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elaborate invitations to The First Annual Gaming Fraternity Convention and sent them to a select group of approximately fifty high rollers. The event met with limited success, so in 1969 Tom decided to change the format to a highstakes poker game and invite all the top players and some of the biggest bookies in the U.S. Moore, a good poker player himself, knew that the bookmakers would be the producers of The Second Annual Gaming Fraternity Convention. This was the first ever major poker tournament, and it drew twenty or thirty poker players, bookmakers, and pool hustlers, including myself, Johnny Moss, Doyle Brunson, James “Longgoodie” Roy, Aubrey Day, Benny Binion, Amarillo Slim, Puggy Pearson, Jimmy Casella, Minnesota Fats, Bill Boyd, Jack Straus, Felton “Corky” McCorkindale, George Barnes, “Sailor” Roberts, Johnny Joseph, and the notorious father of actor Woody Harrelson, Charles, now serving life for the 1979 assassination of John H. Wood, a U.S. District 40 Court justice in San Antonio. The event, which lasted one week, featured Texas hold’em, Kansas City lowball draw, razz, stud, and ace-to-five lowball draw. All the games were “live” games, that is, players could rebuy chips if they went broke. This meant that the winner had to be the best player, not just the luckiest. At this tournament, I won the “Mr. Outside” trophy, designating me as the best outside or road gambler at the tournament. Oddly enough, both Tom Moore and Bill Boyd, who ran their own games and therefore were thought of as inside gamblers, were under consideration for the award as well. Benny and Jack Binion were impressed with the success of the tournament and acquired the rights to it when Tom Moore sold the Holiday in 1970. They renamed it the World Series of Poker. For the inaugural tournament, which was held at Binion’s Horseshoe Casino, he retained the multi-game format of Moore’s Gaming Fraternity Convention, but with the exception of a few bookmakers, there were no producers. Even though the producers had not yet found their way to the World Series of Poker, this tournament was as successful as its predecessor. But unlike Tom Moore’s tournament, the first World Series of Poker was attended by various representatives of the print media. The following year, Los Angeles Times journalist Ted Thackrey suggested to Binion a new format: a single no-limit Texas hold’em tournament. Thackrey promised that he and Jimmy “The Greek” Snyder could get nationwide publicity if the event were billed as a winner-take-all world championship. That was all Benny Binion needed to hear. The PR campaign worked and players from far and wide flocked to the World Series of Poker. Interestingly enough, the principal attraction of the tournament was not the tournament itself, but rather the opportunity to win large sums from the producers in the live games or side games, as they were sometimes called. In live poker games, players can buy more chips—as opposed to tournament games, in which players are eliminated when they lose their original buy-in. Live games need producers; that’s a cardinal rule of high stakes no-limit

poker. Although a group of superior players might spread a game amongst themselves, as we often did, it is the producers 41 (bookmakers, oilmen, businessmen, and so on) that make a no-limit game thrive. Thanks to the excitement generated by Binion’s PR campaign, there was no shortage of producers at the 1971 World Series of Poker. In Las Vegas, this was the beginning of the halcyon days of no-limit poker. At one such live game in the seventies, Doyle Brunson and I took on a producer named Rex Cauble, a Texan who owned two exclusive western wear and tack shops in Dallas and Houston, which he named “Cutter Bill’s” after a famous cutting horse. As it later turned out, Rex was also importing certain agricultural products from Mexico that the DEA objected to. Anyway, Rex liked to play high change in no-limit Texas hold’em, and he would show up at the Horseshoe during the World Series of Poker with a sizeable bankroll. Now, Doyle and I have been friends for over forty years, and we’ve played in countless games together—but none have ever been as strange as this one. On this particular evening, Rex wanted to play a $50,000 change-in game. Four or five of us took him up on the challenge. But first, Doyle was gracious enough to give Rex a thirty-minute crash course on the finer points of hold’em. Only after Rex was certain he had enough of the basics to play credibly, did we all sit down. Less than thirty minutes into the game, an unraised pot came up between Rex and poker world champion Bobby Baldwin, who beat me in 1978 for the title and who is now President of the Bellagio and CEO of the Mirage properties. There came a flop of K-J-2, three suits. Bobby checked in front, and Rex checked. The turn card was a 6, and both players again checked. The river showed a 4, with no flush possible. Bobby checked, Rex bet $1,500, and Bobby raised $30,000. Rex, with $60,000 in front of him, pondered and pondered, seeming to consider folding in order to preserve half his stack. Finally, clearly intimidated, he reluctantly called. Bobby triumphantly rolled 3-5 out of the hole for the nuts. His straight couldn’t possibly be beat. What do you think Rex rolled out of the hole? Since Rex was last to act and had $30,000 in chips still in front of him, you would never guess his holecards to be 3-5, the same as Bobby’s, but they 42 were. Rex had just smooth called with the nuts. At this point, Doyle uttered his favorite phrase of astonishment: “I’ll be a sunburned son of a bitch.” I had to suppress a laugh. But back in the early days of the World Series of Poker, this kind of thing happened. The tournament attracted many producers like Rex, and some played with us for even higher stakes. The popularity of the World Series was not lost on Sid Wyman, an affable man and the public relations director for the Dunes and

the Aladdin. In 1973, Wyman brought the game of no-limit Texas hold’em across Las Vegas Boulevard to the Aladdin, which was operated by Sam Diamond. Hosted by Johnny Moss, this high-stakes no-limit Texas hold’em game attracted not only the Texas and Nevada gamblers, but also more and more drop-ins. It was so well attended that games often ran for days at a time, and fortunes changed hands. Major Riddle was a frequent player at the Aladdin table, and his poor play led to his losing majority control of the Dunes to parties represented by Sid Wyman. Moss eventually moved his game to the oldest casino on the strip, the Flamingo, which again found itself the subject of debate and criticism. More than thirty years earlier, in 1946, the Flamingo proved the critics of the 1940s wrong about the possibility of successful expansion of casinos from downtown to a dusty, remote location that eventually became known as the Strip. In 1976, at the same hotel, Johnny Moss would prove the critics of the 1970s wrong by successfully operating a poker room in a Strip casino. At the time, other notable poker players were beginning to see the advantage of hosting high stakes games, including Chip Reese at the Dunes and Eric Drache and Doyle Brunson, who partnered up to operate the game at the Silver Bird, the casino that Major Riddle had acquired after losing control of the Dunes. The excitement generated by new poker rooms on the Strip and the World Series of Poker fueled Texas hold’em’s meteoric rise in nationwide popularity. These prosperous days lasted until about the middle eighties. By that time, satellites had become so popular that they were running twenty-four hours a day and were occupying more and more of the limited floor space in the 43 Horseshoe. While at first, this was seen as a positive change for the tournament, it had the ironic effect of crowding out the live games—the very reason we had started the WSOP in the first place! Today, the game of no-limit Texas hold’em that we introduced to Nevada so many years ago has been transformed, thanks to its entertainment value, to television audiences. Ever increasing participation in major freeze-out tournaments (more than 2,500 players in the 2004 World Series of Poker) have forced tournament hosts to impose rapidly increasing ante and blind structures in order to keep the tournament times manageable. And this has produced an aberration of the pure form of the game. With certain notable exceptions, the game of no-limit Texas hold’em is a game designed to be played after the flop. That’s when the real play is supposed to begin. However, many hands seen at televised events today are played before the flop, when the players have received only their holecards. This style of play, sometimes referred to as “catch an ace and take a race,” re-introduces a substantial amount of luck into a game that had always favored the best player over the best card catcher. But it appears that nothing can stop an idea whose time

has come. And for the hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of players now active on the online poker sites around the world, surely the time has come. In the future, you can expect to see time management problems develop for the tournament hosts as more and more of the Internet players gain entries into the major tournaments. Looking into the future, it’s not hard to imagine the creation of a professional poker league, with several teams selected by some sort of draft. In fact, just such a league is in an early investigative stage today. The creation of new opportunities to exploit the poker phenomenon is limited only by the imagination of men like Benny Binion. So now you know the history of no-limit Texas hold’em—the story of a small band of Texas gamblers who changed the game of poker forever and of how the modern poker tournaments are descendants of an illegal high stakes game in San Antonio that gypsied to Reno, then blossomed into the World Series of Poker, the progenitor of every poker tournament played and 44 televised today. 45 ONLINE POKER by Doyle Brunson Technology surrounds us. Things change. And the swiftness of change today is unparalleled in history. Nothing makes poker players more aware of this change than the advent of online poker. Computers changed everything—from productivity, to research, to games. Poker, too. You see, along came the Internet and suddenly you could find almost any answer in seconds, be anywhere in the world, instantly—not physically, of course, but we learned we didn’t need to be physically present to be there. And so we could play poker without being physically present. We could be at the table. Instantly. I remember the first time I played poker online was in 1999. I think it was a tiny $3 limit game, and I was used to playing $2,000 limit and higher games where you could win or lose upwards of $1 million without leaving your seat. I’d gotten curious, because Mike Caro had endorsed an online poker site, and I thought this was strange, considering he had previously written a column warning of the pitfalls of online play. If he’d changed his mind, then the least I could do was investigate for myself. Remarkably, it was as exciting as any poker I’d ever played. There I was, participating in poker on the screen with opponents seated inches away, but knowing they weren’t actually inches away. They were in England and Germany and Hong Kong. Everywhere. I was playing poker in a game that could never have been possible before. A TORNADO And so, unexpected and out of nowhere, online poker blew onto the scene. It was like a tornado sweeping down the Texas Panhandle. And I realized— grudgingly at first—that it was here to stay. You could now put poker into two main categories: online poker and real-world poker. Notice that I’m saying “real-world” poker, not “real” poker. That’s because online poker is real poker. It is certainly real for the hundreds of thousands of new players around

the world who are playing for real money! In fact, what is there about online poker that makes it unreal? Not much, and that’s why I think most of 46 us have started differentiating poker by just these two terms: online poker and real-world poker. And real-world poker, the kind you sit down and play with physical cards at a real table against opponents you can reach across the table and shake hands with, can itself be divided into subcategories. For instance, we could talk about home poker and casino poker. Each offers a slightly different flavor. That’s the same with basketball, you know. There is basketball played outdoors on concrete slabs, high school basketball, college basketball, NBA basketball, and international basketball that you see in the Olympics. But it’s all basketball. And I’m here to tell you today, that online or real world, poker is poker. It’s all poker. There’s hardly any advice on these pages that won’t help you become a much better online player, simply because it will help you to become a much better poker player, period. DOYLE’S ROOM www.doylesroom.com Before I give you some specific tips and insights about playing poker online, I want to tell you something that may surprise you. The truth is, it surprises me, because not too many years ago, I couldn’t imagine myself being involved in online poker at all. Briefly, I got myself talked into endorsing a friend’s start-up website, but I extricated myself from that fiasco as soon as I realized that nowadays only the big boys can afford to play in this business. Chalk it up as another of my bad ventures when trying to help others out. Well, then I got smart. If you want to know how smart, check out www.doylesroom.com for actual play in practice games—and beyond! And for other things about learning poker, try its sister site, www.poker1.com. I’m happy to be the Doyle’s Room consultant and that they’re putting my name on the site—because they’re paying me a handsome endorsement fee, and because it’s a site I’m proud to be part of. Using doylesroom.com as an example, I’ll walk you through online poker. Remember, by the time you read this, doylesroom.com and other competing sites may be even more advanced. I envision being able to bet just by speaking and being able to scrutinize live, moving images of opponents, 47 bringing to the online world the most sorely missed element of traditional poker: tells. The one thing that will shock you most is the number of poker players currently online. Just before this book went to press, I was honored to be inducted into the Poker Walk of Fame at the Commerce Casino, near Los Angeles. Have you ever visited that casino? It’s the biggest physical cardroom in the world. There are hundreds of poker tables! Now, in my whole life as a poker player, I never envisioned that there would ever be fifty games going under one roof, let alone hundreds. And Commerce isn’t the only major poker room to host a huge

number of poker tables. Also, near Los Angeles, you have the Bicycle Casino, Hollywood Park Casino, Hawaiian Gardens, and the Hustler. And there are now huge poker rooms in Las Vegas casinos, including the Bellagio, the Golden Nugget, the Mirage, and others. Jack Binion launched large-scale poker rooms in the Midwest, and there are now big rooms on the East Coast, too, including those in Foxwoods in Connecticut and others inside several casinos in Atlantic City. Poker is booming everywhere. But put those all together, and you have maybe 1,000 tables. This is something I never imagined when I started my career, steering around the frequent tumble weeds that walked across the highways of Texas, going from one single-table private game to another. When you play real-world poker games, you have to travel from one casino to another to find the right games. When you play poker online, however, you’re instantly within reach of any table. A few clicks of your mouse and you’re at another table, maybe at the same online casino, maybe at another. Just how many tables are we talking about? You’ll often find over 7,000 realmoney online tables going on at the same time—some tournament tables, some regular ring games. Most days there will be over 50,000 real-money players that you can choose to play against in minutes, without leaving your home. And then there are the free, practice games, and I’d hesitate to count how many players and tables there are of those. Between the sudden surge of televised poker and online poker, more new 48 players have been exposed to our game than ever before in history. And it helps everyone. The real-world casinos are flooded with new players. Did you ever think poker would get this hot? I didn’t. It’s a fantasy come true. I believe many potential players, who otherwise would feel too embarrassed to walk through the front doors of a public casino to play poker against moreexperienced opponents, will find that courage now that they can play their first hands on the Internet. So, let’s see how poker is played online. TWO REASONS WHY ONLINE POKER IS WORSE Here are two ways that online poker is worse than real-world poker. I readily acknowledge that there are other minor grievances that could be added, but to me, these are the only two that stand out as important. Reason #1: Where Did the Tells Go? I think every serious player prefers real-world poker at times. There’s no substitute for being able to stare an opponent down and make decisions based on your observations. And there’s no greater feeling in poker than that of intimidating opponents into making costly mistakes. Those elements are missing—and missed—when you play online. The first thing you need to know is that, at the time of this book’s publication, you can throw your skills at reading opponents’ body language out the window. But if you’re reading Super/System 2 just a couple years down the road, you may well be able to see real opponents on your screen. Poker will be

like a video conference, and you’ll be able to focus on the players across the table from you and read them. I predict, through live video of each player replacing the icons in the seats, tells will be everywhere, and then full-scale psychological warfare will come to the online poker battlefield —and nothing will be missing. But for now, online poker sites—including doylesroom.com—depict players as icons. Sometimes those are cartoon characters, but Doyle’s Room uses your choice of symbols, including flags, scenery, and artistic words, like 49 TILT. Here are some of the icons you can choose to differentiate yourself from other players at the tables: Think of it as selecting one of those weird pieces to represent yourself at Monopoly as you roll the dice and prance around the board. Players think it’s kind of fun choosing their icon, but you’re not going to gain any tells staring at them. Well, maybe that’s not quite true. For instance, my guess is that players who choose an icon featuring the word TILT are actually fairly tight players, trying to deceive you. Are there other tells online? Indeed there are! Almost all of them center around the use of early action buttons. Those are one of the inventions that make online poker the fast-paced game it is. What are early action buttons? They are ingenious innovations that take advantage of the fact that you can secretly tell the software what your next action will be—before it’s your turn to act! Since your opponents are sitting in their own homes, possibly on the other side of the earth, they have no idea which button you’ve decided to push. Later, I’ll discuss specific tells associated with early action buttons. But, overall, you’re going to find yourself at a disadvantage online if you earn a lot of your real-world profit by reading your opponents. Reason #2: Can’t Spend the Money Immediately Part of the thrill of the poker I grew up with is that you can send your opponents home with their tails tucked between their legs, whimpering and whining, while you’re spending some of your freshly won money. Sadly, that thrill is gone from online poker. You can’t send opponents home whimpering, because they’re already home whimpering. And you can’t spend their money yet, because you can’t physically touch it. It’s there in your account, but if you want to spend it, you’ll have to request a cash-out and it will be several days before it arrives. Now, I’ll wager you’re thinking that that might be a good thing. I’m sure there are thousands of poker players who unwisely wasted big chunks of their bankrolls after a big win and wish they’d had to wait a few days to receive their winnings. It’s hard for most players to acquire the discipline needed to 50 hang on to a bankroll, and I think that playing online helps promote that necessary habit. But I’m listing this fact as a negative simply because I believe a grown-up poker player should be able to enjoy his winnings by stuffing

them immediately into his pockets. Call me old fashioned, but anything else doesn’t set quite right with me. But except for that and the fact that you can’t reach across the table and shake an opponents’ hand or read him the way you can in a real game, online poker is just as good as the traditional kind we’re accustomed to—and in some ways better. 22 REASONS WHY ONLINE POKER IS BETTER There are a great number of ways in which online poker actually excels. Each player has his own favorite reasons why he thinks online poker is in some way superior to real-world poker. These are mine… Reason #1: Always a Game Online poker makes a mockery out of how I went about finding good games when I traveled the poker circuit throughout Texas and the South in the 1960s and early 1970s. I mean, sometimes you’d drive all day only to find that the lucrative oil well you were hoping to drill had just dried up an hour before you got there. Then you had to swallow the disappointment and plan your next move in accordance with how much it would cost to travel. Was the game you’d heard about, far down the road, worth the hassle and the expense? Then came casino poker. That helped, because there was often a choice of games in town. But many nights there was only one game of interest, and some nights there weren’t any. So, imagine how I feel—having expended most of my effort finding the right games, rather than enjoying them—being able to sit down at my computer on a sleepless night and find the best game in the world after a few mouse clicks. What’s even greater is that online poker never sleeps. It’s always prime time for poker somewhere in the world, and you can join those games, even if nobody else is awake in your neighborhood. 51 Reason #2: Play Against Opponents You’d Seldom or Never Meet in Person The Internet has made the world so much smaller. It might not look like it now, with all the political flare-ups and regional wars in the news, but I believe that encountering people from far away places and striking up instant friendships is bound to make the world more civil eventually. You read about Internet romances that lead to marriage. Business associations are formed that would have been physically improbable. It’s a good thing. And one of the best effects of the Internet is what’s happening to poker. Bit by bit, poker is becoming the world’s common language of gaming. In a real sense, online poker is doing its part to make the world better—as well as helping to showcase the game. A main virtue of online poker is that it makes games possible among eager players who live so far apart that they’d seldom have a chance to sit down together at a real-world table. Reason #3: Take a Quick Five-Minute Break to Play Often you only have a half-hour or less to spare, sometimes as little as

five minutes. If you had the urge to play poker prior to online play, there wasn’t anything you could do about it. There certainly wouldn’t be time to sit down and be dealt in. Now, that’s all changed. Sometimes, I’ll log into a game when I have just a few minutes to spare. I might only play half a dozen hands at $100/$200 limit, but so what? Usually, I wouldn’t play that small, because —for me—it’s not worth the effort. But those are hefty limits by online standards, where the majority of people play $15/$30 limits and often much smaller. So, I play those few hands, and I can do the same thing again on my next break. Those hands all add up, and so does the profit. Reason #4: Great Practice for Those New To Poker I’m betting one of the reasons that players didn’t flock to the poker rooms in years past is that they just didn’t know what to expect when they got there. That can be intimidating, stepping into a real world game for the first time, not knowing how you’ll be accepted by the other players. And for beginners, 52 the anonymity of online play gives timid people the courage to dive into the poker pond, whereas, if it were a face-to-face game, they’d just never go near the water. I believe many players will learn to excel at poker who might otherwise never have played the game. It’s all because of the online poker opportunity. Reason #5: No Need to Dress Up or Groom I got to thinking—there are times when you like to dress up and times when you don’t. I try to look my best when I go to church or go to a decent restaurant with my family. It makes me feel better about myself. But there are times when I’d rather be flat-out comfortable and I don’t care if I’m dressed to impress. One of those times is when I’m playing poker. Unless I’m being filmed, I’m less choosey about what I wear to a poker game. Of course, I dress reasonably well, even then, because I think some of the attire seen at the poker tables is a downright disgrace and reflects poorly on our game. But, basically, I don’t overdo it. The truth is, though, if it weren’t for how others might view me, I’d rather not bother about how I look when I play poker. And online play gives me the opportunity to dress however I like. As many have noted, you can play poker online in your pajamas and no one will care. Now, that’s definitely a bonus you get only when playing poker by computer. Reason #6: Heads-Up Challenges If you like to play heads-up, online cardrooms are beginning to provide previously unavailable opportunities. Have you ever wondered why there are so few heads-up matches in real-world casinos? Surely, heads-up can’t be that unpopular, because just the thought of a high-intensity one-on-one game can make pulses race. And aren’t the final heads-up hands in a tournament the

most exciting to watch on television? Let me tell you, having enjoyed a lot of experience in this situation, those final heads-up hands are not just the most exciting to watch—they’re also the most exciting to play! So, why no heads-up? It’s because those games are not economical for casinos. Each game takes up valuable real estate—a full table. Worse, each game requires a dealer—who is hired to provide service to up to ten players at a table—just to accommodate two customers. 53 But online, this all changes. It costs nothing to set up a new table for two players, and online casinos don’t worry about you using up their tables, because they can provide as many as they want at no cost. No tables to purchase. No cardroom floor space limitations. But bigger than that is the fact that online casinos don’t worry about paying dealers. The cards are all shuffled and distributed by computer. There’s no cost involved in dealing more cards or adding more. That’s one reason why I believe you’re going to see a surge in heads-up play online. There’s another, darker reason why some players might choose heads-up online. They fear collusion, because they’ve heard that opponents might be on the phone sharing information about each other’s hands in order to gang up on honest players. Now, while collusion is always something to be alert to —whether you’re playing poker online or in the real-world—the fact is that online poker has an advantage in that there’s a database of every hand ever played. Each hand you play is worth money, when you’re playing the way I advise in this book, and twice the hands can mean up to twice the profit. Real-world surveillance and game protection has also increased dramatically in recent years, and I’m certain that, on average, poker is more honest today than it’s been at any time in history. If you doubt this, just look at the players who are regularly winning the major tournaments. Often, these are unknown players—some rank amateurs. That, in itself, is a testiment to the integrity of real-world poker today. Still, for those who are so concerned that they don’t trust anyone and don’t want to risk playing against multiple opponents they can’t physically scrutinize, heads-up just might be the answer. One opponent can’t collude. To me, that isn’t an issue. Online games can be monitored in ways so sophisticated that they’d shock those who aren’t technically savvy. While I enjoy shorthanded games and even heads-up games, I’m very comfortable against multiple opponents and sometimes prefer to play against a table full of opponents online. Heads-up is often a war of egos. And only online can you sit in London and play a hotly contested match against someone at home in bed with a laptop computer in Australia. 54 Reason #7: More Hands Per Hour When online poker first debuted in the late nineties, poker rooms actually built in a delay to simulate the time it took to deal cards in the real world. Boy, was that a mistake!

It quickly became apparent that players didn’t want the delays. The faster their cards arrived, the happier they were. That’s why doylesroom.com and most other online rooms have taken all the air out of dealing and shuffling. There is no delay. You can play many more hands per hour online, about twice as many as you’d play in the real world. That means you can make more money faster. Each hand you play is worth money when you’re playing the way I advise in this book, twice the hands can mean up to twice the profit. Reason #8: Play Two or More Games at Once You see some pretty weird things at poker. I’ve seen players hold seats at adjoining tables and scurry back and forth, trying to play both games for short periods of times. This usually happens when the player has free hands remaining before the blind at one game and has been called to a seat from the waiting list for another game. Needless to say, playing two games at once in the real world doesn’t work well. It’s physically impractical, and you’re almost certain to rudely delay the play of a hand at one table, while completing action at another. But online, it’s much simpler. You just click to enter a second, third, or even more games. When it’s your turn to act, the software notifies you, and you simply click on your decision to fold, call, check, or raise. Since you don’t have to get out of your seat and physically move to the other table, multiple game play becomes practical online. Does this mean more profit for you? It can—if you’re good enough. Try to remember, though, that you won’t be able to focus as closely as you would on a single game. You’ll miss some of the nuances and won’t be able to track your opponents’ tendencies as readily. That means your average earnings per game are sure to suffer when you play more than one. But when you add those slightly diminished profits from multiple games together, you’ll probably find that you’ll earn more total profit. Whether you do depends on your skills. 55 I recommend that you stick to just one game at first, because it can be quite hectic concentrating on two or more at once. But as you get accustomed to playing multiple games, you might find it exciting and rewarding. Certainly, there’s no equivalent in real-world poker. Reason #9: Pre-Select Buttons One of the great inventions of online poker are the early action or pre-select buttons. Since you aren’t being watched by other players, you can decide what to do in advance of the action reaching you. In real-world poker, preselecting wouldn’t be appropriate, because that would let opponents who act before you know how you planned to respond. The early action choices help speed up the play, and they’re especially useful if you’re playing other games simultaneously. For instance, when you know you’re going to fold, no matter what, you can just click the fold button before the action

gets to you and concentrate on a different table, where you hold a more promising hand. The pre-select choices change according to the action. Here’s an example from Doyle’s Room: Here I’m holding the seven and three of clubs on the left side of the table. It’s a straight limit game, and I’m waiting for Dr. Blueberry, at the bottom of the screen, to act. But, if you’re in a situation like this, you don’t have to wait until it’s your turn to make a decision. Look at the bottom of the screen. You can click right now Fold, Call 5, Call any, Raise 5, or Raise any. There is something I find useful about these pre-select buttons: they can provide tells. Watch the speed with which someone acts. If a decision is preselected, then it usually will occur instantly when the action reaches that player. I say “usually,” because occasional lapses in Internet communication can cause a delay. Most of the time this delay won’t happen, and you can get some information because of opponents’ use of these special buttons. The main thing I keep in my head is that when an action happens instantly, it’s probably a result of a pre-selected action. Why would an opponent preselect? There’s only one reason I can think of. That opponent knows that he’s going to take that action, no matter what anyone else does in front of him. That puts an added emphasis to that opponent’s decision, in my mind. 56 Although the screen shot you just looked at was for a situation where someone had already bet, sometimes no one has bet. Then one of the preselect buttons will be to check. What if an opponent checks instantly? Chances are, that player has determined in advance that he is going to check. At Doyle’s Room, he may have selected either the Check/Fold button, which is a very frequent choice, or the less likely Check/Call any button. If Check/Fold is the choice, then I can assume that the instant check means the player probably would have automatically folded if there had been a bet. In that case, I give the player less credit for having a strong hand. Similarly, if an opponent raises instantly, I’m pretty sure he intended to raise no matter what, and that usually indicates a very strong hand. There are other tells you can divine from these pre-select buttons, when you take the time to think about what an instant action means. If an opponent seems to frequently use the pre-select buttons, but occasionally hesitates, you can figure him for a type of hand where the decision is not obvious. So, always consider what an instant action—or the lack of one—might mean. You can, of course, wait until the action reaches your seat. Here’s a no-limit example of what your choices would look like then: Reason #10: The Shuffle Some players doubt whether the shuffle in online poker is as random as in real-world games. In fact, online shuffles are instant and more random than real-world shuffles. That’s because

any competent online cardroom knows the right formulas to put into the software. They tell me that the science of simulating random events, including card distribution, is very mature. I guess that means that a lot of research has gone into it, and it’s impossible for a human dealer to even come close in dealing cards with the same efficiency or unpredictability. Another impressive thing about computerized shuffling and dealing is that you won’t have any misdeals. And you’ll never encounter one of the common irritations of real-world poker, because no cards will be inadvertently flashed. Reason #11: Rakes Are Actually Less 57 At the higher limits I play, pots are seldom raked. Instead there’s an hourly seat rental. But most everyday limits, $10/$20 and often higher, are raked. If you’re looking for a bargain, you’ll find that those rakes are a little less online. Reason #12: No Tipping It’s customary to tip the dealer when you win a pot. It’s not mandatory, but most players do it. In a $5/$10 game, you might throw a dollar the dealers way whenever you win a pot with any size to it. The dealer’s make most of their income from these tips, because they’re paid very low base wages. These dollars you tip add up, and you could buy some nice Christmas presents at the end of the year if you didn’t have to pay them. Well, online, you don’t. In fact, you can’t, because there is no real dealer to appreciate or accept your gesture. But I had a strange thought. Players being as superstitious as they are, I’m wondering if Doyle’s Room should add an optional Tip button. I believe so many players would choose to tip the nonexisting dealer that I might waive my endorsement fee and get rich off those tips. Reason #13: Poker Clock In poker, an opponent can’t stall forever, whether it’s an everyday game or a tournament. Although it’s rare, you’ll sometimes see a player take a long time before acting on a hand. Now, in no-limit play, this is occasionally acceptable. Decisions can have extreme importance, and a player needs time to think about the situation and study his opponent. But even in no-limit, most players act more quickly than you’d expect. It’s rare for them take a lot of time to ponder. And in limit games, it’s downright rude to waste time over and over again when the action gets to you. I believe, if you know you’re going to fold, then you should usually just fold. Don’t make a show of it. Sometimes players take so long that if you allowed them to stall forever, the game would come to a halt. That’s why in real-world poker, you can always ask to put the clock on an opponent. That gives him a set amount of time to 58 complete the decision. Failure to act constitutes a fold. The problem with that system is you don’t want to be needlessly rude to opponents. Maybe they really do need the time. Maybe they’re losing and confused.

