Online Poker Bad Beats
We are gunna talk about the bad beats that we all see online. Everytime you get one you scream and want to punch your monitor and what are the first words out of anyones mouth? "ONLINE POKER IS RIGGED!" What!!! If online poker is rigged the live poker in a brick and morter casino mus be rigged. Lets look at it like this, typically when you play online you will play around 50-60 hands an hour per table. When you play live you will play around 25-35 hands in a hour and you can only play one table at once...wait unless your some kind of freak or something. What people need to realise is that you see way more hands online than you do live and the sick part is many people will stop playing becuase of one bad beat online. Iv played countless times live and seen even worse bad beats live than I do online. You as a player need to keep your head cool and keep playing. Good players will always win over time because poker is a game of skill.
This is all part of something called Poker Variance and you need to accept it as part of the game. Keep playing and keep your head cool once you start to blow up you need to get up and take a break. Go for a walk or go eat some food and you need to cool off. You need to be on top of your game when you play online poker becuase you need to remember those $$ signs you see in your online account is actual money!
The Secrets of Raising
Today we will talk about “The secret art of raising”. Most people think that you only raise when you have a good hand and you want to win more money. This is correct but there are many other reasons to raise and to be a winning player you need to know what you want to get from a raise and if it is working.
There are 5 major reasons to raise:
1. To get more money from your hand.
2. To eliminate players.
3. To get a “Free” card.
4. To gain information.
5. To bluff or semi-bluff
1. To get more money from your hand. This is the simplest reason to raise a pot. Basically when you feel that you have the best had you are going to raise to try to get more money in the pot. If you have the “Nuts”, the best hand possible at the time this is the only reason you should raise. Sometimes you may not want to raise in this case. You may want to slow play the hand.
2. To eliminate players. This is a pretty simple concept as well. This is the reason you raise with AA or KK. You want to get people out before they can see the flop. AA and KK do very well against a few people but against a lot of people there’s a good chance you will loose after all 5 cards come out. Another time when you might raise to eliminate players is when you flop top pair, example: You hold AK and the flop comes 9 10 K, You now have top pair with the best kicker. Here you would want to get people out of the hand so they don’t make 2 pair, a straight, or a flush.
3. To get a “Free” card. Well you don’t get it for free but it costs you less. You would raise to get a free card if you flop and open ended straight draw or flush draw and were in a later position. See if you were playing 3-6 and you raised on the flop you would put an extra 3 dollars but in most cases the other player or players will check to you assuming you have a better hand. This saves you from calling a 6 dollar bet on the turn, instead you get it for free. You might also want to raise the flop in late position when you have top pair and a weak kicker or mid pair with a good kicker.
4. To gain information. This is a more complex reason to raise. This move works best on or before the flop. Before the flop you don’t know anything about a players hand other than it could be anything but if you raise and a player re-raises then you know he has a good hand. Most likely a hand in Group #1 or maybe #2. If he just calls you know that he probably doesn’t have a “monster” hand. Now lest say after the flop you have a pair of aces with a 7 kicker, and your opponent bets into you. Now if you call you couldn’t really tell how big of a hand he has but if you raise him and he re-raises you are probably beat at least with a better kicker. This is a way to actually save money. If you called all the way down to see his AK then you have lost a lot more than you have to.
5. To bluff or semi-bluff. We wont get into bluffing right now. You really wont need to do much bluffing in lower limit games. Most bluffing goes on in higher limit games, No-limit games, and no-limit tournaments. Semi-bluffing however is something you need to know about. Semi-bluffing is betting a hand that probably isn’t the best one at the time but can improve with more cards. The real goal to semi-bluffing is to win the pot right then and there. So you only want to semi- bluff when there are only a few player in the pot, you think you everyone might fold after you bet or raise, and you are very sure that no one will check raise you. There are many opportunities to semi-bluff in every game, most of the time they are not the right move though. Remember to semi-bluff accordingly.
