Some
Beginner Tips from the Pro's - Brought to you by UltimateBet.com
30 Bet Rule...By Annie Duke
When I first started playing poker, my big brother gave me a great piece of advice. He told me to never lose more than 30 big bets in a game, give or take. That means I shouldn't lose more than $180 in a $3-$6 game, $600 in a $10-$20 game and so on. What a great piece of advice that was, one of the most important he ever gave me for money management, so I'm going to pass it on to you here: "Don't ever go off for more than 30 big bets in a poker game!"
When you are first starting out as a poker player it is very difficult to judge whether you are a good player or a bad one. Until you have a lot of experience and table hours under your belt there is no way for you to effectively judge your skill level. More importantly, until you have played a lot of hours it is difficult for you to judge your level of skill compared to the other players at your table. One thing the 30 bet rule does for you is limit your losses in games where you might be the sucker. Until you are able to accurately judge how you play compared to others in your game, loss limiting with the 30 bet rule effectively stops you from dumping off large sums of money in games you may not be able to beat. This is always a good strategy for bankroll health!
Even if you have enough experience and table hours to judge whether you are good, better or worse than the game you have chosen, loss limiting is still a good strategy. When we are losing it is difficult to accurately judge exactly how much losing affects our play. Even great champions will often be in a game they could generally beat soundly but because they are losing. They become a dog to the game and don't realize it. When you are losing, your table image erodes and table image is very important to how much money you can take out of a game. Other players are also more likely to play hands strong and fast against you, bluff at you and generally will be more likely to run you down which will take away your ability to bluff. All of this really eats into your earnings.
Not only will your table image erode when you are losing but your skills will erode as well! As you go into the mindset of wanting to reduce your loss on losing hands you will play hands softer than called for, back off hands, and won't raise when appropriate. And we all know that passive play is a recipe for losing play. Losing generally makes us all more passive. Yet, there are those of us who steam... we chase hands we would normally fold or play hands we would normally never get involved in and the like. Steaming is another recipe for losing.
By limiting your losses to 30 big bets, you are effectively minimizing the time you spend playing with a poor table image, playing passively, or steaming at the table and maximizing the amount of time you spend playing your A-game. If you don't go beyond 30 big bets, you won't dump off large sums when you are playing poorly or are in a bad game and might not be able to soundly assess your circumstances. Loss limiting acts as an objective stop-gap.
So always listen to big brother... keep your losses small!
Poker Philosophy by Russ Hamilton
Pug Pearson, who was inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame in 1982, says that you have to be able to do three things to become a successful poker player:
1. Control your Emotions,
2. Manage Your Money,
3. Know when you have the best of it.
Pug also says that winning at poker is only two things:
1. Make a winning hand pay,
2. Make a losing hand win.
Pretty simple right? So, maybe now you don't need to read any further. Just
go out and win. Well, Pug is right. But, to be really successful you must do
what he says, and that requires many skills: judgment, intuition, determination,
nerve, perseverance, savvy, card sense, experience, instinct, and on and on.
I can tell you how to play various hands in different positions, what the odds are, and how to employ tactics, but the really great poker players have something more. They have something inside themselves. They have a fierce desire to win. The money is always a primary reason, but it's not the only one. Maybe it's the competition or the glory of a championship. For many, it's the respect of their peers and the skill required to get that respect. Whatever the reason, great poker players can put it all together.
There are many pitfalls in poker. It's inevitable that you'll have a big losing streak. Sometime in your career, it will happen. We're not talking about running bad for a few days, we're talking months. How you handle that losing streak may determine your future. I know many great poker players who have crumbled under the pressure of a long stretch of bad luck.
MONEY MANAGEMENT
Annie Duke has written an excellent article about the 30-bet rule. This is great
advice to insure that you don’t lose too much when you are learning. It
will also prevent you from a big loss when you are steaming. But how about when
you are winning? I hate to quit when I’m winning, especially if the game
is good. That's when I’m probably playing my best, and others may be playing
badly. The really great players never hit and run - They always stay for the
kill. Sometimes, I see players quit great games because they have made a small
win. Then they will come back the next day and stay in a bad game because they
are losing. Don’t be the kind of player who wins nine days in a row, then
gets broke on the tenth.
ATTITUDE
If you want to maximize your chances of winning at poker, then you must have
a positive winning attitude. The life of a poker player has many ups and downs.
