Short Posts

Do NOT Use a Card Protector

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 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. …

My Three Podcasts

I love my students and want to help them as much as I can. To say I put out a lot of content for them is the understatement of the year. Each week I spend numerous hours making podcasts (both in audio and video form). In this blog post, I will explain the differences between the three podcasts. If you do not already, please subscribe and share them with your friends! If you have any comments or ideas for making the podcasts better, please let me know in the comment section below. I am always trying to improve!

 

Weekly Poker Hand was my first podcast started over four years ago. I go through one interesting hand each week and explain my thought process on each betting round. Sometimes I review my hands and other times I review small stakes hands. Starting in episode 200, I started using live footage instead of a replayer. So far, you seem to like that better, so I will keep it up.

(Incorrectly) Folding a Set

I was recently told about a hand played by an amateur player in the middle levels of a $100 buy-in live event. With blinds at 400/800 with a 100 ante, an aggressive player raised to 1,600 out of is 16,000 effective stack from second position. A tight player called on the button. Our Hero looked down at 7c-7s in the small blind and decided to reraise to 5,000. …

Extracting Full Value

I was recently told about a hand from a $240 buy-in live poker tournament that illustrates a key error that many amateur players commit on a regular basis. Early in the tournament with blinds at 100/200 with 15,000 effective stacks, a somewhat tight player limped (called the big blind) from first position, the player in second position called and then our Hero called from middle position with Tc-9s. …

Lucky River with Quads

This hand is from the 2015 $3,500 World Poker Tour event at the Borgata in Atlantic City, New Jersey. We were in the middle of the third day of the five-day competition. The blinds were 4,000/8,000-1,000. I had 450,000 and my opponent, a middle-aged splashy player had 800,000. …

Do Not Slow Play

I recently played an interesting hand in a €2,200 event in Prague that demonstrates a concept you must master if you want to succeed at poker. Up until this hand, my day was going decently well. I had chipped up to 25,000 from my 12,000 starting stack with no significant confrontations. You will find that the biggest winners in tournament poker typically win (steal) lots of small pots that don’t belong to them, and that was exactly what I was doing leading up to this pot. …

Set turned into a bluff catcher

catcher-failI recently witnessed this hand in a $1,000 buy-in even that clearly illustrates a flaw in many amateur players’ poker strategies. With blinds of 200/400 with a 50 ante with 23,000 effective stacks, everyone folded around to the button, a reasonably tight player, who raised to 900. The player in the small blind, we will refer to him as Hero, called with 3c-3s, and the big blind, an unknown player, called as well. …