Common Advanced Mistakes
Online Poker Strategies
Mistake #1: Missing Value Bets
Value betting is what seperates a great player from just a good player. Obviously, any person knows to bet when he or she holds the nuts. However, getting maximum value out of marginal hands is much trickier.
Value betting is highly situational and game dependent. For limit hold'em, you should be quite aggressive with betting. Since the bets are so small in relation to the pot, people will often call your value bets with extremely weak hands.
For no-limit hold'em, the situation is much trickier. First, you must get an accurate read on what the other player has. Putting an opponent on his cards is not only useful in determining if you have him beaten, but it is also helpful in determining how much you should bet.
Poker Strategies For Advanced Players
Furthermore, consider what type of player your opponent is. A casual player will tend to call bets that are about as strong as his hand. So if you think a player has a weak hand, make sure the bet is not too large because you want your opponent to call.
However, if your opponent is a strong player, then you must take into account what he or she thinks you have. A casual player only thinks about his own cards, but a strong player is also thinking about your cards!
Advanced Poker Strategy: Concepts to Advance Your Game Know When a Player is Pot Committed. Always be aware of your opponent’s chip stack and whether they have become pot. Responding to a Raise. In the situation where you are involved in a pot. Poker Guides For Beginners & Advanced Players ♠ Poker Strategy Poker Lessons Tutorials Tips & More. Become a Smarter Poker Player! Learn to Beat the Micro Stakes First. Now I must admit, my first online poker tip for you is not. Advanced Poker Common Advanced Mistakes Mistake #1: Missing Value Bets. Value betting is what seperates a great player from just a good player. Obviously, any person knows to bet when he or she holds the nuts. However, getting maximum value out of marginal hands is much trickier. Value betting is highly situational and game dependent. In this book he introduces the reader to the concept of 'non-self weighting strategies' and explains why successful gambling is actually a balance of luck and skill. Other books he has co-authored are Hold em Poker For Advanced Players, written with David Sklansky, and Seven-Card Stud For Advanced Players written with David Sklansky and Ray Zee.
A strong player has probably put you on a hand. Therefore, you not only want to bet based on the strength of his hand, but you want to bet based on what your opponent thinks you have. For example, if you think your opponent can only beat a bluff, then you should make a bet that would seem like a bluff. This bet may be large or small, depending on the game situation.
Value betting is so situational and complex that it can never truly be taught. It is something that great players learn themselves, and it is what gives them a sizeable portion of their edge against just 'good' players.
Mistake #2: Not Paying Attention
This seems like a beginner's mistake, but it is actually quite common among good players. Experienced poker players have played thousands upon thousands of hands and know what to do in almost any situation. Because of this, they sometimes do not pay too much attention to any one game.
Often, they will still win due to their experience. However, failing to paying attention is a negative expected value move. Your situational decision-making skills go down the tubes, and it is much tougher to learn and improve your game if you are playing three games at once, checking your email, and chatting on an instant messaging program all at the same time. Failing to pay close attention will not always turn a winning player into a losing player, but it means that a winning player will not win as much as he or she could.
Mistake #3: Poor Game Selection
As important as game selection is, many good players neglect it. This is because their egos get to them. They think they can beat any game. They sit in the biggest game they can find because they figure this is where they can make the most money.
Simply put, these people need to keep their egos in check. Choose a game that has the highest expected value for you. Keep track of your statistics using a program like Check Your Bets. Play in the games that you excel at the most, not just the games that are the highest your bankroll can handle. Look for the soft games and pounce on them.
Mistake #4: Playing Too High at Newer Games
Most advanced poker players tend to experiment with different forms of poker. A good limit hold'em player will generally give no-limit hold'em a chance, as well as perhaps pot-limit Omaha. While there is nothing wrong with experimenting a little, advanced players tend to make the major mistake of playing limits at these new games similar to the limit they play at the game they have mastered.
For example, suppose you are a $5-$10 no-limit hold'em player. You are a winning player, even at this fairly high-stakes game. You want to give pot-limit Omaha a chance.
