Do you remember when you started out playing poker and read your first poker book? You were probably very motivated and worked extremely hard on improving your game. At this point in your poker career, learning was essential as the alternative was mostly likely going broke.

So you spent countless hours reading poker books, evaluating hands, and talking about poker with your friends. After a while, you probably became a winning player. A little later you probably started achieving some really good results. It's at this point where many players fail to take their game to the next level. Once you're a winning player, it becomes much easier to sit back and enjoy the fruits of all your labor. The problem with this is that your game can digress and the game can evolve so that you find yourself struggling to maintain the same results you are accustomed to.

Part II - Heads-Up Play

In my last column, I discussed some key hands that I played while winning the PokerStars Nightly Hundred Grand tournament. These tournaments typically attract around 900 players, with first place paying approximately $30,000. This column is going to look at some of the heads-up play, which lasted roughly 50 hands.

I had $820,000 in chips, compared to my opponent's $1,025,000. The blinds were $15,000-$30,000, with a $1,500 ante. My opponent was a rather straightforward, relatively passive player. When heads-up play began, I switched my style by calling a lot preflop rather than raising, as I had been doing earlier. This strategy enabled me to keep the pots small in order to minimize my risk on any given hand.

Part I: A mission to beat 900 players begins

This two-part column will look at some of the more interesting hands I played while winning the PokerStars Nightly Hundred Grand tournament. These tournaments typically attract around 900 players, with first place paying approximately $30,000.

We started out with $2,000 in chips, and the blinds were $10-$20. On the third hand, I was dealt jacks in the big blind. A player in early-middle position raised to $60, and I called. The flop came 9-8-5 rainbow. I checked, my opponent bet $80, and I called. The turn was a deuce and we both checked. The river was a 3, I bet out $225 into a $290 pot, and my opponent folded.

Focus on your poker instincts

Beginning players are afraid to make mistakes because they don't want to look like a beginner. Experienced players are afraid to make mistakes because they also don't want to look like a beginner. It isn't a big leap to say that most players have this fear of making mistakes for one reason or another.

Editor’s Note: This is an excerpt from Chapter 4 of The Poker Mindset: Essential Attitudes for Poker Success, by Ian Taylor and Matthew Hilger..

Some players tend to react very well to losing a big pot (and indeed other adversity in poker), while others tend to react badly.  Experience helps in some regards.  A seasoned pro with years of playing experience will tend to react better than a new player just getting used to the short-term swings.  For most players, learning how to react well to hands that go badly is a journey that lasts a long time.

However, it is a mistake to think that this journey is linear or inevitable.  Some experienced poker players still blow their top when they take a bad beat, while some beginners have an instinctive Zen-like calm in the aftermath of even the most horrific hand.  In fact, it is more useful to think of the journey as a series of four stages, where each stage represents a better response (and a better underlying attitude) than the last. 

A player at stage 1 sees only the monetary value of a pot that he loses.  When he loses a big hand, his initial reaction is to be angry, in the same way that someone who has had his wallet stolen would be angry.

Editor’s Note: This is an excerpt from Chapter 4 of The Poker Mindset: Essential Attitudes for Poker Success, by Ian Taylor and Matthew Hilger.

In my last column we looked at the four stages of tilt, where each stage represents a better response (and a better underlying attitude) than the last.  To recap the four stages:

A player at stage 1 sees only the monetary value of a pot that he loses.  When he loses a big hand, his initial reaction is to be angry

Players at stage 2 have learned to remove the more destructive emotions from their reaction when they lose a big pot.  Losing big pots will still be painful, but this pain manifests itself more as frustration than anger. 

Stage 3 – Acceptance
Players at stage 3 understand and accept the realities of poker.  They understand that the game contains a lot of short-term luck, and as a result they are destined to lose big pots sometimes. 

Stage 4 – Indifference
A player at stage 4 will not register any mental anguish from losing a big pot.  Rather than feeling anger, frustration, or even acceptance of the hand, he will be focused entirely on how his opponents played and what can be learned from the hand.  Whether he won or lost is an irrelevant detail.

To further illustrate the difference between the stages, let’s look at a limit hand example from the point of view of a representative player whom we will call Rick. 

