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Playing Poker
Traditionally A Man's Game
Author: Mar
Part 1
As I sit in my chair to write this article, I pause to reflect on the many changes this wonderful game of cards full of skill, mental strategies, and art of bluffing came to be.
At one point this game was associated with the men of the west sitting in saloons filled with smoke, liquor, and loud saloon music. Your poker life depended on whether or not you had the quickest gun to prove you had the best hand. From there, it eventually developed into a wealthy man's game, one that depended on your status, and name for the outcome. Through the centuries, poker has transcended and with each transformation, there have been new elements brought into the game.
So here we are in 2008, and once more poker has transcended it's self into one of the largest markets available to mankind. Everyone plays poker these days. If you do not play poker, you are sure to get one of the many forms of " You don't play poker?!?" comments.
One of the elements of the game that has changed, and where my primary focus will be, is women playing poker. These women, who play what has always been known as "The Man's Game", have broken through the barriers, and are faced with a whole other set of challenges to their game.
So what is it like to be a woman playing poker?
Well since I can only speak for myself, that is exactly what I'll do. I love playing poker. I love the challenge of out witting someone off their hand, stealing that big pot, going to a showdown and winning. I am sure that every one who plays poker will say the same thing. So what is it that makes it extra special for me? I am a woman playing poker, more often than not at a table of all males.
I see it all the time when I am playing poker. When I sit at a table, I immediately get comments like...
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| TOURNEY RECAPS
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FEBRUARY 10, 2008
Paxq is off to a great start with his second Royal Flush Club tournament win in 2008. Paxq commanded his way into his second consecutive 1st place finish followed by 15 for 2, taking second place and Roland45 taking 3rd place. Some of you may have said that you didn't have enough chips to win this tournament -- but, don't tell that story to Paxq. He has come back from being short stacked in both tournaments to win. In this tournament, he was the short stack when the final table began. In fact, he had less than ...
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FEBRUARY 17, 2008
This was our first event played at Full Tilt Poker and we had our largest turnout to date. We had some excellent play during the tournament and the final table was a tough battle to accumulate chips. Jdboggie made one of those miraculous comebacks today, recovering from a stack size of 465 chips...
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Continuing the action in its inaugural season, World Poker Tour Ladies traveled to Los Angeles' Commerce Casino on February 2, 2008, for its second tournament, also a Los Angeles Poker Classic (LAPC) event held in association with the Ladies Poker Association (LPA). Despite heavy competition from Super Bowl festivities and ...
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Middle Game Strategies for SNG's
By Joe G.
So you've waited out the early part of the SNG, playing only premium hands, and now you are in the middle game of the tourney. Once you're at this point, starting hands become extremely important because opponents will begin forcing the action pre-flop at a much higher rate. There is still some room for creativity but decisions will soon become automatic. Before opening any pot, you need to take your opponents' chip stacks into account, and be prepared to react to their all-in pushes. By the time the blinds reach 50/100, starting hands usually fall into one of two categories: (1) hands you are folding against a shove, and (2) hands you are calling a shove with.
The mid-stages of SNG's force you to make snap decisions with small pocket pairs and Broadway cards based on equity. By this time, two or three players may have been eliminated. This means that chips have decreased in value. However, most of your decisions at this stage should still be based primarily on pot odds because players are usually not close enough to the money to consider Independent Chip Modeling calculations just yet.
However, being able to assign a specific hand range to opponents who are raising or shoving...
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A Way To Approximate The Odds
It is very difficult to calculate the exact odds of hitting a drawing hand when you're sitting at the poker table. Unless you're a genius with a gift for mathematics like Chris Ferguson, you will not be able to do it. That leaves two options for the rest of us: The first option is to sit at home with a calculator, figure out the odds for every possible combination of draws, and then memorize them. That way, no matter what situation comes up, you always know the odds. But for those of us without a perfect memory, there's an easier way. Here is a simple trick for estimating those odds.
The first thing you need to do is to figure out how many "outs" you have. An "out" is any card that gives you a made hand. To do this, simply count the number of cards available that give the hand you are drawing to. For example: suppose you hold Ac 8c and the flop comes Qh 9c 4c. You have a flush draw. There are thirteen clubs in the deck and you are looking at four of them -- the two in your hand, and the two on the board. That leaves nine clubs left in the deck, and two chances to hit one.
The trick to figuring out the approximate percentage chance of hitting the flush is to multiply your outs times the number of chances to hit it. In this case that would be nine outs multiplied by two chances, or eighteen. Then take that number, multiply times two, and add a percentage sign. The approximate percentage of the time you will make the flush is 36%. (The exact percentage is 34.97%.) Now let's say that on that same flop you hold the Jd Th. In this case you would have an open ended straight draw with eight outs to hit the straight (four kings and four eights). Eight outs with two cards to come gives you sixteen outs. Multiply times two and you will hit the straight approximately 32% (31.46% exactly) of the time.
One important thing to keep in mind is that the percentage stated is merely the percentage of the time that you will hit the hand you are drawing to, NOT the percentage of time that you will win the pot. You may hit your hand and still lose. In the first example, the Qc will pair the board and may give some article a full house. In the second example both the Kc and the 8c will put a possible flush on the board, giving you the straight, but not necessarily the winning hand. Still, knowing the approximate likelihood of making your hand is a good beginning step on the road to better poker.
