F Paulsson
euro love
Silver Level
My internationally acclaimed “Tip of the Day” was left out of my last post, for which I’ve received hundreds - if not thousands - of emails asking me to please add a bit of advice. Not wanting to disappoint, today’s entire post will be poker advice - and two at that, to make up for the lost one.
Fire All Three Barrels
A common - sometimes too common - tactic in limit poker is the semibluff: Betting “on the come” with a hand that is unlikely to be the best hand at the moment, where you’re mostly hoping your opponent(s) will fold, but in case they don’t, you’re hoping your speculative hand will turn into a winner. This is usually done with straight- or flushdraws.
So you have four-to-a-flush on the flop. It’s checked to you, and you decide to take a stab at the pot so you bet. One person to your right calls. He checks to you on the turn, which did not bring you a flush. You bet again, and again he just calls.
The river is another blank, and your potential winner is now nothing but a jack-high. He checks to you.
You should bet. Chances are far too great that he’s on a draw as well, and if he is, he will almost certainly fold ace-high here. Checking behind and finding out he has a higher nothing than you is not something you want happening. (Note that because ace-high is a probable hand that will fold, you should be less inclined to make this play if you have an ace yourself since you stand a better chance at winning an unimproved showdown)
Learn
This may come as a surprise, but: Most of us who play extensively online don’t think through every decision we make. In fact, 80% or so of the time, we’re on autopilot. Thinking about it, it almost feels unfair - there are thousands of players who can sit and solve crossword puzzles while making good money playing poker. Maybe tens of thousands. How does one achieve an automated playbook that’s good enough to churn out money without having to think things through carefully?
Through practise.
I’ve said this before, but repetition is the key to learning: There’s nothing like experience in poker. The winning players, who can go on autopilot and still make money, have played tens of thousands of hands, and recognize almost every situation they find themselves in. So is it enough to just grind out hands to become proficient?
No.
Experience is only worth something if it teaches you something. Phil Hellmuth talks about his ability to remember almost every poker hand he’s played. Doyle Brunson refers to what he calls “Recall” - the ability to recognize situations. And recognizing situations in poker is a key to winning - if you learned something from the last time you played them.
I’ll cut to the chase; This is how I recommend you learn:
Step 1: When you’re playing
Dr. Shoonmaker taught me this gem in Psychology of Poker: When you make a decision (bet/call/raise/fold), tell yourself - out loud if you’re in the comfort of your own home - why you’re doing it. For example:
Holding A-A on a board of A-8-2, you may say:
- “I’m going to CHECK, because I don’t want to drive anyone away. There are no realistic flush-or straight draws, so it should be safe to slowplay this.”
- “I’m going to BET, because the two other people in the pot are calling stations and will not fold anyway so I might as well play it straightforward”
… etc.
This way, you will make better decisions, and you will force yourself to make decisions for the right reasons - not just going with an instinct that may be motivated by other things than winning at poker (like revenge at that jerk in the small blind).
Once you start doing this, you’ll learn more from every hand you’ll play. Still, there will be a lot of hands that you’re not sure about. And these are the hands for later review.
Step 2: Review Difficult Decisions Afterwards
Always save your hand histories on your hard drive, if you’re playing online, so you can go back later and look up the difficult decisions you had to make. Think them through again, now that you don’t have a timer that tells you you only have 5 seconds left to act. Consider the possibilities. Then, once you’ve done this, copy the hand up until the point where you had a difficult decision to make, and paste it in a new thread at our Hand Analysis Forum.
Include any reads you have on your opponent. Read the sticky post at the top about the hand converter, and use it - it makes it easier for everyone to read what you’re posting. Do not include the results of the hand. I can’t state this strongly enough. If you have a difficult decision you want help with on the turn, don’t include what happened on the river. It’s of no consequence. Don’t include results showing what your opponents have, because that will make the discussion a lot less valuable, and the advice you get will not help you anywhere near as much.
