Poker-Bug Poker News

A high majority of online poker players end up losing money. This is based on several factors, but mainly the rake. As every poker player knows, there is nothing you can do about the rake. However, there are some factors which are in a player’s control and this involves building the correct bankroll. The most common mistake a new player makes is how to build, manage and control their bankroll.

If a player’s bankroll is about $100 - $200 then they should be playing stakes around $.5-1.00 limit or playing $5 Sit and Go Tournaments. It should be noted that some of these $5 games have a ridiculous $1 entry fee, which is about a 20% rake. Players will find that they should not really open an online account with less than $150. A player will not be able to build a bankroll with less than that amount of money and will find themselves going bust very quickly if they run into a bad betting patch.
If a player’s bankroll is around $500 - $900, then it is a good amount and is considered a great way to start building up a bankroll. These players can play the $.5-1.00 games to start and once they have built up about a $1000 bankroll, then they can proceed to $1-2 limits and check out the competition. If a player is feeling adventurous they can proceed to $10 games. This is a good move to gain experience and slowly build up a hefty bankroll.
Players should remember that they must always be aware of their bankroll and must set themselves realistic limits. A player cannot build a bankroll if the money is not his to start with.  A player should always only play with money that they can afford to lose, otherwise the playing session will be unpleasant and stressful.
Patience is a virtue and this applies to building a bankroll as well. By slowly using skill and strategy (OK, and luck) a player will build up his bankroll in no time

Add fish to your Buddy List
This is a pretty popular tip used by many of the good players online poker players. By checking your buddy list off and on, you can see when your favorite maniacs are logging on to play. Though you are unable to see exactly which table they are seated at, you can manually search through the tables to look for your target.

This tip is mainly useful if you are adding maniacs to your buddy list, as maniacs tend to create table dynamics that are much better for you than say, a calling station. With a maniac at the table and five calling stations for example, there will be serious pots being generated, so you can score big if you hit your cards. At the same token however, with so many drawers in the pot, your chances for getting outdrawn are very high. Just remember that.

Click between game tabs to refresh your table listings
This trick is useful mainly for SnG (sit and go / single table) tournaments, which are notoriously quick to fill up. Many times, you’ll see “Waiting for 5 players” as the table status, but when you click on the game, it will have already started. This is due to the table status not updating quickly, which you can force by clicking between tabs.

Keep player notes on opponents
I cannot stress this enough. So much so that I will be writing an article on how to take some good notes in the future. While you always want to be paying attention to how people are playing, in online poker, players are always coming and going, which doesn’t give you time to feel them out. Taking notes cam help you when you play these opponents again. Even if you aren’t going to play this person it again, taking notes makes it much easier to keep a mental track of how each player plays and what to expect from them. The big things to note are: smart or stupid, aggressive or passive, tight or loose, straight up or bluffs, bets out a draw or not and what kind of hands do they play or pre-flop raise with. Yes, this is a lot of information to note, but it will help you in the long run.

Use a four color deck
This tip applies to many poker rooms out there too. There’s a reason poker sites offer four color decks, because they are quite popular and for good reason. If you play poker long enough, you’re going to make mistakes. Everyone who has played long enough has probably misread their cards at some point or another (usually after a long stretch), especially flushes. Using a four colored deck makes it much easier to identify flushes (and more importantly flush draw threats) and enables you to use your brain powers elsewhere.

Wait a full table rotation before posting the BB
This tip is probably debatable by many of the players out there. In my opinion, unless you know what you are doing, this tactic will save you money in the long run by letting you not only get mentally prepared for the game, but also gives you invaluable time to evaluate your opponents. The worst thing that can happen is to get dealt a strong hand early and then get caught in a massive raising war between two players you don’t know. They could be two maniacs for sure, but what if one of them is a maniac and the other player is super-tight? Most likely, that super tight player is holding the nuts while you are bumbling by with top pair or two pair. Not a good move. So be patient, take notes in the meanwhile and save money in the long run.