You have to be able to mentally handle big swings, which are inevitable. If
you have problems at home, then either forget about them while your playing,
or don't play. Be objective, and ask yourself the following questions:
1. Do you complain when you take a bad beat?
2. Do you say, "I'm never lucky"?
3. Do you ridicule bad players when they beat you?
4. Do you take "shots" or shoot "angles"?
5. Do you tell bad beat stories frequently?
6. Are you a jerk at the table?
If you can answer yes to any of the above questions, you are not maximizing
your potential. If you have a negative attitude, then it is impossible to be
focused in a poker game. The only thing a negative attitude will do, is cost
you money.
So, always try to play your best, have a positive attitude, quit bad games when you are losing and playing poorly, and keep playing in good games when you are winning and playing well. This will put you on your way to becoming a great poker player.
We've talked about starting requirements for Texas Hold'em hands with pairs and hands with aces, one of which you're likely to pick up about one time in five, on average. 80% of the time, then, you'll be looking at unpaired, unaced hands. What are you gonna do with them? Let's take a look.
WHEELHOUSE HANDS. In my nomenclature, wheelhouse cards are cards between ten and ace-in most players' wheelhouse, so to speak. A wheelhouse hand, then, is one containing two unpaired, unaced cards: K-Q, K-J, K-T, Q-J, and Q-T. Those are some pretty hands, right?
Erk. Well, maybe.
K-Q probably gets more players into more trouble than any other hand in the history of Texas Hold'em. It flops a top pair, good kicker, only to get crushed by top pair, ace kicker. Remember, most people will play K-Q, but virtually everyone plays A-K and A-Q, so if you get heat in this situation, it's probably from a better hand.
This whole class of hands, though, represents a slippery poker slope. If you can convince yourself that K-Q is playable, how much argument could K-J require? And if K-J is good, what could possibly be wrong with Q-J? Q-T? Before you know it, you're considering any wheelhouse hand to be playable, even for raises.
Again, in all of this I don't put much more value on suited hands than unsuited ones. All "suited" seems to do is beguile the mind, and make us think that our hands are much, much stronger than they are. Remember my rule of thumb: If you wouldn't play it unsuited, don't play it suited either. Speaking of suited...
MIDDLE SUITED CONNECTORS. These hands have value in one particular way: If everyone else is playing wheelhouse hands, and you play something like 9-8 suited, the hand that hits you is unlikely to hit anybody else. So I say, yeah, go ahead and play your middle suited connectors, with the following big caveats:
This last point is crucial. If you can't get away from suited connectors (or any hand) on the flop, you shouldn't play them in the first place. We are our own worst enemy sometimes, and never is this more evident than when we chase, chase, chase with little or no piece of the flop.
Okay, other Texas Hold'em hands.
LITTLE SUITED CONNECTORS. Little poison. Don't play.
UP-DOWNS. An up-down is something like K-6 or Q-5 or J-7. Don't play 'em.
UP-DOWN SUITEDS. Don't play 'em either.
GAPPED HANDS. T-8, 9-7, 8-6, etc. These forlorn ragamuffins are looking to hit the flop twice for two pair, trips or an open-ended straight draw. It's delusional madness. Don't play.
UGGOS. An uggo is an ugly hand with absolutely nothing going for it. 8-3, T-2, 9-4. Don't play. Not ever. I mean, seriously, get real.
Here's the deal with starting requirements: Either you have them or you don't, and either you respect them or you don't. There are plenty of players out there content to play any hand they hold. "Any two will do," they believe, and God love them for their cherished beliefs. Over time, they'll give you all their money... so long as you don't sink to their level.
Every poker hand is a horse race, you know. If every race were equal, everyone would win the same amount over time. But the races aren't equal - not when you have the choice of racing or not racing. When you enter the pot with good cards, it's like starting with a big head start. When you go in with bad cards, it's like starting with a big, fat handicap.
Having - and sticking to - a starting requirements strategy, ensures that you usually start with the lead. Either a big lead, as with big pocket pairs, or a small lead, as with A-big. Start with a hand like 7-6, though, and you're back, back, back in the pack. Yeah, you might win, but you inevitably have some catching up to do, and most of the time you'll finish exactly where you start: behind.
How about skipping that part? If you're not the favorite, scratch yourself from the race! There'll be another one along in a minute.