Maybe they’re daring you to ask for the clock, so they can be hostile in return. Who knows? The good thing about online poker is that it takes away the awkwardness of asking for the clock. If a player doesn’t click on a decision button, after 10 seconds or so he’ll be prompted to do so. Some sites provide a countdown clock. Doyle’s Room uses gentle chimes to warn that you have 10 seconds left to act. What happens if you don’t act online differs from cardroom to cardroom and situation to situation. If you haven’t put any money in the pot, your hand will be folded. If you have, you’ll usually be treated as if you’re all-in, even though you still have chips in front of you. That means competing for a partial pot. Yes, unscrupulous players sometimes try to use the all-in feature unfairly to their advantage. They’ll pretend to be having Internet communications problems, not realizing that most sites can tell if they’re actually still connected. Sometimes they’ll succeed in getting a free shot at part of a pot, when they would otherwise have folded. That’s why most sites only allow one or two artificial all-ins to be used per session, beyond which hands are folded, no matter what. That’s also why players who abuse the treat-as-all-in privilege are suspended or barred. Despite this timed-out issue, which is hard to deal with and unique to online poker, the presence of an automatic clock keeps the games moving swiftly. It’s part of the reason why there are so many more hands dealt to you each hour online. Reason #14: With More Hands, Your Results Will Even Out More Quickly In most games of skill, the right decisions are quickly rewarded. In poker, the right decisions can cause misery in the short term. If you’re not prepared for the frustrations that go with quick changes in fate, you don’t have the right temperament to be a professional poker player. Although superior players win in the long run, and you hardly ever hear 59 about any full-time pros having a losing year, it’s not hard to spend weeks or even a month suffering a net loss. But the longer you play, the more quickly that familiar law of probability takes hold, and the closer your results get to what really should happen. But even though we talk about chance taking time to even out, it really doesn’t take a lot of time—it takes a lot of hands. What if you could get all those hands played in a short time? Well, suddenly, when you’re playing online, instead of in a physical casino, you’re playing a lot more hands. The deals are amazingly brisk. The action is swift. Expect to get twice as many hands played each hour. And that’s if you only play at a single table. Many winning players regularly play two or three games at once. That’s up to six times as many hands per hour. What does this mean in terms of a bad streak? It means that a

streak that would have droned on for six days will stop showering misery on you after only one day. For certain, things will even out faster online. So, if you’re a superior poker player, you can expect to win more consistently on a week-toweek basis when you play online. Reason #15: Tournaments on Demand This is among online poker’s greatest advantages. You can play tournaments day and night. You might see events scheduled for three in the morning—so, if you happen to be awake, dive right in. Why so early in the morning? Remember that poker is now a worldwide sport, and when it’s early in the morning for you, it’s afternoon somewhere else. But if tournaments scheduled around the clock aren’t enough for you, try the unscheduled ones! There’s a fast-and-furious form of tournament poker—the single-table shootout. You play down to one winner, with second and third place finishers also receiving money. It’s the same as those popular one-table satellites that annoyed me by drying up the side action years ago at the major tournaments. The difference online is that you’re playing for cash, not for a seat into a larger tournament. What you need to know about these tournaments is that there’s no scheduled starting time. That’s why the popular name for them today is Sit-and-Goes. You take a seat at the table (or put your name on the list), and as soon as 60 there’s a full table, the cards automatically get dealt. You can put your name on other SNG lists and then play several of these tournaments at a time. Usually, they take less than an hour—and a typical player will last about 20 minutes, on average, sometimes being eliminated almost immediately, sometimes surviving long enough to win. You can play them all day if this is your favorite poker form. Just take a seat or click to get on the list. In other words, sit. As soon as there’s a full table, it’s time for the tournament to begin. A table often fills in a matter of a minute or two. In other words, go. Sit-and-goes can get to be a habit in a hurry—and a very profitable one for accomplished players. The trick is to play a solid game, trying to survive and share in one of the three payouts for first, second, and third. As much as my temperament tells me to always go for first place, this really isn’t the best strategy in these one-table shootouts, where nobody keeps track of your “championships” anyway. It’s better to play a more conservative game than you would in a regular ring game. You should play a little more selectively, trying to survive until there are just two players left, and then open up. The same is true of all online tournaments where you play down to a few players who share the prize money. You won’t have the same opportunities to psychologically conquer opponents as you would in real-world games, so the proven best choice is to play more solidly. Reason #16: More Comfortable Than

at a Crowded Table I hate sitting elbow to elbow. I’m a big man—at least I was until my recent gastric bypass surgery—and you can imagine how important it has been throughout my poker career to have enough room to feel comfortable. In the real world, I usually play shorthanded, but when I have to crowd into a nineor 10-hand game, as I do for tournaments, I’m always wishing for more space. Online, I don’t worry about that. I can play from a recliner with a keyboard in my lap, if I want to, and still be at a full table. Reason #17: Small-Limit Games That Are Un-Economical in the Real World In my mind, this is online poker’s greatest contribution to our game. Most professionals don’t think of $2 and $4 games as meaningful limits. But when you’re just starting out and on a small bankroll, even the difference between a 61 $50 win and a $50 loss can be important. Those small limits can be uncomfortable for players just learning the game. I’ll bet it’s occurred to everyone who plays poker seriously that it would be a great idea to have formal games for beginners where you could bet just 10 cents. Those would be the training ground for those neophytes who are too timid to risk meaningful money at poker. You’d let new players get comfortable with the game, players who would otherwise never experience the thrill of poker in a casino. As I pointed out earlier, real-world casinos can’t afford to do this, because of the costs involved in providing physical tables and paying human dealers. But online poker rooms can and do make this great contribution to our game. Reason #18: Free Games for Practice But why not take this advantage of being able to spread games economically online a step further? Why not offer just-for-fun games for those who aren’t ready to play poker for keeps? Most online poker rooms do exactly that. They let players learn the mechanics of the game by playing for imaginary money. And they charge nothing for this promotional service to the poker community. Real-world casinos can’t afford to do that. Look closely at the game below. Notice that this Doyle’s Room game says, “Play Money Table,” down toward the bottom of the cloth. I wouldn’t be surprised if many successful real-world players, and even future World Poker Tour and other champions, will launch their careers on free online tables just like this one. Reason #19: High Percentage of Real-World Tournament Players Who Qualified Online Yes, I was skeptical of the value of online poker a few years ago. So were many of the people who managed real-world cardrooms. They were afraid that online poker would siphon off their business more than it would help bring in new players to their physical cardrooms. That argument has been resolved. Today, it’s hard to find anyone in the industry who doesn’t realize that online games have helped in the resurgence of real-world poker. I meet players everyday at the Bellagio, Commerce, and 62

elsewhere who began by playing poker online. And the one thing that proves the point most convincingly is the number of players at the major tournaments who qualified online. For some, these realworld tournaments constitute their first exposure to casino poker. They like the adventure of playing against live opponents they actually can shake hands with and speak to at the tables. And they enjoy trying to read them and spot tells—something that isn’t possible online. Count the new players pouring into casino poker tournaments through online channels, and you’ll be as convinced as I am that online poker has helped greatly to bring our game into the public spotlight, giving it the respect it always deserved, but never had. Reason #20: Optional Four-Color Decks I’ve got to confess, I’ve never been a fan of four-color decks. With the traditional deck of cards I grew up with, hearts and diamonds are both red, and spades and clubs are both black. They tell me that four-color decks, with each suit having its own color, were tried over a hundred years ago. Apparently, it wasn’t as economical to print them that way, and two colors became the custom. I prefer two-color decks, because that’s what I’m used to. But, there’s obviously a strong argument for a four-color deck. It makes it much easier to spot flushes and flush possibilities at a glance. When Mike Caro publicly started making a big deal about changing to four-colors ten years ago, I thought he was goofy. He tried unsuccessfully to introduce four-color decks to real-world casinos, even going so far as promoting a “C-Day” for Color Deck Day where this novelty was introduced to sixty-five casinos simultaneously. The effort fell flat, because poker players don’t like change and because the differences in colors that he chose were too subtle to be easily distinguished across the table. Old timers like me balked, while many beginners liked the decks. It would have been nice if everyone could play with the deck they preferred, but that was obviously impossible. You had to choose one or the other, and the traditional two-color deck continued to rule in real-world casinos. 63 Online, it’s different. You can play with the deck of your choice. That’s because the deck you choose is only displayed on your own computer screen. Your opponent can be looking at a different deck, and it won’t make any difference to you. That’s why four-color decks have gained a new lease on life online—and only online, so far. Reason #21: Software Lets You Know When It’s Your Turn You’ve had this happen before. A player sits patiently, because he doesn’t realize it’s his turn. You sit patiently, too, because you don’t want to be rude while, you assume, he’s making a decision. Yes, we’ve all seen this impasse time and again. Online, this awkward moment never happens. The software prods players for a decision, letting them know precisely when it’s time to act. Reason #22: No Social Stigma About Leaving a Game Early with Your Winnings I believe that a

player should never need to provide a reason for leaving a game. The common notion that you’re being unfair if you sit down for a short time and leave with a big profit is nonsense. In poker, you put your money at risk. If you win, it’s your money, and you can get up and leave anytime you feel like it. Still, this is sometimes hard to do in the real world. If you hit and run too often, you’re apt to get a reputation as the type of player some don’t like to play against. It never bothers me when players win and leave quickly, but it does bother others. Personally, I usually prefer to play longer sessions, but I don’t frown on those who’d rather play short ones. Online, you won’t encounter any resistance when you take the money and run. Opponents realize that you might only have ten minutes to play right then, and you can just click Leave Table and be out of the game without fanfare or making excuses. In fact, players need to pay attention to even notice who comes and goes in a game, because it happens so quickly online. If you’re one of those players who likes to play short sessions and leave with your winnings intact, online play is your kind of poker. For the most part, nobody cares or even notices. 64 WHAT ADJUSTMENTS WILL YOU NEED TO MAKE ONLINE? Finally, I’ll give you some basic advice about how to win online. Almost everything in this book applies. Online poker is real poker. Keep in mind how I advise playing against bad players, because you can just assume most of the players you’ll confront online are bad. Or at the very least, you’ll find yourself up against more unsophisticated and too-loose players than you will in real-world casinos. The trick to beating games against that type of player is to seldom do anything fancy. You don’t need to. Most of your profit will come from choosing to do the obviously correct thing. Raise when your logical first choice is raising. Fold when your hands are weak. Bluff sparingly in limit games. Against the type of player you meet online, you should try a lot less tricks than you would in the real world. Mike Caro and I are in the process of making instructional videos about realworld poker and online poker. Some of these videos will be given away at doylesroom.com exclusively. Many others will be available to the public. We expect this project to do for poker videos what Super/System did for poker literature. Use all the professional techniques you’ve learned in this book, but keep it simple whenever possible. That’s the purest path to online poker profit. 65 EXCLUSIVE SUPER/SYSTEM 2 TIPS FROM MIKE CARO UNIVERSITY Mike Caro From his earliest days as “Crazy Mike” to his current stature as the legendary “Mad Genius of Poker” and “America’s Mad Genius,” Mike Caro has pioneered some of the most important concepts used by the top players today. In public, he can

be off-the-wall and entertaining, but when he offers advice and research, world-class poker competitors take his word as gospel. And even those players who haven’t had personal contact with Mike have no doubt been greatly influenced by his pioneering theories in ways they don’t even realize. When I met him in 1977, Mike was thirty-two and already the best draw poker player in the world. Since then he has evolved into the premier authority on poker strategy, psychology, and statistics. Now at sixty, he has helped generations of players reach levels of achievement they never dreamed possible through his books, columns, seminars, and videos. A few years ago, he founded Mike Caro University of Poker, Gaming, and Life Strategy with an online campus located at www.poker1.com, yet another innovation that electrified the poker community. Recognized as “the man” in poker circles, his unquestioned integrity, unprecedented ingenuity, and tireless devotion to our game have left their mark throughout the world of poker. In the following pages you’ll get a taste of what Mike teaches at his standingroom-only seminars. These powerful tips and concepts will likely be as valuable as any advice you’ll ever receive. 43 EXCLUSIVE SUPER/SYSTEM 2 TIPS FROM MIKE CARO UNIVERSITY By Mike Caro Each tip in this chapter works in conjunction with everything Doyle Brunson and his collaborators teach in the following chapters. I know this because poker is powerful science. I know this because, in many ways, poker is exact 66 science. I know this because any true world-class player—particularly one selected by Doyle—must honor all established laws of poker science. I also know this because I’ve already seen the chapters. The following tips are selected from over 1,000 candidates in the library of articles, lectures, courses, and seminar transcripts found at Poker1.com. That’s the online home of Mike Caro University of Poker. MCU serves as the exclusive educational wing for doylesroom.com, where you can play internet poker against real opponents worldwide. You’ll find Doyle’s teachings online, along with my own, at Poker1. But this is the way I still prefer to teach—offline, in traditional print. For many years, I didn’t want my poker concepts to appear in print at all. I never wanted to share poker secrets. I was perfectly content to be a professional poker player for the rest of my life. But in 1977, Doyle persuaded me to create the draw poker and statistics sections for the original Super/System, and in doing so, he opened my eyes to the prospect of propelling poker beyond its dark and dingy history. He dreamed of bringing our great game into the light of day, writing openly about tactics, and helping the public see poker as a worthy strategy game, just like chess, backgammon, and bridge. As soon as Super/System was published in 1978, I realized the scope of Doyle’s dream. Poker players, who had been hungry for real analysis—not homespun hit-and-miss wisdom found in previous books—expressed their gratitude openly, not just to Doyle, but to me and all the experts on the first Super/System team. Yes, the early research

I contributed back then was ahead of its time, but it doesn’t compare with the truths we’ve learned since. Today, we’re unraveling some of poker’s great tactical mysteries, as you’ll discover when you move beyond this chapter. Draw Is Dead “Draw poker is dead,” Doyle said, and he suggested that, rather than revising and modernizing both the five-card draw high and lowball sections for Super/System 2, I create an introductory “seminar,” based on the ones I 67 present to casinos, but with deeper explanations worthy of Super/System. The tips would appear on “screens,” just as they do at my live performances. Fine. I don’t agree that draw poker is dead, but let’s do that seminar, anyway. I’ve divided the presentation into four sessions: (1) Insights and Attitude; (2) Strategy and Tactics; (3) Psychology and Tells; and, (4) Two Final Bonus Tips. If you’re ready, I am, too, so let the exclusive MCU Super/System 2 seminar begin! Insight and Attitude TIP 1 I know what you’re thinking. That’s a strange way to begin a chapter targeted to readers who seek to play poker seriously. I read your mind, right? Get used to it. You’re looking at my most famous quote, so let me explain why it is an important starting point. The main skill that successful people possess is the ability to closely estimate their chances in life. The main skill that winning poker players possess is the ability to closely estimate their chances of winning a hand or making a profit in a game. How do you closely estimate your chances? It’s a matter of observing what goes on around you and determining how likely events are to affect you. Easier said than done, right? Right! And you’ll never get anywhere near perfect when it comes to estimating your chances. But the closer you come, the more likely you are to conquer opponents at life and at poker. But, here’s what you need to understand: If you don’t know how to estimate chances or you don’t have any information at all about a situation, then that event appears to be an even money situation. Experience tells us that some things are not even money. If you leap from a twenty-story building, you probably won’t land safely. But, wait! You might 68 land safely. You might have your fall broken by a giant pile of feather pillows. Of course, you and I know it’s not an even-money proposition that this will happen. We know that leap probably isn’t going to end pretty. Okay, so how would you know it wouldn’t end pretty if you didn’t understand gravity or falling or collisions with concrete or anything else? You wouldn’t. You’d just jump and take your chances. To you, the act would seem no more or less dangerous than sleeping. Landing safely would seem like an even-money bet to you. But as you gain experience and gather information, you’re able to better assess your chances. In fact, your goal in poker and in life is to defeat the notion that a situation is even money

and replace it with truer odds—which sometimes might actually turn out to be even money after all. You don’t necessarily do this by keeping actual odds or numbers in your head, just by using good judgment based on the information available. In the long run, the person who does that best succeeds most. We want you to succeed at poker. The information in this book will help you monumentally when it comes to assessing your chances, making the right decisions, choosing the right games, and deciding which gambles are good for you. TIP 2 Again, you’re probably bewildered, because the tip seems too simple. I’m betting you’re thinking something like, “Obviously money you don’t lose is just as good as money won, because you saved it. And saved money can be spent.” Fine, but then how come most players, even most professionals, often play poorly when they’re losing? If you sometimes find yourself doing that, then you need to pay close attention now. Here’s the way I explain the concept at live seminars. If you’re losing $9,225 in a $50/$100 limit game, it probably won’t feel much different to you if you lose $9,925 instead. Even though logically you know that the difference is $700, emotionally it doesn’t seem like $700 you can spend. When you lose $9,225, you’re thinking in terms of that money no longer being available. Same goes for losing $9,925. You’re not thinking that you can spend anything, in either case. But you can! 69 If you lost just $9,225, you’d still have $700 to spend that you wouldn’t have if you had lost $9,925. Obvious, I know. But the difference doesn’t feel like much in the heat of poker combat. When you began playing for the day, though, you would have felt that you were ahead if you’d won $700— obviously. That’s because it would be very clear to you that you have $700 extra to buy things with. Well, the same is true if you play as well as you can when you’re running bad and cut the loss by $700 through superior play. You have $700 to spend, even though, in our example, you lost over $9,000. If you’re unable to see it that way, maybe this will help. Suppose you were having a really rotten year and had lost $240,000. Now a genie pops out of a bottle. Don’t snicker—this actually happens to me regularly. The genie says, “Wanda,” assuming your name is Wanda, which it might not be, “I can rewrite history and make you even for the year.” You say, “That’s great, genie! Thank you so very much!” “There’s just one thing I need to know.” “I knew there was a catch,” you complain. “Just tell me,” the genie continues, ignoring your unappreciative remark, “whether you want me to rewrite history by adding a little to each of your wins, so that they total $240,000 more, or take a little from each of your losses, so that they total $240,000 less.” Immediately you blurt, “I don’t care, genie. It doesn’t matter. Just

do it.” And then you recognize the meaning of your own words. It really doesn’t matter, because saving a little from each loss—even a big loss—is just as important as adding to a win. It’s not almost the same money or theoretically the same money, but exactly the same money. And once you realize the truth of this, you will always play poker with the same amount of care, whether you’re winning or losing. It always matters equally. TIP 3 In order to be successful at poker, you must understand this. Always make your decision about whether to call, fold, check, or raise in accordance with how much money is in the pot, weighed against what it will cost you to wager. That decision should be the same whether the pot is provided as a promotion by the casino or you somehow put the entire sum in yourself. 70 Once you put money in the pot, it’s up for grabs and is no longer yours, any more than it is anyone else’s. For that reason, you should never consider how much you personally have invested in a pot in evaluating a poker decision. The same concept governs your everyday life. Let’s suppose you fancy yourself a world-renowned collector of antique radiator caps, as many of us dreamed of being when we were kids. Two years ago you were able to acquire a radiator cap signed by Edward Jones Miscellania, a respected local automobile mechanic, for $300,000. Two years later, an appraisal places the true value at a disappointing $75,000. Then a fellow collector offers you $150,000. Okay, now you have a choice. You can say, “Don’t be ridiculous! I already have $300,000 invested in this radiator cap.” Or you can correctly reason: What I personally have invested doesn’t matter. The only thing I should consider is whether the $150,000 is a good price for my radiator cap. If you opt for the second choice and pocket the $150,000, you’ve learned a key secret in life and poker: What you personally have invested never matters. TIP 4 Years ago a reporter asked me, “What’s the main objective in poker—except, of course, winning pots.” Well, I had to explain to him that winning pots isn’t an objective in poker, at all. You shouldn’t even care whether you win a pot. You should only care about making the correct decisions. Making quality decisions is the only thing you get paid for in poker. In fact, it’s easy to become the grand champion of winning pots. All you need to do is call and raise your way toward the showdown every chance you get. If you don’t pick up the pot early, every hand that could possibly have gotten lucky enough to win, will win that final showdown. Many of these will be hands with long-shot, unprofitable chances that you stubbornly continued to play against the odds. If you’d thrown all of them away, you would have saved a lot of money, but you wouldn’t have won any extra pots. If you don’t throw any hands

away, you’re probably going to win more pots than anyone else—right up until you go broke. So, obviously, the object in poker isn’t to win pots. You need to take that attitude to the poker table. Whenever you make the correct decision to fold a 71 hand, you’ve made money. Notice that I didn’t say that you saved money. That’s because—as you learned from the previous tip—money made and money not wasted can be spent equally well. So, there’s profit in throwing hands away. Of course, making the right decisions can sometimes help you win a pot, especially when you bluff at a profitable moment. But it’s that decision you get paid for, not winning the pot. Striving to make the right decisions—not to winning pots—is so important that I do something you’re going to consider weird: I root for my opponents to win pots. This keeps me good-natured in a poker game and makes my opponents believe I genuinely care about them— because it’s true. By rooting for an opponent to win the pot, only two things can happen: (1) If the opponent wins, I’m happy. (2) If the opponent loses, I get the pot as a consolation prize. I’m always aware that the more times my opponents go against the odds and win, the poorer they’re playing, and the more money I’ll earn eventually— especially in limit games, where average players enter too many pots. This attitude and this success come from realizing that winning the pot is not the object of poker. TIP 5 You want to be in the most profitable games, right? Well, when you hear laughter, it’s often an indication that players are there to enjoy poker, not to take it seriously. On average, friendly games, especially those with laughter, are the most easily beatable. Conversely, silence is usually an indication that opponents are playing way too seriously, and your prospects for making a profit are diminished. When you have a choice, choose a table where players are laughing. TIP 6 Typical poker tournaments continue until one player has all the chips, and everyone else goes broke. But if the stakes just stayed the same, a tournament might last many years. It would be very hard to eliminate players. So, in tournaments, the stakes keep getting larger and larger periodically, until all 72 but one player is gone. But, you know what? If you only have a small bankroll, you can make your own tournament any day. Buy into a small game and keep moving to a bigger limit every hour until you either go broke or win at the $5,000/$10,000 limit or larger. You see what I’m getting at, right? You’re almost certain to go broke, but you might get extremely lucky and increase your bankroll hundreds of times. Most likely, you’re going to end up miserable. You’d be surprised how many otherwise skillful players fail at poker, simply because they treat their bankrolls like tournament buy-ins. Sure, they don’t do it all in one day, as in the exaggerated example I provided. But they

keep promoting themselves to higher and higher levels that the size of their bankrolls can’t justify. Almost all of them go broke, despite their skills. Please don’t do that. TIP 7 “What percentage of hands should I enter pots with?” It’s a common question. “It depends on your image and what you’re trying to accomplish.” That’s my answer. As strange as it may seem to you, one professional can play twice as many hands as another and both can earn the same amount of profit in the long run. How come? It’s because so many hands are marginal, meaning they will break about even, that you could play almost all of them or almost none of them and still earn the same. Most of your poker profit comes from relatively few quality hands. Still, you need to consider the good and the bad about playing a lot of marginal hands. When you do, you’re seen as an action player, and you’re likely to make more money when you hold your best hands, because opponents feel comfortable playing against you. That’s good. But, because opponents don’t perceive you as conservative, it will be harder for you to bluff profitably. That’s bad. Also, when you play most of your marginal hands, the size of your bankroll becomes more volatile, and that means you need more money to afford the same size games. 73 When I’ve established a friendly, carefree image, which is what I usually strive for, I generally play most marginal hands. In addition to fitting my image, this strategy gives me opportunities to extract profit from small edges later in hands when opponents make mistakes. These small-profit opportunities add up, and they wouldn’t be available to me if I didn’t play those hands. In general, Doyle and almost all world-class players agree and play a lot of marginal hands. But, you need to keep in mind that marginal hands are marginal for a reason —they about break even. And since there are so many hands in this category compared with so few high-quality hands, it’s easy to see how one professional player can contend for twice as many pots as another and both can eventually end up with about the same profit. TIP 8 Don’t be too proud of your success calling bets in limit poker games. Remember, the pot is always larger than the size of the bet, because there will always be some money in the pot when the bet is made. In limit games, the pot is usually many times the size of the bet. Let’s say you’re heads-up and your opponent bets $400 into a $2,400 pot on the last betting round. Clearly your call only needs to be successful once in a while, not every time. Specifically, there’s $2,800 out there to win (the $400 just bet, plus the $2,400 that was already there), and it will cost you $400 to find out if your hand is best. You’re getting 7 to 1 odds ($2,800 to $400). That means if you win once in eight times when