Following these two steps, you will gradually master more and more situations. Eventually, you’ll know the correct way to play enough situations that you, too, can be a master Sudoku solver while making 2BB/100 at $1/$2 limit hold’em!
Good luck!
FP
Fire All Three Barrels
A common - sometimes too common - tactic in limit poker is the semibluff: Betting “on the come” with a hand that is unlikely to be the best hand at the moment, where you’re mostly hoping your opponent(s) will fold, but in case they don’t, you’re hoping your speculative hand will turn into a winner. This is usually done with straight- or flushdraws.
So you have four-to-a-flush on the flop. It’s checked to you, and you decide to take a stab at the pot so you bet. One person to your right calls. He checks to you on the turn, which did not bring you a flush. You bet again, and again he just calls.
The river is another blank, and your potential winner is now nothing but a jack-high. He checks to you.
You should bet. Chances are far too great that he’s on a draw as well, and if he is, he will almost certainly fold ace-high here. Checking behind and finding out he has a higher nothing than you is not something you want happening. (Note that because ace-high is a probable hand that will fold, you should be less inclined to make this play if you have an ace yourself since you stand a better chance at winning an unimproved showdown)
Learn
This may come as a surprise, but: Most of us who play extensively online don’t think through every decision we make. In fact, 80% or so of the time, we’re on autopilot. Thinking about it, it almost feels unfair - there are thousands of players who can sit and solve crossword puzzles while making good money playing poker. Maybe tens of thousands. How does one achieve an automated playbook that’s good enough to churn out money without having to think things through carefully?
Through practise.
I’ve said this before, but repetition is the key to learning: There’s nothing like experience in poker. The winning players, who can go on autopilot and still make money, have played tens of thousands of hands, and recognize almost every situation they find themselves in. So is it enough to just grind out hands to become proficient?
No.
Experience is only worth something if it teaches you something. Phil Hellmuth talks about his ability to remember almost every poker hand he’s played. Doyle Brunson refers to what he calls “Recall” - the ability to recognize situations. And recognizing situations in poker is a key to winning - if you learned something from the last time you played them.
I’ll cut to the chase; This is how I recommend you learn:
Step 1: When you’re playing
Dr. Shoonmaker taught me this gem in Psychology of Poker: When you make a decision (bet/call/raise/fold), tell yourself - out loud if you’re in the comfort of your own home - why you’re doing it. For example:
Holding A-A on a board of A-8-2, you may say:
- “I’m going to CHECK, because I don’t want to drive anyone away. There are no realistic flush-or straight draws, so it should be safe to slowplay this.”
- “I’m going to BET, because the two other people in the pot are calling stations and will not fold anyway so I might as well play it straightforward”
… etc.
This way, you will make better decisions, and you will force yourself to make decisions for the right reasons - not just going with an instinct that may be motivated by other things than winning at poker (like revenge at that jerk in the small blind).
Once you start doing this, you’ll learn more from every hand you’ll play. Still, there will be a lot of hands that you’re not sure about. And these are the hands for later review.
Step 2: Review Difficult Decisions Afterwards
Always save your hand histories on your hard drive, if you’re playing online, so you can go back later and look up the difficult decisions you had to make. Think them through again, now that you don’t have a timer that tells you you only have 5 seconds left to act. Consider the possibilities. Then, once you’ve done this, copy the hand up until the point where you had a difficult decision to make, and paste it in a new thread at our Hand Analysis Forum.
Include any reads you have on your opponent. Read the sticky post at the top about the hand converter, and use it - it makes it easier for everyone to read what you’re posting. Do not include the results of the hand. I can’t state this strongly enough. If you have a difficult decision you want help with on the turn, don’t include what happened on the river. It’s of no consequence. Don’t include results showing what your opponents have, because that will make the discussion a lot less valuable, and the advice you get will not help you anywhere near as much.
Following these two steps, you will gradually master more and more situations. Eventually, you’ll know the correct way to play enough situations that you, too, can be a master Sudoku solver while making 2BB/100 at $1/$2 limit hold’em!
Good luck!
FP