AA/JJ

When you’re dealt a premium pocket pair you have struck a nice hand, but it doesn’t mean you are going to win the hand. I also suggest raising the pot 3-4X the big blind when you have a big pocket pair like this so you can get all of the marginal hands to fold. You might find that someone will reraise you even and then you’ll need to decide whether or not to go all-in. Getting your money in early with high pocket pairs is ideal because you don’t want to allow suited connectors the chance to hit a straight or flush. Sometimes raising the pot preflop will payoff and other times everyone might fold, but it’s better then not raising and losing to a low straight or two pair.

1010/77

When you have a medium sized pocket pair you could raise the pot or you could just limp in to see what the flop brings. If the flop is all under cards or you hit trips then you can begin betting at the pot, and if not then you can just fold. These pairs are beaten a lot on Full Tilt Poker, but if you get in the pot cheap it’s worth checking out a flop to see if you can win the pot. If you did limp preflop and the flop is three under cards you can’t feel overly safe about the hand still because often when the pot isn’t raised preflop players will limp with any two cards. You’ll need to watch out for two pairs and low straights at this point.

66/22

Low pocket pairs usually equates to trouble a lot more then it will win you a hand so don’t become overconfident with a small pocket pair. Typically it’s worth limping into the pot with a low pocket pair in case you hit your set, but if the pot is raised preflop then I would think twice about calling because after the flop if you don’t hit your set you’re usually lost in the hand. Any over cards can easily beat your low pair so don’t bet these too strongly when you have them and wait for better hands with better options.

As you can see your strategy is going to change based on how premium your pocket pair is and if it is a low pocket pair you should think about folding in some cases. Not all pocket pairs should be an automatic starting hand and it should depend on if the pot is raised or not as well as what opponents are in the hand. If there are a couple loose players in the pot then you could flat call to try and trap them, but even with a low pocket pair you can easily lose after the flop and you don’t just want to throw money away.

* Johnny Moss isn’t known by that many people, but he is one of the best poker players to ever play the game. Moss won the very first World Series of Poker Main Event in 1970. He also won the WSOP Main Event in 1971 and 1974 which is very impressive. Back then the events were really small and nothing like today and that is part of the reason why nobody mentions Johnny Moss.

* Phil Hellmuth is arguably the most popular poker player in the world. You either love him or you hate him, but almost everyone that has played poker has heard of Hellmuth. He has managed to win 11 WSOP Bracelets throughout his career thus far and he continues to play in all of the major poker tournaments. A lot of people don’t agree with his behaviour and many poker players hate him, but it’s hard to deny that he is one of the better players in the world.

* Phil Ivey has been playing poker since he was a teenager and he has never had to hold a real job because of his skills on the poker tables. He loves to gamble on just about anything possible and he has once gambled $200K on a coin toss with another poker player. Ivey continues to prove he is one of the best poker players in the world and he will be looking to win a Main Event Bracelet in 2009 as he has made the final table.

* Doyle Brunson is another poker player that basically everyone has heard of before. Brunson has won 10 WSOP Bracelets in his career and he has been around since the very beginning of the WSOP. Before the WSOP, Doyle use to travel the USA looking for underground poker rooms where he could play. He continues to play poker despite his age and the game has basically become his life. He is one of the early ambassadors of the game and he deserves all the credit he receives. He also owns a poker room named Doyles Room which is pretty popular right now and a great place to play some online poker.

There is no shortage of famous poker players and there are new superstars appearing in the poker world every year. The game continues to grow in many parts of the world and despite some problems with the legalities of playing the game I suspect the game to keep growing. It’s a great game to learn how to play and once you become good it can be a great game to make some extra income from.

Example #1

Your Hand – Ace of Hearts & King of Hearts

The Board – Ten of Hearts, Four of Hearts & Two of Spades

In the above example you haven’t hit anything yet, but you have the nut flush draw. In order to calculate your pot odds in this hand you need to do several things. The first thing you need to do is find out how many outs you have. In the above example you can hit any heart to hit your flush which means you have 9 possible outs in the hand out of 47 cards. Since you need to do the math quickly you won’t be able to find out the exact percentage you have to hit the flush, but you can quickly determine you have about a 20% chance of hitting the flush.

