Well, when was it? Was it months ago? Years? Never? Admittedly, if you fire three barrels every other hand, you’ll be broke by lunch time. But most players don’t do it enough. Some never try it… they will give a bluff one shot or maybe two if they feel frisky, but never follow up with the [...]
My last few articles have been about the advantages that short stacks have over deep stacks in no-limit and about how to harness those advantages to beat wild games. I want to step back now and explore what I mean by the advantage a short stack gives you. A few issues back, I said that short [...]
Bankroll management is always a hot topic for poker players. “Do I have enough bankroll to play $3-$6? Is 300BB really a good limit hold’em bankroll? Do I need a bigger bankroll to play deep stack than I do to play short stack?” And so forth. I think the majority of poker players worried about [...]
Many players who play primarily online occasionally go in for a live game or two in a cardroom. While ostensibly the games are the same, online players need to learn some live game “street smarts” to avoid getting taken advantage of. (This works in reverse as well.) Here are a few tips for online players [...]
Elaine and I have been training our dog, Floyd, to do tricks lately… and then Elaine came across this video of Jilli Dog, the poker-playing Yorkie.
Lately I’ve been playing mostly no-limit, so I haven’t been posting as many articles or Q&As about limit. Unfortunately, this post isn’t a new article about limit hold’em. But it is an archive review dedicated to limit, which is actually like four times better because it’s links to four articles, right? One of my main pet [...]
Everyone out there have a rocking Christmas. If you’re reading this from Sweden or Finland, I hope you see the sun again sometime in the next few weeks.
Wild games give many players fits. The betting gets so big, so fast, it takes them out of their comfort zone. “Sure, this top pair is better than what I usually see out of my opponents, but do I really want to bet $500 on it?” If you avoid wild games, though, you’re missing out on [...]
This Q&A appeared originally six months ago during my stint at Ask an Expert at InternetTexasHoldem.com. I was thinking about it recently and decided I’d share it with my readers here. Besides, I haven’t had much limit hold’em content here lately. AlamedaMike asked: As I posted in the psychology I have exhausted my emotional bankroll. Ian’s latest [...]
Am I a donkey? That’s today’s question from zoomraker. My answer is a definite no, but I would have played the hands he submitted a bit differently. The first hand is a fairly common top pair postflop situation from a $0.50 buy-in no-limit tournament: Instead of quoting the hand history directly, I’ll summarize for ease of reading. It’s the [...]
About six weeks ago, I joined the team over at StoxPoker.com. For those who don’t know, StoxPoker is a video poker coaching site which is, in my opinion, one of the very best ways around to improve your poker game. Instead of reading about concepts or seeing one or two examples in isolation, you can [...]
I’ve been dripping with excitement for this book ever since it was but a gleam in the author’s eye. Now it’s here, and I’ll be ordering it today, right after I mop up the puddle of excitement on my floor. For those who don’t know Tommy, he’s awesome. If you need an introduction, read these articles [...]
I’ve always thought a true starting hand chart for no-limit was out of reach. Preflop play in no-limit cash games is very malleable; a wide array of different styles and strategies can work well, and your opponents’ stack sizes and styles matter a lot also. But then I figured, what the heck. Let’s try to build [...]
Yesterday I was in a crazy $2-$5 no-limit game. I could tell it was a crazy game even before I watched one hand. The maximum buy-in was $500, but at least $8,000 was on the table. Four players each had over $1,500. Either the game had been going with the same lineup for a [...]