Poker Concorde

This week, it has been demonstrated to me that in any poker tournament, as long as you are still in the tournament, anything is possible. I had seen one player suffer a bad beat and fall to 2,400 in chips. He had been playing well up to the point as usual, but after suffering his bad beat, looked resigned to his tournament being over. He shoved all his chips in the next hand and doubled up, then did the same thing on the next hand, ultimately losing. I can sympathise with that dejected feeling after seeing all your hard work undone by poor luck, but as I mentioned to him after he had doubled up, he still had enough chips to get himself back into contention.

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At that time I was sitting with around 700 chips, and in some ways, I understandably expected to join him at the bar within a few more hands. Despite expecting this to be the case, I did not openly invite it by doing anything reckless, because deep down I know that with poker, there is always a glimmer of hope whilst you are still in your seat.
It can be hard to feel like carrying on when you see your chips decimated simply beacuse you made the correct decision, but always remember that same luck that saved your opponent, may decide to save you, when it counts.
That same player came back later on in the evening to watch, when there were three of us remaining in the tournament, and upon seeing my sizeable chipstack, he said with a smile "you were right, I shouldn’t have given up".
However tough it might be to recover when you find yourself shortstacked in this way, you have to firstly check the blind sizes and their proximity to you, then simply do what you can to stay alive.

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After Wednesdays live game in which I came back from the brink of elimination to win, you might think I had used all my luck for the week. Nevertheless, I decided to go to Saturdays live game as well to see if my good run could continue. It was a rocky start and from 6,000 I had a few hands go awry in the first hour and slipped down to around 3,000.

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Our table was down to four handed as we waited for one more player to go out before splitting tables, and with blinds of 200/400 coming round quickly to exert pressure, I felt I had to act. I picked up (A,3) as the second player to act, and after the first hand folded, did something I probably shouldn’t. I usually do not like playing smaller Aces because when you raise you find yourself dominated by a bigger Ace so often. This was my immediate concern when my all in move was called, even though any Ace four handed is quite strong. My opponent had (Ah,Qh) but luckily I caught a three on the turn to double up.

After another pot where I managed to represent a 5 for a straight with enough effect to force (K,K) to fold on the turn, I had around 8,000. My 8,000 turned to 14,000 just before the final table when I slow played (A,Q) beautifully inducing a bet on a flop of (A,A,J) followed by an all in bluff on the turn (2).
The end came at the final table when I raised to 2,000 preflop with (Q,Q). There was one caller and the flop came down (8,6,2). I moved all in, not wanting to give my opponent the chance to catch an Ace or King on the turn. After much thought, he called, showing (J,J). The river was an extremely unlucky (Jd), which was an unfortunate way to go.

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Players who like to make aggressive plays will always hold problems for their opponents, especially when the blinds escalate. The key problem is that when you feel you have a strong enough hand to take a flop with, there is a fairly strong chance you will not hit the flop particularly well. Then of course your aggressive opponent leads out with a bet, and you feel you have to fold your hand, rather than get caught up in a pot with middle pair or worse.

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The most obvious way to combat this type of play is to wait until you have a strong hand, and then slow play your opponent and allow them to build the pot for you. The problem with this is again, that you do not make such strong hands very often, and if you are shorthanded with large blinds, you cannot wait for excellent hands to come along.
This leaves us with our more risky, but sometimes necessary option, and that is to play them at their own game. If you know your opponent likes to force players out of pots, it might be worth checking on a flop, waiting for the inevitable raise, and then making a strong reraise.

Our aggressive player will think the check was made to lure them in against a strong hand, and often they will fold. You only have to make this type of raise, or reraise when you have nothing, on one occassion I find. If you show the hand afterwards, you can sometimes deter this type of player from getting aggressive against you. Once they know you have the courage to reraise them with nothing simply because you know that they are pushing you around, you should see this type of player give you more room to play quite often.

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SNG is an often used abbreviation for the term ‘Sit n Go’. This basically means one table of players either six or ten, and when all are seated, the tournament automatically begins. This type of tournament is popular with many players, partly due to the fact that there is no waiting around for a tournament start time, provided the site has a decent flow of player traffic.

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One of the advantages of SNG tournaments I feel, is the fact that they force the player to become accustomed to battling it out short handed. As players begin to fall at a table and the blinds begin to rise, this becomes perfect practice for the very different short handed type of play.

Aside from this, single table tournaments are usually less damaging to your bankroll than large scale MTT’s. The reason for this is that in an SNG you will cash a lot more often due to the small number of players that are involved, although you will not win as much money. In a multi table tournament you are aiming for one big win and will probably fall short of your target more often than in an SNG.

Usually I play MTT tournaments when I am playing online, but I certainly feel it is beneficial to poker skills development to take some time to play SNG tournaments too. Even if you only ever intend to play Multi Table Tournaments, you need to know how to switch you style of play if you make it to the last five players or so.

With the surge in popularity of holdem in recent years, there have been many big names within the game that have shown themselves to b amongst the best players in the world, but what is it that makes these players stand out?

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One particular skill that seems to be ever present in the older generation of great players is their ability to not get upset when things go against them during a game. I for one, have never seen the likes of Doyle Brunson playing any hand in a way which appears as if his emotions have got the better of him. There is always a consistent, logical game being conveyed by such players. The likes of Phil Ivey, Gus Hansen, and Daniel Negreanu seem quite calm as players too, but personally I feel their main strengths lie in their ability to get involved with a wide variety of cards when the situation is right to, and then outplay their opponents on the flop and turn. This relies heavily on skilled reading abilities and shows the raw skill these players possess.

The final skill I will mention, despite there being more than those mentioned here, is the ability to behave with good grace at the tables. Some of the more well known players fall down when it comes to this aspect, and whilst I can say all the players mentioned above behave impeccably whenever I see them play, there are other big names within the game who do not.