You shouldn't start with the $5-$10 pot-limit Omaha game. This is clearly a mistake, since you do not nearly have the type of edge at this game that you would at the no-limit hold'em game. You need to be cognizant of the fact that you need to work on your skills at this new game. Diving into a new game at a limit similar to your best game is almost a sure-fire recipe of losing because there is a high likelihood that you will not be good enough at first to win at the new game.
Working your way up the limits at a new game is often a good idea. This is how you probably learned the game you play best, so it's generally a good way to learn how to play new games as well.
Mistake #5: Mishandling Free Card Plays
Poker Strategies For Advanced Players Fifa 20
Free card plays are advanced moves that good players sometimes make. These moves are almost always done in late position. One of the most basic examples is raising with a flush draw at the flop in a limit hold'em game. When you do this, you hope your opponent just calls and checks to you on the turn. This way, if you miss the turn, you end up seeing the turn and river cards for just two small bets, instead of one small bet and one large bet.
Knowing when to make a free card play or attempt to re-raise your opponent to break his free card play is highly situational. It is the type of play that frequently even good players mishandle because of improper reads or tactical errors.
Mistake #6: Extended Tilt
Good poker players can generally prevent themselves from going on tilt or limit the damages from a tilt. However, every now and then a good poker player will have such a bad streak that it will break their confidence in themselves. These players will go on an extended tilt where they start playing poorly session after session, and they often almost forget how to play poker well in the first place.
Furthermore, these players will often start to play in tougher, higher-stakes games that they may not have been able to beat even if they were playing at the best of their ability.
In short, some circumstances may set even a good poker player on an extended tilt. While this sort of tilt is rare, it can last for months at a time, draining a good poker player of his bankroll.
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In a prior installment on Badeucey, we established a set of guidelines for the starting hands we should tend to play given that we were the first player to enter the pot. In this issue, the focus will be on what hands are playable when the pot has already been opened, and the factors that should be considered in order to determine if our holding is better played as a smooth-call or as a three-bet.
Pat Hands
Whenever you hold a playable pat hand, it is almost always in your best interest to reraise the opener and try to get the pot heads-up. A seven low with at a good three card underneath such as 2 3 5 6 7 increases the odds of scooping against a single opponent.
Poker Strategies For Advanced Players Salaries
Some caution needs to be exercised with eight lows such as 2 5 6 7 8 and 3 45 6 8 where we essentially have no badugi hand. If we are up against an early position raiser, both of these hands should probably hit the muck.
This advice may seem overly tight, particularly with 3 4 5 6 8, however a solid player opening from early position will often either have a badugi or a very strong three-card badugi that they mostly plan to showdown unimproved. If our opponent is intent on going to the end regardless what happens in the hand, we are getting freerolled from the beginning.
The situation is different when the initial raiser originates from the cutoff or later position as this range will be weaker and not as showdown bound. In that circumstance, we should three-bet 3 4 5 6 8 in the hope that the pot is played heads-up and our opponent chooses to fold sometime before showdown.
One-Card Draws
Any made badugi that is an eight or lower should be reraised for both value and protection. If the raise comes from a steal position, reraising a rougher nine badugi such as 4 6 7 9 is also correct especially if they are loose and often drawing three. Since the underlying draw of 4 6 7 draw is quite rough, keeping the nine is probably best.
Holdings such as 2 5 6 9 can go either way. In straight Deuce-to-Seven Triple Draw we would always draw two in order to try and make stronger lows and any other nine we catch later on in the hand will help us in the same manner. However, in Badeucey discarding the 9 is forever eliminating one of our better badugi outs.
Therefore, with a hand like 2 5 6 9, we should tend to reraise and be flexible with our drawing decision depending on the remainder of the preflop action. If our reraise is successful in getting the pot heads-up we should probably keep the nine and draw one, and if it goes off multi-way we should opt to draw two.
