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When to Fold in Limit Texas Hold’em

March 9, 2010

Decent players have a good understanding about when to fold preflop. You want to play premium hands preflop. In terms of marginal hands, you want to play suited connectors/small pairs more when it is a multi-way pot and less so when it is about three people seeing the flop. For big cards such as AJ or KT, the opposite is the case. Be more willing to play these hands in a heads up or three way situation.

There are 3 rounds of betting post flop, and the decisions you make are not automatic.

Small Mistakes vs. Big Mistakes

In Limit Hold’em, the bets are a small fraction of the pot. This encourages action because it is cheaper to see a showdown. This aspect of Limit appeals to fish and new players who like to ’see cards.’

Most bad players lose money at Limit Hold’em over time and not one any one big hand. This is because they continually make small mistakes and play every hand. They call when they do not have pot odds, or they continue to call when they are clearly beat. Every time you call when you shouldn’t, you are making a small mistake.

A big mistake at Limit Hold’em is folding when you should not have. I do not mean folding early and then later finding out you would have hit a miracle river. I mean folding when you have the best hand late in the pot. For example, suppose you have AQ. The board is KQ2 rainbow. You raised the pot preflop and there were 3 callers (8 small bets). It is checked around to you. You bet, someone raises, 2 people call, you call. A 5 falls on the turn. The raiser bets, the other players fold.

Right now, there are a total of 18 small bets in the pot (8 preflop, 8 flop, 2 turn- remember a big bet is equivalent to two small bets). What should you do? You are probably beat. However, if you call on the turn and the river, you will invest a total of 4 small bets. If you call to the river, there will be a total of 24 small bets in the pot, so you must win this pot 1/6 or more of the time in order for a call down to be appropriate. Assuming you have 5 outs (which is not the case if he has KQ or AK but let’s just assume), you have a 12% chance of drawing out. So, you roughly have a 1/8 chance of winning because you draw out. In this case, you only need to be roughly 4% confident that you have him beat (1/6-1/8). This is very small indeed!

So When to Fold?

Two major decisions to be made at Limit Hold’em.

  1. The first is preflop, whether to play your hand or not, and the second decision is to be made on the turn. The flop decision is not that important because most of the time you will just be making or calling a small bet; this is a decision that can be made almost entirely based on pot odds.
  2. The second major decision is on the turn. Assuming you call the turn, you should call the river because it would be a disaster to fold the winning hand on the river. Calling the turn and the river means investing 2 big bets, equivalent to 4 small bets. Assuming the pot is raised preflop and just one bet is made postflop, you would have only invested 3 bets to see the turn. Thus, you can fold at the turn and lose slightly less than half the money you would have lost had you called to a showdown.

The river is not the time to fold your hand. The only exceptions to this are when you missed a draw (such as a small flush draw) or if there is so much betting and raising that you know you are beat.

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Poker Strategy – Choose your game carefully

March 1, 2010

Game selection is a critical skill at poker. I have spoken and mentioned this factor a couple of times, if not to find your poker game then perhaps learn other poker games to master improve the other. In today’s post im referring to ‘game selection’ as in choosing which games or tournaments to play.

You want to play in a poker game where you have an advantage over your opponents. No matter how good you are, if you play in a game filled with sharks, it is virtually impossible to make any money. The luck factor and the rake would make profits slim in the long run.

Its is simple, find a game that is BEATABLE!

There are several ways to quickly analyze your opponents to figure out if you should play in the game:

  1. Know the opponents. If you play at your local casino or an online poker room for a while, you will get to know the players. So keep notes!
  2. Determine how loose-passive the game is. A loose game is  a good poker game. A game that is passive is also good. This can be determined by how much raising occurs. If people won’t bet hard when they have very good hands, they will let you draw out on them and let you get away with only small losses on your losing hands. Fundamentally, the two work well together because the loose game let’s you win big pots when you have your made hand and you are aggressive and the passive game let’s you draw cheaply and have small losses on losing hands.
  3. Notice the number of fundamental mistakes people make and capitalize on it!

Be aware of your surroundings, dont just play any poker game- selective = profits.

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1st hand and out…full house vs. runner runner four of a kind!!!

February 17, 2010

In a frantic game of online tournament poker, i ran into some trouble early on against a marginal weak hand. This is how it panned out!

9 Handed Table – Deep Stack 40 000

Pre-Flop

SB- 100 folds

BG- 200 folds

3rd- calls 200

4th- Hero raises to 1600 with pocket kings

5th- folds

6th- folds

7th- calls

8th-folds

9th- calls

……………………………

The Flop

Kh, 9h, 2s

Hero- Continuation bet of 1600 and now sitting with ”A set of Kings”

2nd player- calls 1600

3rd player- calls 1600

……………………………

The Turn

9 c

Hero- Continuation bet of 3600 and now sitting with ”A Full House, Kings and 9’s”

*at this point i know that getting the right betting amount is vital. The thought crosses my mind and wonders if these guys would limp in a hefty pre-flop raise with A 9 or J9…but i give them more credit.

2nd player- Moves all in

3rd player- folds

Hero- Calls but after some time, stressing and beginning to think that he might have pockets 9’s but call anyway.

* He turns over A 9 unsuited and i show my full house.

……………………………

At this stage i i’m leading by 99% and all that he can hope for is a 9 for a 4 of a kind.

He hits his 9 and i am out!

What a hand, i have been analyzing my betting structure all round for a few days now and i have realized that it was perfect- You cant account for luck, he got lucky!

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Just recently, i deposited $5 in a poker room which i wish not to name. A few reasons why i choose not name it but thats another story. I chose to adopt my regular tactic of making that $5 into $100-but without any hesitation i went broke! Wow, i couldn't believe it, i was broke. I went up to about $12 and then bust, in one day. I then immediately adopted Plan B! I jump to my reward points and went on a hunt to make some much needed $$$. The reason i just didn't reload will discussed in another post. I found a small competition where the winner wins 5c...yes, 5 cents. The task was to play a 180 sit and go and the winner takes the spoils!!! After about 2 hours, i won and pocketed the hefty purse of 5cents. I took a break for two days and then hit the room again to see what i could do with my 5 cents. I must say that most of the big international sites have tables for 5cents or less. I found small sit and go tournament where the top 6 triple up-18 entrants. I hit this hard and finished easily in the top 6. I took my 15cents and multi-tabled 3 of the tournaments and the rest is history. I have been playing now on this site and grinding sessions of about 6hours to build my 5cents into $10. I know have done the grinding and am ready to get my $100. Whatch this space. ''All-in Stefk''...aka tired grinder