamie Gold received a lot of criticism for his aggressive style which was backed up by a good run of cards. You cannot win a big tournament like the main event of the WSOP without good cards but poker fans felt he had more than his share. A $12 million win would set you up nicely for life, so being as lucky as Jamie would save you the time grinding this sort of profit in ring games which is extremely difficult to do for all but a handful of the top cash game poker players.

Playing poker for a big win is a perfectly valid strategy for playing online poker or live poker. Instead of coping with the daily grind many players simply buy in to big tournaments in the hope of hitting that big score once in their life then retire or set up a series of investments. Providing they have a good knowledge of poker tournament strategy then they have as much chance as the next player to win the tournament, providing they get the necessary luck to do so.

Before you decide to set aside $200 per month seeking a big win in an online or live poker tournament remember that Tom “Durrrr” Dwan was estimated to have a bankroll of around $14 million which he amassed by being one of the best cash game players in the world. Dwan played few tournaments during his rise through the cash game limits. Not everyone can have a bankroll of $14 million but even if you could earn an extra $2000 – $5000 each month from cash games would that make a major difference to your lifestyle? It most certainly would to mine.

As far as poker goes, this type of cash game income can be fairly assured providing you work at the game and understand that some months you will make more and some less. If you play a lot of poker hands each month with a steady win rate then the income soon adds up and to an experienced player becomes almost reliable.

I would like to be both lucky and good so when I am grinding away at the online poker sit and go’s or the online cash games my skill wins me money, then I can buy into a large poker tournament and in the style of Jamie Gold luck my way to a life changing win. I do not ask for much, you should see my wish list for Christmas! Whether you want to be good or lucky at poker depends on the goal you have for your poker playing and the time you want to spend playing it. My Christmas list by the way is a $1 million dollar win at poker and a WSOP bracelet. See what you can do Santa!

By Malcolm Clarke

As of now, I’m planning to switch to casino games. By the way, I’ve been into NL Holdem home game tournaments for some time now.

Well, I’m wondering if how important it is to steal blinds in cash games, particularly when you’re in late position during an unopened or unraised pot. Any idea to share?

Thanks!

Danny

Danny,

Get the idea of stealing blinds in NL cash games out of your head. The blinds in most NL cash games are so insignificant in relation to your stack that it doesn’t matter. Also, blinds do not go up in cash games as opposed to tournaments. Blinds at a $1-$2 NL game will stay $1 – $2 forever. Leave the blind stealing to tournaments and high stakes Limit Holdem games.