you call in this circumstance, you’ll break even (seven $400 losses, totaling $2,800, versus one $2,800 win). So, this is a call you should make, even if you estimate that you’re going to lose 5 out of 6 times. That would cost $2,000 for the five unsuccessful $400 calls and provide $2,800 for the one successful call—a net gain of $800 for six calls. That’s about $133 profit per call, on average. So, if you don’t make that call—because you know you’re usually going to lose— you’re costing yourself a lot of money. Now, sometimes you call because you’ve read your opponent and are acting in response to a powerful tell. If you’re good at reading opponents—and I’ll help you out with that in a few minutes—you will increase the profit you 74 make by calling. Otherwise, most of your calls will be made on the basis of evaluating the cards in relation to the size of the pot. You see, in those cases, you’re usually not supposed to win when you call. Burn this into your brain once and for all: “I’m probably going to lose when I call, but it’s a good thing!” You could, of course, only call with your most-likely winning hands. Then you’d average a lot of profit per call. But that would be very bad, because in order to average a lot of money calling, you must sacrifice by not making calls that are individually less profitable, but hugely profitable combined. The truth is that you don’t want to average a lot of profit per call, and you shouldn’t be proud of the fact, if you do. TIP 9 It makes no sense to stay in a poker game, struggling to get even, unless you would normally continue to play that game if you were ahead. If you’re a professional player, then the more hours you spend in games, under good working conditions, the more profit you’ll earn. You get paid by the hour— pure and simple. Sometimes it might not seem that way, because the fluctuations in poker are so great that it’s hard to imagine yourself working for an hourly wage. But that’s what’s happening. Eventually, the more hours you play under profitable conditions, the more your bankroll will grow. But, you only have so many hours to invest in poker, and you need to invest them wisely. Find the best games. Make sure you’re playing when you’re in condition to do the best job. You need to weigh everything. For instance, it’s not good to play poker when you’re tired. But if the game is very good, you might occasionally choose to continue playing, even if you’re tired. Conversely, sometimes you might choose to go home early and rest, even though the game is profitable, because you think another game will be more profitable tomorrow. So you need to make choices about which hours will be the most profitable. Okay, but what you do not need to do is choose to play for hours on end in an attempt to get even for

the session. Whether you win or lose today has nothing whatsoever to do with your overall success. It doesn’t matter when you quit or when you play—as long as your decision is based on how 75 profitable the next hour will be. Think about this: You start every pot even. Your bankroll is always only as big as when the pot begins. You’re never winning or losing when the cards are dealt. You’re always even. So it makes no sense to try to get even. You already are. TIP 10 “I’ve won twenty-three days in a row!” Peter was proud as he told me this. But he shouldn’t have been. Earlier during this win streak, he’d bragged about having been buried one day for $1,100 in the $10/$20 hold’em game he played as an aspiring professional. “I stuck it out like a world-class pro,” he’d bragged. “At a quarter to five in the morning, I counted down my stack and I was $8 ahead. I didn’t even bother to play out my free hands until the next blind. I just cashed out immediately. That gives me seventeen wins in a row!” Now, you see the problem here? Peter was manufacturing his win streak. It’s a pretty easy thing to do. You just refuse to take a loss until it gets so big that there’s hardly any hope of recovery. If you get lucky and recover, you cash out immediately with a small win. If you start off winning, you’re quickly satisfied, and you also settle for a small win. The hallmark of a player who manufactures winning streaks is that his average wins are much smaller than his average losses. Yes, you tend to have a lot of long winning streaks, but at what cost? By trying to recover from a deep loss, you’re likely to find yourself playing in the worst conditions—when games yield smaller profits, on average. Although there are exceptions, always keep in mind that games where you’re losing are likely to be made up of stronger opponents. These games will therefore be less profitable than games where you’re winning, which tend to consist of weaker opponents. Also, when you’re losing, many opponents are aware of this and don’t see you as much of a threat. Often they’re motivated by your bad run and play better. For these reasons, you’ll probably be in a less profitable situation if you stick around, struggling to get even. Remember, you’re getting paid by the hour, and here you are, putting in lots of extra hours under poor working conditions, with poor pay. 76 It’s also bad to quit when you’re winning, just to keep your streak alive. You’ll very likely be deserting a good game. When you’re winning, games are more profitable on average than when you’re losing. And players you’re beating are more easily intimidated, because they’ve seen you winning, fear you more, and are less likely to play their best game against you. So, when you leave a game to enhance a winning streak, you’re usually taking off work under

the best conditions, where the hourly wages were highest. Put it all together and you can see why a manufactured win streak isn’t a good thing. It’s certainly nothing you should be bragging about. TIP 11 This brings us to poker’s stupidest question: “Why didn’t you quit when you were ahead?” Specifically, people will ask this question after you’ve lost a lot of your winnings or unfortunately turned a win into a loss. Often they know approximately how much you were winning and will phrase the question similarly to what you see above: “Why didn’t you quit when you were $17,000 ahead?” I’ll tell you why I didn’t quit when I was $17,000 ahead! I didn’t quit, because I wanted to make more money. I didn’t quit, because when I’m winning, game conditions tend to be best, and since I get paid by the hour, I wanted to get in more hours under those conditions. I didn’t quit, because neither you nor I had any way of knowing at the time whether the cards would be good or bad from that point on. Here’s the main reason that “Why didn’t you quit when you were $17,000 ahead?” is the stupidest question in poker: When you win $50,000, nobody ever asks it. TIP 12 Most serious players understand this tip, but few understand its full value. Since the action moves clockwise around the table in poker, players to your right usually act before you. I say usually, not always, because if the player on your right is in the dealer position, he’ll act last throughout the hand. Or if he’s in one of the blinds and you’re not, he’ll act after you on the first betting round. Also, in a stud game, the face-up cards—not table position—dictate who goes first, but you still have an overall positional advantage against stud 77 players to your right. For the most part, you will act after players to your right, and this means you’ll usually get to see what they do before making your decision. That’s called positional advantage. In fact, positional advantage is so huge in full-handed games that most of the money you make in your poker-playing career comes from the players one or two seats to your right, and most of the money you lose goes to players one or two seats to your left. TIP 13 Because most of your lifetime profit comes from players who act before you do, it’s important to choose a seat, whenever possible, that places the correct types of players to your right. In other words, you sit to the left of them. When you have a choice, sit to the left of players who either pose the biggest threat or who supply the most money. In the biggest threat category are players who are sophisticated, aggressive, and unpredictable. You can greatly diminish their effectiveness by forcing them to act first, giving you positional advantage over them. If they were seated to your left, they could use that advantage to pummel you. But even more important to

your long-range profit is sitting to the left of loose opponents, particularly non-aggressive ones. Loose but non-aggressive players supply most of the money you win, because they enter too many pots and don’t always take full advantage of profitable opportunities by betting or raising when they have you beat. They’re likely to lose, and you’ll have a better shot at their money if they act first. When you hold your most profitable hands, you’ll frequently see them calling a bet with weak hands before you raise. Then, when you do raise, they’re trapped for more money. If the situation were reversed and you acted before them with an opportunity to raise another opponent, your raise would likely scare away those weak players to your left (along with their weak hands). The two types of players you want to sit to the left of are almost opposite in nature. One type is loose and timid; the other is selective and aggressive. You’ll often have to choose between having your biggest money supplier or your biggest threat on your right. But try to make sure one or the other is 78 there—and sometimes you’ll be fortunate enough to accomplish both when your loosest opponent and, also, your most threatening one sit in the two seats to your right. Now let’s talk about the seat on the other side of you. What type of player can you sit to the right of, thereby surrendering your positional advantage? Here’s the secret: Ideally you should have very conservative but unimaginative players acting after you. These players don’t enter enough pots to interfere with your strategy very often and don’t play aggressively enough to exploit their superior position, even when they do get involved. Given all these considerations, my first priority is usually to sit to the left of my loosest opponents. I want to act after them, because they’re the most likely to build my bankroll. TIP 14 I’ll admit I spent a lot of my energy in my younger days playing against the toughest opponents. This was valuable as a way to hone my skills, but I overdid it. Although, I played professionally for fourteen years, I think I would have made even more money had I concentrated more on finding weaker games, rather than gaining respect by beating world-class opponents. TIP 15 The full name of MCU is Mike Caro University of Poker, Gaming, and Life Strategy. I take the life strategy part of that seriously, and in my teachings there are many overlapping themes between poker and everyday endeavors. Few concepts have resonated with students more than Caro’s Threshold of Misery. I continually receive letters, e-mails, and face to face thanks from both poker players and people in the “real world,” telling me how much this simple truth has meant to them. Here’s how it goes: Suppose you’re a small- to medium-limit player, and you can envision yourself comfortably losing a maximum of $1,500 today. I’m not suggesting that you’ll be happy about losing that much, just that you can comfortably handle it and

that anything more will begin to feel uncomfortable. Okay, now you find yourself down $500, then $1,100, then—before it 79 registers—you’ve zoomed past $1,500 and are losing $1,800. You’ve entered dangerous territory. And it gets worse. And worse. Hours later, you find yourself losing $4,530. Now, your mind is numb. I believe that most people at this point can’t mentally comprehend added losses. It all feels the same. You’ve crossed Caro’s Threshold of Misery, which is the point at which mental and emotional pain is maximized and anything further won’t register. You must be aware when you cross the threshold, because beyond it decisions don’t seem to matter. This is true in real life, too. When romances unravel or businesses fail, you might cross the Threshold of Misery and stop caring about making critical decisions regarding other things. That’s because the pain is already maximized and anything else that goes wrong can’t add to the agony. Listen closely. At these times, in poker and in life, the secret is to keep performing as if you care. Remember that, although you can’t emotionally feel the importance of making quality decisions at the moment, there will come a time when you will feel that importance and be grateful for the good decisions that you make now. Yes, you’ve crossed the threshold and decisions don’t seem to matter. They do still matter, and anything that suggests otherwise at this moment is an illusion. Strategy and Tactics TIP 16 Even some professional players make the mistake of betting aggressively after deceptive players check. They’d earn much more money if they didn’t have this bad habit. Throughout your poker playing years, always think about the player you’re about to bet into before firing away with a medium-strong hand. If it’s a tricky player, you should be much less motivated to bet, because he won’t just fall in line and call meekly. He will surprise you occasionally by raising as a bluff, sometimes getting you to throw away the best hand. And he will also tend to get maximum value out of his strong hands by raising daringly, costing you an extra bet whenever you call and lose the showdown. You should tend to bet much more often when the check comes from meek and non-deceptive foes. So, you should not bet as 80 frequently or as willingly after a deceptive opponent checks. Make that a part of your permanent game plan. TIP 17 This is another MCU maxim that some professionals too often ignore, costing them extra profit for their whole careers. When a frequent bluffer waits to act after you, there can be considerable value in letting him make his primary mistake—bluffing too often. Against this type of player, a medium-strong hand will often earn more in the long run as a bluff catcher than a hand you would bet aggressively for extra value. TIP 18 One of the reasons bluffs are successful is that they often beat other equally weak hands. Had you checked, you would have won some showdowns between garbage hands. And you

would have lost some. By betting, you ensure a win under those circumstances, and that adds substantially to the value of the bluff. But when a frequent bluffer checks, it’s much less likely that you can win by chasing away an almost equally weak hand that might have squeaked through in a showdown. So that factor won’t work in your favor. Additionally, frequent bluffers check a disproportionate number of hands that they intend to call with. That makes a bluff even riskier. I won’t tell you to never bluff when a frequent bluffer checks, but you wouldn’t cost yourself much by adopting that policy. You need to be very certain you’re on solid ground. Otherwise, don’t bluff. TIP 19 A value bet is simply an aggressive wager that targets every last dollar of potential profit. Whenever you value bet, the decision is close enough that you could easily have checked, instead, without sophisticated opponents thinking you did anything strange. The problem with value betting is that many players do it as a matter of policy, without realizing that there are times you should and times you shouldn’t. By value betting without applying the correct guidelines, these 81 players turn a tactic that should add greatly to their profit into one that may do little more than break even. I don’t want that to happen to you. So here are two lists telling you whether to value bet or to check: Four Conditions That Favor a Value Bet: 1. You’ve Established a Dominant and Unpredictable Image This intimidates your opponents, making them more likely to call with weaker hands out of confusion. 2. You’re Winning This also intimidates your opponents, making them less likely to raise aggressively, which will cost you extra money when their hands are somewhat better than yours. 3. Your Opponent Is Timid Opponents who are, by nature, timid, are unlikely to press a superior hand for maximum value or steal the pot with an unexpected bluff-raise. 4. Your Opponent Tends to Call More Often Than the Average Player That’s exactly what you’re seeking from your value bets—lots of calls with weaker hands. Four Conditions That Favor a Check: 1. You’ve Failed to Establish a Dominant and Unpredictable Image This usually means your opponent is not intimidated and less likely to call out of confusion. 2. You’re Losing Your opponents, aware that you’re losing, often gain the courage to get maximum value by raising with hands that may be slightly better than yours, costing you extra bets. 3. Your Opponents Have a Tendency to Raise Liberally This means that due to their nature, they get maximum value from hands that are slightly better than yours. 82 4. Your Opponent Plays Tight Tight players are unlikely to call liberally with weaker hands than yours, taking the value out of your bet. These lists don’t cover every conceivable thing you might consider. But they do include the things I consider first when deciding whether or not to value bet. If you do that, too, you’ll make a lot of extra money. Value

betting just for its own sake doesn’t make much money. Value betting for the right reason does. TIP 20 Whenever you hold an unbeatable hand—or one close to it—you might consider checking and then raising if an opponent bets, also known as sandbagging. But when two or more opponents are involved in the pot with you, there’s an important factor you’ll need to consider before deciding whether to bet or to sandbag. Here it is: You should sandbag your strongest hands when the player immediately to your left is the one most likely to make the first bet, and usually not otherwise. Why is that? Because by sandbagging with a powerful hand, you’re trying to win more money. You’re declining to bet, risking direct money through calls, in the hopes that someone else will do your betting for you, and then you can raise and win extra. Well, suppose there are three players in the pot. If you check, the player to your left checks, and the other opponent checks, you win nothing. You gambled that someone else would bet, and you lost that gamble. If you check, the player to your left checks, and the other opponent bets, that’s not so good, either. You get to raise, but your seating position relative to your opponent’s greatly reduces the effectiveness. Your raise will make it very difficult for the player to your left to justify calling with anything but a nearly unbeatable hand. You’ll almost certainly chase that player away. You might get the bettor to your right to call your raise, but you might not. What you’d really like to see happen after you check is a bet from the player to your left. Then, if all goes well, the other opponent will call, and then you can raise and hope they both call the raise. This call and overcall often happens in a limit game, because the pot is so large, relative to the cost of the 83 call. That great outcome, where you win four bets—two from each opponent—is only likely to happen if the opponent to your left is the most likely bettor. So, because sandbagging a huge hand is often only marginally superior to betting, usually you should try it only when the player to your left is the one you think will bet. This happens a lot in hold’em when the player to your left got the last raise in before the flop and many players are still contesting the pot. Now, if the flop hits you perfectly and might be satisfactory to the player to your left, you often should check. If that first-round aggressor again bets, you might see a lot of other callers before the action returns for your raise. You should also consider the playing styles of the players you’re checking into. In particular, you should be more willing to sandbag your strongest hands when the player to your left is a liberal bettor. When you’re first to act, have a big hand, and are considering a sandbag against two or more

opponents, ask yourself who’s most likely to bet. Left is right. Right is wrong. TIP 21 Lots of money is lost in pots with at least three players when one of them raises from a middle seat on the last round of betting. Lower level professionals quite often make the mistake of raising with fairly strong, but not invincible, hands. You seldom want to raise with this secondary strength. By “secondary,” I mean that the hand is very powerful, but falls short of primary strength, which consists of hands that cannot be beat or, at least, are very nearly invincible. Aggressive players that are accustomed to dominating the game by getting maximum value through betting, typically raise much too liberally in this situation. The mistake costs them dearly, but they probably don’t even realize it. The problem with this middle raise is that hands with secondary strength usually make more money if you give a third player the chance to overcall. A raise will likely chase away that money and, if the first player is bluffing or has a hand too weak to call, that raise gains you nothing. By not raising, you 84 also protect yourself against losing more money with a second-best hand when you collide with the perfect hand. The solution: Seldom raise in the middle position on the last betting round. You can make an exception and raise if: (1) You have a weak hand and you think you’re being bluffed; or (2) Your hand is extremely strong. In the first case, you raise to eliminate the player waiting to act behind you, so you can beat the possible bluff. In the second case, you raise strictly because your hand is strong enough to withstand a reraise from anyone and you’ll beat the player behind you, if he calls a raise. Even in the second case, you might choose to just call. So seldom raise. TIP 22 While most top professionals understand this, some don’t. And the majority of second-tier professionals, along with most serious amateurs, don’t seem to understand it at all, based on the way they play in this situation. I’ll try to explain it as simply as I can, but you’ll need to work with me a little. The mistake happens mostly in limit games. Imagine this: You’re playing $200/$400 hold’em. Three of you have survived to see the river card and here comes the final round of betting. You’ll be last to act, and you’re holding A™ J™ with a board of J® 4™ K™ 9´ Q´. The pot is $3,100 and the first player bets, making it grow to $3,500. You examine the situation and estimate that you have roughly 1 chance in 6 of beating this bettor in a showdown. As you know, 1 chance in 6 means that the odds are 5 to 1 against you. That means, in order to break even on the call, the pot would need to be at least five times as large as your $400 call. Well, the pot in this case is already $3,500—much

larger than the $2,000 needed to justify a call—so obviously you’re supposed to call. In fact, if you made six calls and won once, you’d lose $400 five times, for a total of $2,000, and win $3,500 once—an overall gain of $1,500, or $250 per call. But, wait! There’s another player involved in this pot. Her name is Beth and 85 you’ve played poker with her many times before. She gets to act before you do. Beth calls the bettor, and you estimate her chances of having a better hand than his to be just about the same as yours. Now what? Now you need to consider what your chances are of beating both the bettor and Beth. The mistake players make here is that they tend to overcall with the same hands— or only slightly stronger ones—than they would have called with had Beth folded. That’s wrong! You need a significantly stronger hand to overcall than you need to call. Here’s why: Remember, you feel that you have an equally good chance of beating the bettor as Beth does. Mentally, here’s where most players—even very experienced ones—go off course with their logic. They think, “If she can call, then so can I, because I have just as good a chance as she does and now the pot is even bigger.” And they’re partially right: The pot is even bigger now; it was $3,500, and now, with Beth’s $400 call, it’s $3,900. So, should you overcall? No! If your estimates are correct, and we’re assuming they are, then you still have 1 chance in 6 of beating the original bettor in a showdown. But, if you succeed there, you still must beat Beth, and you’ve estimated that you have an even money shot of doing that. So, if a very similar hand were played over and over through eternity, for every two times you beat the bettor (and that would only happen 1 out of 6, or 2 out of 12 attempts), you’d also need to beat Beth (and that would only happen half the time). So, Beth’s presence takes away half your chances of winning the pot, making your real chances only 1 in 12, instead of 2 in 12. How does that translate in terms of money chances? How big would the pot need to be to call? If you followed the earlier logic, analyzing the odds before Beth’s call, you know that at 1 chance in 6 , you needed a pot five times as large as the call to break even. Now, at 1 chance in 12, the odds are 11 to 1 against you, and you need a pot eleven times the size of the $400 call to break even. So, in order to justify this overcall, the pot needs to be at least $4,400 large. It isn’t. It’s only $3,900. Using the same formula as before, we see that we’re going to lose $4,400 on those eleven failed calls, and win $3,900 once. That leaves us $500 short of breaking even over twelve tries, so the

average cost is just less than $42. 86 Do you see what happened here? It was worth $250, on average, every time you called just the bettor, but costs you $42 every time you overcall after Beth. I know this was a tough lesson, but it’s something you need to know. Thanks for indulging me. Let’s move on… TIP 23 You’ve heard a lot about thinning the field. The term refers to eliminating some of the players that are in competition for the pot. Thinning the field is sometimes an important weapon. Indeed, there are hands that can be played more profitably against one or two opponents than against a whole herd of them. I’m on record as not being a fan of thin-the-field strategy, because I believe that players usually attempt it at times when they would make more money by allowing extra opponents in. The really big issue I have with this strategy is that, if you succeed in thinning the field, you very likely have chased away the weakest hands, which might have provided profit to you had they stayed in the pot. Instead, you’ve left yourself stranded against only the stronger hands that you wanted to chase from the pot, but didn’t. Okay, now that I’ve shared my innermost thoughts about thinning the field, here’s when to try it and when not to try it. The most advantageous time to thin the field is when weak players are already committed to the pot and strong players are waiting to act behind you. If you raise, you’re likely to chase strong players out and play against weak opponents and weak hands. The worst time to use this strategy is when strong players are committed to the pot and weak players remain to act behind you. If you raise, you’re likely to chase weak players out and play against just the strong players with strong hands. Next time you attempt to thin the field, don’t just think about the number of opponents you’d like to thin, think about which players you’re going to thin. TELLS AND PSYCHOLOGY TIP 24 87 You want weak players in your game. Usually, they’re playing recreationally, not seriously. They’re apt to play hands for the sheer fun of it. They may even enjoy going up against the odds. When you insult them for their “bad” plays, you’re making them uncomfortable and motivating them to play better in the future. Don’t do that. Concluding his seven-card stud high-low chapter, Todd Brunson gives further insight about the disastrous mistake some professionals make by rudely criticizing weak opponents. I feel so strongly about this that I often give encouragement to players who go up against heavy odds to win a pot from me. I’ll say, “Wow! Most people don’t even play 4-3 offsuit, and usually I don’t, either. But I won with it three times yesterday. Maybe you and I are on to something!” Do you understand why I say that? I’m making the weak player feel good about getting lucky. I’m practically making him into a hero.

At the same time, I’m telling him that I “usually” don’t play that hand, making me sound sincere and believable. (At a poker table, it’s perfectly permissible to lie about your hands and about the way you play them. In fact, it’s part of the psychology of winning. And once in a while, you should throw in the truth, just to keep opponents off balance.) But, I’m saying more. I’m claiming that I played the same hand successfully, even though I suggest that I know better. This gives him “permission” to play badly again in the future. If I do it, so can he. It will be fun for him to try to succeed again and be rewarded with more praise. When players make him feel badly about weak plays, they’re prodding him to play better. That’s exactly the opposite of what they should want. And it isn’t fair to other competitors to make their money suppliers uncomfortable about supplying money. TIP 25 While I often praise weak opponents for bad plays, I never praise them for good plays. That would make them proud of “pleasing me.” They might decide to take the game seriously—and wouldn’t that be a disaster? 88 TIP 26 I’ve seen even some of the best players in the world violate the advice shown above. Never forget that recreational players supply most of your profit. They came for the fun of poker, not to analyze it to death or to take it seriously. When you sit at the table discussing the finer points of poker strategy, you’re alerting the players who supply your profit that they might be competing above their league. You’re making them uncomfortable, and it’s quite possible that they’ll either decide to sit in your games less often or to play better. You don’t want either of those things to happen. I often hear sophisticated players debating the technical merits of how a hand was just played in the presence of weak opponents. Serious discussions of strategy can alert these recreational players to the notion that there is strategy. You don’t want to do that. And, even more peculiar to me, the debates are usually over something as inconsequential as whether a call or a raise in a borderline situation was the better choice. These way-too-technical arguments can never really be resolved (except, possibly, by me), because there are too many side factors involved, such as how opponents were likely to respond emotionally at the moment and what the bettor’s image was. The truth is, the discussion is often about which choice is 37¢ better, when just by talking about it in front of a recreational player, the debaters potentially are costing themselves thousands of dollars. Let me put in gently, without insulting some of my poker-playing friends who’ve made this mistake: The economic advisability of discussing advanced strategy at a poker table populated with weak opponents is hereby brought into question. TIP 27 Now I’m going to tell you a story. I’ve told it many times, but I think it illustrates this point so

well that I’ve chosen to immortalize it by including it in Super/System 2. I’m not sure what year it was—1985, I think. Well, actually, it was both 1985 and 1986, because this happened on New Year’s Eve and shortly thereafter. Okay, I’m playing poker at the Bicycle Casino near Los Angeles, not because 89 I’m a poker junkie, but because my wife Phyllis Caro is in charge of the dealers and is working that night. Anyway, as the hour approaches midnight, games start to break as players head home to their families. Pretty soon there are sadly no games with much size to them. Don’t you hate it when players get their priorities confused? So I settle for killing some time playing a tiny no-limit game with $1 and $2 blinds. As you’re probably aware, no-limit isn’t about the size of a poker game; no-limit is a method of betting in a poker game. Since the forced-blind bets are the initial targets, all wagering should be in proportion to the size of those blinds. Theoretically, no-limit games with $100 and $200 blinds should result in pots that are, on average, 100 times as large as the pots in the game where I now sit, with paltry $1 and $2 blinds. Actually, I could have sat in that game for that hour before midnight, seen about twenty deals, folded every hand, and it would have only cost me $6 in blinds. That’s how small the game should have been. Notice that I said, “should have been.” You see, something strange was happening. I’m sure the average pot was over $700, and many pots were thousands of dollars large. I was suddenly winning a great deal of money in a game I hadn’t even considered to be a profit-making opportunity. I mean, here was the loosest, wildest game of poker I’d ever seen in my life! Midnight approaches. The Bicycle Casino staff passes out those annoying noise makers and goofy hats. They also give away streamers you’re supposed to throw in the air to show how thrilled you are that time moved forward smoothly to the next year, just as most scientists predicted it would. I know I sound grumpy, but lucrative poker games should not be interrupted for this sort of silliness. It gets to be a couple minutes to the hour. That hour. A second-by-second countdown begins. Everyone has left the table, getting ready to kiss their girlfriends, boyfriends, or spouses. Me too. I figure, “Why not?” Nobody’s sitting at the stupid table anyway. So everyone smooches and hugs and produces strange, loud bellows that sometimes sound more anguished than joyful. I kiss Phyllis, but make no loud noises whatsoever. Streamers snake through the air and sully the carpet. More obnoxious sounds are coming from 90 everywhere, courtesy of the Bicycle Casino’s free noise makers. It goes on for a couple of minutes and everyone returns to the poker table. Let me tell you, this is now the tightest poker game in the history of our planet. Nobody’s gambling! You know why,

right? New Year’s resolutions. Everyone has decided to play good this year, and—knowing poker players as I do—this resolve might last for twenty minutes. So, I cash out my winnings and hurry home. What’s the point of this story? The point is that your opponents resolve to play well from time to time, not just on New Year’s Eve. And you need to be prepared for it. Typically, players will resolve to play better when they just sit down for the night. They’re probably thinking: “This is the day I’m finally going to stay disciplined and play good.” And like I said, their resolve can last up to twenty minutes, but never any longer. During this brief window of opportunity, you can bluff successfully against them. And they won’t be playing weak hands. The same holds true for players who were buried in a game and played recklessly with the faint hope of getting even. If they miraculously do get even, expect their style of play to tighten. Again, you can bluff them, and they won’t be playing frivolous hands. So, adjust your strategy accordingly. TIP 28 When players complain about bad luck, they’re seeking sympathy. They’re feeding off their own misery, and they want to show you the hands they lose with to prove their point. It’s rare that players who are complaining in this way will try to bluff. More often they’ll simply show you that they missed and, perhaps, say, “See what I mean.” So, when they bet, it’s very unlikely that they’re bluffing, and it’s usually safe to fold medium hands you might otherwise call with. TIP 29 What happens when you complain about bad beats? Do your opponents grow sympathetic and teary eyed? No. They might feign sympathy, but actually they’re thinking, “Hey! There’s someone more unlucky than I am! There’s 91 somebody I can beat!” And they become inspired and play better against you. There probably aren’t any poker players who haven’t sometimes felt as if they were setting the world record for bad beats. That’s because it’s lonely at the table, and when your luck turns terrible, you’re the only one that’s paying full attention to it. The most you get from anyone else is vague awareness and an occasional half-hearted, “Wow! Bad beat!” And that’s it. It gets so bad sometimes that you wish you could show a video of what happened to you, so everyone could ooh and ahh about what you went through. “Want proof? Y’all meet me over at my house, we’ll have a barbeque, and then we’ll all sit around and watch televised evidence of how badly I’ve been suffering at poker.” Forget about it! Except for being inspired by your sadness, nobody cares. Keep your bad luck to yourself. Now, the last thing I want is for superstitious opponents to get inspired because I’m running poorly. So, I don’t broadcast my bad beats. I deny them. And I make a deal with my students. I explain, “When you tell me a bad beat story, I don’t really listen. I

