Some of the most important decisions you will make during a session are made at the outset, before a single card is dealt to you. In this month’s article I am going to look at those decisions and the thought processes you should go through when making them.
I have spent a lot of time in these columns talking about bad beats, downswings and tilt, which are all related to luck, but sometimes it pays to take a step back and look at the more fundamental question. What exactly constitutes luck in poker?
Naked, weak-stab, and semibluff In my last column, I discussed the basics of floating in pot-limit Omaha (PLO) and identified the key indicators - the weak stab, the continuation-bet, and a possible steal bet - that a float may be in order.
Across different poker games, there is one thing that can be counted on: there will be players going on tilt. One often hears hold’em players complaining about losing large pots on the river (“oh man, another suckout, I can’t believe this”).
The only way to make money at poker is through your opponents’ mistakes. Consequently if you make fewer mistakes than your opponents then you will make money in the long term.
Don’t quit school to play poker! - Editor’s note: This column is an edited excerpt from Jeff Hwang’s book, Advanced Pot-Limit Omaha: Small Ball and Short-Handed Play.
When stacks are deep, the drawing hand has all of the power Editor's note: What follows is an edited excerpt from Jeff Hwang's recently released book Pot-Limit Omaha Poker: The Big Play Strategy.
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.
<Randomization is in the cards - What follows is an excerpt from Jeff’s books, Advanced Pot-Limit Omaha Volume II: LAG Play and The Short-Handed Workbook.
Pot-Limit Omaha: FloatingThe key to advanced play Editor's note: The following is a special preview from Jeff Hwang's upcoming book, tentatively titled Pot-Limit Omaha Poker Volume II: Advanced Play.
Pot-limit Omaha players are getting shortchanged - A few issues ago in my column on the bankroll schedule for pot-limit Omaha, I mentioned that while a typical buy-in for no-limit hold'em might be 100 big blinds, in order to be reasonably deep in pot-limit Omaha, you should buy in for more like 150 times the big blind.
At college I played on the football team. Now this isn’t exactly a bragging right in England where football is not nearly as big as it is over in the US, but nevertheless I loved the game and was fairly good at it.
The betting machine - Editor’s note: What follows is an edited excerpt from Jeff Hwang’s book, Advanced Pot-Limit Omaha: Small Ball and Short-Handed Play.
The pot-limit Omaha revolution has begun Toward the end of October, I got a call from Lou White - vice chairman, co-founder, and former CEO of PokerTek, makers of the PokerPro electronic poker table.
The expertise involved with calculating odds, surmising hand strength with incomplete information, negotiating with bluffers, and staying within a bankroll all offer lessons that my daughters will eventually learn to apply to other aspects of their life journeys. In this world, I think those are especially valuable lessons and applications for women to have learned.
In most things in life, there is little danger in being optimistic. In fact studies have shown that optimists tend to be happier and more successful than pessimists.
Every player at some point has the experience of playing with a maniac. Nothing changes a poker game quite as much as a loose aggressive player sitting down and taking charge of the game.
Pot-Limit Omaha Games Seven general guidelines Editor’s note: This column is an edited excerpt from Jeff Hwang’s book, Advanced Pot-Limit Omaha: Small Ball and Short-Handed Play.
Wrap, bare nut straight heads up - It's a 50¢-$1 pot-limit Omaha (PLO) game on the electronic poker tables at Excalibur in Las Vegas, and you are playing heads up.
Big Straight Draws - Before I discuss shorthanded play in a future column, I should first write a bit about big straight draws and the top drawing-hand structures used to flop them.
One of the most important things to keep in mind while playing an R&A tournament is that the first hour offers a very different style of play than just about any other possible Hold ‘em table. Typically, you’ll have a fair share of opponents playing a loose/super-aggressive style (LAGs).
A strong pot-limit Omaha hand - Editor’s note: What follows is an edited excerpt from Jeff Hwang’s book, Advanced Pot-Limit Omaha: Small Ball and Short-Handed Play.
The check-back range and the float - What follows is an excerpt from Jeff’s books, Advanced Pot-Limit Omaha Volume II: LAG Play and The Short-Handed Workbook.
Statistically speaking even if you are a very good poker player, with a huge bankroll, there is a chance that you will eventually run so bad that you will go broke. Unfortunately we can’t eliminate that probability completely but we can reduce it.
So you’ve mastered the basics. You understand the nature of the game, starting hand qualities, the importance of position, how high and low possibilities affect your pot odds, why a dry A2 is not the second coming…etc.
Three-betting after the flop without the nuts This is a hand from the early days of the now-raging $1-$2 blinds, $5 bring-in ($500 max buy-in) game at Harrah's in St.