Turn on your sound, turn down the music
It’s no secret that us humans work better using more of our senses, otherwise we wouldn’t have been born the way we are. Yes, it may get annoying to hear the dinks, beeps and chip sounds of the game after awhile, but hearing those audible cues are vital to your play. You are much less prone to make mistakes when you can hear and see what people are doing, as opposed to just seeing it. For me, I notice it helps my timing when I am trying to figure out if I am onto a online tell or not, based on the delay during the other person’s actions.

Show the avatars (people in chairs), but don’t stereotype them
This is probably the most debatable tip I’m guessing, because if you’ve turned them off, you probably really don’t like the avatars to begin with. And if you do like avatars, well, they’re probably on already. I just want to get my two cents in about this poker tip by saying that even though avatars are computer graphics, it’s again human nature to easily identify faces. That means we can more easily associate a personality to a face, so it makes it easier to remember how someone is playing when we can attach a face to a playing style.

That being said, I’m sure there is some negative influence of these faces as well, because we probably tend to associate a certain avatar with a playing style. For instance, I’ll admit that I used to mentally associate one of the avatar pictures with bluffing. I think this was caused by a long string of coincidences, when different players using that avatar would constantly bluff, so I just starting linking that specific avatar with bluffing. Don’t let this happen to you.

Learn to leave the table
This is really just a general poker tip, but it still nabs even the poker pros at times. If you find that you are being outplayed, outclassed or just unlucky at the table, it’s ok to leave. Don’t think about getting your money back or getting revenge on the bastard that rivered you for the 3rd time now. If you are losing money at your table, you do NOT have good table image no matter what you might think. Not only are you not in a good mood, which puts you on tilt (admit it or not), but other players will be more likely to make plays against you. This makes your game harder in more ways than you want. With so many tables, just get up and go, it’s that easy.

I can’t stress this enough if the game gets short-handed (6 or less players) and you are not familiar with short-handed play. This is an easy way to lose a lot of cash if you don’t know what you are doing. I see this happen all the time, when a table breaks up and I’m stuck with two solid players and three guys who don’t realize they are about to get run over. Don’t be road kill when all it takes is a single click.

Buy-in more than necessary at the poker table
If you’ve been doing your homework, you’ll know that you should always sit in with at minimum 20 times the big blind at any poker table. In the realities of online poker, this should be more along the lines of at least 40 times the BB. Personally, I like to sit down with practically 100x the BB. You should think about doing this too. Why? First, don’t ever be in the position of holding the nuts and not having enough money to raise the pot. I’ve seen this happen too many times, where a guy will have flopped a full house in a $3/6 game, but only have $12 in his bankroll. He could have made a killing if it weren’t for the fact he was playing with a small stack.

DON’T LET THIS HAPPEN TO YOU!

If you are worried about losing your money, you should stop playing poker, switch tables or take a break. Second reason to buy more than is necessary, is for intimidation factor. Opinions may differ, but faced off against a big stack, my feelings are that a good amount of players (but not all) show a bit more respect (read: fear) and will play accordingly - which is to your benefit. Now, don’t read this as buying in for $1,000 in a $1/2 game, because then people will think you are just nuts, but $400.. Now we’re talking.

Move out of the $5 tournaments ASAP
This isn’t as much a trick as it is advice. The $5 sit and go tournaments are cheap, but at a price. With a $1 entry fee, this amounts to a 20% rake, which is no light task to beat. If you are good enough to win enough $5 tournaments that you can beat this rake, you are good enough to be playing at the $10 tournaments. There really is no difference between the two; and in my opinion, the $10 tournaments might even be easier because you don’t get filled out tables of nothing but calling stations. Try as you might and throw the book of poker at me, but there almost nothing humanly possible you can do at an entire table of maniacs or calling stations. The game makes more sense at $10 and even more sense at $30.