nod sadly and pretend to care, but actually I’m using the time to think about more important things. That way, you feel the sympathy you’re seeking, and I put my time to good use. It works for both of us.” I even deny that I’m having a bad run, if someone mentions it at the table. I’ll often say something like, “That was a pretty strange beat, but actually I’ve been very lucky lately.” While I’m not superstitious and don’t allow my students to be, many opponents are. They think luck runs in streaks. But, as I’ve been pointing out for twenty-five years, a streak is just something you see in the rearview mirror. It might continue and it might not, but you’re gauging the length of a streak on the basis of what’s already happened, what’s behind you in the mirror. You see, the latest lab research suggests that cards lack the physical strength to reposition themselves. So, even if they were determined in their tiny brains to make your life miserable, their muscles are too weak to follow through. TIP 30 92 Your opponents didn’t come to the card room hoping to throw hands away. They have a bias toward calling. And most of them are looking for reasons to call, even if they have to invent those reasons. That’s why you’re more likely to be called if you’re slightly animated. Opponents might unconsciously be aware that you twitched or sipped your coffee. They’re instinctively thinking, “That’s strange; maybe that means he’s bluffing.” They’re a little bit like snakes, predisposed to strike at the slightest move. Except they’re poker opponents, predisposed to call for the slightest reason. I’ve given this universal poker condition a name: The Calling Reflex. And it’s easy to take advantage of it. In fact, here’s one huge tip: When you hold a strong hand and you know your opponent is about to fold, do anything! It’s a freeroll, because you’re already about to lose the call, and if you can change an opponent’s mind at the last moment, you’ll win a whole bet you would have lost by just sitting there. It’s pure profit. So, always keep in mind that your opponents have calling reflexes. As they begin to fold—assuming you want to be called—jitter, shift your weight in your chair, knock over some chips, just do something new. Once in a while, you’ll get your opponent’s attention, he’ll get suspicious, reconsider, and call. You won’t usually be able to trigger that calling reflex at the last moment, but you will sometimes. It’s like making a snake strike. And it doesn’t cost anything to try! TIP 31 I’ve written a whole book about the body language of poker—about your opponents’ mannerisms that suggest whether they’re holding strong or weak hands and whether they’re bluffing or not. These mannerisms are called “tells” in poker, because they often tell you something about your opponents’ secret cards. The main thrust of the book is that opponents are either acting or they aren’t. If they’re acting, you should usually determine

what they’re trying to convince you to do and disappoint them. If they’re exhibiting what I term “involuntary tells,” they’re not acting, and if the tell is strong enough, you should react directly in accordance with what it implies. Be aware that the most experienced players in the biggest games exhibit tells less 93 frequently. And when they do, the tell is likely to be a more subtle variation of the one you’ll see when confronting weak and average opponents. One of the core principles governing acted tells is that a player looking away is always more dangerous than a player staring at you. A player staring away from the approaching action, as you see here, is pretending to be uninterested in the pot. Actually, he has a strong hand and is preparing to get involved. He’ll probably raise if you’re silly enough to bet a vulnerable hand into him. If you see a player staring away like this when it’s your turn to act, beware! TIP 32 Here’s one of the most misunderstood and most profitable tells in poker. It’s not acted. It’s a natural reaction that your opponents can’t control. You’ll occasionally see this even among a few top players in the biggest limits—and when you do, you can save a lot of money by folding. I’m talking about a suddenly shaking hand. Please pay attention to what I just said—a “suddenly” shaking hand. If your opponent’s hands tend to be unsteady most of the time, this tell won’t help you much. But, fortunately, few players exhibit constant trembling. So, what happens when—all of a sudden—the opponent bets and his hand begins to tremble. I’ll tell you what happens in a lot of opposing players’ minds. They think, “Look at that hand shake. That guy’s nervous. I’ll bet he’s bluffing, so I’m going to call” Now, there’s a thought that’s guaranteed to cost you money! Typically, players who bluff bolster themselves and often become rigid. They don’t allow themselves to shake, because they’re afraid the shaking would make you suspicious and prompt you to call. When you see an opponent shaking, it’s a release of tension that comes automatically when the suspense ends. That opponent has made a big hand— often a truly monumental one—and expects to win. If this seems counterintuitive to you, start watching. A suddenly shaking hand signals the happy ending to a drama. It indicates that the player has gotten lucky and is mentally already stacking those chips. The trembling means a strong hand, and you should almost always fold—unless your own hand is also very powerful. 94 TIP 33 We talked about the calling reflex, and oddly, most opponents are instinctively aware of it. They’re not aware to the extent that they’re able to harness their own calling reflex, but subconsciously they’re aware that the other players have one—although they’ve probably never put it in words. Because of this vague awareness, your opponents are afraid of triggering your calling reflex after they bet weak hands. So, they instinctively make themselves less noticeable. Sometimes they freeze

and sometimes they even stop breathing! When opponents appear not to be breathing after they bet, there’s a much higher-than-normal chance that they’re bluffing. TIP 34 Here’s just another member of the same powerful family of tells. Closely observe opponents who are sucking on candy or chewing gum. If they continue to do so naturally after betting, they’re probably relaxed and hoping for your call. If they stop sucking or chewing, it’s likely that they’re bluffing. You can sometimes force this tell when you’re holding a marginal calling hand by reaching slightly toward your chips. Often a player who is bluffing will grow concerned and all sucking or chewing will suddenly cease. That’s when you should call. If you don’t get that reaction, fold. TIP 35 Your opponents are always conscious that you might be observing them. It makes them uncomfortable, and that’s why they become actors, especially in the low- and medium-limit games. They try to fool you by almost invariably acting weak when they hold strong hands and strong when they hold weak hands. This means that when you see an opponent shrug or hear a sigh, that’s an act intended to convey sadness. Don’t be fooled. You’re probably facing a powerful hand. Why would players go out of their way to convey sadness and make you suspicious if they didn’t want you to call? They wouldn’t. 95 Confronted with conspicuous sadness, you should usually fold all mediumstrong hands. TIP 36 Another common way that opponents try to convey sadness is through the tone of their voices when they say “bet.” Listen closely for it. Whenever you hear, “I bet” spoken in a singsong, drawn-out manner that suggests, “Gosh, I wish I didn’t have to do this,” that’s almost certainly an indication of a powerful hand. Seldom call unless you have one, too. TIP 37 Here’s an occasional tell that you’ll see, sometimes even in the biggest-limit games. Suppose an opponent tries to bet a stack of chips, but some spill off the top as he positions them in the pot. What does that imply? Usually nothing. It’s what happens next that matters. If the player is holding a weak hand or is bluffing, he’s probably worried that the mistake will make you suspicious and invite you to call (remember the calling reflex?). So if you’re facing a weak hand, you’re likely to see the opponent try to neaten up the chips—to erase the error. If that happens, you should be much more willing to call. But, if there is no attempt to correct the fumbled bet, you’re likely to be against an opponent who isn’t worried, and you should be reluctant to call. TIP 38 One of the strongest tips for hold’em or Omaha players is to avoid watching the flop. It will still be there later. As the dealer turns over those first three board cards, observe your opponents. This is a goldmine for tells. Most players are unaware that you’re watching them at the moment the flop hits, so they’re unlikely to be acting right then. What

you’re looking for is primarily this: (1) Players who instinctively glance immediately toward their chips liked the flop and are considering betting. 96 (2) Players who stare at the flop a little longer probably didn’t get any help. This falls somewhere in the gray area between acted tells and involuntary tells. Staring for a short time is involuntary, indicating the player didn’t get help and has no reason to either look at his chips or look away as if uninterested, in an effort to make your bet seem safe. Continued staring for a longer time usually indicates weakness—the player is feigning interest, but probably won’t call a bet. The flop affords you the opportunity to read both acted and non-acted tells. The first instinct of some players who help their hands is to glance toward chips, preparing to put them to use. That’s non-acted. The player, having helped his hand, will often closely follow this involuntary glance by looking away from the approaching action as if uninterested. That last part is an act, portraying weakness, which actually indicates strength. Players who continue to stare at either the flop or their chips long enough that they think you’re watching are trying to convey an interest in the pot that their cards don’t merit. They’re usually not a threat. And many players, who see a flop that helps them, don’t instinctively glance toward their chips at all before looking away. They’ll jump right to the looking away part—an act that also tells you they’re holding strong hands. Paying attention when the flop hits can earn you a lot of money. But, this can only happen if you’re paying attention to the players. If you’re paying attention to the cards instead, like almost everyone else is, you’ll miss this opportunity. TIP 39 Before you act on your hand, examine the players who will act after you. The four points above are strong indications that opponents aren’t interested in calling any bets. This is particularly important on the first round of betting. I’m able to convince even professional opponents that I’m in the game to gamble, playing hands that are too weak for my position—without actually doing it! How? It’s simple. I just look behind me and when I see one or more 97 opponents providing these strong indicators that they’re going to fold, I relax my hand requirements, substituting what I would need if I were that many seats later in position. It means I can profit from hands I wouldn’t have been able to play if I weren’t observant, and, at the same time, it does wonders for establishing my carefree image. TIP 40 But, if I see these indicators when I examine players who will act after I do, then I’m in trouble with a weak or medium hand. I need real strength to justify a bet. And I’ll be more willing to sandbag a super-strong hand on later betting rounds, because it looks like someone will do my betting for me, if I check. TIP 41 Now that we’ve discussed some key

tells, I need you to understand something. Very few tells are 100% accurate. You need to use them like you would any other bit of information. For instance, if you’re playing seven-card stud and you raise with a queen showing on the first betting round, a reraise from an opponent with a king showing very likely indicates a pair of kings. But it might not—the clue isn’t perfect. You need to adjust your tactics so that you give more consideration to a pair of kings than you would have, while keeping open the possibility that you’re facing a pair of buried aces, a smaller buried pair, three suited cards, or an outright bluff. The raise is an indicator that makes you reevaluate the likely hands your opponent has. A pair of kings becomes more likely, other hands less likely, but still possible. It’s the same with a tell. It’s just another factor, just an indicator. The stronger it is, the more it should influence your decision. But you should seldom let a tell be the only factor that goes into your decision. One other word of caution: Because players have a bias toward calling, many will use tells incorrectly. They’ll go out of their way to spot imaginary tells that prompt them to call and almost completely ignore actual tells that prompt 98 them to fold. If you do that, you’ll probably lose money with tells and would be better off not using them at all. My advice is that you get as good as you can at using tells and applying poker psychology. If you’re a serious winning player, you might easily double your income by mastering these skills. Two Final Bonus Tips TIP 42 I see this mistake quite often, and it drives me crazy. (I have to blame my condition on something, right?) Let’s say your hand is fairly weak for the situation, but the pot is so big that you’re going to call a bet no matter what. Faced with this circumstance, players instinctively try to prevent a bet, perhaps by reaching for their chips menacingly. Listen, if you know you’re going to call, you should encourage your opponent to bet, even if you’re hoping he doesn’t! That’s because the only times you’re likely to succeed in discouraging a bet are when your opponent holds weak hands or would have bluffed. Those are precisely the hands you would have beaten with your call. By not discouraging a bet, you’re inviting an opponent to bet all the hands that will beat you—which he would do anyway! Plus, you’re making him feel comfortable about betting all those extra hands you can beat when you call. Discouraging a bet you intend to call only stops opponents from betting hands you’ll beat, not from betting hands you won’t beat. So don’t do it. TIP 43 For most players, it’s very uncomfortable facing a poker bully—one that tries to dominate the game through super-aggressive plays, mixed with bewildering bluffs. But it’s easy to defeat poker bullies and send them home crying for their

mommies. You’re looking at the three-step formula now. If you follow it— rather than be lured into an escalating battle to determine who can be more forceful and creative—bullies can’t damage you. There is no counter-strategy 99 available to them, and ultimately they have no choice other than to give you their money or behave. I’ve enjoyed spending this time with you. And now I’ll return the stage to Doyle Brunson and the rest of his world-class experts. 100 SPECIALIZE OR LEARN TO PLAY POKER by Steve Zolotow THE FOX AND THE HEDGEHOG Seven-hundred years before the birth of Christ, the Greek poet Archilochus distinguished between the fox and the hedgehog, saying “The fox devises many strategies; the hedgehog knows only one, but he uses it very effectively.” As a gambler which should you strive to be? Should you try to learn a lot of games or just one? Many poker players adopt the hedgehog’s strategy. When presented with an encyclopedic book such as this one, they immediately turn to the chapter that covers their favorite game and study that chapter exclusively. They either give a cursory glance to sections dealing with other games, or they opt not to look at them at all. The advantage to being a hedgehog is very simple. You can become very good, perhaps even great, at your specialty. What could be wrong with that? If you become an expert at one game, you won’t be afraid of any opponent, and you’ll win consistently. So why would you even consider the fox’s strategy? Why learn a variety of games, especially if it is virtually impossible to play multiple games as well as you can learn to play just one? Here are five reasons why: 1. Times Change Your chosen game might not stay popular forever. Some games that were once very popular have faded almost completely away. Imagine how much the five-card-stud or draw-high experts make now. When I first played in New York City, many home games played high-low declare. I never see declare games being played these days. 2. Adaptability Means Higher Profits You never want to pass up the opportunity to make money at another game. Say you have a choice between a tough stud game and an unbelievably weak Omaha eight-or-better game. A great seven-stud hedgehog might barely cover the rake, while a fox who is barely competent in Omaha will opt for the weak game and clean up. 101 3. Knowing More Never Hurts While learning one game, you might pick up something that helps you master another. Before I started playing pot-limit Omaha, I didn’t understand the importance of making big laydowns on the river in that game. And you need to be versatile in learning the difference between cash games and tournaments, too. You never know where the profit will be. In cash games, how you play with or against a short stack isn’t very important. In tournament play it is a crucial skill you can develop. 4. Flexibility If you are a fox, you will be able to play

mixed games or dealer’s choice games. Many home games and most of the biggest games are mixed games, in which the game changes after a set number of hands is played or a certain amount of time elapses. The most popular multi-game mix in casinos is H.O.R.S.E., an acronym for the combination of hold’em, Omaha eight-orbetter, razz, stud-high, and eight-or-better stud. Some common two-game mixes are stud and hold’em; no-limit hold’em and pot-limit Omaha; and high-low stud and high-low Omaha. With so many games to play, a hedgehog would have a lot of trouble competing at these tables. 5. Versatility A fox is much better prepared for any new games that develop than a hedgehog. The more versatile you become, the easier it will be for you to pick up a new variation when you are faced with it. WHAT TO LEARN What poker variations should you learn first? To some extent that depends on where you are and what game you normally play. No-limit hold’em is a good game to master first. Not only is it the most popular game, but it’s also growing faster than any other. If you intend to play a lot of tournaments, you should definitely learn no-limit hold’em, but don’t forget to study the limit and pot-limit variations. On the East Coast, stud is popular and should be your second choice. In Europe and the South, pot-limit Omaha should be your second choice. In 102 Vegas and California, Omaha high-low split is a reasonable second game to learn, but make sure you learn how to play both tournaments and live games. Eventually you should practice enough to feel comfortable playing limit, potlimit, and no-limit games. You should also strive to learn all the most popular games, including hold’em, seven-stud, Omaha high, Omaha high-low, sevenstud high-low, deuce-to-seven triple-draw, razz, and lowball draw—both aceto-five, usually played limit, and deuce-to-seven, usually played no-limit. The top players know and play all of them. Why shouldn’t you? I would even recommend the study of certain academic disciplines, especially mathematics and psychology. Psychology will help you better understand your opponents and what they are doing. It may also enable you to find, understand, and eliminate some of your own mistakes. Probability and statistics are extremely useful as well. Poker players have been known to use game theory to determine the percentage of bets that should be bluffs. Assuming you are extremely intelligent—and you must be if you are reading this book—and hard working, you should be able to master all of these games and academic disciplines in approximately five lifetimes. That’s why, in order to make the most money, you should master one or two games, while achieving high competence in the others. 103 LIMIT HOLD'EM POKER by Jennifer Harman Though Jennifer Harman is proficient in all poker games, I chose her to write the limit hold’em chapter because I’ve seen her win consistently at this game, often beating the best players in the world. Having played high-stakes poker with Jennifer the past few years, I’m convinced that she’s not only the

best all-around female player alive, but also ranks among the elite poker players of the world. Her aggressive play, a style that fits right into the power poker I have always recommended, has impressed me for years. Jennifer is one of the few women who have won open events at the World Series of Poker, and she is the only woman who has done it twice. In 2000 she won the deuce-to-seven title—a game that was new to her at the time—and in 2002 she won the limit hold’em championship. To further illustrate her versatility, Jennifer also has appeared at the final table at the WSOP in seven-card stud, pot-limit hold’em, and twice in limit hold’em events. She won the no-limit hold’em championship at the Commerce Casino in 1998, the same year that she won the limit hold’em event at the Orleans Open. In 2002 Jennifer made her final table debut at the prestigious World Poker Tour in Aruba. We’ll be hearing more roars from this 100-pound poker lioness in the future. INTRODUCTION There are significant differences between limit and no-limit hold’em. One obvious difference is that in no-limit, if you play your cards right, you can trap your opponents for all their chips. That’s just not the case in limit hold’em. While no-limit is a game of traps, limit hold’em is all about value betting, which means you want to get maximum value for your hand, often through aggressive betting. You’ll find that in limit hold’em it’s best to play in a straightforward manner, that is, bet and raise when you actually have a decent hand. But don’t be predictable, and don’t forget that bluffing is one of the most powerful weapons you can use in limit hold’em. Let’s get to it! 104 BLINDS AND ANTES I would like to start with a discussion of blind structures. After all, posting the blinds is the first step in any hold’em game. In this chapter we are going to cover the different approaches that should be considered based on the blind structure . A full-limit hold’em game has either nine or ten players seated at the table. These games are often referred to as ring games. Typical lower limit games are played ten-handed, but as the limits go up, eight- and nine-handed games are more common. Games with three to six players are called shorthanded games, and those played with just two players are called heads-up games. Hold’em is a positional game. A little puck or button moves clockwise around the table representing the dealer. In home games, the deal simply moves to the left each hand, but casino games use a professional dealer. The position of the button on the table determines the order of action. After the first round of betting, the button always acts last, which is a great advantage. As the last player to act, the button is able to watch his opponents act on their hands, revealing possible strengths and weaknesses, before he makes his own decision. Two players, the blinds, are forced to put money into the

pot before the hand is dealt. The small blind sits directly to the left of the button, and the big blind sits directly to the left of the small blind. There are two basic types of blind structures: a two-and-three chip and a two-and-four chip. In a two-andthree chip blind structure, the small blind puts in two chips, while the big blind puts in three chips. For example in a $15/$30 limit hold’em game, the small blind must bet $10 while the big blind must bet $15. In a two-and-four chip blind structure (a one-and-two chip structure is identical), the big blind posts double the amount of the small blind. So in a $20/$40 limit hold’em game, the small blind would be $10 and the big blind would be $20. Optimal limit hold’em strategy differs depending on which blind structure you are playing. A two-and-three chip blind structure will cost you more money proportionately per round than the two-and-four chip structure. As a result, two-and-three chip games are looser than two-and-four chip games, 105 and you will need to compensate for this by playing more hands. The difference between the two structures seems pretty insignificant, so why the need to adjust your play? Two-and-Three Chip Structure In the two-and-three chip structure, the small blind already has 2/3 of a bet in the pot. If there is no raise before the flop, it’s highly likely that the small blind will complete the bet and see the flop. There are few, if any, situations in which the player in the small blind should fold a hand rather than kick in one more chip. For example, let’s say you are in the small blind in a $30/$60 hold’em game. A player from middle position calls $30, as does the button. As the player in the small blind, you already have $20 invested, and including the big blind’s $30, the pot already stands at $110. Since calling will only cost you $10, you are getting 11 to 1 odds on your investment. And since there are very few hands that would be worse than an 11 to 1 underdog to win, it’s basically an automatic call no matter what you are holding. If only you and the big blind remain, remember that there is already $50 in the pot and you have to throw in just one more chip to call. In this case, you are getting 5 to 1 on your money, and you only have to beat one player. Even if you limp in with a marginal hand and the big blind raises you, it’s not the end of the world; you’ve still made the right play. In a two-and-four chip blind structure, the game should be played a bit more conservatively. As the small blind, you’ll have to put in one-half more bet to see the flop, as opposed to the 1/3 bet in the two-and-three chip structure. Let’s apply the scenario above to a two-and-four chip structure. Once again, you are in the small blind, this time with a $10 bet invested.

A middle position player limps in for $20, as does the button. There is $70 in the pot, and you have to call $10 more to see the flop. In this scenario, you are getting 7 to 1 on your money, which isn’t bad. You should still play a majority of your hands, but not as many as you would have in the two-and-four chip structure. If only you and the big blind remain, you’ll have to call $10 into a $30 pot—not that high a price against just one player, but it’s still much less enticing than in the two-and-three chip blind structure. As the small blind in this type of game, 106 you should play more conservatively, as it costs you less money per round. When deciding what limit to play, consider what type of blind structure suits your style. If you are an aggressive player before the flop and like to play a lot of hands, the two-and-three chip blind structure is probably the best choice. Conversely, if you are the type of player who likes to sit back and wait for big hands, then the two-and-four chip structure is definitely better suited to your style. PRE-FLOP STRATEGY When people who are new to poker ask me for pointers, I usually tell them to play fewer hands. If you are a beginner, you should stick to strict guidelines with your pre-flop hand selection. This will benefit you in two key ways: (1) You’ll learn the importance of patience and discipline. (2) Your daily swings won’t be as large. When you are just starting out, your goal should be to get accustomed to the game. As you improve, you’ll be able to expand your starting requirements and play even more hands for a profit. As with strategies for any poker variation, there are basic principals and guidelines you should keep in mind, but remember that nothing is set in stone. As your poker abilities improve, you’ll want to add some creativity to your pre-flop play so your opponents will have a tougher time getting a read on you. Your pre-flop strategy will differ greatly depending on the number of players at the table. Later in the chapter, we’ll discuss different strategies for games of all sizes, but for now let’s look at optimal pre-flop strategy for ring games, those played nine- or ten-handed. Position is an important factor in helping you decide how to play any given hand. In a typical ten-handed game, there are three positions other than the blinds (we’ll get to blind play later in the chapter) you can bet from: early, middle, and late. The later you act, the better your position, and the more hands you can play for a profit. Conversely, if you are in a bad position (early position), you need a premium starting hand to enter the pot. For the sake of this discussion, we’ll call positions three through five to the left of the button 107 the early positions, positions six through eight the middle positions, and positions nine and ten