The next thing you need to do is find out how much money is in the pot and how much the bet is to you. If the pot has $100 and your opponent bet $10 then the total amount of money in the pot is $110. Since you only need to call $10 you need about a 10% chance of hitting your draw to make it worth calling the bet. Since you have about a 20% chance of hitting the flush you should definitely call the bet.

Example #2

Your Hand – King of Hearts & Ten of Spades

The Board – Queen of Diamonds, Jack of Hearts & Four of Clubs

In the above example you have an open ended straight draw that you could hit if an ace or a nine comes up. This means that you have 8 possible outs in the hand out of 47 cards. In this example you have about a 17% chance of hitting your straight after you do the calculations listed in the first example. If the pot has $60 and your opponent bets $20 into the pot there would be a total of $80 in the pot. Since you need to call $20 you would need a 25% chance of hitting your draw to make the call worthwhile. Since you only have a 17% chance to hit the straight you aren’t getting the pot odds to make the call. You could make the call if you’re feeling lucky, but based on the math you’re going to lose money over the long-term by making this type of call.

The first thing you need to do is register a poker account with the poker rooms you want to play with. If you don’t know where you should play I would recommend playing in the poker rooms that are offering the most freeroll tournaments for their new players. Some poker rooms have freeroll tournaments on a daily basis whereas other poker rooms might only have one big freeroll tournament every month. You’ll obviously want to find the poker rooms that offer daily freeroll tournaments. You also want to try and play in the smaller poker rooms so that there aren’t as many opponents in the freeroll tournaments as there would be with a big poker room.

In a freeroll tournament you generally only make money if you finish in the top 10 positions or so. With thousands of players participating in most freeroll tournaments you’re really going to need to have a great tournament to win some money. These types of tournaments take awhile to play so make sure you have a lot of time since you’re going to need it. Once you manage to win some money in a freeroll tournament it will be credited to your account. You will often need to use the money to play some poker on the real money tables until you can withdraw the money. If this is the case I would recommend playing in some small sit and go tournaments for real money.

Sit and go tournaments have anywhere from 2-180 players although you should try and stick with the 9-10 player ones. If you can win a few of these tournaments and build your bankroll up to $50-$100 you should be able to withdraw the money at this point. You need to make sure you don’t get greedy when you play for real money because you can lose the money just as quick or quicker then you won it. If you can build up small $50-$100 bankrolls on several poker rooms and withdraw the money you’ll end up having $300-$500. From there you can deposit the money onto the poker room you want to stick with.

You will still have a small bankroll, but all of the money was free it didn’t cost you anything except time. Once you deposit your bankroll onto the poker room of your choice you need to make sure you manage your bankroll strictly in the early stages. The last thing you want to do is lose all of the money in one night since that will force you to go back to the freeroll tournaments until you build up your bankroll again.

You can play Holdem with 2-10 players. For the first hand you need to determine who will deal and place the dealer button in front of that player. The dealer button will move to the left after every hand so that everyone will deal an equal amount of times throughout your game. The player to the left of the dealer needs to put in a small blind and the player to the left of the small blind needs to put in the big blind. The small blind and big blind are both forced bets which you need to make so that there are always chips in every pot.

Once the small blind and big blind are in the pot the dealer for the hand can deal out two cards to each player on the table. The player to the left of the big blind is the first player to act after the deal. Each player needs to decide whether they want to check, bet or fold. If nobody has made a bet then you should check and not fold since checking doesn’t cost you any chips. In a NL game you can re-raise opponents as many times as you want and for as many chips as you would like.

After everyone has checked, folded or called any bets out there the dealer should flip over the flop. The first thing you need to do is burn a card and put it in the muck. Then flip over the next three cards. These three cards are known as the flop. There is another betting round at this point and then the dealer will turn over the turn card after burning another card. The players left in the pot at this point bet again and then the dealer burns one more card and then flips over the river card. There is a final round of betting after the river card and then the players left in the hand move to the showdown.

