Poker Dynamic

In Hold ‘Em poker games, the best position to be in, by far, is the blind position. Now most beginners will hear this and wonder why this is true. After all, being in a blind position, whether small or large, means that you are forced to put in a certain amount of chips without a guarentee of a playable hand. In many cases, you will have to fold after a pre-flop raise. But the truth is that you shouldn’t be afraid to lose blinds now and then, and the advantage playing in the blind position gives is worth the losses now and then.

Most hands, you will have to choose whether to enter or not. If you put in chips, whether a call or a raise, opponents will know, for the most part, what type of hand you have. Good opponents can read bets and will be able to pick up whether you are playing a big hand or are looking to get lucky. But what happens when you already have money in? You could have two-seven or you could have pocket aces.

Being able to conceal your hand better is a big reason why blinds are so advantageous. As long as you can control your facial features, you don’t have to worry about betting an inappropriate amount or giving away your hand with a call instead of a raise.

This means that you can not only play big hands better, as opponents will not expect you to have one early in the hand, it also means you can play bluffs and smaller hands better. Blinds allow you to, for a lack of a better term, blindside your competition.

So don’t worry about the small losses you incur from folded hands. The fact is that when you have a playable hand, there is no greater advantage than being responsible for blinds. Try playing more hands in that position and you shouldn’t be disappointed.

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In past posts, this blog has covered the best hands for Texas and Omaha Hold ‘Em games. In fact, most posts in general have dealt with the former, and to a lesser extent the latter, games. So why haven’t we explored Seven Card, or other, Stud games more?

The truth is that I simply do not like stud poker games. They move too slow and just are not as fun for me as Hold ‘Em games are. But for those still looking to play these games, I will make an effort to put the information out there needed to win.

Unlike most poker games, Seven Card Stud is a hard game to play. Every player has his or her own set of cards and consequently, big hands are not seen as often as they are in other games. This makes having the start to a good hand vital. As explained in our first post on Seven Card, every player starts the game with three cards. For obvious reasons, the best hand you can start with is a three-of-a-kind. Not only do you automatically have a good enough hand to win, but you also have a better probability of hitting a big hand like a full house or a four-of-a-kind than those with lesser starting hands.

In general, three-of-a-kind from the start is pretty hard to get. But having a pair is not. If you are dealt two aces or kings, treat them just like you would in a normal poker game. High pairs are always nice to have from the get go. After pairs, the next best hands are the ones that keep flush and straight possibilities open. Three diamonds or three cards in unison is a good way to start a big hand. Just remember you aren’t guaranteed to make anything after the blinds.

These are, in a nutshell, the best hands in seven-card. But the game is more about patience and smart betting than it is about starting hands. I’ll do my best to keep posting more tips on Stud games.

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As I have mentioned before on this blog, playing online poker is starkly different from playing casino poker or home games. The online game removes a critical part of the game by allowing players to mask their facial expressions and personal reactions to hands. A player with no poker face whatsoever can win consistently online because he won’t lose money for showing glee at the sight of pocket rockets.

In addition to this change of strategy, online poker also has a tendency to hand out unrealistic hands in my experience. On a normal night of poker, Texas Hold ‘Em that is, it is unusual to see big hands on just about every hand. Players often win with nothing or very little and one pair or high card is often good enough to win. Online programs tend to hand out more good hands than poker players would be used to getting in-person.

Because of these two differences, it often does not make sense to play bad hands or out of position online very much. Again from my personal experience, sooner or later every player will get a high pocket pair or an equally good hand to play. And more often than not, the player with the good hand at the beginning improves his or her hand to the point where the pot becomes their’s.

That’s not saying that it is impossible to bluff online or that you should never play bad hands. There are ways to scare people out of online hands. But more often than not, it just does not help a player to go out of his or her way to find good hands. Just wait until you are given a good hand, meaning two painted cards, and then get in on the action. If you don’t, you may become frustrated with losing very fast.

And on a concluding side note to this post, my experience playing online was with Pacific Poker. I’ll write more speficially on my experiences later, but I would probably not put more money into the program (or any online poker program for that matter.)

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One of the biggest choices that any poker player makes with regards to his or her style is whether or not to play tight. Playing tight is often a double-edged sword. As just about every person knows, certain hands have a better probability of winning than others. Thus playing only these hands is sure to point to a higher probability of winning money or chips in the end. The problem is that poker is not a game solely based on skill and percentages. The game involves quite a good deal of luck, bluffing, and betting style.

