Author: T

Semi-bluffs

This is an example of a player making a semi-bluff raise with a drawing hand. The hand is between Blackpool-based player Howard Plant and Peter (the Bandit) Evans.

Howard and Peter both call a flop containing KS, JH, 10S.

Peter has A – K and bets £400.

Howard has QS, 4S and raises to £1000 (Howard has a very strong drawing hand, he is drawing to both flush and straight); this is a semi-bluff raise.

Peter re-raises, putting himself all-in, and Howard calls.

Fourth street brings a KC giving Peter three kings and Howard still has his draw.

Fifth street is a 5H meaning that Peter wins and Howard’s draw has been unsuccessful. Howard’s hand was actually a slight favourite on the flop, but this example illustrates the fact that sometimes both players in a heads-up situation can play optimally and eventually the result is a matter of luck.

Judgement Calls

This hand features Howard Plant. His opponent this time is Charalambos Xanthos, otherwise known as Bambos, a restaurant and hotel owner, now based in London. Bambos is very calm and methodical at the poker table; nothing seems to faze him. This is an example of Bambos making a judgement call.

Howard bets £300 with 9-8.

Bambos raises to £900 with A-Q and Howard calls.

The flop comes K-7-6.

The board is completed with no more betting to make K-7-6-J-J.

Neither player has any sort of a hand, but Howard tries a bluff with a bet of £900 (it’s the only way that Howard can win the pot which by this time is worth a lot of money).
Bambos, however, calls with only an ace high to win the pot, Bambos demonstrated excellent card- and player-reading skills.

Slow Playing

This is an example of a player slow playing top trips. The hand is between Hamish Shah and Tom Gibson. Hamish is a stockbroker based in London. Although he’s been playing regularly for ten years, he says he plays mostly as a pastime. Tom is from County Kildare, Ireland, and is a former civil servant who currently lives in Dublin. Tom has given up the civil service and now plays poker for a living.

In this pot, Hamish has A-A and raises the pot to £100, Tom calls with A-J.

The flop brings AC, 10C, 7H and fourth street a 6S.

Tom bets £200 with his ace-good kicker and Hamish calls. Here Hamish is slow playing his monster hand (trip aces), but note he is taking a risk in potentially lettingTom draw for a flush or straight.

Fifth street brings a KS.

Tom checks and Hamish bets £200. Tom calls and Hamish wins the pot.

Lending Money This is the next worst thing to borrowing money. By all means make up your own mind about it, but remember the odds are poor for getting paid back. Even when you do get the money back it can lead to undesired results. I once loaned someone £50 and sure enough I got it back, but a few days later I was asked for a loan of it again. It was repaid again, but asked for again, and so it went on until eventually I did not know who owned the £50 – me or the person who had borrowed it and seemed to have it more often than I did. In fact, eventually the person was asking me for the loan of his £50. So a good rule is:
Don’t lend money, it is an even quicker way to lose friends than borrowing money!

Mistakes The winner in the long term is the player who makes least mistakes. So when luck is against you, stay calm and play your normal game. If you lose your cool you will start to play badly and make more mistakes.

Novices You should never bluff a novice – they don’t know the true strength of their own hand and are too likely to call.

Over the Top No, it is not being totally outrageous – in poker parlance it means re-raising an original raise. In particular, it usually refers to re-raising someone you think is bluffing. So if you think someone is ‘on the steal’ (bluffing), and you and this opponent have both got lots of chips, why not try going over the top. Beware though – it is best done against only one opponent, if there is a third party that person may have a legitimate hand.

Power Play Power play is a term used to describe playing hands in an aggressive way. There are different styles of aggression and different times when it is appropriate to be aggressive. Some players like to play aggressively with hands like A-A, K-K and A-K – that is, raise and re-raise by the amount of the pot or more if it is no-limit play. Other players will raise to reduce the field at a loose table before the flop, as the value of one’s hand goes down the more callers there are, but they will take the risk and not re-raise hoping that they will get a caller after the flop. This second tactic is more risky. In most cases, it is probably best to use power play and re-raise. Some players don’t like to be pushed around and will always come ‘over the top’ and re-raise with these hands. An aggressive style of play is most generally considered to be the winning way. But it is not the only way so don’t be a slave to dogma and try to develop your own style.

