Beginners poker strategy

Poker Plays With Pokerpeaker: Trips Aren't Always GoldenOct 2, 2008THE SITUATIONI'm playing $25 NL on Bodog. I have A♦ - 3♠ on the button. That's not a great hand, not by a long shot, but it's not a terrible hand when it's folded around to you, so I throw in my quarter. I'm on the button, after all, so I'll have position, and it's doubtful the blinds have anything better than my Ace at this point. Read more

Poker Plays with PokerPeaker - Bet Your Monsters Aug 19, 2008THE SITUATION - I am playing Pineapple with friends in a home game. I like to play this game on Ultimate Bet occasionally as well.Pineapple is just like Hold 'Em, except you are dealt three cards in the beginning. You discard one before the flop.I'm dealt K♦ - K♥ - 7♣. So what do you think I pitched?That's right. The K♦.No, I'm just kidding. I pitched the 7, of course. Read more

Poker plays with PokerPeaker - Folding Aces Jul 29, 2008THE SITUATION - I'm playing $25 NLHE on Bodog.I have black Aces in late position.Don't you wish you could just freeze time and keep those Aces forever? You know you have the best hand possible. The darn flop always seems to ruin it.I raise to $1.25, for the same reasons I've explained in the past. I don't want a ton of callers trashing my Aces once a flop comes. Read more

Loose callMay 28, 2008THE SITUATION - I'm playing on Poker Stars , $25 NL. A player I'm targeting raises to .50. That's what he's raised to every hand. So I call. I have A♠ - 8♦WHY DID I DO WHAT I DID HERE?You need to be careful with minimum raises. That sometimes means Aces because the guy foolishly wants a lot of people in the pot. Read more

Forcing mistakes from your opponentsMay 15, 2008THE SITUATION - I'm playing $25 NL on Full Tilt . I'm dealt A-A. OK, very cool. I raise to $1.50. I always try to raise big when I've got a big pair. I suppose an observant player might pick up on this, but it's worth it to me to try to weed out all those annoying hands that cut down on the percentage that my hand is good.In this case, it works. I get two callers. Read more

Limiting your lossesMay 10, 2008THE SITUATION - I'm playing $25 NL in a full ring game on Bodog Poker. I called a raise from late position with K♠ - 10♠. I am in middle position. It's mostly a position call. It's not the best call I ever made, but I want to see what happens. I've had a lot of bad cards and I just want to play a hand. Plus the raise is only .50 more. Read more

A set against a big drawMay 8, 2008THE SITUATION - I'm playing with a full stack at Bodog Poker at a $.10/.25 NL table. I'm dealt 5-5 and I'm sitting one off the button. Someone in front of me raises to .50, a minimum raise, and another guy in front of me raises to .75. This is a strange raise, almost an annoyance raise. Read more

Omaha 8: play on the flopApr 28, 2008In my previous article, I laid out for you how to handle pre-flop play in Omaha 8 games. In this part, I am going to expand on that and go over play on the flop. The flop is the most important part of any Omaha 8 pot. It is when you have the most information and the betting limits are the cheapest (in a limit cash game). There are two key concepts with flop play... Read more

Set Mining Against an Over PairApr 22, 2008THE SITUATION - I'm at a full ring .25/.50 NL cash game on Ultimate Bet. I'm dealt 10♥-10♠. I have about $55. I call, along with four others, before the Big Blind raises 7xs the blind to $3.50. The Big Blind has $150, so he's hit some hands.I call.WHY DID I DO WHAT I DID HERE? Read more

Omaha 8 or better pre-flop playApr 9, 2008There are numerous theories out there about what hands people should play in Omaha 8 including point systems that take into account each of the cards you hold in your hand. I'm not going to try and complicate things that much for you because it's much easier than that, especially when playing at the lower limits. Read more

How Would You Play This Hand - NLHE $11,500 GuaranteedMar 31, 2008Full Tilt runs a daily $24+2 tournament at 12:00pm EST. You receive 3000 starting chips and the blind levels increase every 10 minutes. I prefer to play double-stack tournaments because the increased starting chip stack gives you a lot more room to play. Today’s tournament began with 488 players. The top 45 finishers got paid. Read more

Online Poker TellsMar 27, 2008As players trying to improve our game, we can never know TOO much about our opponents at the poker table. Every bit of information we gather can help us have an edge when playing with them. The more we know about how our opponents play, the better chance we have of beating them.Many books have been written on how to pick up tells on your opponents, but how do you do that online? Read more

Building a bankrollMar 18, 2008What if I told you there was an easy, relatively risk free way to make $2,000 a month playing poker. All it would take is a starting bankroll of $2,000 and the ability to play 125 hours of poker a month. The only skill set you would need is to be an average to above average heads up player. Sign you up right?There is a catch involved though. Read more

Betting StructuresMar 18, 2008There are 4 basic betting structures found at online poker sites.First a note on table stakes: The only chips that can be used during a hand are those chips that were on the table at the beginning of the hand. A player may not buy new chips during the hand and bet them immediately. Read more

The Four Biggest Mistakes That Poker Players MakeMar 14, 2008Everyone makes mistakes in poker. It's what you do with them, how you adjust, IF you adjust, that makes the difference between the winning player and the losing player. There are too many mistakes that players make to ever possibly list them in a short article but I am going to look at what I think are the 4 biggest mistakes that are made on a routine basis. Read more

Selecting an Online Poker SiteMar 13, 2008Once you’ve decided to take the plunge and play poker online, you are faced with many choices on where to play. Just 10 years ago the only choice, for real money play, was Planet Poker. Two years ago my computer had poker software for 140 separate sites. Today, there may be more than 140 sites but most are simply skins to some of the big online poker networks like; OnGame, Ipoker, and Boss. Read more