Clonie Gowen
Courtesy Of www.fulltiltpoker.com |
Risk Management: Getting It In With
the Best of It: In The Right Situations
I recently received an email from a member perplexed by losing when he had the best of it pre-flop. I'd like to share that discussion with you...
"G'day Rick,
I'm a member of your Royal Flush Club site in addition to another one and get good value out of it. I've been playing for about two years and have won a fair few lower limit MTT's ($1 - $10 freeze out and rebuy), and classify myself as an intermediate player. As time goes on I'm adding different plays to my playbook to be utilized at different times. I have a very good understanding of position and starting hand requirements, as well as mixing it up a little bit. I also understand what people have by the way they bet and quite often know exactly what they have. I've found of late that I get to the middle of the
tournament pretty easily as I'm waiting for premium cards, and good spots to make moves. However, I'm busting out of tournaments when
pushing my good starting hands hard. For example, I picked up pocket Aces twice in four hands and lost to 22 (which hit quads) and 77 which hit trips, after getting both opponents to commit all their chips pre flop. Another instance the blinds were 3k / 6k and I had a stack of 65k. UTG raised to 15k, I had AK in middle position and re-raised him all in as he had been raising a lot as he had a big stack of 200k. He called, turned over AQ, and hit his Q with no K in sight. I've found that I am consistently getting my money all in either pre flop or post flop, being in front, and then losing when they hit something on
the turn or river. I was of the opinion that this wasn't a bad thing as I'm getting my chips all in when I'm a favourite to win, but was wondering, am I being too aggressive prior to all the cards being on the table? Any thoughts that could help me improve would be great. Thanks for your time."
"Scott. Congrats. Sounds like you've made great progress. I had exactly the same thing happen to me yesterday in a 2-table SNG video
(check it out, I just posted it)... I was dealt AK and ended up all-in vs. an opponent with AQ, who pulled his Queen on the Turn. Always, always, always remember: if your opponent has a live card (e.g., you don't have the nuts), you can always lose a single hand; therefore, choose how you engage and accept "risk" in tournaments based on your stack size vs. the opponents.
In the example you mentioned, you went all-in with AK against a bigger stack. AK is not a "made hand", as you know. It's far better with AK to make a reasonable value bet, see a flop and find out where you are with the hand, whenever you're up against a bigger stack. If you have the opponent outchipped substantially (2x or more), then shoving with AK is OK since you won't be dead if you get outdrawn.
This idea of "risk management" is a hard concept for us to get our heads around, but I've learned it's absolutely essential to good tournament play. In SNG's and MTT, remember you're playing stack vs. stack based upon stack sizes as much as you're playing your hand, so prioritize their stack size very high in your criteria to engage vs. fold.
The flip side of this discussion is "poker variance". You simply got bitten by poker variance, which is inevitable in this game. The difference is I shoved against a smaller stack and my AK lost to AQ and I was damaged but still alive (came back to win it through superior play and getting my chips in with the best of it multiple times).
Hope that's helpful. Best of luck!"
Rick
The above discussion plays itself out over and over again at all poker rooms. There's an element of "poker variance" at play - the "gamble" aspect of the game - you never can be sure what cards you or the opponent will get next However, there's a bigger issue at play here - what I'd call "risk management". When you think about how much you have invested in a tournament, in terms of time at the table and your entry fees, it's important to think carefully before putting your entire tournament at risk on a single hand. Unless you have the nuts, you can almost always be beaten by an unfavorable draw.
Therefore, when playing tournaments you must not only play your cards and the situation pre and post flop, but also carefully choose the players and stack sizes you go up against. For example, even if you have a monster hand like AA pre-flop, if you shove it all-in against a player with a bigger stack, you are putting your tournament at risk on a single hand.
If the opponent calls you and flips over, for example pocket 7's as in the example above, the aces are an 80% favorite - which means they WILL LOSE 20% of the time! I've been in many tournaments where a player shoved all-in with pocket aces and lost against small pairs, so it's more common than you may think. So, if pocket aces get busted what about lesser hands, like AK, AQ, etc?
You should approach each hand by examining the stack size of the opponents you are likely to be all-in against. If they have you outchipped, just realize you ARE gambling with your tournament life if you shove (necessary when you're short-stacked against the blinds). However, if you have the opponent outchipped, you can shove without risking your entire tournament life on the outcome of that
single hand.
So, to summarize there's a couple of points of view here:
1) When you're short-stacked, your tournament life is already at risk, so you shove in these situations against looser players who are likely to call you with a worse starting hand range or against tight players who are known to fold a lot of hands
2) When you have a bigger stack, avoid going up against players with similar or larger stacks sizes; instead, manage your risk by confronting smaller stacks
when you pick up better hands, or when you're pretty sure you can steal their blinds or bully them with your stack size.
It's important to carefully manage your risk in tournaments, choosing your moments of risk-taking carefully to give yourself the maximum advantage
possible, while minimizing the damage when things go wrong with that hand (as it invariably will).
Keep risk management in the forefront of your mind as one of those tools in your tournament arsenal and it'll help you survive to play heads-up in more
tournaments, and emerge as the champion from time to time.
All the best,
Rick
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