It is that time of year again, as the World Series of Poker is here. I am spending the entire six weeks in Vegas this year, and am excited that I will be able to play more events this year than in the past two years combined. Yes, I'll be working a little on my books, I still have to write my Card Player column, and I'll keep up with all of the projects going on at my website, but for the most part, the WSOP represents that one time of year when I can truly focus most of my energies on playing poker. My goals this year are simple: win a bracelet, improve on my three cashes from last year, and hopefully make the money in the main event for the third year in a row.

Originally Published in Two Plus Two

Hand examples of applying odds and 'douts' when making drawing decisions

A column I wrote a couple of months ago, titled "Outs and Douts," generated a lot of discussion, as I received more e-mail than usual about the topic. Given the interest, this column shows a couple of hands that apply the concept of a "dout," taken from my book Texas Hold'em Odds and Probabilities.

First, let's summarize the main concepts discussed in the aforementioned column. The term "out" is one that creates 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. What you really want to know is the odds against improving to the winning hand.

BY: MATTHEW HILGER PUBLISHED: Wednesday Apr 25, 2007 12:00 AM

It's not an easy question to answer

Why do players go on tilt? This is not an easy question to answer. Every player is different, and will have different reasons why he goes on tilt. A situation that puts one player on tilt may not affect another player at all. But, we can make generalizations about why certain types of tilt are common and what situations might trigger them. To do so, we must peel back a number of layers and look at what influences the way people play poker.

Original Essay
Two Plus Two

by David Sklansky & Alan N. Schoonmaker, Ph.D.

Many people have argued that poker should be considered differently from gambling in general. This argument has been made in discussions of legalization and related topics. Their argument is usually that poker is a skill game, while other gambling games are much less dependent upon skill.

We agree, but believe that they have not gone far enough in explaining many of poker's unique attributes. Poker does not just require skill. It demands and develops many skills and personal qualities which are essential for making all types of decisions, such as choosing a career, investing money, performing a job, and buying a house.1

My new book, Texas Hold'em Odds and Probabilities: Limit, No-Limit, and Tournament Strategies, was released recently, and I think it will help a lot of players in developing a good mathematical understanding of the game. The book does more than just show you how to calculate the odds; more importantly, the focus is on how to apply odds to make better decisions.

The book includes an analysis of an interesting hand that came up in the 2004 Borgata Open between Josh Arieh and Phil Ivey that I thought would be interesting to discuss in this column.

A very popular saying is that Texas Hold’em takes a minute to learn and a lifetime to master. Learning how to play poker and the Texas Hold'em rules is simple but it will take practice and study to become a profitable player.

My book, Internet Texas Hold’em: Winning Strategies from an Internet Pro, and this website ought to help you improve your poker game by grasping the poker rules to become a profitable player of Texas Hold’em.

Texas Holdem is the most popular form of poker played in casinos worldwide and on the Internet. Watching a poker program on television can help you learn how to play poker like the pros but realize that it will take months and years to try and reach their levels. You will enjoy watching poker a lot more with a better understanding of the rules of poker, especially Texas Holdem rules.

There are dozens of poker books on the market that are designed to teach the technical aspects of the game. The technical skills are relatively easy to learn, so why do so many players fail to win money at poker?

Many poker players never achieve their full potential because of a faulty mindset. These players allow roadblocks to halt their progression, not from the lack of a technical understanding of the game, but because they approach poker in the wrong way. In fact, some of these players might have world-class technical skills, but find themselves broke. Achieving a solid technical skill set is really only half the battle to achieving poker success.

If there is one poker trip that every poker player should make, it is to the Aussie Millions, held in the Crown Casino in Melbourne, Australia. This tournament is located in a world-class international city, is run by top-notch poker management, and has the unique Aussie atmosphere, which is friendly, fun, and eccentric.

Very few players succeed in both tournaments and cash games. Generally, you find players who are specialists. Maybe they travel the tournament trail around the country, playing the World Poker Tour and World Series of Poker Tournament Circuit events. Maybe they play sit-and-go tournaments on the Internet all of the time. Maybe they specialize in small-stakes no-limit hold'em cash games. Or, maybe they specialize in online multitable tournaments. Generally, most poker players are specialists.

Every month I divulge some of the strategies that I have learned about this game. This month, I would like to share a secret that most people don't know: I am the luckiest player in poker.

