The button’s stack size is $67 while you have $61 and so both of you are over 100 big blinds deep. Many players call in situations like these but I feel that the correct play is to fold unless you have a very powerful read on your opponent. If your opponent is on a draw then you may only be a very marginal favourite and if they have a pair plus a flush draw then the hand could be very marginal indeed. But you easily be beaten here and beaten badly and this is the real downside to playing on. There is $22 in the pot and it is going to coast you $10.75 to call so your expressed odds are roughly 2/1. This may sound appealing but there are other pressing factors here and one is that you could be risking your entire stack.

The combination of marginal pot odds, being out of position, having a very marginal hand and a high percentage of the stacks still to play makes a fold the best play. These situations are what trap inexperienced players. However in high stakes games or very aggressive games then the picture isn’t quite so straight forward. Middle stakes levels and high stakes levels are full of players who are adjusting and readjusting constantly. This is one of the big differences between middle and high stakes levels and the lower levels. At the lower levels of play then simple solid play often gets the money and simply not making big mistakes will get you a long way.

This is because weak players pass you their money in enough quantity for adjusting and readjusting not to be necessary. You simply play your hands very well and avoid big errors. But at the higher levels of poker then the players are better and so will simply not make the same mistakes that the lower level players make. But in this previous example is one such case in point. If you call then your stronger opponents will be using that as a sign of weakness and attacking you on the turn or value betting you when you are second best. Re-raising is not that attractive either because you are risking a very high percentage of money. So either way then you are in a tough spot and if you are ahead and your opponent is on a draw then your opponent still has very good equity even then.

When a player first comes into the game then they come with almost no knowledge whatsoever. This process doesn’t just apply to poker but all games and sports. A player at the very first level is in this category and we can refer to them as “level one players”. These players are novices but the most unskilled of novice. They make horrible blunders that cost a high number of big blinds and they do this frequently through a chronic lack of knowledge.

It is through a process of experience and education that many players (not all) pass through this level into what I call level two. At this level then some lessons have been learned either through painful experience or reading and learning about the game. At this level then many of the huge blunders are corrected and players begin to learn about position and hand strength. It is also at level two where players begin to tighten up and play far fewer hands. At this level then they are no longer making the same massive errors as before and many players at these levels start becoming tight players and this is especially the case if playing tight fits their personality.

At level three then players tend to become more aware of how rakeback and Sign up bonuses are crucial to making money from the game although some players realise this as early as level one and two. Play becomes far more orthodox at level three although it does often lack creativity and fluidity that players at higher levels have. Good level three players can be long term winning players but they don’t win much because they don’t open their games up enough. However these level three players are solid and difficult to extract money from because they do not make big errors very often.

The coaching sites and information on the internet has led to more and more players reaching this level than ever before. At most half decent levels these days then it is difficult to find players at level one and two in any great frequency. Players at level three are what are known as weak-tight and they have become the new “fish” so to speak. Often though players at this level can be weak-tight but get their overall strategy all wrong and back to front. I know some level three players who go the exact opposite of weak-tight and are what I call weak-aggressive. These are players who understand about the importance of aggression but get it all wrong and bluffing is elevated more than it should be in their overall strategy. The real winners though are at level four and beyond and are players who understand the weaknesses of the players at the lower levels.

For all the talk about the fact that poker online and poker live are the same games with minimal differences at the highest levels I disagree. There are a variety of skill sets that each requires and some of them conflict. Live tournaments and multi-tabling online poker tournaments are two entirely different states of mind and while you can be successful in both, success in one doesn’t guarantee success in the other. I’d argue sometimes it undermines it.

Cash games online vary with real money poker live cash games in similar fashion as the tournaments conflict with one another. If you want to be truly successful in online real money poker games multi-tabling has to become a part of your game, while if you want to be successful playing live poker you have to milk the game for every cent you can while you are there. You have the opportunity for hands so much less often that you can’t afford to not be zoned in.

When I started playing I quickly learned that I processed multiple tables quickly, and my decision making wasn’t hindered that much by shorter times to process information, nor having twenty things going on at once. I grew up excelling at video games, playing strategy games that required keeping track of multiple data at the same time, and sensing vulnerability. When I sit at a live real money poker table there simply aren’t enough stimuli to keep me engaged. I don’t mean that as an insult to live players but it’s simply a realization about me. Cash games online offered all the stimuli I needed, and if they didn’t I added more tables until they did.

