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.
Key Concepts - Last issue, I classified starting hands in pot-limit Omaha (PLO) by hand strength, breaking them down into premium, speculative, marginal, and trash (everything else) categories.
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.
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).
This article will not tell you what is wrong with your game; there are plenty of resources out there to help you with that. This article will suggest ways that you can assess how important leaks are and prioritise accordingly.
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.
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.
“Your upswing was obviously pure luck (variance) and the downswing was obviously mostly caused by terrible play... at least that's the opinion I've been reading in other threads around here.
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.
Bluffing in limit hold’em is an interesting science. In loose games it is usually inadvisable to bluff because your opponents will call down with very marginal holdings.
As I sift through the ITH forums, it seems there is a recurring theme, whereby beginning to intermediate players make play errors due to misunderstanding certain concepts. After a long time noticing this, I thought it was time to compile an explanation for some of the most commonly misunderstood concepts in poker.
When I first started to play internet poker, I headed for the texas holdem tables. One day, while distracted, I accidentally joined a single table Pot Limit Omaha Hi Lo tournament.
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.
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.
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.
Big-blind-versus-small-blind play, small ball, floating, and the bluff-raise - What follows is a special preview from Jeff’s book, Advanced Pot-Limit Omaha Volume II: LAG Play.
Anyway, something that really stood out to me was a subject that had nothing to do with actual trading: most of these rare extremely successful traders (including the ones who had families) were completely immersed in the world of the markets. A lot of them were into currencies or foreign markets and would often be in and out of bed during the middle of the night as they glued themselves to their monitors.
An interesting, complex hand What follows is the first of what likely will be a series of pot-limit Omaha (PLO) practice-hand quizzes, similar to those found in my book, Pot-Limit Omaha Poker: The Big Play Strategy.
We all have an idea of the archetypical bad limit hold’em player or ‘fish’ as they are often called. They are very loose, very passive, chase terrible draws, don’t value bet or protect their hand enough etc.
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”).
Back in the late 90’s, before he became sidetracked with writing songs about Michael Jackson, George Bush and vomit, Eminem released a catchy song entitled ‘Guilty Conscience’. It was a song about the two voices that talk to you, one ‘bad voice’ (played by Eminem) representing temptation to commit crime or do what is wrong and one ‘good voice’ (played by Dr Dre) representing logic, reason and morality.
The possibility of becoming a professional poker player is an alluring one for most players. Let’s face it, who wouldn’t want to sit at home playing poker all day?
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.
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?
The bluff-raise Here are two hands that I played in heads-up post-flop confrontations against my buddy "TT" in my weekly 50¢-$1 ($100 minimum/$200 maximum) pot-limit Omaha (PLO) game on the electronic tables in the poker room at Excalibur in Las Vegas.
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.