Bluffing is an art in all forms of poker. It is without a doubt, a fact that if you do not bluff in poker, there is no way you can be a successful poker player. That being said, bluffing is no small task in poker. It can be frightening, scary and embarassing when you are called down. Just remember however, that you’re playing correctly when you play to bluff. If you get called down, at least you tried.

In most Texas Hold’em games played around the casinos, structured is the most common method played. Your only method of communication with other players is raise, call or fold. Unlike no limit where you can shove your stack all-in and put a man to his money and have him sweat profusely over the decision he is about to make, in structure, especially low limits, many times people are more than willing to call you down if you randomly attack with a bluff. As cool as it might sound to tell yourself that you’re going to bluff everyone out of the next hand no matter what, it’s not going to happen. If it does, it’s by luck - because bluffing, is an artform.

When to bluff? If you have studied hold’em or really poker in general, you’ll know that position relative to the button is huge. Playing your position correctly is how you will maximize your money, bluffing or no bluffing. Adding a bluffing game on top of position is *key*. Bluffing will usually take place when you are furthest from the button or sitting on the button itself. Why? Because you can see all the action before it comes around to you. In a tight game, often times if no one pairs, it will be checks across the board to you, especially with rags on the table. In this case, this is almost always an excellent time to bet out. With rags on the table, it is highly unlikely at a tight table for anyone except maybe the big blind or small blind to have made any kind of big hand on the flop. That being said, pay *close attention* to the small and big blind at all times because they can be going into the flop with anything under the sun, whereas other players you can discern some sort of pattern based on their prior playing style. So, again, checks to you and you bet out. I’d say 3 or 4 times out of 10, everyone at the table will fold. Suppose the game is tight and there are 4 callers (including small and big blind) to the table, including yourself, that makes it a $12 pot on a 3/6 game. If you bet out, that’s 4:1 pot odds if you take the pot down. That means, as long as you can with this pot 1 out of 4 times, you’ve broke even. That being said, by carefully watching your opponents and how they react to the flop - you should be able to know whether or not you’ve got a 1 in 4 chance of taking down the pot.

So, lets say 1 out of 4 times you do take the pot down right then and there on the flop - you’ve already broken even if there are 4 players each time. Now, the turn has come and everyone checks down again - should you bet again? Well, it certainly depends now doesn’t it! Look at what is on the board and try to figure out why someone would want to keep going down the board. If there two to a suit, you can guess that someone may be looking for a flush. Two connectors, someone may be looking for a straight. Face card showing, then someone is probably calling with a low kicker or has a monster up their sleeve. Someone may also be calling with two pair or trips. Here is where you can’t just be the next Joe randomly tossing your chips in for the sake of being agressive. You *must* think why are they calling?

Don’t do the stupid thing and bewilder yourself with the common exclamation that so many rocks do and go ‘Who would call with that?!?’ - obviously your opponents *are* someones calling with that. If you’re trying to bluff out a calling station, you’ve just made the wrong move. If you’re trying to bluff out a fish who rides the waves of luck, you’ve probably made a mistake.

Anyhow, back to the turn, should you bet out again? Let’s say one person folded and two called on the flop. You got two checks and you decide to bet out. $6 for your bet. $12 in the pot earlier, plus 3 bets from the flop, makes it $21 total in the pot when you bet. Your odds are now about 3.5:1. You need to win this pot once every 3.5 hands in order to break even. Still not too bad right? Maybe. This is where it can get scary if you get re-raised, because you got nowhere to go. Your only hope of course is that everyone folds out. You pay close attention to the board and how fast your opponents are willing to call you down. If he thinks long and hard, he’s either holding a wicked monster, or he really is quite weak and trying to decide whether to take you on or not. If he’s a quick caller, he’s probably decided in his head already what action he is going to take, which is usually indicative of a straight or flush draw. If you see that on the table, you can probably bet on that being their play. If there are none on the table, you certainly have to start wondering.

