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Poker school / Poker theory |
 Actually I don’t like Mike Caro but there?s one thing that makes me respect ?The Mad Genius?. Once he said: ?Winning is easy?. And it really is.
Sometimes you think that all these poker books don?t help much. In fact - they don?t help fatalists. But if you think you?re the master of your fate, then Caro?s words must become a motto for you. Winning IS easy! |
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The argument about limit vs. no limit has become as heated as the ongoing spat over Ginger or Mary Ann. No Limit poker, much like the sultry Ginger, is the movie star of the gaming world. It has flash, dramatics, and scoring can seem easy. Whenever somebody on television is pulling in a big pot you can be sure that they are playing no limit hold’em. The limit game is understated, subtle, and requires a combination of patience and skill to score. |
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If the only ingredient to winning poker were understanding the hierarchy of cards, the World Series of Poker would include third graders, savants, and the occasional imaginary friend. There is so much more that goes into winning poker then just the cards. The intangible aspects of the game are what separate the amateur from the professional. |
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More years ago then I care to think about, a citizen of ancient Greece named Pythagoras, sat down and worked out a theorem of mathematics and how it works in the world. Not only was this a breakthrough in the field of mathematics, but it was the first recorded instance of somebody having way to much time on their hands. There are other, less known theorems. |
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I mentioned something about positions at the table to a friend of mine. She answered back with the type of details about her summer college intern that were only fit for the ?Spice Channel?. If the words ?table? and ?position? send you into the Larry Flynt zone, this is not the article for you. We are referring to a player?s position at the Texas Hold?Em table. |
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Taking something that you really shouldn’t have is frowned upon in the real world. Most in a civilized society call this stealing. Using the principles that work in poker, such as deception and guile, landed the Adelphia boys in a place where striped pajamas are high fashion and strip searches are considered recreational activity. Luckily though, using your position at the poker table to steal a pot will not net you such dire consequences. |
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The terms "longhand" and "shorthand" are just the sport of pokers way of describing how many people are sitting at your table. A longhand game resembles a house party with free beer and a buffet table. You cant swing a dead chicken in the room without hitting somebody who wants to play at your table. Longhand poker generally has 8 or more people playing. |
Think of heads up play as the poker version of tennis. It is one on one, with serves and returns. In fact it has almost every element of the game of tennis except for sweating and tiny little skirts.
Like any other game of poker, position is key. Instead of the button going around the table, it goes back and forth between the players. When the button is in your possession you will be the one who is posting the small blind in this format. |
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Poker players, like members of the animal community, come in a number of varieties. When Darwin sat on his island, invading the privacy of any species unfortunate enough to be in range of his binoculars, I doubt he considered the evolution of the poker player. Evolved these card players have though. Most of us are familiar with only two types, tight and loose. There are other different kinds that get lost in the mix of these two general headings. |
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People are natural liars. It is the one thing that ties together every person of every economic level, every color and creed. In other words, a lie, like death, is society’s great equalizer. The middle aged man who says "Honest honey, the painter must have left it", to explain why a leather mask with a zipper where the mouth should be is laying on the bed, is as much a liar as the leader of the free world when he announced to a confused nation, "Read my lips, I did not have sexual relations with that woman". |
Millions of words have been written in various books, blogs, columns, and publications about how a player should bluff. Comparatively little has been written about how a player should deal with a bluffing competitor. Stopping a player from bluffing is a valid strategy though. So today we will take a look at this method of play.
Why should you stop a bluff? Well first of all, nobody likes being lied to, especially if those lies are costing you money. |
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Anybody who has ever seen one of the "Discovery Channel" shows on wild horses knows what the term, "wobbly as a new born colt" means. It takes a baby horse a little while to get the hang of walking. Even when young stallion manages to get all its legs going in the same direction, inexperience at life will cause it to make mistakes. It may try to nurse off a confused and angry grizzly bear, or decide that a cliff is its friend. |
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Poker is all about the pot. Without the financial aspect of poker, the chance of taking money from friends and strangers alike, you might as well give the game up and only play "crazy eights" during family gatherings. If you are going to make the most of game, you must be sure to get value out of your hands. |
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When most people think about stern discipline thoughts of military boot camp come wafting across their consciousness. Of course just as many start thinking about large women in leather teddies holding riding crops and thumb screws. I guess your thoughts on the subject of discipline have much to do with your past experiences. |
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Sometimes entering a game at a new place is sort of like going to a foreign country. The people are strange, the rules are different, and the food can cause the type of gastro-intestinal problems that only a bottle of Pepto Bismol and time can fix. When playing somewhere unfamiliar, be sure you know rules of the table, especially the specifics of betting. This may save some embarrassment and a savage beating when the time comes to pay up. |
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Early human civilization had no concept for zero. Back then the work was hard, and there was also the possibility of being eaten by a giant ground sloth, but in general folks were happier. They also were not very good poker players. With the advent of zero came the birth of mathematics. With math we got the industrial revolution, nuclear weapons and Microsoft. People are less happy today and tend to fling themselves off tall buildings more often, but we are better poker players. |
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Here is something most guys don’t want to hear. Size does matter. Anybody who tells you any different has one eye on your wallet. We are, of course, only talking about the size of your ante, and how it effects how you will play. |
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People who enjoy math are about as common as folks who mace themselves because it feels good, think a cattle prod applied to their nether regions is a good way to spend Friday night, or eat at Taco Bell for the superior quality of their food. In short, very few people actually like math. The fact that most of us loathe playing about with numbers means that it is an activity we tend to avoid unless necessary. |