For instance, a player can choose to not play any hands that are worse than top-ten in poker hands. But what happens if he or she only gets one or two of these hands within one or two hours? The player is basically depending on these hands to win big amounts of chips. If this does not happen because of a bad beat, a quick fold, or any other reason…the player is basically doomed to losing his or her blinds and, at best, finishing even with their chip count.

And its not like big hands win everytime either. As mentioned before, bad beats happen quite often. Pocket aces have been defeated by a lower pocket pair. Straights get knocked down by full houses and flushes fall to higher flushes. Most hands, it is going to be pretty hard to know from the start whether or not you should bet all your chips.

Playing loose can solve this problem. Opening up the card book to allow for slightly worse hands is a good way to get into a lot of pots. And being in more hands is a good way to increase your chances of hitting the big hand you need to bankroll future games. Of course, playing too many hands and losing or folding a lot can result in heavy losses due to the blinds or better hands taking your chips.

So which strategy is best? Only you can decide that. But we will discuss both in further detail on this blog in the future to help guide you more.

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When it comes to playing poker, the best way to get better is to play more. As most people who have played poker for a while know, there is no better teacher than experience. A new player can’t foresee how a certain player will bet because he or she hasn’t seen different poker styles in action enough.

One of the more popular way to gain experience in the past few years has been playing online games. Online poker offers fast and easily accessible games with other, real people. Before you go posting all your money on some poker site like Party Poker, however, it would be wise if you knew the facts behind online poker first.

A major part of the game of poker is luck, or chance, and reading your opponents. Unfortunately, for the most part, online poker removes the latter. You can’t look at someone’s face or see how they are handling their chips online. You can’t see them stutter or make small indications of their hands while clicking a mouse. And you yourself can’t know if you are a good casino poker player, as other players won’t be able to see your tells either.

What does this mean? Online poker is a great tool to use when looking to improve your knowledge of the game and when figuring out what hands win and which do not. It can help when trying to figure out how much to bet with certain hands. But it can’t make a novice player into a professional. Simply put, online poker is an incomplete representation to what the game of poker really is.

So go ahead and play online poker, I recommend trying out free games first. Just don’t expect to become Phil Hellmuth or Johnny Chan because of it.

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When playing poker, the ideal spot to be sitting on every hand is in one of the blind spots. Players who start out in the blind are obligated to put in a certain amount and play a hand unless the pot is raised. This means that other players don’t know whether or not you have a good or bad hand. They don’t know if you actually wanted to be in the hand or if you just are in because of the blinds. This, of course, makes reading hands much harder for better players.

But more often than not, you will be betting out of position, meaning not within the blinds. So what do you do then? Only bet when you have a big hand? Try to bluff whenever you can? Entering a hand is always a dangerous move when not done properly, learning how to bet properly in these situations is very important.

First of all, you need to be strong with your good hands when playing with many other people. Its almost always a good idea to win a hand before the flop is revealed unless you have a monster hand such as pocket aces or kings. If you’re betting out of position and have a good enough hand to do so, make a sizable bet that is likely to force out every player who doesn’t have a very strong hand. You don’t want players with weak hands catching something lucky later on.

If you decide to come in with a weak hand out of position, make sure you bet with it the same way you would with a strong hand. If you really believe you can get in a hand with a simple call of the blind, do so. But on most hands, weak entrances indicate the strength of your cards and will lose you blinds.

Overall, just bet with confidence and be selective of the hands you enter with. Its OK to bluff now and then but not every hand out of position.

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Last night we went over how to bet with a big hand. But as discussed, big hands are rare and far between in a game. It’s not often that you will be dealt the perfect hand that will win you lots of money. On many hands, in fact, you will have to win hands through your betting.

On many hands, you will actually have to bluff. Waiting for good hands is expensive. You lose money through blinds and playing mediocre hands, this is cash you won’t get back. You can’t just give chips away every blind until you get a big hand. On most nights, with this strategy, you’ll end up making less than you should have.

So exactly how do you bet during a bluff? The truth is that it is not easy. The first, and most important element, to being successful is keeping your cool. Without it, your hand will be revealed in an instant and your chips will be in an another player’s stack. Bluffs are not easy to pull off and they take experience to win. You have to know your opponent has a weak hand and that you can take his or her chips without putting in all of your’s.