(the button) the late positions. In a nine-handed game, players one and two are in the blinds, players three and four in early position, five through seven in middle position, and eight and nine in late position. The last player of each position falls in the middle of the two positions. Early Position When in early position, it is important to remember that the rest of the players act behind you, so your hand has to be strong enough to stand a raise. So as a general rule, you should only play the following hands in early position: A-A, K-K, Q-Q, J-J, 10-10, A-K, and A-Q—plus A-J suited and KQ suited. These may sound like strict guidelines, but keep in mind that the texture of the game will dictate whether or not you can expand on them. If you find yourself in an aggressive game with a lot of pre-flop raising, you’re better off sticking to these guidelines. On the other hand, if you are in a passive game with little aggression or pre-flop raising, you can broaden your hand selection to include A-10 suited, 9-9, and 8-8. If you are dealt a premium hand in early position, you should raise. If you always raise with a premium hand, you’ll actually be giving away less information about the strength of your hand than if you only raise with aces and kings. If you adopt this strategy of always raising with a premium hand, your opponents won’t know if you are raising with A-A, A-K, K-Q, and so on down the list. However, if you always limp in with hands other than aces and kings, your opponents will soon be onto you and learn to never call when you raise. Your pre-flop raise with these hands serves two purposes: (1) It enlarges the pot. When you are holding premium cards, you want as much money as possible in the pot. (2) It narrows the field. The value of your big pairs decreases in multiway pots. By narrowing the field with a raise, you increase the chances that your premium hand will stand up. As you become more comfortable with the game, you might consider occasionally limping in with a premium hand in order to throw off your 108 opponents. By limping in, you might cause many players to rule out the possibility that you’re holding aces or another premium hand. Your pre-flop deception might win you more bets in later rounds. You could even consider limping in with A-K suited in early position. If it is raised behind you, you could go ahead and reraise when it gets back to you. By doing this, you could actually represent aces or kings. So even if you miss the flop, you can bet out and try to take it on the flop. Limping in from Early Position Some expert players like to limp in with kings in early position. I’m not a big fan of this play. If someone is going to beat me with an ace-rag hand, I want to make sure I make

him pay for it before the flop. If more than three people see the flop and an ace flops, you can quietly deposit your kings in the muck. If the pot was three-handed or heads-up and an ace flops, you might want to test the waters and bet out. If you get raised, you’ll have to rely on your judgment when it comes to deciding whether to call or fold. Your decision should be based on your read of your opponent. Would he raise me here with a draw? Might he even raise me with middle pair? Does this guy ever bluff? Would this guy play ace-rag? By answering all of these questions, you should have a sufficient number of clues to help you make the right choice. This is why it’s so important to pay attention to the hand you’re involved in, as well as hands you’ve already folded. By watching the game, you should be able to figure out who likes to limp with A-x and who prefers playing suited connectors. You may consider limping with K-Q suited as well. Unlike high pairs like AA or K-K and other premium hands, this hand plays well in multiway pots. Deception and mixing up your play should be an important part of your game, but unfortunately there is only so much you can do from early position. For the most part, you just want to play fundamentally sound poker. When you find yourself under the gun, don’t try too hard to be creative, because it may cause you to be faced with more difficult decisions later in the hand, and you can end up outwitting yourself! Middle Position In middle position, you should definitely play the premium hands we 109 mentioned above, but now, with fewer players acting after you, you can play a few more. Although middle position allows you to broaden your hand selection, remember that, unlike early position, you now have to take into account what has happened in front of you. Playing Premium Hands from Middle Position (A-A, K-K, Q-Q, A-K) For the most part, you should play your premium hands from middle position the same way you would from early position. If you are the first one in with A-A, K-K or A-K, you should raise. If somebody has raised in front of you, you should be aggressive and reraise. As you read on through this chapter, you’ll find a recurring theme: aggression! Sometimes, you might want to practice a little bit of deception by calling a raise with a hand like A-K suited, the best drawing hand of them all. Even if you flop a flush draw with no pair, you still have fifteen outs against a hand like Q-Q, which, by the way, would make you the favorite to win the pot. If you are up against another unpaired hand, you’d have the best hand, as well as the best draw. There are other reasons why you might just want to call a raise with A-K suited. Say you are holding A? K? in a

loose game with lots of action. By smooth calling, you might persuade others to stay in the pot. Being heads-up with the initial raiser wouldn’t be horrible, but it might be even more profitable to let others in. So let’s say you call, as do three others, and the flop comes bad for your hand—7-8-9 with two hearts, for example. No problem—just check-muck it, thus saving one bet. Playing Middle Pairs from Middle Position (J-J, 10-10, 9-9) If you are the first to enter the pot, you should raise coming in. Remember: aggression, aggression, aggression! If someone has raised in front of you, you should reraise to narrow the field and give yourself the best chance to win the pot. Unlike a hand such as A-K suited, these middle pairs don’t play very well in multiway pots. By reraising, you’ll get a little bit more information about the initial raiser’s hand. If the initial raiser makes it four bets, he probably has a bigger pair or at least A-K. Defining your hand as a strong one is a good idea, and by reraising you can represent a premium hand. Why is this good? Take this example: Say you 110 reraise with 10-10 against a player who has raised from early position. You get it heads-up and the flop comes down 7-3-2. The initial raiser checks, and you bet your 10-10. If your opponent has A-Q, he would be correct in calling one more bet on the flop. However, since you’ve represented a stronger hand than you actually have, the initial raiser may fold thinking that you might already have A-A. Playing A-Q from Middle Position As when playing middle pairs from the middle position, if you have A-Q and are the first to enter the pot, you should raise coming in. On the other hand, if you are facing an early position player who has already raised, playing A-Q from the middle can create some potentially sticky situations. What you should do against an early position raiser will depend heavily on your read of that player. If the Rock of Gibraltar raises from first position, you’re A-Q isn’t worth two cents! However, if you know the raiser to be a loosey-goosey type player, you should probably try to isolate him by reraising. There are a few situations where simply calling an early position raise is acceptable, but if you think the hand is worth calling with, you should go ahead and reraise. Otherwise, dump it. You’ll then want to keep the lead on the flop whether you flop a pair or not. What you do after the flop will depend on the texture of the flop, your opponents, tendencies, and the number of players in the pot. But as a general rule, you should never call a raise and a reraise with a hand as weak as A-Q. Playing Marginal Hands from Middle Position (A-x suited, K-Q, K-J, Q-J, J10, 10-9 suited, 7-8 suited, and Small Pairs) This is where your starting requirements get a little tricky because there is an added

variable: what has happened in front of you. For example, let’s look at a hand like J-10. If no one has entered the pot, you should consider raising it up, hoping to pick up the blinds. But if someone has already raised in front of you from an early position, chances are they can beat jack high. Since it’s no longer possible to pick up the blinds, your best play here is usually to fold. I say usually, because there are very few absolutes in poker. Each situation is unique and varying your plays will help confuse your opponents. How often you use these variances depends on many factors, including table 111 composition, table image, and more. Here are a few general guidelines to think about when playing marginal hands in middle position: (1) In an aggressive game with pre-flop raises coming from all positions, you should avoid getting involved if you are holding only small suited connectors. While these hands play well in multiway pots, they do much worse in heads-up situations, especially when played from early or middle position. (2) In a passive game you can open up a little bit with a marginal hand. If no one has entered with a raise, you might want to raise with all of your big card and small pair hands (K-J, Q-J, J-T, 10-9 suited, 7-7, 6-6, etc.). You should also raise with any suited ace if you are the first one to enter the pot. In a passive game, playing aggressively with a marginal hand is the way to go, as it gives you the opportunity to pick up the pot when no one calls pre-flop. Even when your raise is called, you could still win the pot with a bet on the flop. That is, if an opponent doesn’t catch a piece of the flop, which will happen more often than not. (3) In a loose game with many pre-flop limpers, you should still play the majority of your marginal hands—but unlike in a passive game, you should not play them aggressively. In this situation, your objective is to get full value on your hand, and a raise will only deter others from calling. In these more liberal games, your motto should be “The more the merrier!” For instance, if you are holding 7-8 suited and one player raises while two others call, you should call the raise. Chances are there is a big pot developing, and you’ve got the right kind of hand to take it down. Late Position Now it’s time to have some fun! Late position is definitely my favorite place to be and once you’ve finished reading this limit hold’em section, you’ll know why. Playing late position is fun for several reasons. For one, you get to play a lot more hands than you do in early and middle position. Secondly, as a late position player, you have access to a lot more information than the other players, such as who called, who raised, how many have called, etc. Furthermore, late position is the position from

which you’ll want to do the 112 majority of your stealing—but only when no one has entered the pot ahead of you. If you are in the button, the last seat, you have the opportunity to knock off other late position steal attempts by isolating them and making it three bets. Confused yet? Don’t worry, I’ll explain. Stealing from Late Position When I say stealing, I’m referring to a late position player’s attempt to grab the blinds with a less than premium hand. A stealer comes in with a raise, hoping to represent a premium hand, which will cause all of the stealer’s remaining opponents to fold. Remember, it’s hard to hit flops, and your opponents know it. So by staying aggressive, you can pick up a lot of loose change when your opponents miss and give up on the pot. Sometimes, though, steals don’t go quite this smoothly. If your opponents disappoint your steal attempt and call your raise, you’ll have to try to pick up the pot on the flop whether you have anything or not. A player might even call behind you or try to isolate you by making it three bets. If you do happen to get reraised, you are now at the mercy of the deck. If you don’t catch a piece of the flop, your best play is usually just to give it up, but depending on what type of hand you have, you can also take one off and try to pick up something on the turn. If your opponent doesn’t reraise but smooth calls your late position raise with position, you are presented with a new set of dilemmas. The first thing you need to consider is what hands might this particular opponent play this way. Typically, strong players will three-bet you in these situations, while some weaker players who see lots of flops might call you with just about anything. So, unless the flop looks extremely bad for your hand, you should continue leading and bet the flop. Let’s say that you are holding 6-7 suited in the nine position of a ten-handed game. Everyone has folded to you, and you raise before the flop. The button, seated right next to you in the ten position, calls the raise and both blinds fold. Now it’s heads-up, and the flop comes A-9-2 rainbow—three unsuited cards. What is your play here? I would advise you to bet just as you normally would when you’re the initial raiser and find yourself heads-up. Since the button almost certainly has the better hand, you’re hoping that he will throw it away based upon the strength you showed by raising. If he doesn’t have an 113 ace he’ll probably just dump his hand, and if he does have an ace…oh well. It’s only going to cost you this one bet to find out. However, if he calls or raises you, you should shut down and fold your hand. This ace flop is a good one to bluff. It is unlikely that your opponent has an ace. Unless he is

a passive player, chances are your opponent would have reraised with a big ace, such as A-K, A-Q, A-J, or A-10. The flops you should worry about are those that connect to hands like 8-9, 9- 10, 10-J, J-Q, Q-K. More often than not, your opponent’s holdings will fall into this range, so, you may want to save a bet if the flop comes down 8-J-Q or K-J-9. If your opponent bets one of these flops, you are done with this hand. If he checks one of these flops behind you, it can mean only one of two things: (1) He flopped a monster and is trapping you; or (2) He missed the flop as well. Isolating from Late Position You’ll hear me use the term “isolation” several times throughout the chapter. To put it plainly, if you are going to succeed playing higher limit hold’em, you are going to have to learn the nuances of isolation plays. So what is an isolation play? Quite simply, isolation is a play you make in order to create a one-on-one situation with your opponent and take the flop heads-up, usually with position. For example, say an aggressive player raises from middle to late position and you find 8-8 on the button. With no one else in the pot other than the raiser, you would reraise him and hope to knock both blinds out, thus isolating him and allowing you to play the hand against just one opponent, with the added advantage of having position on every street. This example puts you in a marginal situation, but it is a situation from which you should profit due to your favorable position. Ideally, your opponent will have a non-paired hand like A-K, A-10, Q-J, or even 7-8 suited. Your pair of eights is a mathematical favorite over any of these hands. Couple that with the fact that you may be able to get your opponent to fold on the flop and it makes this play a profitable one. In addition, you may even be able to bluff your opponent off of the best hand! How? Well, let’s say your opponent has 9-9. The flop comes down A114 J-10. It looks like a horrible flop for you, but if your opponent checks and you bet, how can he call you? He doesn’t know that you hate this flop just as much as he does! But because you took the initiative and made it three bets to go, your opponent is in no man’s land—virtually forced to fold the best hand. There are many similar examples, all based on a combination of pre-flop aggression and position. The more you play limit hold’em, the more you’ll understand how deadly this combination can be. What do you do when the flop comes a little more difficult—something like J-9-2 rainbow? What happens if your opponent checks, you bet, and your opponent calls? He could have a number of different hands, so what you do on the turn should be determined by the card that comes off and your read of your

opponent. In these situations, as well as virtually all hold’em hands, the most difficult street to play is the turn. Hey, no one said this was going to be easy! If your opponent check-raises you on the flop, that’s a different story all together. In this case, your opponent most likely has better than you, but there are still a few hands you can beat. Depending on the opponent, you might be up against nothing more than a pair of deuces! Again, your decision on what to do here and on the turn depends on your read of your opponent and the situation. As a general rule, you should rarely try to isolate somebody who has raised or called from early position. Here’s why: unless you’re facing an extremely weak or wild player, you can assume that anyone entering a pot from such a dangerous position probably holds an extremely strong hand—and why would you want to isolate a hand like that? Against an early position raiser, the chances are just too good that your opponent has a big pair, making the odds of outdrawing him more than 4 to 1 against you. Even if it’s not a big pair, your opponent might still be holding A-K or A-Q, hands that he might be willing to go to the river with. This means that you are less likely to win the pot right on the flop when they miss. It’s also less likely that they are raising with suited connectors and such, hands you could move them off of on the flop. General Hand Selection Advice for Late Position 115 Your starting requirements in late position should be wide, to say the least! Play all of the premium hands, of course, all the hands I mentioned for middle position, and—in the right situations—some offsuited connectors. Here are some more guidelines and basic principals to consider when you are in late position: (1) If no one has entered the pot in front of you, you should raise, as there is a decent enough chance that no one will call the raise. (2) If there are several limpers in front of you and you are holding a weaker hand, you can go ahead and limp in. In fact, with hands like 10-9 or 9-8 suited, you might even want to raise from time to time—not because you think you have the best hand, but because it adds a little deception to your play and at little cost. With these types of drawing hands, playing larger pots with multiway action is going to be a profitable decision, not to mention the fact that your pre-flop raise might earn you a free card on the flop. This might give you an opportunity to pick up a draw on the turn if you didn’t already flop one. If you did flop a draw, you might be able to pick up a free card on the turn! Huh? Well let’s say you do flop a draw and bet it from last position. If you miss the draw on

the turn and no one has bet in front of you, you’ll get a free shot to make your hand on the river. (3) Avoid being overly aggressive in multiway pots with hands that play better shorthanded. If six people have already limped in before you, raising with hands like A-Q offsuit or A-J offsuit is counterproductive. With so many players in the pot, the chances of running the hand through to the river without improvement aren’t good. You will need to flop at least a pair, and even that doesn’t guarantee you will win the pot. The more players in the pot, the more likely it is that someone will make two pair, trips, a straight, a flush, or better. Furthermore, by raising pre-flop with A-Q offsuit or the like in multiway pots, you also induce your opponents to take long-shot draws against you. Of course, this doesn’t mean you should fold these hands in multiway pots, but you should certainly proceed with caution. Limp in cheap, and hope to flop something solid. If the flop comes 10-6-7 to your A-Q, for example, you would be foolish to call any bets on the flop. 116 These three rules are simply guidelines. Each poker hand contains a completely different set of variables, so there will always be scenarios where you might want to bend the rules just a little. THREE IMPORTANT LIMIT HOLD’EM CONCEPTS Learning the fundamentals, improving your hand reading skills, and fighting the psychological wars at the table are three essential ingredients in becoming a fierce, winning player. You might be able to get by in the lower stakes games by simply playing fundamentally sound, but once you are up against some tough competition, relying on fundamentals alone will get you crushed. Hand reading skills and psychological warfare are certainly valuable tools, but again, without any fundamental understanding of the numbers you won’t be able to succeed at the highest levels. 1. Fundamentals In order to play fundamentally sound limit hold’em, you need to do your homework. Once you’ve studied the odds of, say, making a flush with two cards to come or hitting a straight with one card to come, making fundamentally sound decisions is much easier. So if you find yourself on a drawing hand, simply compare the odds of hitting your hand with the price you are being laid. Comparing the Odds To illustrate this point, let’s look at a typical hold’em hand: Playing $20/$40 and holding 6-7 of clubs, you’ve called a raise from the big blind. It’s a fiveway action pot, so that’s $210 (5 players x $40 + the $10 small blind). Now the flop comes Q? 8? 4?, giving you an inside straight draw and a backdoor flush draw. You check, one player bets, and three call. That’s an extra $80 added to the pot for a new total of $290. The price you are being laid to make your straight on the next card is 290 to 20, or 14.5 to 1. You know that the odds of hitting the straight on

the next card are 43 to 4 or 10.75 to 1. So on the flop, you are getting 14.5 to 1 in a situation where the true odds are 10.75 to 1. You’ll take those odds any day, 117 so you call. The turn brings the 2?, which is no help. The first player bets again, and all fold back to you. Should you call or fold? Let’s take a look inside the numbers. There is now $350 in the pot ($210 pre-flop, $100 more on the flop, and now $40 bet at you on the turn). It will cost you $40 more to see if the river card is a 5, which would give you the nut straight. In deciding how to proceed, you should go through the same mental process as above. Since you know there are forty-six unseen cards remaining and only four helpful cards, there must be 42 unhelpful ones. Divide 42 by 4 and you know you’re a 10.5 to 1 underdog. Are we being laid enough pot odds to call? No. Our $40 investment will only earn us $350, not including bets we may make up on the river. But 350/40 equals only 8.75 to 1. Even if you know your straight cannot be tied, unless you’re certain you’ll be able to check-raise the river and get called, folding is still the correct decision, even though it’s very close now. Casinos make a fortune by taking the best of it on propositions similar to these. If you are mindful of the pot odds you are being laid, and have a good understanding of the situation, you too could make a fortune by making fundamentally correct decisions. As you get more playing experience, these exercises become second nature. A second or two is all you’ll need to figure out the correct play. 2. Hand Reading Skills In order to make fundamentally correct plays, it’s important to have some idea about what you are up against. So how do you put your opponent on a hand? Simple: pay attention! I can’t stress this enough. Whether you are in the current hand or not, you need to pay attention to the action at all times in order to learn what your opponents’ tendencies are. By simply watching the action, you’ll likely be able to find the answers to the following questions: On the Pre-Flop (1) What hands will opponents raise with? (2) What hands will they call with? (3) Do they play conservatively or loosely from early position? (4) How often do they defend their blind to a raise? 118 (5) Do they raise a lot of hands, or are they on the careful side? On the Post-Flop (1) What type of hands will they check raise with? (2) Do they play draws aggressively or passively? (3) Do they slow-play made hands? (4) Do they ever bluff? (5) Do they fold often on the flop, or will they call all the way to the river? These are ten questions that you’ll learn the answers to simply by paying attention

and making mental notes. If you spent the last forty-five minutes watching the ball game, how can you possibly be ready to answer these questions when the time comes? These questions are just the tip of the iceberg, but think about how much better you’d do against an opponent if you knew the answer to all ten! And the more you play, the better you’ll get at it. If you make the most of your time at the table, your skills will improve that much quicker. When you are out of a hand, make a game of it. Before the flop, put an opponent on a range of hands based on his pre-flop action. Then, try to narrow his holding down further after the flop, again on the turn, and finally on the river. Don’t get discouraged if you are way off at first. I promise you that the more you try this exercise the better you’ll get at it. 3. Psychology What distinguishes a good poker player from a great poker player is simply the ability to read the thoughts of his opponents. When I first get into a game, I sit back for about ten minutes and watch how the others are playing. It’s important to know how the game is playing in order to make better decisions. Does the game seem more aggressive than normal? Does it seem looser or tighter? Are there any players who are upset and playing badly or on tilt? Or conversely, who is winning and really playing their A-game? The texture of the game can change in an instant, and a player can go from being on his A-game to being on tilt with just one bad beat. You need to keep tabs on all of your opponents and their ever-changing states of mind. When it comes to improving your ability to focus and your people reading skills, nothing is more valuable than experience at the table. This book should help 119 prepare you for the tables, but the rest is up to you. The more intense and focused you are at the tables, the better your results will be. That, I can guarantee. Understand also, that while you are focusing on your opponent’s emotional and mental states, they will be doing the same to you! Whatever your table image is at any given time, it will inevitably have an affect on how your opponents choose to play against you, so it’s important for you to be aware of your image and make the necessary adjustments to your play. If you have just raised, lost your fourth hand in a row, and turned beet red, chances are your opponents will assume that you are steaming. If you decide to raise a fifth consecutive hand, chances are your opponents won’t give you credit for aces! In fact, if they are perceptive, they will likely play back at you with marginal hands assuming that their hands probably stack up pretty well against the trash you are raising with! If your table image is shot, it’s time

to throw your opponents a curve ball and tighten up a little bit. Stealing blinds is only possible if your opponents have some respect for your raises. If they think you are steaming, they won’t let you get away with anything! Of course, the opposite is true as well. If you have been winning every chip in sight, your opponents may fear you. They may decide to simply get out of your way. If they do that—pound ‘em! THE FLOP This is the street where you have to be aggressive. If you play too passively on the flop, you risk being run over and giving away pots you should win. I don’t advocate betting with reckless abandon, but when you have the lead and flop something, think about protecting your hand more than worrying about whether or not your opponents have the nuts. If you miss the flop entirely, there may be situations where it would be correct to take one off, hoping to pick up a draw or make a pair. Otherwise, it might be a good time to muck your hand. This is why aggression is so important. If you had the pre-flop lead, meaning you were the raiser, you can usually keep the lead on the flop. So if both you and your opponent miss the flop, which often happens, your aggression might 120 just win you the pot. If you use good judgment and play your hands aggressively, you’ll be one step ahead of the game. You’ll find that the best way to go in limit hold’em is playing in a straightforward manner, that is, betting and raising when you actually have some kind of a hand. Fancy Play When I say that you should play straightforward, that isn’t to be confused with predictable. You still need to think about playing deceptively, but you want to avoid what Mike Caro terms Fancy Play Syndrome (FPS). FPS leads to missed bets, giving away free cards, or even playing a hand in such an unorthodox fashion that it actually costs you a pot! More often than not, fancy plays will minimize your profit on a hand. Sure, when these plays work you feel like a genius, but you’re better off playing a more fundamentally sound game. Before we go any further, I want to help you with a common scenario that arises when you are playing fundamentally well. Let’s look at an example and go from there. You are holding A? K? in early position. You are the initial pre-flop raiser and get two callers behind you, as well as the big blind. Now the perfect flop comes down: A? 4? 9?. So here you are with top pair and top kicker. The big blind checks, so it’s your turn. Since you were the pre-flop raiser, it’s natural for you to bet here. The fancy play, the check, might work, but it won’t necessarily win you any more money than a bet would. You have a strong hand, and a check-raise would only give away information. The right move here

is to simply bet. Of course, a check might do more harm than giving away information – it could cost you the pot! The right free card might give your opponent a big draw on the turn. You’re better off taking what’s in the middle and getting rid of hands like 10? J?. If your opponent was lucky enough to get a free card with that hand, he could pick up as many as fifteen outs against you going in to the river. An 8? on the turn, for example, would pose a serious threat to your hand. What else could happen? You could miss a valuable bet. Many of your opponents might call once more on the flop with a hand like 10-10 or even 8- 121 9. Say it gets checked around on the flop and a king hits the turn. With a bet now, you will probably lose both the 10-10 and the 8-9, costing you two bets on the flop, not to mention the fact that you allowed both of your opponents to draw out on you for free. So in this situation, the fancy play, the check, could do one of three things: (1) Give away the strength of your hand. (2) Cost you the entire pot. (3) Miss bets on the flop. On the flip side, what could you gain? You may be able to get a check-raise in and look cool—whoopee. Stick to straightforward play, and leave the fancy plays to the hotshots. When you are the pre-flop raiser, you should usually bet the flop whether you like it or not. Of course, there are several exceptions to this rule. Remember, in poker there are very few rules that are set in stone; always betting the flop when you raised pre-flop isn’t one of them. Two A-K Scenarios If you have A? K? in a multiway pot and the flop comes 7-8-9 of diamonds, save your money and just give up. You can’t run this hand through often enough to make a bet profitable. Let’s look at a less obvious and more difficult example: With your A? K? again, you raise after two people limped in, and get one player behind you to call So it’s four-handed to see a flop of 6? 7? 8?. Even if the first two limpers check to you, I would still advise you to check more often than not. This flop just connects with too many hands that players would limp in with, such as 9- 10, 6-6, 9-9, A-7, and about a million others. If there is a bet on the flop, you should probably give up. Sure, you may be folding the best hand every now and then, but folding here is the safe, straightforward play. Now let’s look at a situation where you might decide to continue after the flop. What if, in the same scenario, everyone checks to the player in last position, who bets and sees both limpers fold. You have a decision to make. The last player may only be on a straight

steal here, just taking advantage of his position. But then again, maybe he’s got a hand. Here is where you’ll 122 need all of your poker skills to answer some important questions: If he held a high pair before the flop, would he have reraised you? Would this player call your raise with a marginal hand that hits this flop? Would he bet here with a hand like A-J or A-10? Is he a habitual bluffer, who always bets when checked to regardless of his hand? Or is this player a careful bettor, who only bets with strong hands? Once you’ve answered the important questions, you’ll have a much better idea about whether or not you should take one off, hoping to catch an ace or a king, or even whether or not you should call your opponent down all the way to the river. In general, if you’ve answered your questions about your opponent and still haven’t found very strong reasons to proceed, you should fold. So now that we are all warmed up, let’s look more closely at the play of specific hands on the flop. Playing Big Pairs As I mentioned previously, you should play big pairs aggressively before the flop in order to narrow down the field. Big pairs do extremely well against one or two players, but the more opponents you have, the more likely it is that your big pair will get cracked. If the flop doesn’t go your way, it’s important to avoid getting too attached to your hand and fold in the face of too much action. Imagine you have two black aces in a multiway pot and the flop comes 6-7-8 of diamonds. I don’t know about you, but I really don’t like this flop for two black aces. Now, you shouldn’t necessarily fold on the flop, but if the action gets hot and heavy, you can probably assume that you are dead or that your opponents at the very least have several outs against you. Again, even if you’re A-A is good at the moment, a 4, 5, 9, 10, any diamond, or an 8 could seal your fate. Another scary flop for aces is one that contains high straight cards like J-10-8. While aces are good here a high percentage of the time, there are several cards that could potentially kill you on the turn: 7, 9, 10, jack, queen, king. You shouldn’t muck those aces just yet, but you should consider taking your pedal off the gas until you see the turn card. If the turn card is safe—2, 3, 4, etc.—you might want to get aggressive and try to eliminate players. However, if a scare card comes on the turn—a 9 or a 123 queen would be the scariest—and the action gets heavy, you should consider folding. While Q-Q is still considered a big pair, there are even more trouble flops to that hand than to A-A. In addition to all the scary flops A-A faces, any ace or king on the flop might do you in, as well.