I personally try and pride myself on losing with dignity if I must lose at all, and I feel that this aspect of gentlemanly conduct is truly what distinguishes the good players, from the great.

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With each WSOP a main event champion is crowned, and there are always those who will look to this player to help the game continue to grow and prosper, and rightly so I feel. Some players who win the event, decide to remain very private, and that is each players choice and should be respected as such also.

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I do feel though, that the game needs players who stand up and look to nurture the game and ensure it continues to prosper. With legal changes in America causing a great many problems with online American players, it is important that someone protects both the game, and the peoples right to play it. The household names of poker often do much for the game, probably without even having to try sometimes. Every aspiring poker player feels spurred on to improving their game when they see the best of the best in action, and this helps to make sure people continue playing poker across the world.

In terms of the image of the game, much has changed for the better, and with the majority of players accepting their sometimes cruel exits form tournaments with such good grace, the game can only continue to be seen in a better light.
The same goes for players that donate portions of their winnings to charities, which is great to see.

All in all, I feel that most professional poker players have helped the game a great deal. With the continual gentlemanly conduct and generosity of players like Barry Greenstein, amongst others, hopefully the game will continue to rid itself of any remaining shackles of misconception.

Bet sizes are important in poker and can often tell you much about the strength of an opponents hand. You must be aware of course that bets can often be made with the intention of misleading your judgement on an opponents hand strength, but where there is rational planning and thought behind betting, the truth of a situation can be uncovered.

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Generally speaking, small bets would seem to indicate uncertainty. The fact that a player is not commiting more chips to their hand would appear to indicate that they are unsure if they are winning, but this is not always the case. Sometimes a player can feel it is best to bet small in order to ensure they don’t force players out of the pot when they have a very strong hand. Consistent bets of a average size on each round of betting will generally mean that your opponent is trying to build a pot, and so be wary of this type of bet, because if you call the first bet, and another one is made on the next betting round, it is unlikely to be an outright bluff, although it could be a big draw of some sort.

The large bets are always the most exciting in poker. All in bets and ones which commit a large amount of chips, always show strength and are most likely to force a fold. If a bet such as this is made without any prior betting, you would be tempted to think a bluff is being made, but you have to consider the card which has provoked the bet and how it might have made an opponents hand. I would say that most often, a strong hand has usually been developing on the flop, and has often been completed on the turn or river. This will mean there is a betting pattern leading up to the final big bet to give you guidance. No matter what the obvious situation is wit a large bet from an opponent, it is always best to keep an open mind about the possibilities.

Almost everyone who follows the World Series of Poker will formulate their own opinions of who the best players are, and more often than not, will follow that players progress. I certainly did that this year, even placing bets on a few players to make the main event final table. One of those was Mike Matusow who eventually finished 30th after a terrible beat, but there were others who I followed, simply because I wished to see them do well.

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Most of the big name players struggle in the main event, and I feel this is due to the fact that there are several thousand players in the tournament. Figures for entrants approaching the 7,000 mark, are too many I feel, and even the best players in the world will get very unlucky twice in a row, at some point during the proceedings. In poker, that’s all it takes to be out of a tournament, but it was good to see the big names having more success this year than the previous couple of years.

Most of these big names have been around for many years now of course, and there are new names being spoken of in high regard as the next generation of players come through. One of these who deserves a mention is Ivan Demidov, who finished 3rd in the WSOPE main event, and 2nd in this years WSOP main event. That is a unique achievement, and I am sure there will be more great results from both these young players, and the veterans on this years poker circuit.

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Table Image is not something which would be obvious to those starting out playing the game, and becomes more of a factor as you play with more skilled opponents. If you find yourself seated with these more skilled players, you will come to realise that they watch carefully how you play certain hands, and play their own cards in keeping with this. When making a decision, a skilled player will factor in a number of things to decide how strong or weak your hand is, including how loose or tight you seem to be playing.

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Due to my table image of loose at my local game for instance, when I make a strong hand I am much more likely to extract chips from my opponent. The downside is that I have to sometimes have to pay out a few chips to maintain this image. The very fact that players form opinions of your type of play and label you in their mind as loose or tight, gives you opporunity to do the unexpected and pick up some chips. As well as this, I should mention that table image isn’t entirely decided by whether you choose to bluff or fold when you have a weak hand, if you are hitting cards well, you can make further use of this too. Whenever I am getting the run of the cards and have shown a few strong, winning hands I will bluff more often. In your opponents mind, you are having luck with the cards, so the next time you have an opporunity to bluff, often you will find more success simply because you are viewed as being lucky at that particular moment.

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As a player, I have always said that literature can aid the development of a poker player in many ways, and I would recommend reading poker books to many amateur players. More often than not, these books will have details of many different poker variant games, and so you can get a general idea how to play another game and begin to learn it in greater depth yourself. I found this to be the case with Phil Hellmuths book, ‘Play Poker like the Pros’.

If not for this book, I might never have learnt to play Omaha and it’s hi/lo variant. Nowadays these have become favoured games of mine, but it is not just basic rules of games that poker books offer. Having the insight of a former world champion to consult is something which can always inspire you as a player I find, and after reading a few chapters I always find I get the urge to play some poker.

In Doyle brunsons book ‘Super System’ I found a section on each type of poker game written by it’s generally accepted, best player in the world. This in itself is gold dust to any player wanting to advance their game, but the section in the back of the book detailing page upon page of odds for different scenarios, was an eye opener too. One of the co-authors had compiled these lists of odds over years of play, and they make for fascinating reading.

Undoubtedly when you look for a book on poker, there will probably be some books that you find, which aren’t so good as those aforementioned ones, but everyone’s opinion on the game has some value of course.