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Poker Tactics & Poker Strategies

Premium Tips, Tricks, Tactics & Strategy for Holdem Poker

I Need at Least an Hour for Lunch

Tristan McDonald is quite an amazing guy really. Admittedly, he doesn’t look much. He’s usually a bit of a scruffy bastard. I was just looking up his results on The Hendon Mob though. He has cashed for $735,000 in 15 events over 10 years. If they included the number of events he played in you’d be much more impressed though. Most years he probably manages about six. He’s cashed twice in the WSOP Main Event. I bet he’s only played it five times. On top of that...

03/11/2010 07:47 AM

Guardian Series: Disaster at the Berlin EPT

Victoria Coren
It's quite fun, this Guardian experiment. They're having a games slot every day - bridge, chess, that sort of thing - and I'm doing the poker one. It's aimed at the fairly new player, who might have watched a bit of poker on TV and just started playing with their friends and wants a few tips. So for the moment in the column I'm generally advocating caution and covering basics -...

03/10/2010 07:47 AM

Two Sides to Every Coin (flip) by Team Full Tilt

Poker is a game of choices. Some of these choices are fairly straight forward and simple while others take a lot of thought. The thing is that when all is said and done, there may not be just one correct path to winning a given hand; it's all up to you to decide what road to travel. With that in mind, we asked Team Full Tilt's Howard Lederer and Chris Ferguson to share their thoughts on one of poker's trickiest decisions – the coin fl...

03/09/2010 03:50 AM

Running to Stand Still

If 2008 was the year of the four-bet shove light, it should be no surprise that 2009 became the year of the light call of the four-bet shove. Such is the nature of competition. Today’s clever new trick is yesterday’s cliché. In business it’s assumed that if you do not go out there and secure more customers, your turnover will decrease. There’s a kind of entropy in the competitive world which means that if you stand still, everyone else’s striving for...

03/05/2010 12:20 AM

Sealing the Win by Team Full Tilt

If you don't think poker is a competitive sport, chances are you've never made it to the late stages of a major tournament where the only thing higher than the blinds is the pressure of playing for thousands - or even millions - of dollars in prize money. As a former basketball player, I can compare the pressure of a WSOP final table to the final minutes of a playoff game where every play is crucial and any mistake can mean the difference between walking away a champion or a runner-up. From...

03/02/2010 07:02 AM

Vegas Insider: 2010 February

Kara Scott (left) Kelly Kim (right)...

02/24/2010 07:32 AM

Moving from Online to Live Play by Jordan Morgan

After honing their games online for awhile, many players decide to take the next step and test their skills in a live poker room. For some, the transition comes easily but, for others, the differences between playing at a computer and at a live table can be difficult to overcome. For many online players, one of the hardest adjustments to make is to the speed – or slowness – of live play. Where you may easily see 50, 60 or more hands an hour if you multi-table at home, you’ll...

02/23/2010 07:10 AM

Raising Draws for Value

Editor's note: This column is an excerpt from the new, expanded edition of Internet Texas Hold'em: Winning Strategies for Full-Ring and Short-Handed Games, which has been released in November 2008. It includes a new chapter on playing multiway pots, as well as two new chapters for shorthanded games. Beginning players, and even some players with a decent amount of experience, have misconceptions concerning when they should raise and when they should call with a draw. Most players...

02/18/2010 03:32 AM

Overcards in Early Position by Kenny Tran

Recently, Andy Bloch wrote about the perils and pitfalls of playing big cards - A-K, A-Q, etc. - when they don't connect with the flop. Like Andy, I think learning to play these kinds of hands well, adds an important weapon to any player's arsenal. Of course, like any weapon, you have to approach these hands carefully to ensure that they don't blow up in your face. One of the most important safety tips I can give in regards to "big" hands is to be especially cautious when you're...

02/16/2010 04:36 AM

The Hand "You Can't Get Away From"

Pub quiz question: who was the first act to perform the title track from the album Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band at a live gig? Before you think I’m getting all reverse-reverse psychology on you, yes, it was written by the Beatles. The answer is Jimi Hendrix. The album was released on a Friday and Jimi covered it at his concert on the Sunday (with Harrison and McCartney in the audience) before the Beatles even had an opportunity to perform it themselves! I’m certainly...

02/11/2010 04:58 AM

Control Your Environment by Scott Fischman

We've all had moments in good old fashioned brick and mortar casinos where our senses become overwhelmed by an environment that we have no control over. From uncomfortable chairs to overflowing A/C to the guy sitting next to you who obviously hasn't bathed since the last time the Cleveland Indians won the Series, playing live poker can be a less than pleasant experience at times. That's why one of the biggest advantages of playing online poker versus live poker is the ability to control your...