So pretty quickly, I learned that casinos were dour places where people slowly played one hand at a time, and live players struggled with decisions online players make in their sleep. Of course, boredom also made me vulnerable and people picked up on information I was displaying without me catching on.
I would feel nervous when running a bluff that I wouldn’t be thinking about online because I’d already be making plays two tables away. The outcome didn’t bother me because the play was correct. So why would I worry it about. Live, you got nothing else to do but self-assess.

For a while, it felt like any competent live player could tell what I was up to and I didn’t like it. So, I hit the online cash games where I don’t lose that edge or more accurately somebody else doesn’t have that edge on me. Next was deciding between real money poker tournaments online and cash games online.
I won’t say that my decision was made when I whiffed in every tournament I had open one day and watched all those buy-ins leave my bankroll without anything returning. I won’t say it because there wasn’t one moment like that; there were a few of them.

When I play real money online cash games, even if I’m running bad at every table, I can always reload.
The finality of a tournament isn’t an issue. I wasn’t discarded to the knocked out list of a tournament with a number corresponding to my spot on the bubble, I was simply opting to start another hand. A player that got lucky on me and sucked out was still going to be around to make the same bad play and not suck out.

Online cash games are not for everyone but they are for me. If you share my viewpoint and aren’t a regular online cash player you should be. If you are good at the game of poker you should start thinking about it devoting all your time to one discipline. Your bankroll will thank you for it—mine has.

I play poker at safe and high traffic sites such as: https://www.bwin.com/texas-holdem-poker. See you there!

So most players and in fact all tournament players are constantly playing in the short to medium stack category. So players who are used to playing tournament poker often then come into cash games without the necessary experience of playing deep stacked. Another factor is that players are simply not that far down their development road and are exhibiting less skill. There is an evolutionary road that you travel down in poker and taking coaching and education is a great way to improve your game.

Another huge factor in why players play hands badly in full ring is that they may be experienced at playing shorter handed games like six max for example. Here the average hand values are substantially different and this can be a huge factor into why players do the things that they do. It is still a fact that many players take their advice and education from what they see on televised tournaments. Everybody is aware of how these programs are highly edited and even when they are not then they still depict final table tournament action.

Even if the action is from a cash game then they are often huge cash games with big named players and huge deep stacks. Let me quote a couple of examples that happened to me recently to show what I mean. It had been folded around to the cut-off who opened for $3 in a NL100 game and the small blind three bet to $12. I was sitting in the big blind with A-A and decided not to slow play and four bet to $46. The original raiser folded and the small blind shoved all in for his remaining stack and I called. I was expecting to see kings or possibly queens but I was shocked to see nothing but an AKs.

This is once again another case of a player overplaying decent second best hands. I actually lost this pot but had a massive 88% equity in the situation. Another situation arrived where I once again had aces and this time I was in a 300 big blind pot pre-flop with two other players’ one of which had QQ while the other amazingly had J9s. I don’t know what the guy with the J9s was doing in the hand but it looked like he started trying to steal and just ended up gambling.

Not many people realise this but winning a lot of money very quickly can end up having a negative effect. Novice players and even intermediate level players are the most vulnerable to this effect because they often do not see poker for what it really is. It is often said that experience is the true education when it comes to poker and not studying. I believe this to be largely true as there are so many factors that you absolutely need to be experienced in to really master the playing side of the game. But not really seeing poker for what it really is can be a huge reason as to why players tilt.

Poker is not a controlled game but a game that you can partly control. It is a bit like being the parent of a child. You can control their behaviour to a certain extent and what they do and how they behave in certain situations but you cannot be behind them all the time and so as a parent then you cannot control how your children behave at all times. Poker is like this and is a partly controlled game where you can control certain things but not others. However there are huge elements of poker that are chaotic and wildly chaotic at that.