It's true. I can't believe how often I get lucky at the poker table. Just recently I was playing in a tournament against other members of my website, www.InternetTexasHoldem.com. The flop came Jh10h8c. A player bet about two-thirds of the pot and I moved all in with the KhQc. I was rather short-stacked and needed to make a move. The button called, and I instantly knew that I was in trouble. He showed the Ah9h. Not only did he have the best hand, but he also had the best draw. The turn was a 7, giving him a straight. But a 9 hit the river and I had the nuts. I have such great luck! I took that pot and went on to win the tournament.

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.

Many players struggle to distinguish between the situations in which they should attempt to knock out an opponent and those in which they should merely try to accumulate more chips. I found myself in the middle of a scenario during event No. 44 at the World Series of Poker - $1,500 no-limit hold'em - in which several of my opponents thought I had completely lost it.

An interesting scenario arose for me in the $1,500 pot-limit hold'em event at the World Series of Poker. I took down 14th place and a $21,000 payday, but I won't bore you with how the ladies (pocket queens) let me down a couple of times toward the end. This column focuses on a key stage in the tournament when the time clock played an important role in determining my strategy.

Many people like to throw around the term "implied pot odds." The problem is that there is sometimes confusion with the definition. Implied pot odds should include the amount of bets you expect to win from your opponent. Some say, or at least act in such a way, that implied pot odds include the amount of bets you could win from your opponent. Expectation and potential are two very different things. To clarify and to ensure that you have the correct mindset when making strategic decisions, a much better term to use in your poker vocabulary is effective implied pot odds.

Seven Card Stud Poker

Overview

Seven card stud is a variant of poker that was most popular by household games until the recent burst of Texas Hold’em. Two to eight players can play seven card stud.

Play proceeds as follows ("player" refers only to those who have not folded and are still in the game), with betting rounds in-between.

Betting is clockwise, the player with the highest poker hand showing starts (ie 2-2 beats K-Q).

(Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven-card_stud

Useful Links

· Seven Card Stud

· How To Win Seven Card Stud

·Strategy 7 Card Stud

Omaha Poker is a community card poker game similar to Texas Hold’em. Each player is dealt 4 cards and must make the best hand using exactly 2 of them, plus exactly 3 of the community cards.

The difference between Omaha and Texas Hold’em is that the player is dealt 4 cards instead of 2. Also there are variations of Omaha such as “Omaha Hi-Lo” , “Omaha/8” and several other names. However the original Omaha game is named “Omaha High Only.”

History of Texas Holdem
Texas Hold’em is the most popular community card poker game and is the most played poker game in casinos in the United States. It origin is unknown but according to Wikipedia.org, “According to legend, the earliest game played was in Robstown, Texas, in the early 1900s and it first came to Dallas, Texas in 1925.”

After the introduction of lipstick cameras that allowed audience members to see what cards the players at the table had, the popularity of Texas Hold’em skyrocketed. Many events are now showcased on television including the World Series of Poker (WSOP). With the risen popularity of Texas Hold’em, tournaments such as the WSOP raised significantly in entrants. At the 2003 WSOP there were 839 entrants and at the 2005 WSOP there were 5,619 entrants. Along with the excitement, the roller coaster of emotion will help continue to drive to popularity of the game.

There are always two key decisions you must make when taking the initiative in no-limit hold’em while playing a hand. Are you going to play, and if so, how much do you want to bet? The amount of your bet is always very important. If you bet too little with a good hand, you could be inviting your opponent to hit a long shot that might cost you your entire stack. If you bet too much, you might find yourself in a situation in which you are winning only small pots and losing large pots. A key part of the decision in determining how much to bet depends on the pot odds and implied pot odds.

A backdoor draw is one in which you need to hit a card on both the turn and river to improve your hand. For example, you hold the Ac 4c and the flop is Qs 9c 6d. A club on the turn and the river would give you a flush. Backdoor draws are of little value by themselves, as you rarely are getting sufficient implied pot odds to draw solely on the merits of a backdoor draw; however, sometimes they add just enough value to your hand to draw when you have other outs, such as overcards or bottom pair and an overcard. I often hear people at the poker table say, “I had middle pair and a backdoor-flush draw.” Backdoor-flush draws should rarely impact your strategy, yet I frequently hear players talking about them.

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.