Rocks A rock is the type of player who only enters a pot with the very highest grade of hand. You can easily spot rocks because they tend to sit a long time without playing a hand. An average player might play one in three hands, whereas a rock will play one in ten. Be very wary if this type of player enters the pot with you and be even more wary if the rock says something like ‘let’s gamble’. What the rock means is for you to gamble because be assured in this case that the rock will have a premium hand. By the way, a ‘rock garden’ is where there is a whole table of rocks. My best advice here is if you see a rock garden, make a run for the door!

Selection of Hands It’s the cards you don’t play that make you a winner – you must know when to throw them away.

Slow Playing This is where you bet a small amount with a strong hand in order to get more players into the pot and to deceive them as to the strength of your hand. It is often a bad strategy unless you have a blockbuster of a hand. Therefore, always make your opponent ‘fold’ or ‘pay to play’, never give a free card. It is often said that you can slow play a nut flush but not a nut straight.

Tight Play This means playing conservatively and only getting involved with strong hands. It is generally the right strategy, but a better piece of advice is to play tight at a loose table and loose at a tight table. A loose player plays too many hands, perhaps as many as eight in every ten. The advantage of playing tight at a loose table is fairly obvious, it means you can exploit the other players weaker than average holdings. But what about playing loose in a tight game? Well in a tight game there is more opportunity to bluff and play with a bit of creativity and flair.

Weak Players There is a well-known saying in poker circles, ‘If you look round the table and have not spotted a mug within twenty minutes, then it has to be you.’
 

Previous

Before you think about sitting down at a poker table there are several fundamental things that you should keep in mind. If you forget them you will be at a disadvantage before you start. For the sake of helping you to remember let’s call these tips the guide to poker practice.

Alcohol Alcohol does not help you play better; it only makes you enjoy losing (that is until you wake up in the morning). So, your first guiding principle should be: Don’t drink and play.

Bankroll Poker players call the money they use to play poker with their ‘bankroll’. There is a saying in poker circles’ don’t play with scared money’ – that is, don’t play with money you cannot afford to lose. If you do you are liable to play’scared’ and not give of your best. Believe me on this one, it is very difficult to call a bet when you know that if you lose you won’t eat next week. This leads us to guiding principle number two: Play poker, particularly cash poker, only with money you can afford to lose.

Borrowing Money This is related to the point on bankroll. If you lose all of your playing cash don’t borrow from other players. Remember that there will always be another game tomorrow and you don’t have to reach into your pocket for more money, or worse still borrow from friends. If you do start on this route you will soon run out of friends. It is not often I get a chance to quote Shakespeare, but this one is from Hamlet: ‘Neither a borrower nor a lender be; for loan oft loses both itself and friend, and borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry. This above all to thine own self be true.’

Control It is important to have the discipline to be able to get up from the poker table if things are going badly and just go home a loser. If you are playing in poker tournaments do so with the intention of limiting the number of re-buys you have and exercise control. Thus, the fourth guiding principle is to have control of your emotions. Not many players are good at controlling their self¬destructive urges – if you can, you will immediately have an edge over your rivals at the poker table.

Cheating Deceit is an integral part of playing poker. In many ways it’s what makes the game interesting, but it can spill over into cheating. Games run in European and US casinos are well managed and as a result cheating is rare at the poker table, but it does happen. Therefore, be wary, especially in home games. One form of cheating which is very difficult for the casinos to spot and hence to control is collusion between two or more players. This is where players are playing out of the same bankroll and may be communicating with each other via signals. So be vigilant.

Do’s and Don’ts Do bet weak hands at high-stakes poker if you think there is a good chance you will not be called, but don’t call with the same strength of hand. By betting in the first place your opponent indicates he has a strong hand. Another similar rule of thumb is don’t call a bet unless you would call a raise.

Guard Your Hand I mention this one in the section on rules. Occasionally, a dealer will think a hand has been passed, because the player has seemed to push it away. These hands will be scooped up and put in with the other discards and the cards cannot be retrieved. It is each player’s responsibility to guard his own cards. This can be done by being alert and/or putting a chip on top of live hands. Take care though that this behaviour does not produce any tells.

Home Games You can leave casino games whenever you feel like it – you are under no obligation to play on, even if you are a big winner. Remember if it had been the other way round and you had lost all of your money you would have had to leave. However, some home games have rules (often not overtly stated) requiring winners to play on for a specified time. Usually, a winner will declare that he is going home in an hour’s time or whatever. This is no bad thing in home games as most do not have a lot of players and games can break up if a few winners leave. In any case, if someone comes into a home game, plays a few hands, wins a big pot and then leaves ten minutes later, believe me that person will not be popular. Do it two weeks in a row and you will never be invited back.

Part 2