When you hold very good one-card draws with a tri such as 2 3 5 7 or 2 3 4 8 where you plan to draw one, you also want to three-bet in the hopes of isolating your opponent. Even if we bump into a badugi, with premium draws to both sides your equity and playability is often quite good. In addition, we don’t want our reraising and drawing one range to be entirely comprised of badugis.
Three-Card Badugis (i.e. Two-Card Draws)
With three-card badugis, the decision between three-betting or just smooth-calling is often close. When making it we should take into account the opener’s position, your position, your hand, and the skill level of the players left to act behind you. For example, facing a somewhat tight early position opener with weak players in the blinds, flatting your entire three-card badugi range has merit in order to invite action players to enter the pot.
However, in most other situations it is usually best to reraise premium three-card badugis such as 2-3-5, 2-4-5, 3-4-5, 2-4-6, 2-3-7, and 2-4-7. There’s a value component to three-betting these hands in addition to increasing our scooping chances. In addition, as we discussed last issue, these hands effectively realize their equity relative to our opponent.
In particular, 3-4-5 gains tremendously getting the pot heads-up as it can win the badugi side unimproved, but can struggle to make strong lows due to potential straight draws. Hands such as 2-3-7 and 2-4-7 will not often win the badugi side unimproved, however, these holdings have strong two-way potential and three-betting them helps balance against doing so with only the lowest of our tri holdings.
Weaker three-card badugis should mostly be flatted and which hands are playable are a function of your opponent’s playing style, the position from which he opened, and your position. For example, if a tight player opens from first position and we are one seat over in the hijack we should fold a mediocre hand like 2-6-8.
While position helps, it’s hard to envision that our opponent is opening many worse hands thus we should not seek out an uphill battle with so many players left to act behind us. In this situation, the bottom of our continuing range would probably be holdings such as 3-4-6 and 2-4-8. These hands make stronger badugis than 2-6-8 and also have the potential to reduce our incomplete to a three-card four.
Blind Defense
From the big blind you are getting good odds to continue against a single raise, however, it is difficult to defend profitably with as many hands as you can in another game such as Omaha eight-or-better. In Omaha hi-lo, you can take a flop with a somewhat junky hand and have a villain’s A A 2 3 drawing nearly dead once those three cards come down. However, in Badeucey your rough draws will only make rough hands, thus when you are up against the very top of your opponent’s range no miracle can save you.
When an opponent opens from early position, we must respect that range and play somewhat tight. While we can probably defend with any three-card seven or a smooth eight we must resist the temptation to play rougher holdings such as 3 7 8 that have reverse implied odds.
Cutoff and button opens are weaker, thus given the pot odds we can mostly defend any holding that we would have opened from those positions had the situation been reversed. For example, we can defend un-suited 2-3, 2-4, 2-5, and 2-7 holdings as well as a two-suited hand such as 2 3 7. Three-card badugis such as 5-6-8 and 3-7-8 are borderline plays; calling a button raise is fine but it is probably best to fold them against a cutoff open.
It may not seem like we are defending a lot of hands but the responsibility is also borne by the small blind to ensure that an over aggressive late position opener will not automatically profit. Against a very loose raiser the best response is to punish them with more three-bets with your good hands as opposed to loosening up your calling standards significantly. In addition, someone playing too many hands from late position will often get punished later on in the hand as they are usually playing rough draws with reverse implied odds.
Online Poker Strategy Advanced
In Badeucey, getting too far out of line before the first draw will often cost you money in the later rounds. A solid foundation of starting holdings is required to successfully navigate the later streets. ♠
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Kevin Haney is a former actuary of MetLife but left the corporate job to focus on his passions for poker and fitness. He is co-owner of Elite Fitness Club in Oceanport, NJ and is a certified personal trainer. With regards to poker he got his start way back in 2003 and particularly enjoys taking new players interested in mixed games under his wing and quickly making them proficient in all variants. His new mixed-games website Counting Outs is a great starting resource for a plethora of games ranging from the traditional to the exotic. He can be reached at haneyk612@gmail.com.