The showdown is where all of the players left in the hand flip over their hands to see who wins the money. Make sure you learn the hand rankings before you try playing the game so that you don’t lose when you should actually win the hand. After the winner of the hand has been determined and the chips have been sent over to the winner the dealer can move the dealer button one spot to the left. The two players to the left of the dealer button need to put out the two blinds again and then you can start a new hand.

The reason why you need to make sure that all of the tables you’re playing are the same stake is so that you don’t make any mistakes. Often players will have a different game plan and strategy based on the stakes that they are playing. To keep everything simple you should just make sure all of the tables are the same stakes. You also need to make sure you find a poker room that will allow you to play the amount of tables you want. Some poker rooms only allow you to multi-table up to 3-4 tables whereas others allow you to multi-table 10+ tables.

The ideal set-up for an online poker player that will multi-table regularly is a dual monitor set-up so that you can have all of the tables a nice size that is clear. When you’re playing on a laptop or a small monitor you’ll find that the tables need to be really small and it makes it difficult to see your cards, the board and how many chips have been bet. Having dual monitors isn’t really an expensive investment and it could save you from making silly mistakes due to not being able to see something.

When you multi-table you’re going to need to be more focused then you typically are when you’re playing a single table. If you usually watch TV or something else while playing online poker you won’t be able to when you’re multi-tabling. You’ll typically always be in at least one hand when you multi-table and this will mean you need to be focused on your computer screen the entire time. This leads me to my next point which is that you need to take a lot of scheduled breaks when you multi-table. I recommend taking a small 5-10 minute break every hour when you play so that you can rest your eyes a little bit and clear your thoughts.

The benefits of multi-table are huge and it’s why many poker players move from playing casually to playing on a more regular basis. The amount of money you can make is really good and by multi-tabling you can simply wait for your good hands. You’ll also find that you will earn a lot of comp points with your online poker room and in most poker rooms comp points basically equate to real money. Comp points aren’t based on whether you win or lose either so you’ll always earn the extra points which could help turn a bad week into an alright week.

Let’s take a look at playing the early position first. In the early position you really need to be cautious with how strong you play certain hands. You’ll be able to play your premium hands as strong as you would like, but hands such as A-10, A-J and K-Q suited will need to be played more cautiously. Since you’re in an early position and you need to act before most of the other players on the table you don’t want to commit to many of your chips on a hand you’re not willing to go all-in with. Since you haven’t been able to see how most of the other players have acted yet in the hand you won’t have any idea how strong your hand is.

When you’re in middle position you get to see how some of the table acts before you need to act, but you still need to worry about the players in late position. Preflop you should play your hand slowly unless it’s a premium hand. After the flop you’ll need to re-evaluate your position in the hand. If most of the late positioned players folded then you might now be in late position after the flop.

Late position is the best position that you can have on the poker table when you’re playing Texas Holdem. When you’re playing preflop you’ll be able to see how everyone else acts before you which is a huge advantage. If players limp into the pot you could possibly raise it up and get everyone to fold. You can also limp into the pot yourself with a marginal hand if everyone has limped into the pot before you. You want to try and see a lot of cheap flops when you’re in late position. After the flop you’ll have an advantage over your opponent because they need to decide whether to check or bet into you. If they check they typically are showing weakness and you can steal the pot regardless of what you have. Sometimes players will check when they have a monster hand though, so make sure you don’t over bet the pot when you try stealing it.

When you analyze your game you should notice that you’re playing more hands in late position. If you aren’t currently then you need to change how you’re playing. You’re either playing too many hands in early or middle position when it’s less then ideal to be playing hands or you’re not playing enough small pots in late position. When you’re in late position and limping into a pot you can open up your range to basically any pocket pair, suited connector, suited cards and connected cards. If you don’t hit on the flop then you can simply fold your hand and it only cost you the BB.

* If you play at one land based casino or poker room such as the Bellagio only then you won’t need to keep track of where you play every session. If you have been playing poker in different live locations then I recommend keeping track of where you played each session. The reason is so that you can find out where you’re winning money and where you’re losing money.