My best advice is to start slow. Act exactly as you would if you have a big hand. Bet slow but big when raised. Don’t allow your opponent to push you out of any sort of hand. Make sure you don’t bet way too much at any point. Not only might you give away your hand, you might also lose a lot of money in the process.

The biggest thing to remember when bluffing is that you will lose the hand if called. Make sure your opponent doesn’t want to bet and that there are enough chips in the pot to justify gambling. If you feel confident, try your best to force out the competition. Betting while bluffing is not easy, and I guarentee this is not the last we’ll discuss this.

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There are a couple of integral parts to playing poker. You have to know which hands to play and when to fold them. You have to know how to keep your emotions in check and how to avoid giving away tells. And most importantly, you have to know how much to bet at different points in the game. A bad bet can mean a player will not cash in on a big hand, which are hard to get, or that a player has just given away his bluff. For the purpose of this blog post, we’ll only discuss the former. The latter will be explored in a future post.

To start out with, a big hand is one in which you are almost, or just straight-up, guaranteed to win at the end. This sort of hand, also known as the nuts, is rare to get and that makes betting smart even more important.

You should never act happy or excited when you receive a good hand. The best thing to do is to either allow your opponent to catch (worse) cards and to start the betting himself or herself. Don’t check too fast either, however, because that may give away that you have a big hand. Just take a breath and bet like you normally would with a mediocre hand. In other words, act like you would rather see free cards but are willing to call a decent amount.

This may sound confusing and complicated, but it really isn’t at all. Just try playing poker for a while and eventually you should see what I mean. There are people who go all-in immediately after making a big hand. They usually don’t win. Don’t be that guy. Don’t be a poker player who can’t turn his gift hands into cash. Take your time and fool the other player into doing the betting for you.

We’ll, naturally, go over this scenario in more depth later.

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Anyone who plays poker for a living knows that the worst thing that can happen to a player is to have another pick up on a tell of his or hers. A tell allows another player to play better based on knowing what sort of cards an opponent has. It allows them to fold when they think someone has an unbeatable hand and to call when they think someone is bluffing. It is much harder to win money or a tournament if there is someone who has your number sitting nearby.

Most people think that tells are something obvious. Something that can be easily seen and noticed by all. The truth is, however, that tells are very subtle and often are down unconsciously. Many players have no idea that they have a tell at all.

The best way, naturally, to figure out you have a tell is to check whether or not you are winning consistently. Poker is a game in which a player will always have bad nights with the good, but players with good skill expect to win a higher percentage of the time than when they lose. If you think you are losing more often than you should against a certain player or table, you might have a tell that is giving your hands away.

Watch yourself in the mirror. Play poker in front of a video camera and analyze what you are doing differently during big hands and bluffs. You may stop talking altogether when you want to get serious in a hand. You may play with your chips more when you have a bluff going. It might just be a small twitch that only the guy from Psych, who just happens to be playing with you, could notice.

Either way, its not easy to lose a tell. Opponents will almost never tell other players what tells they saw. Why give up an advantage on a player you may see again? Watching yourself play poker, through a video, is a good way to start. Give it a try and see if you pick up anything.

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Unlike Texas Hold ‘Em and, to a smaller degree, Omaha Hold ‘Em, the game of Seven Card Stud does not get much publicity from television and/or poker players around the world. This can be attributed to the fact that Seven Card Stud is a slow and somewhat boring game compared to the other two. While Texas Hold ‘Em frequently has and Omaha Hold ‘Em usually has big hands appear, Seven Card Stud players are much less likely to see a big hand very often.

As you may be able to tell, I am not a big fan of this game. But if you insist on trying it, we will go over the rules and which hands to play in time.

Lets start with the basics. As the name of the game indicates, Seven Card Stud is played with seven cards. In Hold ‘Em games, players are allowed to use community cards, five of them in total, to make their five-card poker hand. In Seven Card, however, there are no community cards and each player must make his or her hand with his or her cards alone.

The game begins with each player, that’s right each player, putting in a small amount for blinds. Once blinds are in, all players playing get three cards. The first two are face down and the third is face up for all to see. A round of betting then ensues. After betting finishes, another face-up card is dealt to the remaining players. Then another round of betting ensues…and so on until each player has seven cards or only one player remains. The final and seventh card dealt will be given face-down.

That means that each player who plays the hand through will have four cards showing to everyone and three concealed for themselves. Preying on others’ impressions of your hand based on face-up cards is a big part of the strategy of this game.

We’ll go over more advanced strategies later, for now just try out the game and get a feel for the basics.

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