Let’s say you raise with the Q-Q and are reraised pre-flop. Now the flop comes J-10-4, giving you an overpair. Only problem is, what can you beat? Well sure you have A-K or A-Q beat, but if your opponent has A-A, K-K, J-J, or 10-10, you are in pretty bad shape. Again you shouldn’t automatically fold in these situations, but it’s probably best to play a small pot and simply call your opponent down. If he does have a big ace, then you are simply letting your opponent bluff his chips off to you. True, you may be missing some bets along the way, but that’s better than getting in a whole lot of bets when you are dead to two outs. Flopping Top Pair When flopping top pair, your main objective should be to narrow down the field, while punishing those opponents that are drawing to beat you. Aggression, which is the theme of this entire chapter, is key in this situation. Of course, there are certain types of flops that you should play carefully and other, safer flops that can be played full speed ahead. Let’s first take a look at some of the more friendly flops. Safe Flops. A scenario mentioned earlier is a good example of a safe flop. Say you have A-K and hit an A-9-4 rainbow flop. There is no legitimate straight draw out there, and no flush draw either. At this point, only two pair or trips would have you beat. This is a great flop for your hand, and ideally you’d be up against a player holding a hand like A-Q, A-J, or even A-10. You are a huge favorite against any of these hands, as they can only beat you if they hit one of three remaining kickers on the turn or the river. Of course, if either one of those cards is a king, they simply can’t win unless they happen to make a backdoor flush. This is a dream situation for you, not only because it’s unlikely that you’ll lose, but you also stand to win several bets from your opponent. How you go about doing this depends on several variables, including your table image, your opponent’s tendencies, your position, and so on. You might even choose to make a fancy play on a flop, but remember 124 that I recommend straightforward, brute aggression. If you play the hand aggressively you should be able to win the maximum amount of bets, or close to it. Let’s look at a more detailed example of how you’d go about playing this hand in a specific situation. Say you are in the big blind with an A-K. A player in first position raises and gets two callers. Calling here will help disguise your hand more than raising will, and since you can’t really narrow down the field any more, calling is probably the best way to play it. Okay, so your hand is A? K?, and the flop comes A? 4? 9?. You’re first to act. This is a good opportunity for you to

get a check-raise in. Since there was an early position raiser, it’s likely he’ll bet this flop whether or not he has the ace. By check raising, you’ll be able to trap anyone who called on the flop. Of course, this is not the only way to play this hand, but it is certainly the best or the second-best way to go. Your other option would be to lead right into the pre-flop raiser, hoping that he raises you with a weaker ace, thus giving you the opportunity to make it three bets. What method you choose will once again depend on those variables we’ve discussed: table image, your opponents’ tendencies, history, and so on. Let’s move you to late position with this same hand and same flop, but this time, only you and an early position raiser remain. Holding A? K?, you decide to smooth call here, because you know your opponent is a tight player who only raises with premium hands. The flop comes A? 4? 9?, and your opponent bets into you. There is a chance he also has A-K or even A-A, but it’s more likely that he holds a hand like A-Q, A-J, or maybe K-K, Q-Q, or JJ. Since this is such a safe flop, smooth calling on the flop might just work. If your opponent bets the turn, you can go ahead and raise him now that the bet has doubled. What if he checks the turn? Well, there goes the raise-the-turn plan. This is another good illustration of the importance of aggressive play on the flops. Against most opponents, the raise the turn play will only work when your opponent actually flop an ace as well. If he doesn’t, he may be leery of your call on the flop and decide to shut down on the turn. So the raise-the-turn play has some merit, but I recommend using it simply as a variation play 125 against an opponent that may be getting a line on your play. Otherwise, you should play these flops in a straightforward manner. Dangerous Flops. A dangerous flop for top pair is one that puts your hand in jeopardy due to the presence of a straight or flush draw. Depending how high your top pair is, you have to consider the added risk of an overcard hitting the turn. Obviously, more flops are dangerous to a hand like 8-8 than to a hand like A-A. For this reason, if you are holding 8-8 or the like, it’s extremely important to narrow the field on the flop by playing aggressively, hoping your opponents won’t draw out to overcards. You should be aggressive with the A-A hand as well, but for different reasons. With A-A, your goal is to get more money in the pot. Let’s look at an example. You are on the button with the 8-10 of hearts. You limp in, as do two other players. The small blind also calls, making it a fiveway action pot. The flop comes 8? 4? 3?, and all check to you. You should

always bet here. Now, I know I’ve told you that there are only a few absolutes in poker—this is one of them. You simply cannot give free cards to hands like Q-J, A-5, K-10, etc. So you bet and get two callers. At this point, you should feel good about having the best hand. No one check-raised, so it’s unlikely that anyone holds an overpair or even an 8 with a better kicker. The real threat to your hand is an overcard on the turn or an opponent slowplaying a set, looking to check-raise you on the turn. You should always have an idea about what your opponents are going to call you with on the flop, so that you’ll have a better idea of what to do on the turn. Let’s say you are on the button with the same hand (8? 10?) in the exact same situation (the flop comes 8? 4? 3?), only this time somebody leads into you on the flop. Based on what we’ve discussed earlier, you should know that a raise is your best option. Your goal here is to drive out the overcards and play the hand heads-up. Raising will also give you a better idea about what the lead bettor’s hand is. If he reraises you, chances are he has your pair of eights beat. Of course, if you pick up no help on the turn, it is time to make a difficult decision, one based on the read you’ve acquired on your opponent. If he is a conservative ABC-type player, he probably does have an overpair, a set, or an 8 with a 126 better kicker. If he is a fast, loose, and aggressive type of player, he may have a hand like 8-9, A-4, or even a draw like 5-6. So in closing, aggression on the flop here helps narrow the field and defines your opponent’s hand a little more clearly. You’ll find that this will be the case in most situations when playing limit hold’em. Flopping Middle Pair When flopping middle pair, your choice of strategy heavily depends on the number of active players. The more players in the pot, the less likely it is that your hand is good enough to hold up. In a heads-up pot, you are simply going to have to take this hand to the river more often than not. The only time you should fold is if the board came extremely bad on the turn and river, or if you have a good read on your opponent and know that he wouldn’t bet with a hand you could beat. Your kicker should also be a key consideration as well. Generally, the higher the kicker the better, but it might be even better if your kicker presented you with added outs—for example, if you held 7-8 and the flop came 6-7-10. In this case, a 9 would make you a straight, while an 8 would make you a dangerous two pair—or your kicker might even give you a flush draw. Furthermore, say you held Q-J with

the jack of hearts, and the flop came KQ-4, all hearts. In this case, you might have the best hand with the pair of queens, but if not, the jack of hearts gives you a backup plan. It’s also important to consider what may happen if you do hit your kicker. Could it complete the hand of one of your opponents? Let’s say you held K? 10? and the flop came Q? 10? 8?. With a flush and straight draw present, you could hit your kicker but still need help. The K? of hearts would be considered a good card for your hand, but it could also be the worst card in the deck for you! It would fill any flush, as well as make the A-J straight—not to mention the possibility of kings and queens, or the fact that you could be up against a made straight or a set already. In a situation like this, you’d want to proceed with caution, that is, if you continue with the hand at all. Despite this, added outs are always good, even if some of them aren’t live outs. That’s especially true in heads-up pots. 127 Playing Middle Pair from the Blinds—Heads-up Pots This just might be one of the trickiest scenarios in limit hold’em. You are usually out of position with a marginal hand. The great players thrive in these situations, while average players are often overwhelmed by them. There are several different ways to approach playing middle pair from the blinds. Again, the number of players is the key, as are the raiser’s tendencies, the position the raise came from, and so on. Answer these questions each time you are faced with this scenario and you’ll be one step ahead of the game. Once you’ve gathered this information, you’ll have to decide whether to leadbet, check-raise, check-fold, or check-call. Let’s look at an example: You have 10-8 in the big blind, and a player on the button raises it, so the two of you see a flop of K-8-4 rainbow. Folding in this situation is far too weak a play. So, that leaves you with three legitimate options: check-call, check-raise, or bet right out. This is a good opportunity to go for a check-raise. As the pre-flop raiser, your opponent should bet regardless of his holecards, and by check-raising, you’d also be representing a king. If your opponent has A-J in this spot, he would be correct in calling another bet on the flop. However, since you are representing a king, he might fold, thinking he can only win if he catches an ace. When you check-raise, you are risking two small bets on the flop and are committed to one more when you lead out at the turn, so if you go for the check-raise when you are up against a better hand, it’s usually a more expensive loss than it would have been had you just led out. If your opponent has a hand like A-K, you are going to get punished. But, that’s not going to happen often

enough for you to worry too much about it. If you are really averse to taking risks, you can minimize your losses (as well as your profits) by leading out at the flop. If you lead out and your opponent has nothing, you’ll likely be losing a bet—the one your opponent probably would have made—on the flop. If he raises you, he probably has at least a pair, but not necessarily one that beats eights. Some believe that you gain more information about your opponents by leading out rather than check-raising, but I disagree. Your bet on the flop, 128 known as the weak lead, doesn’t do much to define your hand at all, which might make your opponent may play 7-8 aggressively, thinking it’s the best hand. After all, he may be thinking, “If the big blind has a king, why wouldn’t he have check-raised?” Against a tough player, the weak lead does little to define his hand, though leading here with middle pair might be the right move. It all depends on your opponent’s impression of your play. What has he seen you do thus far? When you led out in the past, did you always turn over a draw? If so, a lead here might fool your opponent into thinking that you are on a semi-bluff, and he might call you down the whole way with ace-high. Deciding whether to lead or check-raise adds deception to your game. Situations like these are great opportunities to keep your opponents off balance. You want to use the information players gather about your playing style against them. If they think you will bet with nothing, bet with something. If they think you will only check-raise with something, checkraise with nothing! Just stay aware of your table image and avoid being too predictable. Think of it like a game of paper-rock-scissors. “Well, he went rock two hands in a row, I think he’ll go paper this time.” Or even, “I went scissors three times in a row, now my opponent will think I’ll go for it four times in a row!” If the raise comes from early position, the situation changes dramatically. If you have that same 8-10 on the K-8-4 flop, you might decide that you’ll get more information if you lead right out. If you are raised, you should probably give your opponent credit for a king or maybe even a pocket pair like J-J. If you don’t improve on the turn, you should probably let it go. Of course, if you make two pair or trips, it would be the perfect opportunity to go for the check-raise, but since it’s so much more likely now that your opponent actually has something, it might be safer to lead out. Playing Middle Pair with Multiway Pots Things get even more troublesome with your middle pairs when more players are in the pot. If you are in the blinds, you’ll have to play the hand from the worst position possible on the flop, turn, and river. If there is any real action on

the flop, you should take the safe route and dump your hands. Again, even 129 if you have the best hand on the flop, there is a very good chance that it won’t be by the time the river card hits. In a multiway pot, you should usually check the flop to see what develops. If it’s bet and raised in front of you, the decision to fold has been made for you. However, if it looks like there is a good chance no one has top pair, you should commit to your read and get aggressive. If the flop isn’t too scary and it’s checked around, you should fire at the turn. If a player in a favorable position bets, check-raise to isolate him. Let’s look at another situation. You find yourself in the big blind with Q-6 off. Two early position players limp in, as do the button and small blind. The flop comes J? 6? 2?. The small blind checks, as do you. In fact, all check to the button who bets. Let’s assume the button is an aggressive player who will bet all types of hands. What is your play? Raise. Yes, I realize there are still several players to act behind you, but since they all checked the flop, they probably don’t have much. Otherwise they would have bet themselves. True, they could be check-raising, but in order to become a top limit hold’em player, you are going to have to take some calculated risks. Consider how many good things can happen if you raise. What if the first limper actually had 7-7? That hand has you beat, but is he willing to call two bets, hoping that you don’t have jacks? Chances are, you’ll get him to lay down the best hand. Even if you are wrong and the original bettor does have the jacks, you could still hit a queen or a 6 on the turn. Now if the bet were to come from early position, raising after you checked would be dangerous. For example, if the first limper bets and all call, it might be a good idea to just call the bet and hope to make two pair or trips. Playing Middle Pair from Early Position If you are entering the pot from early position, chances are you’ve raised coming in. If you happen to flop middle pair, you should continue with the lead since you were the aggressor before the flop. Let’s say you’ve raised coming in with A-Q and the flop comes K-Q-2. Go ahead and bet if no one else has bet in front of you, regardless of the number of players in the pot. By betting, you’ll get a better idea of whether or not you have the best hand at 130 the moment. If you get raised on the flop, it’s time to reevaluate the situation. Again, you’ll have to ask yourself some questions. Would my opponent raise with a draw? Would my opponent raise with a queen and a worse kicker? If the answer to both questions

is no, you have to give your opponent credit for at least a pair of kings. You should still call one bet on the flop, though, and if you don’t improve on the turn, you should probably fold. Let’s say you decide to check-raise rather than lead out. Now the questions you’ll have to ask yourself are more difficult to answer. If one of your opponents bet after you showed weakness by checking, he could have a number of hands. He may decide to bet with anything from K-Q, 9-9, Q-10, A-J, or J-10. Figuring out which hand is being bet is a difficult task. Had you just bet out on the flop as I recommended, you’d have a lot more information to go on, which in turn would help you make correct decision. Let’s look at a slightly different situation. Again, you are in early position with the A-Q on a K-Q-2 flop. This time, the big blind bets into you. What now? Unless you have information that indicates immense strength from the big blind, you should go ahead and raise him! If you know that this player always has at least top pair when he bets, folding would be correct. However, most players don’t play that way. A typical opponent might have a Q-2, J-10, A-J, or the like, and is trying to pick up the pot on the flop. There is an excellent way to find out: raise. Your raise accomplishes two things: (1) Narrows down the field; (2) Helps define the bettor’s hand. If the lead bettor just calls your raise, there is a very good chance your pair of queens with an ace kicker is the best hand. If this is not the case, and your opponent has something like K-5, you still have five outs to improve with an ace or a queen. Playing Middle Pair from Late Position Whether or not you are in a heads-up pot or a multiway pot, you should usually bet middle pair when you opponents check to you on the flop. For example, say you have A-6, and the flop comes K-6-2 rainbow. Since everyone has checked to you, it looks like your pair of sixes is the best hand 131 here. Of course, if you get check-raised, you’ll be faced with a difficult dilemma. Since you are betting in last position, a player check-raising you doesn’t necessarily have to have you beat. He may be testing the waters, hoping that you are on a steal. If the small blind had 6-7, he may raise to isolate your likely bluff. As discussed in the section on playing middle pair from the blinds, a good player will often make this play against you when you’ve bet from steal position. Your goal then, is to figure out what type of player you are up against and play accordingly. If you are check-raised by a tight player who limped from first position, chances are he has the king. You should still call one more bet, hoping to hit an ace or a 6,

but if you miss, be prepared to dump your hand. So what do you do if you flop middle pair, and it’s already bet in front of you? Again, as is true with most poker situations, it depends on a number of factors. Let’s look at a couple of examples. Example One: In a four-way pot you hold 6-6 on the button. The flop comes K? 4? K?, and the player to your immediate right bets. In this spot, you’ll want to raise for four reasons: (1) To narrow the field; (2) To find out if any of the other players have a king; (3) Your 6-6 is likely the best hand; (4) You may knock a higher pair than yours out of the pot. Unless you are up against an extremely careful player, raising here is your best option. The lead bettor may have a 4, a flush draw, or even a hand like A-10—or nothing at all. He certainly doesn’t need a king to make a bet here. Example Two: In a five-way pot made up of two limpers, two blinds, and yourself on the button with J-8 of hearts, the flop comes 10? 8? 6?. Everyone checks to the player on your immediate right who bets. So you raise, right? Wrong. I think this board is a little too scary. I’d suggest avoiding this dangerous flop and moving onto the next hand. If your opponent happens to have the flush or straight already, you’d need two perfect cards to win. Flopping a Set 132 Your approach to playing sets should depend on the texture of the flop. Make your decision as to whether or not you can set a trap or whether you’ll be forced to play it fast based upon how dangerous the board looks. The scarier the board, the more aggressive you should be. Don’t worry too much about aggressive play costing you action. Strangely enough, many of your opponents will mistake your aggression for weakness! Here is an example: Let’s say you limp in from middle position with 6-6. The flop comes K? 6? 7?, and the pot is raised behind you. With five of you in the pot, the first two players check to you. A busy flop like this is the perfect opportunity for you to ram and jam the flop with your set of sixes, maximizing your profit. Try betting right out into the raiser and see what happens. If the pre-flop raiser has a hand like A-A, AK, or even Q-Q, he may decide to protect his hand and raise your bet. This will give you the opportunity to raise it once more on the flop, building a sizeable pot. By playing the hand straightforward—raising with what’s likely the best hand—you may get even more action than if you had slow-played it. After all, the pre-flop raiser may put you on a hand like K-x or even a flush draw or straight draw, thinking that you would have checked a set. Again, play your sets according to the flop texture, your position,

and your opponents’ tendencies. So what about setting a trap? Let’s take a look at another example. From middle position with 6-6, you raise and are reraised by the button. All others fold, and you and the button take a flop of 10-6-2 rainbow heads-up. You have numerous options in this situation. You could bet, hoping to reraise; bet and just call a raise now, and then check-raise on the turn; check-raise; or check-call, and then check-raise the turn. This is where playing hold’em gets fun. You’ve got your opponent right where you want him and will be using one of these plays to make him pay the maximum. So how do you figure out which one works the best? All of these options are good, so you have to base your decision on your opponent’s tendencies, as well as his impression of you. The hands you’ve played against him should be considered when deciding on a course of action. Let’s say you know your opponent to be an extremely aggressive player who 133 won’t give away any free cards. In this case you know that a check-call followed by a check-raise on the turn will work. What if your opponent likes to keep the lead on the flop? In this case, you might choose to bet right out and look to get extra bets in on the flop. Or you might check-raise the flop and try to win even more bets if you think your opponent is aggressive enough to reraise after you check-raise. Whatever you decide to do, make sure you don’t get stuck playing a made hand the same way every time. Using all of the tools available will help you in various other situations as well. How? Well, let’s say you used the check-call, check-raise on the turn play. Once your opponents see this, they will now be worried that when you check twice, it doesn’t necessarily mean you have a weak hand. That way, when you actually are on a draw, you may win yourself a free card. Flopping a set in position gives you even more leeway than if you had players behind you. In position, you never have to worry about missing a bet and giving away a free card. Being in position also allows you to safely set traps as well. For example, say you limp on the button with 3-3 in a four-way action pot, and the flop comes K-8-3 rainbow. This would be a very safe flop to smooth call and hope to raise the turn. Flopping Flush Draws There are several variables that will affect how you proceed with flush draws on the flop: your position, the number of players, the texture of the game (passive or aggressive), whether or not you have the nut draw, where the preflop raise came from, and so on. Depending on the variables, the correct strategy might be to play the hand very aggressively, very cautiously, or somewhere in between. Monster Flush Draws If you were to flop an open-ended straight flush draw, you’d most

likely want to get as many bets in on the flop as possible since your hand would be favored over most of the hands you’d be up against. You would certainly be a money favorite regardless of the number of players in the pot. For instance, if you held 7-8 of hearts and the flop came 5? 6? J?, you should try to get as much money in the pot as you can. However, simply raising and reraising 134 may not necessarily be the best way to do that. You want more money in the pot, sure, but you also want as many players to stay in the pot as possible. If it’s checked to you, you should always bet the hand. However, if the bet comes in front of you and there are still three players to act behind you, you have a dilemma. Raise or call? If you raise you might knock out players you want in the pot. In this situation, you should probably just call and invite others to do the same. If they raise…great! That’s not going to hurt your hand one bit. In fact, if a player raises behind you and all call, you may even consider jamming the pot! Of course, the problem is that the more players that are in the pot, the better the chances are that one of them has a bigger flush draw than yours. No matter, you can still hit the straight or the two key hearts to fill your straight flush. Playing monster draws aggressively adds deception to your game at absolutely no cost. Often times that draw of yours will actually be a favorite over your opponent’s hand anyway. Let’s say you held A? K? on a flop of 2? 7? 10?, and your opponent held Q? Q?. Despite the fact that the Q-Q appears to be leading at this point, your two overcards and a flush draw is actually the favorite to win the pot! Or let’s say you put your opponent on a pair of aces while you hold the 9? 10? to a flop of 8? 10? J?. Again, all you have is a pair of tens, but with all those outs you should be happy to put in as many bets as the aces would like. In this situation there are twenty cards that help you, and you have two chances to hit one. That’s what I call a good spot. What about another monster draw, like A? K? on a flop of A? 6? 10?? Here again, you should jam the pot—cap it if you can. True, you might be beat at this point, but even so, a spade that doesn’t pair the board makes you the nuts. You should lead out if it’s up to you, or raise and reraise if you get the opportunity. In some cases, it might be better for you to set a trap with this hand, but as a general rule, you don’t want to slow-play it. Marginal Flush Draws So what happens when you don’t flop

such a monster draw? All of the above examples are dream hands. Any monkey can play hands like those. What separates the really good players from the rest is how they play marginal 135 flush draws in marginal situations. Whenever you don’t have the nut flush draw, you are vulnerable to losing a lot of bets. To avoid losing the maximum with less than stellar flush draws, you should be a lot more cautious than you would with a monster draw. If all you have is a naked flush draw—meaning you have no other added outs —you don’t want to get involved in a raising war. You should try to make a hand like this as cheaply as possible, and then if you do, you are left hoping that no one else has a bigger flush draw than yours. Remember now, the more players and more action you see on the flop, the more likely it is that someone else is also drawing to the flush. In multiway pots, you really have to pay attention to the action. It’s important to get a good read on your opponents when you are holding a small flush draw. Based on the flop action, you need to decide whether or not one of your opponents has a better draw than you and go with it. To do this, it helps to watch their body language and to know their tendencies with drawing hands in these situations. You should also be cautious when three of a suit flops, say three hearts, for example. In this situation, you shouldn’t proceed past the flop in a multiway pot without the nut draw. Even with the nut draw, I’m not all that crazy about this hand. After all, if a fourth heart hits the board, the flush would be obvious, so it would be difficult to extract any more bets from my opponents. Obviously, you shouldn’t fold an ace-high flush draw, but you don’t want to put in too much action unless you also flopped a pair or think your ace-high might be the best hand. Any other flush draw should be thrown away on the flop in a multiway pot. For example, if the flop came K? 6? 4?, you probably shouldn’t put in another chip with a hand like 10? J?. Sure you have a 10- high flush draw, but even if you make it, keep in mind that any ace, queen, or jack of hearts beats you. If you are lucky enough to flop a flush, you want to make your opponents pay to outdraw you, but you may be better off doing so on the turn. How so? Well, let’s say you have the 5? 6? on a 10? J? 2? flop. Anyone with the ace of hearts is going nowhere. A 136 set or two pair are also going nowhere. If you are in a looser lower limit game, you may not even be able get a hand like 9? 9? out! Not to mention the fact that anyone who’s flopped a bigger flush

than you is certainly not going to fold if you play your hand aggressively. Well since a heart on the turn completely destroys your hand, why put in extra bets on the flop? Why not wait to see what develops on the turn and then get aggressive? Playing this way, you’ll lose the minimum if a heart does hit the turn, and you may be able to better protect your hand with a timely raise on the turn. If you happen to get reraised on the turn, you are going to have to use your reading skills to figure out whether or not your opponent is bluffing. If you know the player has to have the nuts to make a raise like this, it’s time to dump your hand to the third bet. However, if you are up against a maniac, you can forget about folding. In fact, you might even want to make it four bets! I wouldn’t recommend that play too often though; the situation has to be perfect. Normally, just calling down the maniac is acceptable. Playing Flush Draws Out of Position Playing marginal flush draws is even more difficult when you are out of position. Let’s get straight to an example: You are in the big blind with 8-9 of hearts in a raised multiway pot. The flop comes 2? 3? 10?. In this situation you should probably just check to the original raiser, especially if he raised from early position. If you were to bet out, there is a very good chance that the initial raiser will raise you to knock out the players behind him. Don’t help him. Help yourself by keeping them in! The worst-case scenario for you is that your bet, coupled with your opponent’s raise, takes you to the turn heads-up. Not good. So now that you’ve checked, the initial raiser bets, and all others call. It’s time to check-raise, right? Wrong. If you check-raise, you run the risk of the initial raiser three-betting you in an attempt to thin the field. You want a big field, so check-raising here is a no-no. Playing Flush Draws in Position Drawing hands are much more profitable when played from late position. In late position, you have more control over what’s happening on any given street. Since you get a chance to see what everyone in front of you does, you will be better equipped to maximize your profits or minimize your losses. If 137 you flop the nut flush draw, you can jam the pot on the flop. Since you played so aggressively on the flop, chances are that your opponents will check to you on the turn. Obviously, if you make your hand you should bet, but if you miss, you can take the free card. Just to make sure we are on the same page, let’s look at an example: An early position player raises, there are two calls in between, and you call with A-10 of diamonds on the button. The flop comes 2? 9? Q?. The initial raiser bets, and both

players in front of you call. In this case, you should raise, even though you run the risk of the initial raiser three-betting it and knocking out the other two players. That wouldn’t be good, but it doesn’t happen often enough to negate the value of the raise. If the initial raiser reraises, it’s not a complete disaster. If he doesn’t, you’ve succeeded in getting more money in the pot, and you may just pick up a free card for yourself on the turn if you miss. Playing Flush Draws Heads-Up A lot of the rules that would apply to playing flush draws in multiway pots go right out the window when you are heads-up. Heads-up poker is like a power struggle, each player trying to get last action and force the other player to back down. More often than not in heads-up poker, both players will flop nothing. The player that wins the majority of those pots usually comes out ahead. Although it has no real value at the time, flopping a flush draw gives you the opportunity to take the initiative on a hand with the hope of either semi-bluffing your way to a flush or forcing your opponent to fold. In heads-up situations, you can check-raise with a flush draw out of position. In fact, it’s often a very good play. Of course, you can always bet right out as well. If you have position, raising your opponent on the flop or the turn might help you win the pot, whether you make the flush or not. How you decide to play a flush draw heads-up on the flop depends on a few key factors: your position, the pre-flop action, your opponent’s tendencies, your table image, and your personal history with your opponent. Flopping Straight Draws There are three types of straight draws that we will cover in this section: open-ended draws, double belly-buster straight draws, and gutshots. An 138 open-ended straight draw would look something like this: You have 9-10 and the flop reads 7-8-2. In this case, you have eight cards that would make your straight (four sixes plus four jacks). Then there is the double belly-buster: Say you have 7-8 and the flop comes 4- 6-10. Both a 5 and a 9 would make you a straight, which gives you the same amount of outs as the open-ended draw (eight). This draw would be exactly the same as an open-ended straight draw, except these belly-buster draws can be slightly more profitable since the hand is less obvious. Finally, we have the gutshot straight: You have 9-10 and the flop reads Q-8- 2. In this case, you can only make your straight with a jack. The open-ended draws give you eight outs, while this gutshot gives you just four. Playing Open-Ended and Double Belly-Buster Straight Draws These draws can be played much like a flush draw on the flop, even though the flush draw gives you nine outs, while these draws only give you eight. There are other drawbacks that affect the straight draw which don’t affect

the flush draw. If there is also a flush draw on the flop, you might make your straight with the same card that fills your opponent’s flush. For example, you hold 9-10 and your opponent holds A-3 of hearts. The flop comes A? 7? 8?. In this case, you’d have eight cards to fill your straight, but notice that if you fill it with the 6? or the J?, you’d lose anyway, leaving you with only six pure outs. Even if you hit your nut straight on the turn, your hand is still vulnerable to any of nine remaining hearts on the river. There are some hidden advantages to open-ended straight draws. When a third flush card hits on the board, it sets off alarm bells in your opponents’ heads, knowing that any two hearts make a flush. If they hold top pair, two pair, or even a set, a third flush card might cause them to put on the breaks. Straight draws aren’t quite as obvious. When you hit one, you will likely gets lots of action from anyone holding an overpair, two pair, or a set. If you flop 10-9-6 to a hand like 7-8, an opponent holding a hand like 10-10 will go to war with you. You would need to have precisely 7-8 to have him beat, which wouldn’t be the case with a flush board. If the board is 10-7-2 of hearts, that same player with a set of tens may be a little more cautious, realizing that any hand with two hearts has him beat. 139 Semi-Bluffing with Straight Draws Again, if you bet when two hearts flop, your opponent might decide to put you on a flush draw. However, when you bet a straight draw on the flop, it’s not quite as obvious. This actually gives you more semi-bluffing opportunities than you would have when betting flush draws. Let’s look at an example of a situation where you may decide to run a semibluff with a straight draw. You find 6-7 in the big blind. An early position player raises, and you call. The game is six-handed, and you know that your opponent would raise with any two cards 10 or higher, most ace-high hands, and any pair. (Later, in the shorthanded section, you’ll learn why this is not a bad strategy.) The flop comes 4-5-9 rainbow, giving you an open-ended straight draw. This flop gives you an excellent opportunity to win this pot, whether you make a hand or not. You can play it several ways: bet out, check-raise, or check-call. Let’s look at each option: Betting Out. This play is acceptable but not exceptional. By leading out, you should be able to gather some information about your opponent’s hand. If he folds, great! If he decides to call, it’s unlikely—but not impossible—that he has a pair of nines or better. More often than not, he’ll be trying to make a pair on the turn with a hand like K-J. If he calls, you should usually bet the turn no matter what card hits.