* The most important stat that you need to record is how much you won or lost during your session. Make sure you always write down exactly how much you won or lost so that the results are exact. When you look back on them you want to make sure the records are correct or else you won’t be able to improve your game where need be.

* You should keep a record of how long your session was as well so that you can figure out how much you won or lost per hour. If you lose $50 in two hours that is a lot different then losing $50 in 10 minutes so it’s important you keep the time. Sometimes you’re not going to hit many hands during a session and if you can keep your stack around even for the day then you’re doing fine. You need to be patient in poker when you’re trying to make a lot of money because once you start rushing you’ll often start losing.

* The last two things that you need to record in a notebook or on your computer after each live session you play is what poker game you played and what limits you played at. If you played in any tournaments then you should keep these records separate from your cash game records. Of course if you only play one poker game and/or the same limits every time you go the casino you won’t need to keep a record of these stats.

By keeping records of the following data above you’ll be able to look back on your live sessions to see where you can fix your game. Every poker player has some part of their game that they can improve so there is no reason why you shouldn’t keep records of your sessions. I guarantee if you keep track of sessions and then spend the time analyzing them you’ll become a better poker player then you currently are right now.

Bluffing

Generally you should be bluffing a lot less then you semi-bluff when you play poker. A bluff is when you bet at the pot in hopes of taking it down right then and there. The reason you want to take the hand down right away is because you have absolutely nothing in your hand and no hope of making a better hand. You don’t want to bluff that often simply because of the fact that once your opponent’s catch on too what you’re doing you’ll end up getting caught. It only takes one or two bluffs where you get caught to make you have a horrible day at the poker tables so make sure you’re careful about picking your spots wisely when bluffing.

Semi-Bluffing

A semi-bluff is when you make a bet at the pot with nothing in hopes of taking the pot down just like on a normal bluff. The difference between the two of the bluffs though, is that when you semi-bluff you have a draw. For instance, a semi-bluff would be when you bet on the turn with a flush draw. You currently would have nothing in the hand, but if you hit your draw then you will most likely have the best hand. Semi-bluffing will get you in a lot less trouble then bluffing as long as you remain cautious. You don’t want to semi-bluff a pot when the other player’s have been betting the pot simply because they could come over the top of you. The last thing that you want to do when you’re semi-bluffing a draw is have someone come over the top of you.

As you can see there is only a slight difference between the two bluffs, but it’s important that you know the difference. Remember that bluffing shouldn’t be a regular play on your part. If you find yourself bluffing the other players and getting caught with your bluffs then you should try spacing them out more. Typically the reason you get caught bluffing is because the other player’s have picked up on what you’ve been doing. This is only a small part of playing poker and you need to know a lot more then just bluffing, but it’s a nice skill to learn and will definitely come in handy down the road when you’re playing poker.

Currently you’re going to find quite a few casual players that play Seven Game Poker and this is simply because it’s a new game on Full Tilt Poker. In most mixed games you can expect to play very tough competition, but when a new game is released in the poker world it also attracts the fish. Before you can create a game plan for playing this poker game you’re going to need to learn the seven games involved in this poker variant. We’re going to list each of the seven games you need to learn to play in Seven Game Poker.

* Fixed Limit Holdem
* Fixed Limit Seven Card Stud Hi/Lo
* Fixed Limit Razz
* Fixed Limit Omaha Hi/Lo
* Fixed Limit Seven Card Stud
* No Limit Texas Holdem
* Pot Limit Omaha

As you can see the games that you need to play in Seven Game Poker are the basic games for the most part. Both Holdem and Omaha are popular poker games and if you don’t already know how to play them they are really simple. Razz and Seven Card Stud are both less popular poker games so it’s likely you don’t know how to play these poker games yet. If you don’t know how to play these poker games then the first thing you need to do is learn the rules of each game.

