poker strategy
Don’t get you caught on tilt!
Monday, May 11th, 2009 | poker strategy, tilt | No Comments
What happens when your opponent hits a one outer on the river to win your whole stack? Do you start to play like a nut and start losing a lot of more money? If this is the case, this article could be helpful for you 
You’ve very prone to go on steaming, which means you lose your emotional control when things go wrong. This is something you really need to be able to control, it will save you a lot of money. Everyone suffers bad beats from time to time, but if you go on tilt every time you will lose a lot of money and it’ll destroy game.
But there are some things you can do to minimize your damages after suffering a bad beat. The simplest solution is to follow this rule.
This will certainly have some negative affect on your poker action. But … when you’re tilting action is the very last thing you need 
Don’t take too many risks losing your bankroll Better to break a while than become favourite to lose a few hundred big blinds. Know when to fold!
Calculate your winning percentages
Saturday, May 2nd, 2009 | poker strategy | No Comments
If you counted the remaining outs you still have, you can easily obtain a rough estimate of the winning percentages you have. ITropical Poker gives a quick guide how to count these outs, by the way Remember, these are just estimates, but they can certainly give you a good indicator of the strength of your hand.
Some handy tricks …
The rule of four
The rule of two
As you can see, these results will never be extremely accurate, so if you want to be more precise just use the Solomon’s rule.
Solomon’s rule
e.g. I have 14 outs, what is my winning percentage?
(14*4) – (14-8) gives you 56-6 = 50%
Betting types: the PROBE BET
Wednesday, April 29th, 2009 | poker strategy, probe bet | No Comments
In one of my previous posts I talked you about the notion of the value bet. Now I want to say something briefly about another sort of bet: in face the probe bet. They have some things in common with the previously noted value bet but it’s goal/function is actually completely different.
THE PROBE BET
In general, probe bets are a bit smaller dan the value bets. (1/3 to 1/2 of the pot size). You do probe bets when you believe you don’t have the best but you want to bet for some various reasons. You do it when you want to know where you stand in comparison with your opponents. A probe bet could result in one of the follow outcomes:
- winning the pot
- getting in control of the hand
- avoiding larger bets
- chase out the weakest
That would be definitely an unexpected result, but you definitely won’t complain
By taking the lead in betting yourself and establishing yourself as the main man in the pot, it’s possible you may get a free card or two on later streets.
Players with a decent hand are more likely to bet first in the pot, than to raise an initial better. By betting first, you could convince an opponent to just call rather than betting a larger amount. This enables you to see the turn or river at a cheaper price.
With a bet you could convince a couple of opponents to throw their bad hands away, rather than call with hands that might have beaten you with a lucky draw. And believe me, by just checking this happens a lot :p
Betting types: the VALUE BET
Wednesday, April 29th, 2009 | poker strategy, value bet | No Comments
In poker a bet into a pot isn’t just a bet of a randomly chosen amount. Definitely there are different kind of bets, each with an own goal. You have value bets, probe bets, bluffs and semi-bluffs.
THE VALUE BET
Value bets you make when you believe you’ve got the best hand and you just would like to spice the pot a bit. You don’t need absolute certainty before contemplating a valuebet. Except when having the absolute nuts in your hands, your belief of having the best hand at the table is just a well-thought guess. In poker however, you have to act on these kind of guesses so in this case, you will just bet. A normal value bet is usually in the range of half the pot to the whole pot
What are the distinct possible goals of making a value bet?
- Getting more money into the pot when you’re a favourite
- Chasing away hands better than yours
- Denying proper odds to drawing hands
- Taking control of the hand
One of the primary goals in poker is to build big pots when being favourite, and to keep the pot small when you’re less likely to win. A value bet can accomplish this first goal.
If you are wrong and you don’t actually have the best hand right now, a bet might still chase away somebody with a slightly better hand. That way you could win a pot you wouldn’t have caught elsewise.
If you have the best hand at this time, but an opponent has a good draw to beat you and you bet an amount which denies him good odds they have two choices. The obvious option is to fold, but in the other case they voluntarily put some extra value in the pot. Then you just hope they don’t hit, but in the long term these kind of drawers will earn you a nice profit :p
If you bet, you say to the others at the poker table you have a good hand. It sends out some kind of authority ^^
It could prevent some of your opponents to bet on the turn or the river, despite maybe having a better hand than you have. In that case you’ll get the opportunity to see a free card.
the 4 principles of poker
Wednesday, April 29th, 2009 | poker strategy | No Comments
Maybe obvious for the more advanced players among us, but for the beginners I’ll summarize the main principles of each poker form (as stated by Action Dan Harrington) If you follow these short and simple guidelines, I’m sure you’ll end up winning money playing poker on the internet. Just be smart and think about your choices
Principle no. 1 : The Strength principle
That wouldn’t be too hard not? Obviously you want to bet your very strong hands to build a bigger pot when you’re likely to win. Your middle hands you better check because it’s harder to make money when you bet these. Better hands than yours are likely to call or raise, while weak hands probably fold. Folding your weakest hands is quite obvious. Bluffing with your weakest hands might be not so obvious, but then again if the bluff works you’ve gained value from a hand that had none
Principle no.2: the agression principle
Agressive actions have two possible outcomes: your opponent could fold to your bet, or he could call your bet and you can win at the showdown. Passive actions in contrary has just one, at the showdown. 2 > 1 
Principle no.3: the betting principle
A bet can thus make money in three ways. If you can chase away a better hand, you won a pot you normally would have lost. If you get a weaker hand to call, you’ve got more money into the pot. Same goes to let somebody call a draw at unfavorable odds If you don’t think a bet could accomplish one of these things, just don’t bet :p
Principle no.4: the deception principle
This is quite clear. Be surprising, don’t act predictively! In order to be succesful at poker, you need your opponents to keep guessing about your bets.