Finding The Right Game And The Right Mindset

Ben Roberts


For me, poker is a game that is meant to be played joyfully, and the path to playing the game joyfully begins with finding the game that’s right for you and entering it in the right frame of mind.

If you’re going to be an emotional prisoner when it comes to your wins and losses, you won’t play at your best. You need to play with patience, joy and a certain amount of indifference towards winning and losing. You need to be cool, calm, collected and happy. It’s not about your skill level – that’s something you can improve on continuously. It’s about how you feel, as this affects the moves you make more than your skill or playing style.

Once you’ve attained the right mindset, you can proceed to finding the right game. I believe in watching a game for a while before you enter it. This gives you an advantage over your opponents because you can pick up on their tendencies. If you observe the way they play, you can adjust accordingly before they’ve had a chance to adjust to you.

This ties in directly to the concept of playing with joy, because experiencing different games and different opponents is what I think makes the game of poker so wonderful. Every time I wake up in my hotel room, ready to start a new day at the World Series of Poker, I’m excited. I know it is going to be different from the game I had yesterday—and different from every game I’ve ever had, really.

Another beautiful element of the game that I really appreciate is the way it provides me with fresh stimulation. Many people are under the mistaken impression that once you get used to playing the game, it becomes monotonous. This kind of attitude comes from people who are not true poker players. True poker players appreciate the diversity, the changes and the differences from day to day.

Ultimately, finding the right game comes down to finding the highest stakes at which you will be consistently successful. If you’re a beginning player who’s becoming a winning player, you’ll want to step outside your comfort zone and move up in stakes since that’s the only way to increase your earnings. It’s fairly self-explanatory that the higher the games you play, the more you will win; but that’s only if the players you are up against are worse than you. Remember, there’s not much point in being the 9th best player in the world if you only play against the top eight.

Once you’ve found your game, just remember that whenever you’re feeling good, you should go with the flow and play on, and whenever you’re not, you should stop. Either way, you must keep an even temper. When things go right for you, it’s great. When things don’t go right for you, as long as you did your best and you made your best decisions, you can still feel happy about your game. Take your losses gracefully. When you can take your losses well – when your losses and wins have the same meaning to you – then you have the chance to become a great player as opposed to just a good one. Poker is supposed to be a journey of joy, and anything that is a departure from that, is off your path.

Hand Coordination

Hand coordination is the relative strength of your hand compared to your opponents’ hand, and it’s probably the single biggest factor determining whether you have a good or bad session playing poker. If it’s working in your favor, whenever you flop a monster, one of your opponents will also make a big hand, just not quite as big as yours. In this situation, playing your hand as fast as possible usually gives you the best chance to make the most money.

Say you’re playing Hold ‘em and you’re in a four-way pot, the board comes 9-9-4, and you have pocket fours. You want to play this hand fast for two reasons. The first is that you’re hoping one of your opponents has a 9. If so, he might raise you, allowing you to reraise him. Ideally, he’ll call, then call you again on the turn and the river, and you’ll make a lot of money.

The other reason you want to play this hand fast is that, if you check, it’s quite possible your opponents will also check. Then, if the turn brings a 6 and one of your opponents has pocket sixes and makes a bigger full house, you’re going to lose a huge amount of money. Giving a free card and losing an enormous pot when you could have won a small pot (if only you’d bet) is one of the biggest mistakes you can make in poker.

Now let’s say the flop comes K-J-J, and you have pocket kings. You’re not as likely to cost yourself your entire stack by slowplaying in this situation. It’s extremely unlikely that your opponent is going to be behind on the flop and yet make a hand on the turn that beats you, but I still think you should play it fast. You’ll win more money by betting the whole way because any player holding a jack is, at the very least, going to call you down, and he might even raise you. On the flop you just have to put out the line and hope that one of your opponents has a jack, or better yet, K-J.

If you play it slow in this situation, you’re giving away the strength of your hand. If you check on the flop with the idea of check-raising, then when you do put in the raise you’re telling your opponent you’ve made a huge hand and are giving him the opportunity to lay down a jack. You’ll make far more money by simply betting the whole way.

