Tag Archives: blinds
Advanced Texas Holdem Tips – Advanced Position Plays
Want to learn some advanced Texas Holdem Tips? This article is going to discuss advanced positions plays and how to make the most money at the poker table.
Advanced Texas Holdem Tips For Positional Plays
Plays based on position are an important factor into any successful Texas Holdem strategy. The fact is, you can’t do the same things from a blind compared to mid positions compared to being on the button. Any strategy that gives a stock standard ‘if you get dealt this card bet this amount’ just won’t cut it for advanced play.
Realise this first most crucial point:
Money travels clockwise from the small blind right around to the button.
To explain this in other words. It is easier to make money, i.e. win pots, if you are on the button. It gets slightly hard the more you move counter-clockwise, from late positions, to mid positions, to early positions, to blind positions. So by the time you’ve gotten to early and blind positions it is much much harder to win money.
This is simply because of the fact that at each betting round the players that must bet first have a disadvantage because they haven’t seen how the other players have bet. They have no idea how the other players are doing post flop, turn, river, etc.
Likewise, the blinds have a negative expectation. This means that overall, you should expect that you will lose money when you are in the blinds. Yes, lose money. And this money should be recouped, and then some, when you are in later positions.
Some ways you can take advantage of being in a later position are:
– If everyone checks you can raise with poorer cards – You can steal blinds easily without having to deal with the unknown of who is contesting the pot – If a raise is made and everyone else folds you can choose to take a heads up – You can reraise over players to force them in or out of a pot – After the flop you can make your move depending on how you feel the other players did – You have the options of checking/calling through draws without risking being reraised – You know if you can bluff or fake a hand on a turn and guess how your opponents will react – You have all the power at a showdown
There are many more advanced Texas Holdem tips however this information should be enough to open up your mind to the possibilities of utilising a later table position to increase your poker winnings.
Free Online Poker Guide To The Art Of Moving All In
Whether you play free online poker or for big stakes going All-In is just about the most heavy duty poker move of all. Generally you should only consider moving all in if you have a hand that stands a good chance against powerful hands such as A-K and A-Q which are the most common hands played all-in.
This is because these are the hands also most willing to call. Which hands, then, are we willing to put our tournament life on? Pocket pairs spring to mind. So does A-K (or A-Q or even K-Q suited or K-J suited if you are running out of chips)
But someone does it differently. I would like to add that here; player B is an impatient, rowdy player who is familiar to us TV poker fans.
BLINDS 12k/24k
A has Ad-Kd raises 75k
A’s raise is simply standard for A-K suited, though it is slightly stronger (the average preflop raise is about 2.5x the big blind, but this raise is a little more than thrice). But look at B’s move, which might be less standard:
B has 10c-5c moves all-in 544k
What about that: a 10-5? With about 22 big blinds left, which is relatively a short-stack (but not so short), B moves all-in. However with a 10-5? B can wait for slightly better hands than this.
Now let us try to justify the 10-5 in this situation. If B did it with a small pair, he is a slight favourite (about 55-45). If with A-x (with x smaller than a King), he is a significant underdog (about 75-25).
With any 2 cards apart from A or K he much less the underdog (approx. 66-34). So with the win-rate of 10-5 against Ace King (B deciding that A’s hand is Ace King or alike is a gamble; if he is up against Ace Ace then he is a serious underdog at about 85-15) is simply the average of the win rate of a pocket pair against Ace King and the win rate of A-x against A-K, and as such not too nasty.
Moreover, with 10c-5c B has two live cards, compared with A-x, where x is the only live card. Moreover, B may dislike having 22 big blinds dwindle to, say, 15 or 14 later, so he decides to put his heart and soul into this hand. Who is this player, anyway? “I’ve got a 10-5, girls and boys.” You heard that right, the garrulous Mike Matusow! “The Mouth!”
A calls 469k (Pot 1.124m)
Now let us observe how “The Mouth” will fare against all odds.
FLOP: Js-7c-5s
“That’s a Flop!” A Five fell, pairing Matusow!
TURN: Js-7c-5s-8d
RIVER: Js-7c-5s-8d-6d
Moving all-in can end up being one of the most dangerous moments in poker. Even in free online poker it can also be the most thrilling, anyway. The all-in recharged Matusow’s stack to 45 big blinds.
This unconventional play is not exploitable forever, anyway. For Matusow to think A has AK or alike is, quite frankly gambling.
While most players will work a strategy where they will call with pocket pairs I doubt in this case that A will call with anything less than 10-10.
Against A-A or K-K or a higher pair, 10-5 will win only about 15% of the time, and with 10-10 to 5-5, about 25%, and with 4-4 to 2-2, nearly a coin flip.