So now, let’s say one of them folds, and you now are heads up on the river with that bastard who just won’t go out. Two bets and he’s still there with you. What now? You’re thinking maybe you made the wrong move and bluffed out the wrong guy. Or, maybe the board didn’t make the flush or the straight. You don’t want to check because then he will obviously check - or even bet! if he sees you check it down. Either way, there’s almost no way to win the pot if you showdown with nothing. However, you’ve already put $9 of your own dollars into the pot - do you really want to put in another $6 to see if he will fold now, even though he lasted through two rounds of betting? The river may be one of the hardest places to decide whether to bluff or not. In my experience, I’ve usually found that many players who decided to call down to the river will call a showdown, even if they are holding weak hands. A good player who has caught onto you will call you down with a weak hand and expose you for the bluff that you are. At the same time, an exceptionally bad player, also holding a weak hand may opt to call you down because he doesn’t know any better. Personally, I’m not sure which is worse. Realizing that another player was able to put you on your hand and cold call your raises knowing you held dirt, or playing a perfect bluffing game, only to be thwarted by someone who, faced with numerous warning signs, completely ignored them out of his own stupidity and managed to win.

If you’re up against a solid player on the river, it’s wise to check it down as they are probably onto you. If you’re lucky, they might even raise so you can muck your hand and not get seen as a bluffer. If they are tight, that is probably the best time to make yet ANOTHER bet on the river, in the hopes they will go out. By then, it’s $32 in the pot, with a $6 bet. You need to win that 1 out of 5 times to break even. However, remember that it is still $12 of yours in that pot, with another $6 to bet. You could thus loose a total of $18 when your whole goal initially was to win $9 of everyone elses money.

An easy way to look at bluffing from a non-bluffing perspective, is just to think ‘What if you were holding a good hand?’. Then it’s easy, because although it’s not true, but it always seems like this is the case: when you are holding a powerful hand, everyone and their grandma is out to call you down to the river. You are scared as hell when that happens because you don’t want to get rivered. Sure, all the pros will tell you that it’s about the long game, faith in math, statistics work against them.. but living in the present hand, for THIS HAND ONLY, you DON’T want anyone to deprive you of your long awaited pot. How many hands do you actually play where you make it to the river and not have anyone showdown against you? Very few really, at least in my experience. At least compared to how many showdowns you actually do get. I’d peg it around 1 out of every 6 showdowns maybe the other person simply folds. So, it’s up to you, but unless you really have the feeling your opponent is weak, swallow hard and check it down.

The only way to get good at bluffing is to observe people and start bluffing yourself. Good luck!  

No Limit Poker - Calling the all-in bet preflop

Here’s the situation:

It’s late in a no limit tournament. The blinds are 150/300 and you’ve got a stack of about 1500 chips. There’s four players left and you’re on the big blind. Everyone folds except the button, who is a solid player and raises all-in for 1500 more. You look down at your hand and see pocket sixes. What do you do and why?

This crtitical situation comes up many times, so let’s try to break this down into pieces and try to look at each part in detail. If you need a primer in pot odds, visit the poker odds page first.

So, the point here is to show that you aren’t just getting a 1:1 call for your chips if you go up against your opponent here. Because the big blind (you) and small blinds have contributed to the pot, this is regarded as dead money and helps your pot odds (if not by much) should you decide to call.

However, pot odds are only useful if you are getting correct odds to call however. We thus need to try and figure out if our hand is better than a 43.5% favorite to win the pot, as it needs to win at least that amount of time to break even. Let’s try to list what type of hands our opponents would be raising with pre-flop.

Now that we have an idea of all the possible hands that our opponent may be holding, let’s categorize our opponent. In the scenario, it said he was a ’solid’ opponent, which means he’s not too aggressive but not too tight at the same time, so we will place him in the ‘Tight’ category. In this case, let’s compare our hand of pocket Sixes vs. each possible hand the solid player can be holding.