However, slowplaying a monster is occasionally the better play. Suppose you raise from middle position with A-Q of hearts, the button and the big blind both call, and the flop comes 6-7-2, all hearts. If the big blind checks, you should check too. If the button bets, you can then raise because he’s either buffing, in which case you’re not going to win any more money from him, or he’s also flopped a flush, in which case you want to get your money into the pot as quickly as possible in hopes of winning his entire stack, or he’s flopped a set, in which case he’ll call your check-raise on the flop and he’ll call a big bet on the turn and he might even call a big bet on the river.

If the board pairs on the turn, you should still bet. It’s such a draw heavy board that your opponent might think you only have the ace of hearts in your hand, or the ace of hearts and a pair, or the ace of hearts and another ace. There are a lot of hands he could put you on in this spot besides the nut flush so, even if the board pairs, you should keep betting for value, hoping to get called by a worse hand.

If you bet the turn and your opponent puts in a stiff raise, then you should reevaluate. If you bet the turn and he calls and you bet the river and he raises, then you should fold because you can credibly put him on a full house.

Because hand coordination plays such an important role in determining your long-term success, you need to make as much money as you possibly can when it’s working in your favor, and one of the best ways of doing that is playing fast after you flop a big hand.

Playing Fifth Street In Seven-Card Stud

by Keith Sexton


Fifth Street is the big decision point in Seven-Card Stud because that’s the critical juncture in the hand when you have to put in your first big bet. While it’s nice to have a made hand at this point, you don’t always need one to put in a raise on Fifth Street. If you have a big draw, that can be enough to warrant raising your opponent. Some players don’t think like this, and I believe that’s a costly mistake.

Here’s an example of a situation where I believe raising with a draw is the correct play. Let’s say your opponent is showing an Ace, and you have a 7 of diamonds up and a 6 and 7 of spades in the hole, giving you a pair of 7s. You and your opponent are the only players involved in the hand, and he opens with a raise. You call.

On the turn your opponent catches an offsuit Jack and bets. You catch the 9 of spades. You have a pretty nice hand at this point. Not only do you have a pair of 7s, but you also have three cards to a flush and three cards to a straight so there are a lot of cards you can catch that will give you a big draw. You definitely want to call in this spot.

On Fifth Street your opponent catches a 6 so now he has an Ace, Jack, and 6 showing. You catch the deuce of spades, which is a very interesting card. You now have a pair of 7s and four spades to a flush, but your opponent is unaware of how strong you are because one of your 7s and two of your spades are hidden.

Your opponent leads out with a bet once again. Now here’s the question. Should you simply call or should you raise? Even if your opponent has two Aces, I would prefer to have two 7s and four spades in this situation so you should be aggressive and put in a raise. You should do this for a couple of reasons. First, even if he does have a pair of Aces, you’re still the favorite. You are about a 58 percent favorite to win the hand so you’re getting the best of it right now.

The other reason you should raise is that it will get you a free card if you fail to hit your draw. Let’s say you go ahead and raise on Fifth Street, and your opponent calls. Since he called your raise, you can be pretty certain he has a pair that can beat your 7s. Then on Sixth Street he catches a 4 and you catch the 3 of diamonds, a card that doesn’t help your hand at all.

If your opponent is a weak player, he is probably going to check it to you because he’s going to be scared of that raise you put in on Fifth Street. If he does in fact check, then you succeeded in accomplishing exactly what you set out to do. You got extra money into the pot on Fifth Street when you had the best of it, and now that you missed your draw and don’t have the best of it anymore you’re happy to get a free card. Now you have one more shot at drawing out on him.

This is a clear example of why it pays to be aggressive on Fifth Street in Seven-Card Stud. Some players would just call in this situation, but I think that’s a big mistake. Being aggressive and sticking in a raise has two clear advantages over simply calling. It will get more money into the pot those times you do make your hand, and it will get you a free card those times you don’t. The bottom line is that you need to be aggressive when playing Seven-Card Stud because it’s the aggressive player who usually wins.

Adjusting Strategy Mid-Hand

Most of the time when you’re engaged in a poker hand, you’ll be thinking about what decisions you will make before you have to make them. For example, if you call a raise with K-Q, you’ll think to yourself: Okay, if I hit top pair, I’m going to play this hand. If I have a gut-shot and two over-cards, I’m going to play this hand. If I have an open-ender and two over-cards, I’m going to play this hand. Otherwise, I’m going to let it go.