If he raises you on the turn when you miss, it’s time to make a straight on the river! If he raises you on the flop, you have to give him credit for having you beat; after all, you have 7-high! True he might be looking for a free card with A-K, but as long as an ace or a king doesn’t hit the turn, you will most likely be the one getting the free card. Check-Raising. This might be an even stronger play. Since your opponent came in raising, he’ll usually keep the lead and bet the flop. By check-raising him, you are letting him know that you have a good hand and that you are going to fight for this pot. If he has a hand like A-J he’ll probably take one off, but if he misses on the turn, you might be able to win it right there with a bet. In fact, depending on your opponent and his impression of you, you might even be able to force him off a hand like 7-7! Now that would be an excellent result. 140 Checking and Calling. If you choose this option, you give up any chance of winning the pot without improvement. You completely give up control of the hand. You may end up letting your opponent win the whole pot by default with J-10 high. Of course, if for some reason you think there is absolutely no chance you can win the pot by outplaying your opponent, checking and calling might be your best bet. Gutshot Straight Draws A gutshot straight draw is a real long shot. With one card to come, you are an 10.5 to 1 underdog to hit your straight. If you decide to call with a gutshot, be sure that the pot size is big enough and that all of your straight cards will win. If there are two hearts and two spades on the board in a five-way action pot, you may only have two outs to win the pot, as the other two straight cards may complete someone else’s flush. That would make you a 22 to 1 underdog! With one card to come on the turn, it’s rarely correct to call with a pure gutshot, unless you have added outs, such as a pair or overcards. Since the bet size doesn’t double until the turn, it will often be correct to call on the flop. Let’s look at a typical example: Playing $10/$20, you are in the big blind with 9-10 of clubs. The small blind folds, and you call a raise in a four-way action pot. The flop comes Q? 3? 8?. You check, the first player bets, and one other calls. There is $105 in the pot, and it’s $10 to call. It’s 10.75 to 1 against you making the straight on the turn. Should you call? Based on the exact price you are getting at this point, the answer would be no. So we fold then, right? Wrong. There are three more variables you need to think about:

implied odds, the potential to see two cards for the price of one, and extra outs—you may have more than you think. Your implied odds in this situation are more than enough to call. You are already getting 10.5 to 1 as an 10.75 to 1 underdog. If you get just one more bet out of your opponents on the turn or river, you would be getting the right price. Also, the pre-flop raiser bet the flop, but who’s to say you won’t get a free card on the turn? There is also an outside chance that if you hit a pair of nines or tens you’d win. It’s possible that the first raiser could have A-K and 141 the caller A-8. Think about what might happen if your opponent flops a set and you hit that straight on the turn. Chances are, you’ll win at least four more big bets on the turn and river, provided the board doesn’t pair on the river. Any time you hit a pure gutshot it’s going to be hidden. It’s going to be difficult for your opponent to put you on a draw like that, so they’ll often lose more bets than they should. Let’s say you are in a multiway pot and hold 6-4 of hearts in the big blind. The flop comes K? 7? 3?, and the pot justifies a call. Now, off rolls the 5. Bingo! If one of your opponents have A-A, A-K, two pair, or a set, you should be able to win a lot of bets here. Remember, you pick up value with the implied odds. Flopping a Made Hand A made hand is a five-card hand, such as a straight, flush, full house, or better. There are times when you’ll want to slow-play a made hand, and others where it might be correct to jam the pot. In this section, I hope to help you make better decisions when you flop a made hand. Flopping a Full House When you flop a full house your goal simply is to get as much money in the pot as possible. How you do that will depend on many factors. Let’s look at an example: You have pocket kings and the flop comes K-8-8. How nice! So you must decide whether to play it fast or let long shot draws in cheaply. Your decision should be based on what you think your opponents have. If you think one of your opponents flopped three eights, you should play it fast. Hopefully, your opponent will think you have A-A or A-K and continue to raise you. So how will you be able to figure out if one of your opponents has an 8? Well, that will depend on several bits of information you’ve gathered pre-flop and on the flop. Let’s say you bet and are raised on this flop, knowing no flush draw is possible. Then the big blind decides to call two bets cold. Chances are, he’s flopped three eights. What else could he have? Unless it’s a very bad player, he

at least has the case king, but more likely three eights. It’s also possible that he’s flopped quads, but that would be a rare occurrence. If there is a flush draw on the flop, then slow-playing would be silly. Your 142 opponent with the flush draw isn’t going to fold anyway, so you might as well make him pay to draw dead! After all, if he misses his flush, you aren’t going to get any more bets on the river. Put those bets in on the flop; your opponent won‘t put you on a full house. If you know the player on a flush draw to be extremely conservative and won’t draw to the flush with a pair on the board, you may not want to go too crazy on the flop. He is drawing dead, and you always want to encourage that! Flopping a Full House, Heads-Up. In a heads-up pot, it’s more than likely that your opponent has flopped nothing to the K-8-8 flop. Unless he has an 8, A-A, A-K, or a flush draw, it will be difficult to get much action. The best course of action here may be to slow-play your hand a little bit. Let’s say you have position on your opponent, and he decides to bet out. This is a tricky situation because you don’t want to lose him. If you raise here, he might throw away his hand. If you call, he might just check and fold on the turn. All you need to be concerned with is keeping your opponent interested in this pot. Hopefully he’s flopped trips, a flush draw, or has the A-A or A-K hand. If not, hopefully he makes a smaller full house on the turn. Maybe he has 9-9. How sweet a 9 would be on the turn! Again, you need to pay attention to the information you received pre-flop. Did your opponent raise coming in? Was he in early position? If so, the chances that he’s flopped three eights is remote, though A-K, A-A, or another pair is very possible. Against one of these hands, it’s usually a good idea to jam the flop as you are sure to get action. If your opponent calls from late position or from the blinds, you’ll be hoping now that he’s flopped three eights or maybe a flush draw. More often than not, your opponent is going to miss this flop. It’s unlikely he has the case king and also unlikely that he has an 8. In this situation, it might also be correct to slow-play your hand and hope that your opponent picks up a draw on the turn. You can do that only if you feel that your check on the flop won‘t give away your hand. The tougher your opponent, the less often the check on the flop is going to trap him. To trap a tough player here, play straight-forward and bet the flop. Flopping a Flush We touched on this subject a little when we discussed playing flush draws on 143 the flop. In that

section, we talked about playing a baby flush carefully on the flop and getting aggressive on the turn. Interestingly enough, we probably want to play our nut flushes similarly, waiting until the turn before getting busy. Of course, this all depends on the texture of the flop. If you hold A? 8? on a K? 7? 2? flop, the only real draw out there would be the nut flush draw—but you already have that covered. Chances are you will get more action if the flop comes 10? J? 7?. More of your opponents are going to hit this flop with a pair, two pair, a straight, or even a straight draw. If your opponent has a hand like K? J?, he may decide to play it really fast on the flop. With that first flop you want anyone interested in the pot to stay in, so make it cheap on them. On that second flop however, you will get away with jamming it because the chances of your opponents continuing anyway are much greater. Flopping a Straight When flopping a straight you need to consider the risks involved. For example, say you’ve flopped a straight, but there are two flush cards on the board, or you’ve flopped the bottom end of the straight, and so on. When you flop a lower-end straight, it’s important to try and knock out higher straight draws or at least have them pay the maximum if they choose to call. Or, if you put your opponent on a flush draw, you should play any straight fast on the flop. You aren’t playing your hand fast only to try to knock a flush draw out of the pot, but rather to get more money into the pot as the favorite. For this reason, I rarely slow-play a straight on the flop. There are too many cards on the turn that could hurt your hand. A board pair, a flush card, or even a higher straight card can turn your nut hand into a loser. Of course, in heads-up situations, I may choose to slow-play a straight on the flop, hoping to get two bets in on the turn. Say you hit a flop of 6-7-8 to go with your 9-10 in the hole. It’s a great situation, but a 9 or a 10 puts your hand in jeopardy. The 9 fills the J-10 straight and the 10 fills the J-9 straight. Be aggressive on the flop, but if a dangerous card comes off on the turn, don’t put in unnecessary action. I’m not saying that you should fold, but if you get raised on a 6-7-8-9 board, you shouldn’t always reraise. Chances are, your 144 opponent also has a 10-high straight, but it could be worse than that for you. He may have the J-10, or even a 10 with a flush draw giving him a freeroll. Or, if he has Q-10 and a jack hits the river, he’ll have a freeroll against you. Here’s a final example of when you should play a straight fast on the

flop: You have Q-J, and the flop comes 8-9-10. This is a flop that will hit a lot of people. Of course, none of your opponents can hit it better than you have, but that won’t stop them from putting in lots of bets. You might win a monster pot if all goes well on the turn and river. If you are up against any of the following hands you should win tons of bets by keeping your foot on the gas and firing away: 6-7, 10-10, 9-9, 8-8, J-J, Q-Q, K-K, A-A, 10-J, 10-Q, K-Q, K-J, A-J, 9-10, 9-8, 10-8, and similar holdings. Of the sixteen hands I mentioned, most of them would be played only by average players—and I didn’t even get to the hands where an opponent flops a flush draw! When you flop a monster on what I call an action flop, it will often pay big dividends. Of course you will sometimes be outdrawn on these hands, but you’ll do yourself a great service in the long run by putting in as many bets as possible on the flop. PLAYING THE TURN The turn is probably the most difficult street to play. This is where you will need all of your poker skills to make the right decisions. As Daniel Negreanu wrote in one of his Card Player columns, “By the turn, you should have enough information about your opponents’ hands to narrow down their holdings some. After factoring in their pre-flop action, their play on the flop, and the texture of the board, the turn is the street where you’ll need to make the key decision as to what your opponents are holding.” A big reason for this is that the bets now double. When To Call In many cases, calling on the turn is your best course of action. Let’s look at four situations. 1. Against a Bluffer Normally when you feel like there is a good chance you have the best hand on the turn, you should put in as many bets as possible. However, against a 145 habitual bluffer, your raise may scare him off, costing you a bet on the river. Let’s say you raise with A-10, and only Mr. Bluffer in the big blind calls. The flop comes A? 9? 4?, Mr. Bluffer bets, and you decide to call. The turn brings the 7™?and Mr. Bluffer again bets out. Chances are that your pair of aces with a 10 kicker is the best hand. However, it is possible that Mr. Bluffer woke up with a hand and has you beat. Regardless, you are convinced you have the best hand, but you know that Mr. Bluffer will fold if you raise. Since there isn’t much of a draw present, why not just call the turn and hope that Mr. Bluffer wastes one more bet with a desperation attempt at the river? This helps you in two ways: (1) You’ll lose the minimum when he has you beat. (2) You’ll gain an extra bet when he tries to pick it up on the

river. In this case you run the risk of possibly giving your opponent a free shot to beat you on the end, but since it’s a remote possibility with this board, calling will get the most out of him. 2. When Out of Position with Marginal Hands In this example, you raise with 9-9 from late position. The button reraises you, so it’s heads-up to see the flop. The flop comes down Q? 7? 2?. You check, and your opponent bets the flop. Check-raising is an option here, but for this example let’s assume you checked and called. Now the turn brings a 5?. This presents you with a dilemma. Since you raised in late position, and it was the button that reraised you, he might hold one of a wide range of hands that have you beat, as well as one of many others that don’t. Let’s assume that the button is the type of player who will raise you with any pair, any suited ace, any two picture cards, and any A8 and above. Also throw in the occasional variation raise with hands like 8-9 suited or even 5-6 suited. If you know your opponent will three-bet you with these types of hands, your hand is just too good to fold. At the same time, you don’t really want to lose any unnecessary extra bets. In this situation, you are better off playing the hand to the river as cheaply as possible. You don’t want to go crazy and put in a lot of action. Remember, 146 you are out of position and could get moved off the best hand here. What if your opponent had A-K of hearts and decided to reraise you as a semi-bluff? Well, you can’t really justify putting in three bets on the turn and then another one on the river when you are likely drawing dead to two outs! Play the hand carefully. Win the small pots while avoiding the big ones. Sacrifice some potential value and lean toward caution; that way you won’t get outplayed. 3. To Avoid Costly Fancy Plays Throughout this chapter you’ll notice that I preach straightforward play. Why use a fancy play that might work when a straightforward play will do just as well? To be specific, raising on the turn with drawing hands in an attempt to force your opponent to lay down the best hand is a play that should be used infrequently. It works best on timid, careful players, but even they won’t fold if they have top pair or better. Instead, they’ll call you down on the turn and again on the river. After all, by raising the turn you’ve made the pot so big that your opponent is almost forced to call. Maybe years ago you could use this play more often, but these days many players are aware of it. So if there is a draw present, they’ll likely call, hoping you are making a move. Don’t bluff—value bet. That’s what limit hold’em is all about. 4. When Drawing To Hands in Multiway

Pots The last thing you want to do when on a draw is narrow down the field. The more players in the pot the better. Attempting a long shot raise in hopes of bluffing everybody out is just a bad play. It’s not going to work nearly often enough to make it profitable. When To Raise Raising the turn in marginal situations can be an expensive play, but it’s one you’ll need to make more often if you are playing in higher limit games. Before you go raising up a storm, consider the following four situations where this play is most effective. 1. To Maximize Your Profit You should only make this play when you feel you have the best hand. Your 147 goal isn’t to drive your opponent out of the pot, although that wouldn’t always be a bad thing; rather, you are simply trying to get maximum value for your hand. Let’s look at an example. In the middle position with K-K, you raise, and only the big blind calls. On a J? 7? 3? flop, the big blind check-raises you. Reraising on the flop wouldn’t be a bad play, but what about just calling? By simply calling on the flop, you will entice your opponent to bet the turn unless a scare card hits. When he does bet the turn, you can go ahead and raise him. This would be considered a variation play. You should only use it on a relatively safe flop. If there is a flush draw or straight draw present, there are too many potential scare cards out there that would cause your opponent to check the turn, thus costing you a bet. For example, on a flop like 9? 10? 5?, any heart or any overcard may scare your opponent into checking. So on a dangerous flop, you’re better off playing the K-K fast. 2. Semi-Bluffing on a Scare Card Earlier, I advised you to avoid fancy plays when the straightforward play will work. That still holds true, but there are certain situations where a well-timed fancy play will win you the whole pot with little risk. Consider the following situation. You have J? 10? from early position. Although you’d often just call, this time you mix up your play and raise, and only the big blind calls you. The flop comes 7? 9? 2?. The big blind check-raises you on the flop, and you decide to just call. Now the turn card comes the K?, and your opponent bets. If you don’t think your opponent can beat a pair of kings, this wouldn’t be a bad spot to try to take the pot from him. Since you raised from early position, you could easily be representing A-K. You are playing the J? 10? exactly as you would the A-K, and if your opponent believes you’ve got A-K, he may decide to fold a pair of nines. If not, oh well. You were going to call the turn anyway, so it only cost you one extra bet. If he does in fact have a

pair of nines, you may have as many as twenty-one outs, including an 8 or queen for 148 the straight, any heart, or possibly a jack or a 10! There is one important thing to consider when making a play like this: What do you do on the river if he called your turn raise, and you have missed your hand? Betting here is not automatic. Unless you have reason to believe that your opponent was on a draw as well, I would recommend giving up at this point. If he called you on the turn with a pair, he’s going to call you on the river as well. It’s that simple. Of course, there is still a chance that you might win the pot with jack high in a showdown! Think about it: if your opponent was on a draw, maybe he has 8-10, 6-8, or even two baby hearts. If he has one of these hands you’ll win the pot because of your turn raise. 3. Isolating Against a Possible Bluffer This advanced play is exclusive to multiway pots, and I recommend you use it only if you have a solid feel for the game. In order for this play to work, you’ve got to have a good read on the turn bettor. You’ve got to know that he is a very aggressive player, and you also have to believe he is either bluffing or simply betting a draw. Let’s use an example so that we can paint a clearer picture. You raise from middle position with the A-7 of spades, and the button calls as does the big blind. The flop comes down 10? 7? 3?. The big blind checks, you bet, and the button raises. Then the big blind calls, as do you. At this point you put the button on a pair of tens and the big blind on some kind of a draw. The turn brings the Q?. Out of nowhere, the big blind bets out. You still put him on a draw, maybe now a straight draw and flush draw. However, you know the player behind you has you beat. How about a raise? If you raise here, the button would be hard pressed to call two bets. So your raise would accomplish the following: (1) Knock out the best hand. (2) Get maximum value for your hand. Again, this is an advanced play and depends heavily on your reading ability. Use it carefully. 4. When You Are Going To Call Anyway 149 On the turn, you are often going to find yourself in marginal situations where you think you have the best hand and decide to just call your opponent down. Well, rather than simply calling your opponent on the turn and river, many times it might be profitable to put both of those bets in on the turn. Here’s an illustration. You raise in late position with A-7 of clubs, and only the big blind calls you. The flop comes K? 7? 3?, your opponent check-raises you, and you decide to call. Now

the turn brings the 9?. With 8 small bets already in the pot, you feel that you are being laid a good enough price to call—especially considering that you may still have outs and that your pair might be the best hand. So now you decide that you are going to call the turn and then be forced to call on the river whether or not you improve. Here’s an idea: raise! So many good things can come as a result. For one, you might force your opponent to fold the best hand. What would your opponent do, for example, if he’s holding a hand like 8-8 or even K-2? Depending on your opponent, he might even lay down top pair here. What I like most about this play is that it usually costs you no extra bets, but you can win an extra bet if you improve. Let’s say your opponent calls your raise. Unless you catch an ace or a 7 you’ll just check it down and hope it’s good. When you improve, you get the opportunity to value bet the river. There is a downside to this play, however, and that comes when your opponent reraises you on the turn. If your opponent makes it three bets, he probably has a very strong hand. You can safely assume that your pair is no good and should fold your hand. You lose the opportunity to outdraw him. When To Fold Sometimes the turn card comes so bad for your hand that you’ll have to fold. Other times you’ll have picked up enough information before the turn that you can safely put your opponent on a better hand than yours. 1. Draws This is a question of pot odds. When the pot isn’t laying you the correct price to call, you’ll have to fold. Here’s an example. With 6-7 in the big blind, you 150 find yourself in a three-way, unraised pot. The flop comes 5-8-K, and it gets checked around. Now the turn brings a queen. Again you check, but this time the first player bets, and the second player raises. What do you do? The answer here is the result of a simple calculation. There are thirty-eight bad cards for you and only eight good ones, so the odds of you catching the straight are 4.75 to 1. All you need to figure out now is whether or not the pot is giving you approximately 5 to 1 odds. In a $10/$20 game, there already would be $90 in the pot, and it will cost you $40 to call. The first player will probably call too, so let’s make it $110 to $40. Let’s assume that you’ll somehow win an additional three bets on the river, bringing the pot total to $170. Even after that, you are still only getting 4.25 to 1. In other words, this one is a fold. 2. When Potentially Drawing Dead Situations like these are easier to identify in multiway pots. The more players in a pot, the more likely it is that the

turn card helped someone. For example, if you flopped top pair in a multiway pot but the turn brought a third flush card, you should seriously consider folding. Folding will depend on your read of the player as well as the situation. If you are up against a wild player, don’t be too quick in giving him credit for a made hand. Conversely, against a conservative ABC-type player in most situations, it should be an easy laydown to make. There are other situations where you might even flop a flush draw, but then release it on the turn. Let’s say you have the 5-6 of hearts and find yourself in a multiway pot with multiple bets in it. The flop comes K? J? 4?, followed by the 9? on the turn. If there are four players in this pot, there is a very good chance someone has a bigger flush draw than yours, leaving you drawing dead. So, even if the pot is laying you the right price to draw to the flush, you’d still want to muck this hand if there is a reasonable chance that you are drawing dead. 3. When You Know You Are Beat If after the flop you feel confident that you are beat, you should fold—unless 151 of course you are getting the right pot odds to outdraw your opponent. Let’s say with 7-7 you raise pre-flop and get two callers. The flop comes K-Q-4, so you bet and are raised. You call, hoping to see whether or not you can spike a 7 or that your opponent checks behind you with a draw. If the turn comes with a 9 and your opponent bets, you can safely fold the 7-7 . After all, what can you beat? Even if he was raising with a draw like 9-10, 9-J, or J-10, he now has you beat. Realistically you can only beat hands like A-4, A-J, and A10. The odds here are stacked against you, so unless you have reason to believe your opponent is on a total bluff, this would be a good time to give up on the hand. Aggression on the Turn As you move up in limits, you’ll notice that the better players are the ones who play ferociously on the turn, fearing nothing. In $10/$20, $15/$30, and $20/$40 games, many players tend to play passively on the turn, always fearing the worst—checking Q-Q when a king hits, checking when a straight card hits, and so on. In order to reach the elite levels of limit hold’em, you have to be a little fearless and keep the pressure on. Let’s look at a situation where you are faced with a choice: either give away a free card or risk being check-raised. You raise on the button with 7-8 of spades, and only big blind calls. The flop comes J? 8? 4?. You bet the flop, and your opponent calls. The turn brings the Q?, and again your opponent checks. That Q? looks like a terrible card for your hand, and it very well

could be. However, your opponent did check and call on the flop, and he has now checked the turn. Could he be setting a trap for you? Possibly. If in fact he is setting a trap, checking would certainly be the best play, as you would, in effect, be taking a free shot at a 7 or an 8. But what if he’s not setting a trap? If you check here you might be giving your opponent the free card he needs. If he’s a typical player, he might have any of the following hands: A-K; A-10; ace anything, for that matter; K-10; a pair of fours with a random kicker; or even a gutshot straight draw, like 6-7 or 10-7. With your hand, it’s important to bet here and knock one of these hands 152 out—and you’ll knockout the possibility of causing your opponent to fold if he’s holding an 8 with a better kicker! As a general rule in this situation, I would advise keeping the lead and staying aggressive. If you happen to get check-raised, so be it. It’s not the end of the world. You’ll simply have to make an educated decision as to what your opponent has and proceed accordingly. Don’t be afraid to force yourself to make these types of plays. Making decisions like these will help you become a better player. Semi-Bluffing the Turn In situations where you’ve decided to check and call the turn anyway, you might be better off betting. Remember, taking the lead and being aggressive are probably the most important factors in limit hold’em. For example, say a fairly tight early position player raises your blind and you decide to defend with the A-7 of spades. The flop comes 6? 7? 8?. Rather than go for a check-raise, you decide to bet and see where you are. Unfortunately, this tight player decides to raise you, which means you can safely assume that you are beat. Of course, with a backdoor flush draw, trip draw, and two-pair draw, you are going to call one more bet. Now the turn brings the 4?. How about betting again? After all, you now picked up a flush draw and are going to call anyway, so why not represent the straight and possibly force your opponent off the best hand? It’s highly unlikely that your opponent will raise you here, as he would need to have at least a 5, or maybe even 9-10. Since you know him to be a tight player, chances are he has an overpair or possibly a set. If he does call, oh well. You still have lots of outs and would have called a bet anyway. If you miss on the river, you should probably abort the bluff. If he decides to call you on the turn, he is going to make one last desperation call on the river if he has you beat. Save your money and check it down. THE RIVER Not a lot needs to be written about the river. At this point, the pot is usually

large enough that making decisions is easy. If you have a legitimate chance to 153 win the pot, you should call. Generally speaking, when in doubt, check or call. There are other elements related to the river that are worth mentioning: when to call or raise, when to fold, when to value bet, and when to bluff. Let’s take a look at the choices. Calling In the world of poker, you hear a lot of talk about what separates the great players from the good ones. Some will say the difference lies in the great players’ ability to lay down strong hands in difficult situations. While that may be true to some extent, trying too hard to play carefully on the river often leads to getting bluffed off of pots that were rightfully yours. Often times, one bad decision can negate as many as ten great laydowns. Let’s think about that for a minute. If there is $200 in a pot, and it will cost you $20 to see if you have the best hand, you better be almost 90 percent sure that folding is correct. Even if you were right to fold in eight out of ten situations, you’ve still lost money! Now I don’t know about you, but to me that’s a lot of pressure. I would advise you to avoid disastrous errors in favor of minor, less harmful ones. Folding Although I recommend calling if you have any chance to win the pot, there are times when you are so obviously beat that it would be silly to call. The majority of these situations arise in multiway pots. Here is an extreme example: Say you have bottom pair and a bet and three calls are on the table. Sure, the first player might be bluffing, but one of the three callers certainly has you beat. It doesn’t matter how big the pot is here, you can safely assume that you are beat. Even when it is simply bet and raised to you, the safe move would be to fold any hand that could only beat a bluff. After all, even if the raiser is bluffing, the first player probably isn’t. Another key factor to consider is the price you’d have to pay to find out. Since you’re faced with calling two bets instead of one, it cuts your pot odds in half. I could list several situations where you could make more sophisticated laydowns, but the one key factor is your ability to read your opponents. If you don’t have an excellent understanding of your opponents’ capabilities and tendencies, making monster laydowns is foolish. The more 154 time you spend playing against any given player, the easier it will be to define his hand. If you get really good at it, you’ll no longer have to make automatic calls on the river. As your skills improve you’ll be able to pass up 10-1 pot odds because you’ll trust yourself to be right 97 times out of 100. Until that time however, the best advice I can give you is:

pay and see. Value Betting As we’ve said throughout the chapter, sheer aggression is key in limit hold’em. It is a mathematical game, one in which you want to maximize your wins while minimizing your losses. In order to maximize your wins, you’ll need to be sure that you get full value for even the most marginal of hands. To value bet in the correct spots, it’s important to think about what your opponent could have. If you put your opponent on nothing but a draw, he simply won’t call you on the river unless he makes it. Even then he probably won’t just call you, he’ll raise you! For example, say you hold A? J?, and you take the lead the whole way. The turn comes J? 9? 6? 2?. At this point, you are quite sure you have the best hand and think your opponent is on a flush or straight draw, or possibly a pair of nines or even jacks. So now the river comes with the 9?, and it‘s up to you. If your opponent was on a draw, there is little value in betting here; he’s obviously missed and will fold. If he also has a pair of jacks, there is a good chance he will bet when you check anyway. More importantly, if your opponent does have the three nines, he’ll raise you, and that will usually cost you an extra bet. These are situations where you might want to avoid value betting. Notice that in this example you are out of position. When you are in position, you will have at least twice as many opportunities to value bet than when out of position. If a player has checked the river to you, you should usually bet if you feel you have the best hand. Unless your opponent is setting a trap for you, his check on the river will mean it didn’t help him. If you had the lead going into the river, chances are you still have it. Basically, you should value bet any time you feel that your opponent will call with the worst hand more than half the time on the river. If you have bottom pair but feel your opponent would call you with ace-high, you should bet. 155 Furthermore, if you feel your opponent is calling you down with ace-high, you might even bet with as little as A-K high! That situation is rare, but not unheard of. In closing, don’t be overly worried about a check-raise. It’s not like no-limit, where a check-raise could cost you your whole bankroll. In limit poker, it’s only going to cost you another bet. You should be able to make up for a lost bet or two by picking up your fair share of value bets on the river. Bluffing Bluffing on the river is less effective than bluffing on the turn. Usually when your opponents get to the river, they are going to throw in that last bet if they have any chance of winning. As you’ve learned in this chapter,

that’s not exactly a bad strategy. However, the pay-off for a bluff on the river that does work is tremendous, but in order for one to work, it has to be set up before the river. Simply calling all the way to the river and betting when an innocuous 2? hits won’t get the money. River bluffs will work only if you had the lead going into the river, or a significant scare card hits that you can represent. For example, say you are holding J-9, the board reads Q? 10? 2? 3?, so you are drawing at an open-ended straight. You check-call on the turn and put your opponent on at least a pair. Now the river comes the A?. That is the scare card of all scare cards. If your opponent held Q-J, he now couldn’t beat any flush, any ace, or K-J. Since you played the hand like a draw, your opponent might think he can’t beat anything, and fold his hand. Now remember, this play doesn’t have to be successful too often in order to be profitable. If there is $200 in the pot, your $20 bet has to win the pot only one out of eleven times to break even. When it doesn’t work, oh well, chalk it up to your advertising budget. Don’t Bluff with A-K High I often see players make last ditch efforts to win pots on the river, thinking, “I can’t win if I check. This is the only way I can win.” The problem with this logic is that this player can’t win by betting either! A-K high is going to beat any busted draws. If that’s what your opponent has, there is no reason to bet. If your opponent does in fact have a pair, he’s simply not going to fold—not 156 very often, anyway. Here is an example of a big but common mistake. Player A has been betting at a board of 3? 2? 6? 3?, and finally the Q? comes on the river. Player A decides to check, and Player B foolishly throws in a desperation bet with A-K high. Player A quickly calls, and player B is left cursing his bad luck as Player A shows him his pair. This bet is flat out silly. Most likely, Player A checked the river fearing the queen. He didn’t want to get raised, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t calling with even a pair of deuces. Player B’s best bet with the A-K would have been to check it down and hope that Player A gives up on his bluff. Of course, there is an argument for value betting A-K high if you put your opponent on A-x high, but that is a rather advanced play. In order to value bet A-K on the river, you’d have to have tons of data on your opponent backing up your decision. It’s important to clarify that if you made this play you would be value betting, not bluffing. Setting Up Bluffs Earlier I talked about how successful bluffs start before the