(Percentage represents the chance for 66 to win)

Since our opponent is a tight player, we can assume he is playing one of the hands from the Tight player chart. While we cannot accurately predict which hand is holding, we can figure that on average, 66 will be a 48% favorite to win vs any random hand from the Tight group. Since the pot odds only require us to win 44% of the time, this is definitely the correct call here. 

If youre new to Texas Holdem poker here are some things you need to consider:

How much money should you invest?
If you are looking to just have a good time, don’t invest any more than the fun money you can lose. In other words if you’re comfortable losing $100 bucks, put in $100 and see if you can win with it.

If you are looking to make money, you should be able to bank 200 big bets at the limit you play. So, if you play a $1-2, you should have $2 X 200= $400 dollar roll. For $5-10, your target roll should be $2000. These numbers prevent you from blowing your entire bankroll because of one bad run.

Some may say that the 200 big bets are too low for shorthand, but we believe you need to be reasonable about potential losses. You don’t want to invest more than 200 big bets unless you’ve proven that you’re successful at that limit.

Starting Hands

While playing Texas Holdem the first thing you must understand is which hands are good and which are bad. Though it depends on the number of people in the game and the type, here is a general guide to use when you are just starting out but want to be a winning player at the lower limits. I suggest starting out at a fixed limit of $1-2 or lower.

Hands to raise with in any position:

These are called ‘premium hands’ that you want to bet 3-4 times the big blind with preflop:

AA, KK, QQ, AK, JJ, AQ, 1010

These are the hands to call with:

You want to see the flop with these hands and then decide. Do not call three bets with these hands, call only one or two.

AJ, KQ, QJ, J10, 109 (only if of same suit), 99, 88, 77, Ax (same suit)

Pot Odds

Once you hit the flop, you should use pot odds to decide your next action. When you hit the flop, either you will be winning or hopefully winning (with a made hand) or you want cards to improve your hand (you are drawing).

If you have a made hand, you should bet and raise. You want to win the pot now because more cards can only help your opposition.

If you do not have a made hand, you are drawing. You must use ‘pot odds’ to determine if you should call or fold. First, you must count the number of outs you have. An out is a card that will make your hand the best hand.

For example, if your hand is KJ, and the board is Q 10 7, then your outs are 4 Aces and 4 9’s, or 8 outs total. To calculate your percentage of hitting an out, you take the # of outs times 2, then add 2. Once you figure out this number, you multiply it by the pot to see what the maximum bet is that you can call.

For example, if you have 6 outs (6 cards will help you), you have about a 14% chance of hitting. If the pot is $100 and you must call $10, you should call b/c you can call up to $14 (.14 X 100) but the cost is only $10. However, if the bet to you was $20, you should fold, because that would require a 20% chance of hitting.

Slowplaying

This means deceiving your opponents into thinking you have less of a hand then you do. For example, suppose you hold KK. The flop comes K33, so you flopped a full house! There is no need to scare people out of the pot because there is little chance of someone drawing out on you. Thus, you should wait to the turn or maybe even river to jam the pot with bets and raises. You should slowplay if two conditions are met:

1. You hold a monster and there is almost no chance of someone drawing on you.

2. You will only get action if some other cards come out that will improve your opponents’ hands, but these cards are not good enough to make these hands beat yours.

Tilt

Being on tilt means youre letting your emotions disrupt your play. All poker players go on tilt at least once during their career, but limiting these episodes is essential to winning at poker.

Poker is a game that requires reason. If you have JQ of spades, and the flop comes AQ10, all of hearts, and there is a lot of betting action, you need to know to fold. If you were on tilt, you would let your emotions take control and make you do whatever it took to take down the pot. You would keep chasing, hoping to catch a king and hoping that no one had a flush.

Is a fact that people who get upset and don’t stay focused and reasonable, will lose all the money they brought to the table, is imperative to stay focused and rational while at the poker table.
While going on tilt is natural, you need to limit it. Generally, the best way is to sit out a couple of hands and go on a walk.