However, there will often be times when something happens that causes you to change your strategy mid-hand. Maybe your opponent makes a weak bet that gives you information worth using to your advantage. Or maybe he makes a bet on the river that looks like a value bet and convinces you to fold a hand you were planning on calling with.

It’s always good to enter a hand with a plan, but it’s essential that you be willing to deviate from the plan if the situation calls for it. Every hand requires that you react to your cards and the cards on the board, but it’s equally important that you factor in your opponent and his tendencies.

Here’s a hand that I played recently at the 2009 EPT German Open in Dortmund, where I went on to finish in fourth place. It was late in Day Two, I had been fairly short-stacked for a while and occasionally shoving with decent hands, but I hadn’t yet made a serious bluff in the tournament. We were eight-handed, the player in second position made a very small raise to 8,500 with blinds at 2,000/4,000 and a 500-chip ante, and it folded around to me in the small blind with pocket fives. I had about 70,000 in chips, and all I knew for sure was that I wasn’t going to fold a pocket pair in this situation.

I decided to call rather than raise, knowing the big blind would certainly be priced in to call as well, and he did. The flop came A-8-3. I was obviously looking to flop a set, or maybe something like 2-3-4 or 3-4-6, and this flop was not at all good for my hand, so I checked. The big blind also checked. And the initial raiser made what looked to me like a very weak bet, 12,000 into a 29,500 pot.

I was quite sure from the bet that he didn’t have an Ace, and probably he didn’t have a pair of any kind. It seemed to me that he had a hand like K-J, something in that range. So when he bet 12,000, I considered all of the factors – my read on him, my tight image, and my stack size. I decided to raise 21,000 more, representing that I had perhaps a weak Ace and had committed myself to the pot (even though, in reality, I wasn’t committed and would be willing to fold to a re-raise, leaving myself with about 30,000 in chips).

The big blind folded, and after thinking for a long time, the initial raiser folded also. He simply had to give me credit for a real hand that I wasn’t going to lay down to a re-raise.

This was a situation where I didn’t really intend to commit many chips if I didn’t hit a favorable flop, but I adjusted my decision making based on my opponent’s post-flop action, believing the stage had been set for me to make a move. Always be willing to adjust your plan, and every once in a while you’ll find yourself winning chips that otherwise would have been pushed toward someone else.

Establishing A Tight Table Image

by Allen Cunningham

2007
In poker, image matters.

Throughout a tournament, your table image will help determine how much action you'll get and, ultimately, how you can manipulate your opponents into making big calls or big laydowns at the wrong times.

While establishing a loose, aggressive image early on can help build your initial chip stack, I believe it's important to develop a tight table image in the later stages of a tournament because it gives you the ability to maneuver at the times when the chips matter most.

When the action is folded around, some players will always raise from the cutoff and the button. The problem with this play is that's its predictable and can be easily exploited. If you always raise from the button, the players in the blinds catch on sooner or later and will put in a big re-raise with any two cards. You will also find players just calling you with a much wider range of hands from the blinds before putting in a big check-raise on the flop.

Why do they do this? Because you have been presenting a loose table image by raising any time the action is passed to you. During late-stage play, this image hampers your ability to maneuver because any time you try to make a move, it's likely that someone will play back at you.

It doesn't take long before your loose table image will make you a target for the experienced players at the table (or even the inexperienced players who get tired of being pushed around). The amount of chips you risk by being loose in these situations is usually not worth the reward of just picking up the blinds. Be careful, though, because when you play too tight you end up missing many opportunities to slowly accumulate chips or even just stay afloat. Ideally, you want to project a very tight image while actually being somewhere in between the standard perceptions of "loose" and "tight."

I have one very simple piece of advice to help you with this part of your game. It may sound so simple you would wonder why I bother mentioning it but, in fact, this is one of my most important rules: Always fold junk.