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Some things are just bad ideas, for example, poking the bouncer at your favorite dance club in the chest with your forefinger while making negative remarks about his mother. This is a bad idea, especially when all you have to defend yourself with is some slurred insults and a blood alcohol level of .10. Other notable bad ideas were leg warmers, metrosexuals and the years between 1969 and 1980. All of these can be deleted from society without any harm to the culture as a whole. Another idea that is generally considered a bad one, from the perspective of good poker playing, is raising from the blinds. |
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We focus a lot of time trying to figure out the "tells" of the folks we are squaring off against in a game of poker. Unfortunately most players get so caught up in looking for a tiny little facial tick on the face of the person seated across from them, they forget to notice the rebel yell, or profuse drooling they themselves do when a pair of pocket aces finds its way into their hand. Discovering somebody else’s tell is not going to do you much good if you don’t have a firm grip on your own. In this lesson we have given you a few tips on how to hide your tells from the prying eyes of your opponents. |
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Jiminy Cricket once spoke very eloquently on the topic of ones conscious and how it should direct ones actions. In short, he preached the idea of "Let your conscious be your guide". Now I, personally, don’t know any adults who make big decisions based on what a cartoon had to say to them. In the real world we make our choices based on more practical things. When deciding to move up or down when playing a limit game, I’m not sure where your conscious stands on all this, but there are definitely some things that will help guide you through that decision. |
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There is a debate out in the sports community that can get pretty raucous. It centers on the question of whether or not poker is a sport. When you look at a World Series of Poker Tournament or World Poker Tour tournament and see a room full of competitors who physically have more in common with Cookie Monster than Mark Mcguire, than you can almost see the point of somebody who does not consider card games a sport. Whether it truly is or not, one thing is for certain, poker can be a marathon event that goes on much longer than the traditional Baseball or Football game. To remain sharp from start to finish, nutrition must be part of a poker player’s routine. |
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Sometimes when you are looking at your cards along with the flop, you mind starts to wander to exactly what your chances are of making the hand that you are striving for. Usually terms like "A snowballs chance in hell", "A cold day in hell", or some equally colorful metaphor that involves that place were the guy with the pitchfork and pointy tail conducts his business. There are better and more accurate ways to calculate the odds than just uttering some clich? and leaving it at that. |
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There is a king on the board, a king in your hand, and enough money in the pot to buy that Boba Fett helmet that you have been eyeing on Ebay for the last week. There is the occasional bet, everyone is calling, nobody is raising and there is a general sense of apathy that each person at the table seems to have about their hand. What sort of shape is your hand in? |
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The showdown was a staple of old westerns and the music of hairbands from the 80’s. Today it is a big part of a lot of the entertainment we see on cable television. Instead of two guys in hats pointing Smith and Wesson products at each other, or leather clad heavy metal singers singing about how much of an outlaw they are, we have Hold’em players facing off for a pile of money. |
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Tournaments are as different an environment from a cash game as the surface of the moon is different from the fish tank in your living room. With this in mind, the strategy when playing in a tournament is obviously going to be different than it would a typical ring game. There are some basic concepts a player should adhere to when playing in a tournament. |
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At most poker tables’ restraint is the word of the day. Playing in a shorthanded game, though, gives a player the chance to explore their more aggressive side. In short, these games should be played as if you were a crabby wolverine with a migraine. |
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To win most of the popular poker games that are out there, the player will need to make the best five card poker hand with the cards available to them. To be able to effectively play the game it would probably be helpful for new players to know the hand rankings. This will keep somebody from letting themselves be fooled into thinking four of a kind beats a Royal Flush. |
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Somebody once said that a journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step. This is exactly the sort of person who should have spent his time shopping for Volvos instead of writing platitudes to explain his walking. The crux of the statement, though, is that to everything there is a beginning. In Texas Holdem the beginning is the player’s hole cards. |
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There is a strategy drivers use which is called drafting. This allows the car in back to cruise along in the slip stream, while the lead car fights the resistance of the wind and air. This allows the car in the back to save fuel and have something in the tank when the moment comes to pass the lead car. This is an idea that can be applied to stud poker. |
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If bluffing is a hot sauce, the semi-bluff is a vanilla ice cream cone. It is intriguing, tasty, but not something a person will get themselves excited about. This is because a semi-bluff is done with mediocre cards that can quickly become a winner. |
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Good players base their strategy on their starting hands. They are careful only to play the hole cards which stand a reasonable chance of winning. |
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Reading the board means that a player can look at the community cards on the table and calculate the strongest possible hands. |
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The term "poison anchor" is used to describe your opponent’s low flopped pairs that have completely neutered the overcards that you hold in your hand. |
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We do our best to educate ourselves about how to protect our money from aggressive competitors, but what about other people in the poker industry who have their hands in our wallets? |
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Winning a large pot is, like anything else that is fun and productive, is a group activity. To win the big pots you will need to play strong multi-way hands in multi-way pots. |
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Most poker players are selfish, and want every cent of the pot for their own. Any player worth their salt would rather wax their nose hairs then share money with one of their opponents. |
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Scooping is, quite simply, the act of winning both the Hi and Lo halves of a Hi/Lo pot. In short, having it all. |
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For those of you who are scratching your heads over this part of the popular poker game, here is the bottom line: a low hand consists of five different cards that are eight or lower. |
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Table selection will often dictate your success when you’re playing poker. Remember, you are not there to make friends or exercise your ego by taking out the best player, you are at the table to make money. |
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When most people start playing serious poker for serious money, financial questions suddenly come to the fore. The biggest topic is usually the question of how much money they should invest in the game. |
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