02/09/2010 06:08 AM

I Met a Strange Lady

I was quite deep into the $1,000 No Limit Hold’em rebuy tournament when I received a text from Marty Smyth. I’d spent $8,000 and there were 24 players left competing for a first prize of $130,000. I now had a slightly below average stack. “Are you still in?” Marty inquired. “I had 88k with avg 22k when we both put in 55k pre-flop with blinds 200/400. Me AK, him AA. Back to 20k” I soon got a text back: “Apologies. Seem to have texted...

02/08/2010 07:31 AM

Police Close Another Poker Club

Mick McCloskey, 03/05/2007 Northern Ireland Police spoiled the pre Christmas festive atmosphere at The River Club in Derry City by arriving in force during the club’s Christmas tournament on the third Sunday of December. Some of the players actually thought that they were about to be robbed as the first police to arrive were done up in riot gear complete with balaclavas covering their faces. I’m not quite sur...

02/04/2010 04:18 AM

Playing Over-Cards by Andy Bloch

For many players, there's nothing prettier than peeking at their hole cards and seeing paint. A-K. K-Q. Q-J. They're all big hands and, often times, very playable ones, especially in position. Sometimes though, your masterpiece of a starting hand can lead to a very ugly result. The fact is over-cards can be some of the trickiest hands to play well if they don't connect with the board. So how do you avoid going broke when you whiff with your overs? In the words of Kenny Rogers, "you gotta...

02/02/2010 03:49 AM

The Dreaded Min-Check-Raise by Aaron Bartley

There are a lot of potentially horrendous moves to be made in No-Limit Hold ‘em: playing out of position with a marginal hand, chasing down a draw without the correct odds, overplaying (or underplaying) the nuts. All of these are horrible, horrible plays. But in my opinion, the worst play that you can make (and I see made far too often) is the min-check-raise. I’ve never seen this play used correctly. In fact, I don’t think it’s even possible to use it correctly. If...

01/26/2010 05:42 AM

Jonty Rhodes

In a recent thread on the ever-popular Two Plus Two forum, my good friend Andy Ward made a case for the utterly intangible and totally subjective hypothesis that I am the best all round poker player in the UK. I was naturally quite flattered by this statement, and was about to spend a few minutes deciding which other players could be described as true all-rounders, when my eye wandered down the page to the rest of the thread. Don't worry, there was no time for me to get bigheaded at all, as...

01/25/2010 07:22 AM

The Real Value of Tournament Chips by Bill Edler

Whenever you’re talking about poker strategies, you’ll find people who make no distinction between tournament play and ring game play. In fact, I know some top players who believe that both should be played exactly the same. Even though some of them have been extremely successful with this approach, I couldn’t disagree with them more. The basic problem is that in a tournament setting, all chips are not of equal value. In most cases, the chips you lose are going to be worth a...

01/19/2010 05:26 AM

Multiway Pots

These hands are taken from the new, expanded edition of Internet Texas Hold'em: Winning Strategies for Full-Ring and Short-Handed Games. Take this quiz to test your skills. These are limit hold'em hands at the limits shown. 1. 25¢-50¢: You hold the A 3 in middle position. Three players call from early position, you call, and the big blind checks. Fiv...

01/18/2010 07:07 AM

The Way of the Exploding Text Book

We’re breaking the first rule of Fight Club. Bluff Europe now has its very own Poker Academy, ever more training sites are springing up on the web, and there is now an established profession of “poker coach”. Opportunities to improve your game have never been so prevalent. Old timers grumbled if you discussed poker strategy out loud at the table. An earlier Pickleman article exhorted players not to “feed the fish”. At the time, I thought that if you did so, the...

01/14/2010 07:37 AM

Stealing the Blinds by Allen Cunningham

The middle stages of a poker tournament can be a tortuous and tedious experience for even the most seasoned pro. The long trek toward the money, combined with a variety of potentially tricky scenarios you may face along the way, make it difficult to come up with one sure-fire strategy to help you through. That said, one aspect of mid-tourney play that’s extremely important is picking up pots pre-flop. If you’ve been card dead in the first few levels you may only have as many chips...

01/12/2010 08:29 AM

My Dog Lucky

When I was a teenager I realized that I'd gone through some major changes when my dog died...

03/12/2010 11:48 AM

Catching up...

Relaxation isn't all that relaxing...

03/12/2010 11:48 AM

WPPC

The WPPC is just days away and I have a lot of work to do!

03/12/2010 11:48 AM

Video Games

Sometimes Video Games can be the ultimate escape...

03/12/2010 11:48 AM

Back in Action!

Today I finally woke up ready to get some work done...

03/12/2010 11:48 AM

I finally beat Pops!

I struggled against this crafty older player for what seemed like forever...

03/12/2010 11:48 AM

Mommy's comin' to visit

Mad scramble to get the house in order...

03/12/2010 11:48 AM

Poker!

No kiddin', I actually played poker last night...

03/12/2010 11:48 AM

More Poker...

So much for getting even for last night...

03/12/2010 11:48 AM

Ok, I officially hate flying...

This journal is coming to you from the airport...

03/12/2010 11:48 AM