river. In order for a bluff to work, it’s important to play in accordance with the hand you are trying to represent. If you are going to bluff when a flush card hits the river, you better have played the hand like you would have if you’d the flush draw. You’ll also want to pick the right target—not the guy with the unbluffable sign on his forehead. You should pick the one who prides himself on making masterful laydowns on the river. If that’s your opponent’s strength, it can be turned into a weakness, and bluffing is the way to exploit it. If you haven’t set up your opponent for a bluff along the way, it would be foolish to attempt it on the river. Even the laydown artist, lets call him “Mr. Genius,” will call you if it looks too suspicious. So how is it done? Let’s look at an example. You hold the 5-6 of diamonds. Mr. Genius limped in early position, as do two other players from middle position, so you welcome the pot odds. Four of you take the flop of J? 3? 4?, giving you an open-ended straight draw. Mr. Genius bets the flop, and you raise looking for a free card, while all the others fold. Now the turn brings the 8? for no help 157 and Mr. Genius checks, as do you. At this point Mr. Genius feels a little silly. He now “knows” you have a flush draw and has given you a free card. The river brings the K?. Mr. Genius decides to check. Here is your chance. You’ve played the hand as you would have if you’d actually had the flush, and the river brought an overcard as well. Take a chance and bet it. Hopefully you’ll hear Mr. Genius go on about how he was so unlucky this hand. “I had you beat until that card came, but I know you have the flush. Take it.” Music to your ears! Whatever you do, don’t show Mr. Genius your hand. Let him continue to think he is the master of poker. In fact, you can even take it one step further, saying, “Good laydown.” No need to tell him the truth, that you are robbing him blind! SHORTHANDED PLAY A game played five-handed or less is generally considered shorthanded. When playing shorthanded, remember the two keys to success: aggression and isolation. Shorthanded poker is an aggressive battle for the antes. Since the price per hand is higher, you need to get in there and fight as well. If you sit back and wait, you will be giving up too much and get blinded to death. Raise and reraise with a playable hand, taking the lead and pushing small edges. In the blinds, understand that you are getting excellent pot odds, and there is no reason to worry about being dominated. Shorthanded, your goal is to isolate a lone opponent and fight for what’s in the middle. Since winning the pot uncontested or getting the hand heads-up with position are both favorable situations,

it makes sense that you want to raise with any hand you are going to play. As Bobby Baldwin wrote in the original Super/System, when it comes to limit hold’em, “All hands worth playing are now worth raising.” Limit hold’em, especially shorthanded, is all about taking the lead and being the aggressor. By doing this, you will force your opponent to hit flops. When your opponent misses, your aggressive pre-flop play will often win you the pot regardless of what your holecards are. Let’s look at an example of how this works. Say a player opens for a raise and you find J? 10? on the button. Rather than simply call the raise, why not 158 reraise? That will help you get the hand heads-up with position and will also give you the lead—both good things, by the way. Now the flop comes 6? 7? Q?. Your opponent checks to you, and you bet. Unless your opponent started with a premium hand or hit the flop, he often will throw his hand away right there. One important thing to understand when playing shorthanded, is that you are paying more in blinds per hand dealt. For example, in a ten-handed $20/$40 game you are paying $30 to see ten hands, or $3 a hand. Compare that to a five-handed game where you are paying that same $30 to see five hands, or $6 a hand. Knowing this, you can see why you simply can’t wait for premium hands all the time. If you do, you’ll get eaten up by the blinds. With fewer players at the table, high pairs, ace-anything, big cards, and small pairs all go up in value. At the same time, small suited connectors lose some value since you won’t be getting multiway action, and these hands hold up rather poorly in aggressive shorthanded games. Small Pairs While small pairs often do well in multiway pots, they also do quite well shorthanded, especially with position. For example, if you are facing a late position raise with 5-5 on the button, reraising would likely have positive value. Unless your opponent is already paired, you have a slight edge with the best hand, position, and the lead. As long as your opponent misses the flop, chances are you will win it either on the flop or with another bet on the turn. This play doesn’t even need to work 50 percent of the time for it to be profitable since there often will be added dead money in the pot, like the blinds. Kickers In hold’em, you’ll often find yourself with kicker trouble when holding hands like A-7, K-8, Q-10, and so on. In a typical ring game, an early position raiser dominates these hands. That’s not necessarily the case shorthanded. For example, if you hold Q-J on a flop of Q-7-2 against an early position raiser in a ring game, there is a very real chance that you are up against A-A, K-K, Q-Q, A-Q, or even K-Q. That’s simply not as realistic a threat shorthanded since your opponents will be

raising with a much wider variety 159 of hands. If they aren’t, they simply aren’t playing correctly and are playing far too tight. When you flop a pair shorthanded, you should be going to the river more often than not—even if it’s bottom pair! Let’s look at another example. Say you have A-8 offsuit under the gun in a ten-handed game. What should you do? If you said fold, you’d be correct. How about the same question in a four-handed game? If you said fold again, you couldn’t be more wrong. With only three players to act behind you, the chances of you running into kicker trouble are less, and the possibility that you have the best hand is greater. If an ace flops, that makes it even less likely that you are up against an ace with a better kicker. Suited Connectors The problem with hands like 6-7 suited is that if you don’t improve your hand, you have virtually no chance of winning the pot in a showdown. The way limit hold’em is being played today, having a hand that can win in a showdown is even more valuable. You can blame some of that on internet poker. Since players can’t pick up physical tells while playing poker online, they tend to call more often when there is a reasonable chance that you are bluffing, hoping their small pair or ace-high will pick off a bluff. Despite that, you shouldn’t completely rule out playing suited connectors. Remember, you need to play more hands shorthanded anyway. I’m not suggesting that you avoid playing these hands, just that you play them for different reasons. For example, in a shorthanded game, you don’t really want to limp into a five-handed pot with the 6-7 of hearts. You can still play it, but if you do, raise it! Take the lead and try to represent a big hand on the flop whether you hit the flop or not. If you meet with some resistance, it’s time to abort the mission and simply give up on the bluff before it’s too late. Blind Defense By now, you should be able to guess that I advise defending your blinds fiercely when playing shorthanded. Don’t be paranoid, fearing premium hands all the time. Shorthanded, your opponents will be raising will all kinds of junk, and there is no reason to think they have a great hand just because they raised. 160 For instance, say in a ten-handed game, you hold A-7 offsuit. The first player raises and all fold to you. Should you call, fold, or reraise? If you said fold, you’re correct. Same hand, same situation—only this time the raise came from the button in a three-handed game. Would folding still be correct? Of course not. In this situation you should lean toward reraising and sometimes just calling to mix up your play. A-7 simply figures to be better than the initial raiser’s starting hand, and you want to reraise to take control of the hand. It’s a decent hand that can win without improvement, but

more often than not you would be happy to win it on the flop with a bet. HEADS-UP PLAY To some degree, you can throw the rulebooks out the window when playing heads-up. Now, anything goes; it is psychological warfare in its purest form. Your goal is to seek out your opponent’s weaknesses and figure out a way to exploit them. How you do that depends on what those weaknesses are. Pre-Flop Play When playing heads-up, the button acts first before the flop but last on the remaining betting rounds. The button has the small blind, while the other player has the big blind. As we’ve stressed throughout this chapter, position is of paramount importance in Texas hold’em but especially when playing heads-up. This makes virtually any hand playable on the button. In fact, if you were to watch two world-class players play heads-up, you’d soon notice that both players see a large percentage of the flops! The flop is usually raised by the button and either called or reraised by the big blind. The button raises because of his powerful position, and the big blind usually calls or reraises based on the merit of his holecards—unless he is holding one of the rare hands he folds. If you decide to play on the button, which I suggest you do with over 75 percent of the hands dealt, you should come in for a raise. Limping in to mix it up is fine, but you can’t go wrong with a raise. As the big blind, it’s important that you respect your positional disadvantage. You should still 161 defend your blind most of the time, but you don’t want to get too carried away and end up overplaying your hand before the flop. When the button raises, you will be getting 3 to 1 on your money to call a bet. The button is two bets, plus the one you already have in the big blind. That’s simply too good a price to pass up with most any hand you are dealt. Even J-6 offsuit is worth a call here. Post-Flop Play One thing we know for sure is that you will miss the flop more often than you will hit it. When you do hit a piece of the flop, it’s usually correct to take the hand all the way to the river, depending on the action and the cards that come off on the turn and river. For example, say the button raises and you call the raise with K-6. The flop comes Q-8-6, giving you bottom pair and an overcard. You should never throw this hand away on the flop. It’s very probable that you have the best hand, and even if you don’t, you have five outs to win the pot, namely three kings and two sixes. In fact, if you flop this hand you should probably bet right out or go for the check-raise on the flop. Depending on your opponent, you may even decide to simply check and call on the flop, but that could potentially give

your opponent the free card he needs to beat you. The best play here would be check-raising, followed closely by betting right out, and lastly check-calling. Folding is not an option. If you are waiting to flop better than that, you simply aren’t going to beat anybody playing heads-up. Playing Against a Passive Player I could easily substitute bad or weak player for passive player in this section’s title. A passive player is your ideal opponent heads-up. Against a player like this, you should be able to take full control and win all the pots where both you and your opponent miss the flop. The player who wins the majority of these pots is generally the player that will get the money in the end. If your opponent is folding too many hands pre-flop, you should be raising on the button 100 percent of the time—even with 7-2! Think about it, if your opponent isn’t defending his blind with 10-6, K-2, 8-5, etc., raising with any hand on the button is probably enough to ensure a win. A pre-flop raise 162 followed up by a position bet will force your opponent to either hit the flop or try to make a play at the pot. And who’s to say that you can’t hit the flop? Describing a player as passive in heads-up play is a more polite way of saying that he can’t win. Playing Against an Aggressive Player Well, if you have a choice between Mr. Passive and Mr. Aggressive, you might want to avoid Mr. Aggressive and pound on poor old Mr. Passive. However, if you do find yourself up against an aggressive player heads-up, there are some things you should keep in mind. Defeating a passive player by playing aggressively works, so we should assume that the remedy for an aggressive player would be to play passively, right? Wrong. Against an aggressive player you’ll simply have to fight fire with fire and attack him with an array of weapons, the most deadly being the check-raise. When you know that your opponent will bet almost any flop, the best way to take advantage is to check-raise him out of position, then raise him in position. If you can call, raise. When you feel like you have the best of it, take the lead and try to put in the last bet on every street, getting full value for your hand. Sitting back and waiting to trap your opponent with a big hand simply doesn’t work in limit poker. This is a viable strategy in no-limit because you can trap a player for his whole stack, but in limit poker the best you can do is maybe win an extra bet or two. In the meantime, while you are waiting to trap him, he’s just picked up more than three or four bets from you with nothing! Remember, the winner of a heads-up pot will generally be the player who plays better in marginal situations. Limit hold’em is all about pound, pound, pound. No fear. 163 OMAHA EIGHT OR BETTER by

Bobby Baldwin As one of the all time greats in any form of hold’em, Bobby Baldwin was a logical choice to be my limit hold’em collaborator in the original Super/System. Knowing the rare insight he brings to all poker games he plays, I asked him to shift gears and write a section on Omaha eight-or-better for Super/System 2. Bobby, who serves as CEO of the Mirage Corporation and President of the multi-billion dollar Bellagio Hotel and Casino, told me he would do it on one condition. Due to the demands of his various positions, he asked to enlist the help of Mark Gregorich. I readily agreed, thinking that three heads are better than two and knowing Mark to be a top Omaha eight-or-better player. So Bobby supervised the writing and had the final word on the strategies you will find in the chapter. Bobby left professional poker in 1978 after winning the World Series of Poker main event, and now he plays only in the ultra high stakes games. However, his analysis of Omaha eight-or-better can be used to win at any level of play. You are about to discover the powerful thought processes and poker strategies that put Bobby into the Poker Hall of Fame. Special Acknowledgment To Mark Gregorich This chapter could not have been completed without the special expertise and coordination of Mark Gregorich, who is regarded as one of the best Omaha high-low players in the world. In fact, in a 2001 Card Player magazine players poll conducted during the World Series of Poker, Mark was voted the #1 live action Omaha high-low player. INTRODUCTION Omaha eight-or-better is a newcomer on the poker scene. Discussion of the game wasn’t even included in the original Super/System. It’s hard to believe that a relatively new game could achieve such a loyal following so rapidly. However, it is now the game of choice for thousands of poker players in the United States and around the world. You can find games at virtually every level, from beginner tables to ultra high stakes games, in most major card 164 rooms. Probably the most significant reason for its popularity is its well-deserved reputation as an action game, because so many hands can be played before and after the flop. But there’s a lot to learn before you hit the tables, so let’s get to it! BEGINNING OMAHA EIGHT-OR-BETTER Before we begin a discussion of game strategy, here is a brief course in the rules of Omaha eight-or-better. Betting Like Texas hold’em, Omaha eight-or-better is a flop game. In fact, once the initial four downcards have been dealt, the play of the hand is identical to hold’em. The two players to the left of the dealer button post the small and large blinds. Action begins with the player to the left of the big blind who must call the amount of the big blind, raise, or fold. The action then continues around the table to the big blind, who has last action before the flop. After the flop, the player still in the hand who

is seated closest to the left of the button acts first, as is the case with each successive round of betting. In most games with fixed limits, the pre-flop and flop bets are one size, and the turn and river bets are double that. For example, in a $2-$4 game, the first two rounds of betting must be in increments of $2 and the last two rounds in increments of $4. In $50/$100 games, the increments would be $50 and $100. The standard game features a maximum of one bet and three raises per round, although the majority of games in Las Vegas permit four raises. When the Pot Is Split Omaha eight-or-better is a high-low split game, which means the high and low hands each get half of the pot. There is always a high hand, which will receive some portion of the pot, but sometimes no low hand is possible because to make a low hand, a player must have five unpaired cards eight or below. For example, if the flop came K-J-9, it would be impossible for any player to make a hand of five unpaired cards eight or below. When there is no low, the high hand wins the whole pot. The best possible low is 5-4-3-2-A 165 and is commonly referred to as a wheel or a bicycle. Furthermore, in Omaha eight-or-better, straights and flushes don’t count against a low hand. Thus, 6-4-3-2-A of hearts would be a 6-4 low, in addition to a flush for the high. If two or more players hold the same high or low hand, they divide that half of the pot. Dividing half a pot in this way is called quartering. You will encounter this much more often on the low side of the pot. You Must Play Two Cards from Your Hand In hold’em a player is allowed to use one, both, or neither of the cards dealt to him in conjunction with the cards on board to make the best possible fivecard hand. Omaha players, however, are forced to make their best five-card hand by using exactly two of their own cards and exactly three from the board—no more, no less. But many different combinations are possible. You May Play Different Combinations for High and Low In Omaha eight-or-better, you are allowed to make both your best high and your best low hand by combining two of your cards with three from the board. You may use different cards in each direction, or you can use a card for both your high hand and low hand. For example, suppose you have A? 2? 7? K? and the board is: 3? 4? 6? J? Q?. In this case, you can use the A-7 of clubs for high (ace-high flush) and the A-2 for low (6-4-3-2-A). Ranking of Low Hands If you have played stud eight-or-better, ace-to-five lowball, or razz, you already know the ranking order of low hands in Omaha eight-or-better. The best possible hand is 5-4-3-2-A, and the worst qualifying low hand is 8-7-6- 5-4. To determine whether or

not you have your opponent beat, compare the hands in order of highest card to lowest card. Here is an example: Your hand: 8-5-3-2-A. Your opponent: 7-6-5-4-3. Your 8 is worse than his 7, so your opponent wins this hand. It’s also common for both players to share the board cards. For instance, with 8-5-4 on the board, one player is likely to edge out another by holding A-2 against A-3. 166 Hand Reading All of these different possibilities can be quite confusing for new players and even experienced ones. It is not uncommon for even a winning high-limit player to misread his own hand in Omaha eight-or-better. If you are new to the game and unsure of what you’re holding at the end of the hand, your best bet is to turn your hand over at the river and ask the dealer for assistance in reading it. With a bit of practice, though, reading your hand will become second nature. Hand Reading Examples The following are examples of some common situations that arise in Omaha eight-or-better—and some that are a little tricky. If you have trouble following some of them, try dealing out some sample hands and practice identifying each player’s best high and low hands. Once you have sharpened your hand reading skills, you will be ready to move on to strategy. Example One Your hand: A-3-K-K Opponent: 2-3-5-9 Board: 6-7-8-J-Q This is a split pot, as your 8-7-6-3-A low edges out your opponent’s 8-7-6-3- 2, and his high hand, a 9-high straight, beats your pair of kings. Example Two Your hand: A-6-K-K Opponent: A-4-8-8 Board: 2-3-4-5-J With a wheel (5-4-3-2-A) for both high and low, your opponent scoops. You cannot make the nut low, because you must play both the ace and 6 in your hand, leaving you with only a 6-4-3-2-A for low. These cards don’t stretch to make a straight, either, so you’re stuck with just a pair of kings for high. This may seem confusing, particularly if hold’em has been your primary game. If this were hold’em, you could play the ace to make a wheel, and the 6 to make a 6-high straight. But in Omaha eight-or-better, you must always play exactly two cards from your hand and exactly three from the board. 167 Example Three Your hand: A-3-5-6 Opponent: 3-4-J-J Board: A-2-3-4-5 You wind up with three quarters of this pot. The low side is split, as your opponent plays his 3-4 with the A-2-5 on the board, and you can play any combination of A-3, A-5, or 3-5 to make the nuts, the best hand. However, you can use your 6 and either your 3 or 5 to make a 6-high straight, which wins the high half of the pot. Example Four Your hand: A-A-4-7 Opponent: 2-5-5-7 Board: 2-4-6-7-8 Another split pot. Your opponent wins the high with an 8-high straight, beating your two-pair hand of sevens and fours. However, your 7-6-4-2-A low is good enough to beat his 7-6-5-4-2. The low hand is somewhat tricky to read, as both players have low

cards matched by the board. A low can still be made, provided some combination of five cards can be played without a pair. In Omaha jargon, you have a “live ace” for low. Example Five Your hand: A-A-4-7 Opponent: 2-5-6-K Board: 2-4-7-8-9 This time, your opponent wins the whole pot. His 9-high straight beats your two pair, and his low is good as well. You must play an 8-7-4-2-A low, but your opponent can play a 7-6-5-4-2. Example Six Your hand: A-3-J-J Opponent: 4-4-8-Q Board: 3-9-10-J-Q 168 This hand is likely to send you shuffling off to the dice tables shaking your head. You have a set of jacks, but lose to a queen-high straight. Note that you also have a trey in your hand matching the trey on board, but you cannot make a full house, as this would require three cards from your hand. It is impossible in Omaha, as it is in hold’em, to hold a full house when there is no pair on the board. Example Seven Your hand: A? 2? 8? 10? Opponent: 3-4-5-8 Board: 6-7-9-J-K (four hearts) You win this pot, but not with a flush. You must hold two hearts in order to make a flush, so the ace by itself is meaningless. However, the 10-8 in your hand produces a jack-high straight, barely edging your opponent’s 9-high straight. No low is possible here. Example Eight Your hand: A-2-4-J Opponent: 4-5-7-7 Board: 3-3-7-J-J You take another tough loss on this hand. Again, no low is possible, and the best you can do for a high is play the A-J from your hand with J-J-7 from the board, giving you trip jacks with an ace kicker. Be careful not to think you have a full house. It could turn out to be an expensive mistake. Playing his 7- 7 with the 7-J-J on the board, your opponent does make a full house, with sevens full of jacks. Note that if you held A-2-3-J rather than A-2-4-J, you would have won the pot with a bigger full house. Example Nine Your hand: 2-3-3-Q Opponent: A-2-3-Q Board: 8-8-8-8-9 So, you finally decide to take an inferior starting hand up against your opponent, and you emerge victorious. Do you see why? Since only three 169 board cards can be used, you take 8-8-8 from the board and combine it with your pair of threes for a full house. The best hand your opponent can make, however, is 8-8-8-A-Q. By the way, any player holding two nines in his hand would have the nuts, as nines full of eights would beat all varieties of eights full. The second nuts? Two aces. Example Ten Your hand: A-4-5-8 Opponent: A-4-5-K Board: A-4-5-8-9 You win the entire pot. Your aces and eights nip your opponent’s aces and fives. Neither one of you can make a low hand, as you must be able to play five unpaired cards. If there had been a low card on the board instead of the nine, both you and your opponent would be able to make some kind

of low hand. PRE-FLOP PLAY Basic Pre-Flop Play Starting Hand Fundamentals: An Overview One of the great features of most loose lower limit Omaha eight-or-better games is that adhering to strict starting hand requirements will be enough to produce a profit. The reason for this is that in many of these games, six or more players see the flop, and in multiway pots, it takes a very strong hand— frequently the nut hand—to win. So knowing which starting hands are most likely to produce nut hands and strictly playing only these cards will give you a built-in advantage over your loose-playing opponents. In a multiway hold’em pot, there are times when you should play a lesser holding, such as 7-6 suited, for example. Furthermore, in hold’em, hands such as A-K decrease in value as the number of players in the pot increases. In Omaha eight-or-better, however, all hands are speculative, even more so than in hold’em. The more players contesting the pot, the more important it is that you hold a premium hand that can develop into the nuts. While starting hand play can generate a profit in loose low-limit games, this 170 will not be enough as you progress up the ladder. Nonetheless, being able to hold your own in a game during the learning process is a nice bonus. It makes for extremely cheap and potentially profitable lessons. As the limits get higher, it becomes more important that you have a mastery of all aspects of the game, as you will be facing more highly skilled opponents. But no matter how high or low the stakes, the players who have worked hardest to develop their games win the most money. What To Look For in a Starting Hand The Ace. It is of paramount importance that you remember this fact: Although Omaha eight-or-better is a split-pot game, the key to the game is winning the entire pot or scooping. With this in mind, you should select hands that stand a good chance of winning the whole pot. The key card is an ace, and few hands are playable without one. In fact, if you’re just starting out, it’s not a bad idea to routinely fold every hand without an ace in it. In doing so, you’re not giving up much potential profit. A number of experienced players cling to the “Don’t leave home without it” philosophy, and it serves them well. Why are aces so significant? Not only are they required for the best low starting hands, they are also the highest card in the deck, providing the highest pair, two pair, three of a kind, flush, and straight hands. Why would you want to spot your opponents a card this powerful and versatile? Middle Cards. If aces are at the top of the Omaha food chain, then middle cards are the lowest form of life. Hands dominated by middle cards—sevens, eights, and nines, and to a lesser extent fives, sixes, and tens—stand virtually no chance of scooping, unless there’s no low hand. Despite the fact that hands such as

6-7-8-9 produce many straights, the presence of these straights means that a low will be possible, and the pot is likely to be split. In order for no low to be possible, the board would have to contain three high cards. But that’s trouble, too. For example, if the flop comes 10-J-Q, you have made your straight, but you could easily lose to a higher straight. Also, straights are vulnerable hands in Omaha, because any time a flush or full house is made possible by the board, it is quite likely that one of your opponents has one. 171 High Hands. Straight high hands such as 10-J-Q-K can win some nice pots when they connect perfectly with the board. However, these hands don’t hit often, and sometimes the pot still gets chopped between you and an opponent with a low hand or the same high hand, typically a straight or two pair. Although this type of hand can be played at times, it is important to remember that it is a drawing hand that will usually miss and be folded on the flop. So with high-only hands, you should look for certain situations, such as multiway pots, when you can get in for one bet and receive a good price on your investment. It’s generally best to play this hand cheaply against a large number of opponents, in the hopes of winning a sizable pot should you connect with the flop. Ace Companions. So if the best starting hands contain an ace, what cards make the best companions for the ace? Premium low cards are best, preferably a deuce, but ace-trey combinations are generally playable as well. The board will frequently pair either your ace, deuce, or trey, so having a third low card, 5 or below, is important as well. Before you go to war prior to the flop, make sure you have at least three cards to a wheel, including an ace and either a deuce or trey. Since scooping is the goal, it’s also important to have high-hand possibilities with your low cards. Two aces with a deuce or a trey hold two-way potential, as do suited cards. Obviously, it’s best if your ace is suited, but even small suited combinations add to your chances of scooping the hand. Hands like A2-3-9 unsuited are playable due to the presence of the three best low cards, but these types of hands will typically only win the low side. Moving down the ladder, low hands without an ace, such as 2-3-4-10, are only marginally playable, and hands such as 4-5-6-J are not playable at all. Good Starting Hands The following are a few examples of good Omaha eight-or-better starting hands: A-A-2-x A-A-3-x A-A-4-5 A-2-3-x A-2-4-K A-2-5-6 172 A-3-4-5 A-K-Q-2 A-3-5-Q (double-suited) Notice that all of the preceding hands contain at least one ace. Remember, if your hand doesn’t contain an ace, there is one extra premium card that could be in the clutches of your opponents. In a full Omaha eight-or-better game, most of the deck is dealt, so you can

expect most of the aces to be in your opponents’ hands. The Most Important Decision of the Hand Of all the decisions made during the course of an Omaha eight-or-better hand, the choice of whether to initially play or fold is by far the most important. Seeing a flop with an inferior hand might seem like a relatively harmless decision, but it is a mistake that tends to lead to more costly mistakes. Make this your Omaha eight-or-better mantra: Play only hands that have obvious potential of developing into the nuts. A hold’em player might occasionally play an inferior hand or rags, but he will typically be hard pressed to continue after the flop. However, due to the four-card hands in Omaha eight-or-better, players seeing the flop with a raggy hand will frequently flop just enough of a draw to justify staying in— often incorrectly. As a result, instead of simply missing the flop and folding, a reckless player may find himself tied on until the river, chasing a draw that should not have been pursued. Omaha eight-or-better is a perfect example of that old computer maxim GIGO: “Garbage In, Garbage Out.” Starting with middle cards will produce lots of middle straights, which often either lose to better high hands or split with low hands. Starting with double-suited medium cards will produce flushes that often lose to bigger flushes. However, playing premium cards, such as suited aces with a deuce and/or a trey, allows you to make the nut low hand and gives you a chance to develop a high hand as well. Remember your mantra about only playing possible nut hands. If you find yourself uncertain about whether a hand should be played or folded, it’s generally best to fold. Being too creative with your starting hands is a liability in Omaha eight-or-better. 173 Raising Before the Flop A common misconception is that it’s wrong to raise before the flop. Many players—especially those that have played a lot of hold’em—feel that playing the flop is the key to the game and that only a minimal investment should be made prior to seeing the first three board cards. In hold’em, hands such as two aces are obvious raising hands, as they need not improve to win the pot. Omaha eight-or-better hands almost always need to improve to win, so many players consider this enough of a reason to avoid making a raise before the flop. Although flop play is crucial to success, there are numerous situations in which it is in fact correct to raise pre-flop. You will be making a mistake if you never raise before the flop in this game. There are two reasons to raise a pot before the flop: (1) To eliminate players and narrow the field; (2) To build a bigger pot. It is important to consider which of these effects your raise is likely to have. In the loose “no fold-em” games common at some of the lower limits, a raise might not narrow the field. If this is the case in your game, don’t raise.