By always folding junk hands, you accomplish a number of goals:

You resist the temptation to attempt a blind-steal just because action was passed to you. With the level of aggressiveness that characterizes today's play, it's better to pass on bad hands even in position.
You avoid pot-committing yourself with a hand that will usually be dominated in a race with a short-stack. For example, if you raise from the cutoff for 3x the big blind with J-3 attempting to steal the blinds and a stack with 8x the big blind moves in behind you, you are in a bad spot. It's better to just avoid these situations altogether.
Most importantly, you further cement your image as a tight player. Now when you raise with a hand like A-8, you can feel confident that your tight image will allow you to steal the blinds although you're actually playing a bit looser.
Another temptation players face is to pick on someone's blind just because they view that player as "weak." I rarely pick on someone's blinds without a decent opening hand. Opening from the cut-off with a hand like K-9 suited is about as low as I'm willing to go in attempt to just pick up the blinds.

Using my tight table image enabled me to maneuver through a very tough field in the $5,000 Pot-Limit Hold 'em event at the 2007 WSOP*. After I doubled up early in Day 2, I used my table image in the late stages to steal blinds and to pick up a number of pots in key situations. I was able to carry this momentum to the final table, where I was fortunate enough to win the bracelet.

Remember, it takes more than good cards to be a winning player. By creating a solid table image in the late stages of a tournament, you may actually be able to play a wider variety of hands than your opponents expect and take down key pots at critical times.

David Wright

The Mets have failed the last 2 years in September, and I'm starting to think its time to tell David Wright good bye.

He is the face of this team, and the face has been a series of failures and disappointments. Last year we had the Willie watch, this year we may have to bring up the Wright Watch.

David Wright for Ryan Braun anyone?

The Pros And Cons Of Being Active Early

by Aaron Bartley

Deciding how active you want to be at the beginning of a tournament depends heavily on what type of tournament you’re playing in. If it’s a standard Sit & Go, I always recommend playing tight and conserving chips early. If it’s a Multi-Table Tournament or a Shootout Tournament then you should consider a more active style in the early phase.

Part of the goal in doing this is to accumulate chips. But another part of the goal is to establish an image that will help get you chips later. It can be a rewarding way to play, but you need to understand that there’s also a downside to the image this type of play will create.

When you put constant pressure on other players, it’s eventually going to make them fight back. You don’t have to raise large amounts and you don’t have to get involved in huge pots, but by raising with a lot of hands, your opponents are going to play back at you with a wider and wider range of hands. They’re going to start calling and three-betting with more marginal hands, and that’s going to open them up and make them susceptible to giving you their chips more often.

If you’re looking to accumulate chips, you don’t want your table locked down in super-tight mode. You don’t want to have to grind out a few chips every orbit – you want to get into your opponents’ heads and provoke them into spewing chips. You’ll find that once one player at the table does it, it tends to have a domino effect and lead other people to start making mistakes.

The downside, however, is that your bluffs won’t work very often, and that’s something you have to be aware of. For example, let’s say I’ve been playing a lot of pots and developed a loose image in a six-handed table, and I’m dealt A-Q suited under the gun. That’s a good hand at a full table, and it’s even better six-handed. So I make a pot-sized raise, and the big blind calls. The flop is J-10-6, which isn’t exactly a hit for me, but it isn’t a total miss; I have a straight draw and two over cards. I’m going to make a normal continuation bet and I figure my opponent can’t call me without a decent hand. In this case, I bet, he calls and the turn is a three, so I decide to give it one more shot and raise my bet a little bit because I want him to fold. Instead, he calls.

A four now falls on the river. I didn’t hit anything and he’s clearly shown that he’s ready to call anything; I can’t expect to bet him off the hand. In my mind, I’m putting him on a hand possibly as weak as 10-2, but I don’t think I can get him to lay that down, so I check, give up the pot and he wins with 6-7.

Of course I’m going to be a little frustrated to learn that he called twice with third pair. He had to have put me on A-K or A-Q or thought I was raising under the gun with rags and, the truth is, people will begin to think that way because I’ve raised a lot of pots. Because of this, people are going to start calling me extremely light.

In the short-term, that can be a bad thing; but in the long-term, it should be good. If the same hand happens later but I have A-J or Aces or Kings, or even some trash hand that connects, I’m going to get paid off.

This is why the positives of playing an active style early ultimately outweigh the negatives. Even if you lose a pot because your image keeps people hanging around, it can set you up to win an even bigger pot later on.