Last month, I wrote about some ideas that might help everyone find some valuable (a.k.a. poor) opponents. Since then, I've noticed that some people are pretty interested in what cities/countries have the best and worst players. I'm still remaining non-committal on this though! However, everyone is welcome to write me with their thoughts on this subject. I'm curious to hear what other ITHers think.

So....you've studied ITH thoroughly, read 10 or 15 Sklansky books, and (against your better judgment) watched every episode of "Tilt" twice. You haven't had much of a chance to play for awhile and you're really looking forward to your free time at the tables tonight. You can almost feel the cards in your hands (or on the screen in front of you.) Finally, the evening arrives and it's time to play. You're just going to run to the first table you see, right? Wrong!

The term "out" is one of those words that create a lot of confusion among poker players. And, in many cases, players use a definition that will lead to incorrect decisions. One commonly used definition is that an out is a card that improves one's hand. For example, you might hear a player say that he has nine outs with a flush draw. This is a popular and practical definition - as one can easily count how many cards will improve his hand to a better one. This definition always works well in describing to beginning players the various possibilities in improving their hand. Although practical, this definition tends to give many players false impressions with respect to the strength of their draw.

I read a lot of hand examples and answer a lot of questions in the forum at my website, and there are some common errors that I consistently see. Beginning players, and even some players with a decent amount of experience, have misconceptions on when they should raise and when they should call. In general, a player should raise when he has the best hand. Most players understand this. What they don’t understand is how to define the best hand.

There are certain hold’em situations against unknown opponents in which you can make the same play with a high level of success. One of my favorite plays is a version of a delayed bluff. A delayed bluff is typically defined as calling a bet with the intention of bluffing on a later street. You also can delay a bluff by checking a scary flop with the intention of stealing the pot on the turn.

This is the last article in a series called Top 10 Mistakes of Online Players. The mistakes are not given in any particular order. Most of the mistakes apply to live play also although two or three of them are more applicable to online play. So far we have discussed the following mistakes:

#1: Playing Too Many Starting Hands
#2: Drawing to Outs That Won’t Help You Win
#3: Miscalculating Odds with Two Cards to Come
#4: Calling Raises Too Often on the Turn
#5: Automatically Betting or Raising the River When They Think They Have the Best Hand
#6 Playing at Limits Too High in Relation to Their Bankroll
#7 Not Paying Attention
#8 Bluffing Too Much
#9 Trying to Get Back to Even

This leads us into our next common mistake…

This is the ninth article in a series called Top 10 Mistakes of Online Players. The mistakes are not given in any particular order. Most of the mistakes apply to live play also although two or three of them are more applicable to online play. So far we have discussed the following mistakes:

#1: Playing Too Many Starting Hands
#2: Drawing to Outs That Won’t Help You Win
#3: Miscalculating Odds with Two Cards to Come
#4: Calling Raises Too Often on the Turn
# 5: Automatically Betting or Raising the River When They Think They Have the Best Hand
#6 Playing at Limits Too High in Relation to Their Bankroll
#7 Not Paying Attention
#8 Bluffing Too Much

This leads us into our next common mistake…

This is the seventh article in a series called Top 10 Mistakes of Online Players. The mistakes are not given in any particular order. Most of the mistakes apply to live play also although two or three of them are more applicable to online play. So far we have discussed the following mistakes:

#1: Playing Too Many Starting Hands
#2: Drawing to Outs That Won’t Help You Win
#3: Miscalculating Odds with Two Cards to Come
#4: Calling Raises Too Often on the Turn
#5: Automatically Betting or Raising the River When They Think They Have the Best Hand
#6 Playing at Limits Too High in Relation to Their Bankroll

This leads us into our next common mistake…

This is the eighth article in a series called Top 10 Mistakes of Online Players. The mistakes are not given in any particular order. Most of the mistakes apply to live play also although two or three of them are more applicable to online play. So far we have discussed the following mistakes:

#1: Playing Too Many Starting Hands
#2: Drawing to Outs That Won’t Help You Win
#3: Miscalculating Odds with Two Cards to Come
#4: Calling Raises Too Often on the Turn
#5: Automatically Betting or Raising the River When They Think They Have the Best Hand
#6 Playing at Limits Too High in Relation to Their Bankroll
#7 Not Paying Attention

This leads us into our next common mistake…

The sixth article in a series: Playing at Limits Too High in Relation to Their Bankroll

By Matthew Hilger
All rights reserved

This is the sixth article in a series called Top 10 Mistakes of Online Players. The mistakes are not given in any particular order. Most of the mistakes apply to live play also although two or three of them are most applicable to online play. So far we have discussed the following mistakes:

#1: Playing Too Many Starting Hands and
#2: Drawing To Outs That Won’t Help You Win
#3: Miscalculating Odds with Two Cards to Come
#4: Calling Raises Too Often on the Turn
#5: Automatically Betting or Raising the River When They Think They Have the Best Hand

This leads us into our next common mistake…

The fifth article in a series: Automatically Betting or Raising the River When They Think They Have the Best Hand

This is the fifth article in a series called Top 10 Mistakes of Online Players. The mistakes are not given in any particular order. Most of the mistakes apply to live play also although two or three of them are most applicable to online play. So far we have discussed the following mistakes:

This leads us into our next common mistake…