If you look back at all the reasons to raise you will see that a lot of the times when you raise you might accomplish more than one goal. You might raise to get a free card but also gain information and get more money in the pot. Its good to have a specific reason or two in your mind before every raise, this way you wont be raising just for the sake of raising.
-----Suggestion-----
Next few times you play poker online have a notebook right in front of you. Every time you make a raise write down what the main reason for raising was. Then write down if it was successful or not. After you have about 25 entry’s for each of the 5 reasons look through your records and find out what reasons for raising had the most positive results. This will help you decide when you should raise or not.
It is a good idea to do this activity every so often. It will help you keep on your game and raise at the right times.
Money Management, Why you need to manage your bankroll…
In this artical I will talk about money management, bankrolls, and minimizing loses. These are all important concepts when playing poker but they all revolve around the same principals. You must limit your loses, hold on to your winnings, and most importantly always leave your self outs.
You should only play games that your bankroll will allow. If you have 200 dollars to play with for a month you don’t want to lose it all in the first week playing a 5-10 no-limit game. The average pot in these games would be about the size of your bankroll. You should play lower limit games that match your bankroll.
Minimize your losses. I have seen players loose a big hand, go on tilt and loose their whole bankroll in one night. If you ever get angry because of a bad beat or loose a lot of money quickly you should take a break. A lot of mental energy will be used up worrying about your bad luck, this will effect your game in a negative way. I recommend going for a walk or even quit playing for the day. There will always be another game tomorrow.
Protect your bankroll. Not every player needs a bankroll. If you only play on occasion with extra money you probably don’t need to worry about this. But if you are a player who wants to make a good income from poker your bankroll is an asset. Lets say you start with a bankroll of 500 dollars at a poker site. Now after a week of winning you are up to 2000 in your account. You take out 1500 and go buy a new TV. That is fine but if you get on a bad streak you can easily loose the 500 you still have. Then you will have no bankroll and wont be able to play. This happens to a lot of good player, and if they cant play they cant win anymore. This can put an end to your poker profits.
So just remember that poker is a game of swings. You can win a lot but you can also get on a bad luck streak and lose a lot. Just watch your bankroll, manage your money, and always leave yourself outs.
------Suggestion-------
Remember to think about your bankroll before each time you play. Think about what will happen if you loose all your money in your account. Will you want to deposit more money you cant afford to lose? Are the stakes of the game so high it you loose a big hand you will be out of chips? Just think before you start to play about the worst case scenario and you should have less bankroll problems.
A GOOD player will take some time off of the clock even when they have nothing. This keeps the other players guessing at all times. Sometimes it will even frustrate an experienced or frequent player causing them to make a hasty decision. If you see someone checking quickly hand after hand, play them aggressively, unless of course you know the player and they are using this as a method to fool their opponents.
Some veteran players will try to use the clock as a "timing" tool to their advantage. For example, a player may take the full ?time out? before they make their decision to check/fold/raise. If they use a large amount of time to simply check, odds are they have nothing. Slightly raise the stakes to keep them in check. If they come back with a large raise or an all-in raise ? watch out! Unless you know this player very well it is wise to be cautious and back down. Regardless of the outcome use it to your advantage by taking mental note of the player?s style and use this knowledge for the next showdown. A novice player will consistently play their hand the same way every time.
I?ll give you a good example. I once knew a player that went all-in every time he would stay in a hand. It didn?t matter if it was on the flop, the turn, or the river, if he bet ? it would be all-in. Believe it or not, he won a lot of tournaments ? until I (and eventually a few others) caught up to him by carefully observing his playing style. He would only play Ace/King, Ace/Ace, or any suited cards. Once this tell was out, it was easy to know when to stay in a pot or when to fold. My point is this: If you will carefully watch a player and take note of what cards they hold when they win AND loose, you can get a good feel of how they play and thus recognize their ?tells?.
