Have you ever found that sometimes you start tournaments well and in others you just can't get 'tuned in'? Sometimes you make finals but when the money counts you make mistakes and have difficulty focusing? What should you do about it?

We all know the expression fish by now: the fish, the sucker, your own personal ATM. I keep a word document on my PC, which serves as my fish list – a comprehensive list of all the very poor and very profitable players I have encountered, and who I want to meet again. I will type all the names into whichever site I am playing at the time before I start a cash game to see who is around, and join their table whenever possible.

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.

selected as the Article of the Month, February 2007
The contest articles can also be viewed at the Internet Texas Holdem Forum

Turbos have taken off lately due to their reputation as a quick and exciting way to play tournament poker. In this two-part article, I’ll explain how to adapt your game as you move through the blind levels of a Turbo SNG. The first part will explore early and middle play, and the second part will focus on bubble and heads-up play. My SNG of choice is the Stars NL 2-Table Turbo, so the blind levels illustrated below directly correspond to it.

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.

When in a confrontation, you always have two innate options available to you, which are as old as nature itself: fight or flight. You can choose to stand your ground, or you can retreat. When it comes to No-Limit Texas Holdem, you always have three options available to you: raise, fold, or call. Raising, I would argue, is the same as the aforementioned fighting option, while folding is your chance to retreat from the hand. Calling, on the other hand, does not correlate with either of the laws of the animal kingdom. And if I had a parallel to draw from nature, it would be that of burying your head in the sand.

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.

Congratulations, you have made it to the final table.

Ahhh, I remember my first final table. It lasted all of one hand. I got pocket sevens, went all in under the gun, and got called by Aces. At the time, I was delighted at winning $60. Now, of course, such would not be good enough. Any tournament player should at least be looking towards the final table as their goal whenever they enter an MTT. Merely cashing in a tournament is not worth the time that has been invested in it. With usually about 60 percent of the buy-ins being shared at the final table, simply making it to the final nine will be a financially-rewarding experience. And every player eliminated from that point forward will be shouting “cha-ching!” in his or her head.

I’d like to start my ITH tenure with what will be a lesson in sucking eggs for many of you I am sure…but a nice, simple article to help you guys gets to know me. I heard a quote recently (no idea who said it so if anyone knows could they PM me?). It went something along the lines of: “Whoever invented poker was clever; whoever invented the chip was a genius.”

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.

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.