Once you learn the rules for each game you can begin working out your Seven Game Poker strategy. Ideally you want to focus on your strengths and avoid your weaknesses the best you possibly can. If you’re a good Holdem player, but you have yet to master Omaha then you want to focus on playing more Holdem hands. You need to also keep in mind that you’re most likely not going to be the only player on the table with weaknesses. Most of your competition will also have weaknesses and a part of your job is to make sure that you find out what your opponent’s weaknesses are.

If you can find out what games your opponent’s are weak in you will be able to steal a lot of pots from them. In the low limit Seven Game Poker tables you should find a mix of decent players and bad players. As you move up limits you should expect the competition to become better. I wouldn’t play anything over $1/$2 until you’ve been able to master each of the seven poker games that you need to play. By playing high limit mixed poker when you’re not a stellar player in each of the games you’ll be playing you’re basically giving away money.

Instead of playing a one-table tournament like in a regular Sit and Go, a player will play on 4 tables simultaneously during a matrix sit and go. The only catch is that on all four tables, all of the players will be the same. Nine players are playing four sit and gos with the same players.

The real key difference lies in how players win money. Like a regular sit and go, the top 3 players from each table are paid. However, in Matrix Sit and Gos, there is also a collective prize pool where the top 3 players overall are paid. Although this may seem like a small difference, strategy adjustments should be made to account for this.

Players receive points depending on how they finish in each individual table. After all 4 tables are done, the 3 players with the most points receive additional money from the collective prize pool. Therefore, at certain times, folding up a few spots can give a player much more equity then in a normal sit and go. Here are some strategy adjustments to thinks about when playing in a matrix sit and go.

Strategy

The key goal of a matrix sit and go is not only make money on each of the 4 individual tables, but also to be one of the three overall best players. A player must always keep in mind how he is ranking compared to the overall field on all four tables combined. A player has extra money riding on higher finishes.

For example, imagine a player has 3 of 4 tables completed. Respectively, he finished second on one table, ninth on another table, and third on another table. He is sitting at the last of the 4 tables short stacked and there are 6 players left. This player knows that if he finishes this last table in at least fifth place – he will be one of the top 3 overall players.

Because of this fact, the player is actually correct to fold until one other player busts. Making a move immediately would not only influence equity on the individual table, but also affect his overall equity. The extra chips he gains would not be worth all the equity he is risking by busting before fifth place.

If you’re playing regular sit and go tournaments at FullTilt then the blinds will typically go up every fifteen minutes and if you play turbo tournaments the blinds will go up every five minutes. Based on how you like the blind structure you’ll need to decide which tournament structure is best for you. You’ll also generally start with 1500 chips in a single table tournament which isn’t much when the blinds are going up.

In the early stages of a sit and go tournament you’re going to want to try and remain patient, but at the same time look for a hand that you could possibly double up on. It’s important not to sit to tight when you’re playing in these tournaments because eventually the blinds will eat you up. When you have a good hand you can’t be scared by any big bets because often other players will bet with nothing in these tournaments. Since it isn’t a cash game most players are a lot looser then they would generally be at a cash game and you can’t fold decent hands just because there is a big bet.

When the blinds go up and you reach the middle of the poker tournament the action generally starts to slow down a bit because not the remaining players are more situated. Typically the player with the most chips will begin bullying the table somewhat until another player gets a good hand and decides to make a stand. You’ll want to play tight when you get to the middle of the tournament because your opponent is much less likely to be bluffing at this stage compared to the beginning of the tournament. As the tournament gets down to 4-5 players its crunch time and you need to make sure you make it to the final three so you make money. You will want to play tight if you’re in the middle of the pack and wait for an opponent to get knocked out or until you get a monster hand. If you have a good chip lead you could try bullying the PokerStars table and if you’re the low stack you’ll need to try doubling up once you get a marginal hand.

Once you make it to the final three you should continue playing the way you feel comfortable and work on winning first place. The PokerStars.com action usually becomes loose and you’ll often see a lot of all-ins when there is only three of you because most people don’t care as much once they’re guaranteed money. Single table tournaments are a great way to build your bankroll without spending to much of your own money to fund yourself.