In cash games, you should usually strive to extract every little bit of value that you can, but in tournaments, you should often pass up on small amounts of value in order to ensure you do not lose a substantial amount of chips on any individual hand, allowing you to play more hands and realize more profits …
Giving Up a Little Value Read More »
If you have played much poker at all, you have certainly heard the term “pot committed”, which essentially means that you have put so much money into the pot that you can no longer fold a hand that is almost certainly in bad shape against your opponent’s range. However, most players apply this incorrectly, often justifying calling off the rest of their chips while drawing nearly dead. …
Feeling Pot Committed Read More »
I am frequently amazed at how slowly some poker players play. Assuming you are a winning poker player, you make some amount of equity per hand you are dealt. Let’s assume you make $1 per hand. If you usually know what you will do within a reasonable amount of time, you will make around $30 per hour at the standard live poker table that plays 30 hands per hour. If instead, you take your time on every street and slightly increase your win rate to $1.20 per hand but now play only 20 hands per hour, you will cut your win rate to $24 per hour despite making (hopefully) better decisions. …
This hand came up in a $1,000 World Series of Poker event I last year where I raised to 400 out of my 11,000 effective stack at 100-200-25 from middle position with 9s8s and an older, fairly straightforward guy called in the small blind. The flop came 9h-8d-5d, giving me top two pair. He checked, I bet 700 and he called. The turn was the Kd, making the flush possible. He checked, I bet 1,700, he raised to 3,400 and I called. The river was the 2c. He bet 2,100 and I called.
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Listen to What They are Telling You Read More »
Quite often, when playing the major tournament circuit, you’ll find yourself with no chips at a final table despite recently having a decent shot at a title. When you go from having lots of equity to none, crazy things start happening in your mind. I’m going to let you into my world and enlighten you to what I do to stay sane when things go wrong when there is a lot of money on the line. …
Dealing with Disappointment Read More »
By PokerCoaching.com coach Alex Fitzgerald
I love teaching the everyman how to play poker, because I can identify with them.
Growing up, I loved competition. Unfortunately, competition didn’t love me. I wasn’t athletic enough to excel in sports. I wasn’t intelligent enough to play chess competitively, or to compete within academia. My glacially slow mind wasn’t appropriate for video games. …
The Limitations Of Exploitative Play by Alex FitzgeraldRead More »
The Limitations Of Exploitative Play by Alex Fitzgerald Read More »
One of the first things I tell my new poker students is to not use card protectors, which comes as a shock to some of them. They vividly recall a time when the dealer mistakenly mucked their poker hand, costing them a ton of money, and a card protector would have saved them. While it is obviously a disaster to get your hand mucked, a card protector is not the only solution to protecting your hand. …
Do NOT Use a Card Protector Read More »
While a high amount of your profit, especially in soft or small buy-in tournaments, will come from getting maximum value from your strong hands, occasionally you will need to run a well-timed bluff. I played a hand in the recent $3,500 WPT event at Borgata that illustrates this point. …
Exploit Your Opponent’s Tendencies Read More »
The following hand took place early in Day 1 of the $3,500 buy-in Borgata Poker Open WPT main event. I was pleased to find myself at a table that should have been quite good for me because my opponents were clearly playing in a blatantly straightforward manner. Despite this, I found myself down to 24,000 from my initial 30,000 chip stack, mostly due to making a strong, but second best hands a few times in a row. …
Don’t Be Afraid to Go for Full Value Read More »
I was recently told about, a poker hand from a $1,000 buy-in tournament that illustrates a fundamental mistake that many amateurs are unaware they are making. With blinds at 800/1,600 with a 200 ante, a loose, but straightforward player raised to 4,000 out of his 56,000 effective stack. A tight player called in the cutoff. Our Hero decided to reraise to 14,000 with 9-9. …
3-Betting All-In Preflop Read More »
Learn how to beat small stakes poker cash games and tournaments with these 2 books! These strategies will help you win more hands and make more final tables.