It is this part of the game that tilts players but this gets back to what I was saying about the player themselves being their biggest enemy because it is how you react to bad events that is the real issue here. Another huge factor in why some players lose is a temporary loss of focus. This has nothing whatsoever to do with tilt but simply not concentrating. With every lapse of concentration then there is a loss of EV somewhere even though it is impossible to quantify. If it is just a simple one off then the damage is probably nothing to worry about.

However some players have huge issues with concentration and this is especially the case with regards to online poker. It is the mere act of playing poker on a screen instead of playing in a three dimensional live setting that causes this problem.

A flop like that has hit the range of hands that call raises. Any ten or inside straight draw will call you and your equity is quite low in this situation. Let us look at another example and you raise from the cut-off with K-9s and only the big blind calls you. The flop comes Ad-8c-4s and the big blind checks. Here a bet is fairly automatic as you raised pre-flop and so you can represent the ace that arrived on the flop. Also if your opponent calls you on the flop then you can check the turn and take the free card and get to see the river for only one small bet.

The combination of only one opponent and the board texture means that a bet is automatic here. Now let us look at a rather more complex example. Here you raise from the cut-off seat with the Jc-10c and the button and both blinds call you making a four way pot. The flop comes Q-Q-10 and now both blinds check to you. Here you are still correct to bet although if you get check raised then you have somewhat of a problem. If your opponent has a draw then they have at least eight outs against you. If they have a ten with a bigger kicker then you are also in trouble.

If they have a queen then your equity is even less. Despite the fact that you have three opponents and a vulnerable hand then it is still correct to bet this flop. Let us look at another example and you raise from the button with As-2s and both blinds call you. The flop comes K-7-3 rainbow and both opponents check. Here the board is dry but you do have two opponents. This is marginal but I would lean towards betting instead of checking. This is where you are betting through the small blind. When you bet then they have to worry about the big blind after them who could raise.

So if the small blind folds and the big blind also has nothing then they could fold. But here is where you can make a better hand fold because let us say that the big blind has a hand like A-4 and they see you bet. This is going to look difficult for them and they know that if you have paired with a king or a seven or a higher pocket pair then they could be drawing to only three outs to their ace as pairing their four may be no good.

Deciding whether you should try to ladder up depends entirely on your bankroll and how often you find yourself in a situation where you are about to win a handsome amount of money to you. It can be very difficult to play normal poker when you know if you just sit back and wait you could earn more money. This could be any amount of money that means something to you it does not have to be hundreds or thousands of dollars.

A good example of the dilemma was when Craig Marquis had 99 in the final table of the 2008 World Series of Poker Main Event with 9 players remaining. Kelly Kim was short stacked and was going to be forced to go all-in within one or two rounds of poker. Craig decided the right move was to push his stack of around 9 big blinds with a middle sized pocket pair and was called by AJ and eliminated. If he had waited until Kelly Kim had busted, he would have laddered up and earned an extra $400,000 or so. Marquis deserves nothing but praise for his play to win attitude but there will be those that question whether on this one occasion discretion was the better part of valour.

Think about what you would have done facing the same situation. How bad would a bad beat feel at this point if you are knocked out facing 88 or lower and they hit their set? In a spot like this you need to be consciously aware of your preferred strategy for dealing with a potential big win. Do not place in the chat box or proclaim to the table at a live tournament that you are prepared to make big folds or a deal as this makes you look like you are thinking only of the money and this can be exploited by aggressive opponents who realise you are only interested in moving up the ladder rather than trying to outplay them. Phil Ivey has a distinct advantage at the upcoming World Series final table as the money is not a major motivation for him unlike nearly every other member of the November nine.

I think that Laddering up should only be a consideration at the final table. Before that point the equity you earn from the tournament is not enough to keep sneaking into the money then not playing to win. You will bust your bankroll playing tournaments in this way, many players have tried and unfortunately it is not a strategy that works.

You must strike the balance between not making rash plays to take advantage of players playing with “scared money” and avoiding going into your shell and passing on opportunities which could see you make the final three and earn that big payout. In a spot where you can make a real difference to either your bankroll, your life or both depending on your own personal circumstances laddering up can be the right thing to do, just try and play good strategy wherever possible. I would never criticise a player who by laddering up one more spot would mean they are debt free rather than facing years paying off a debt if they make a marginal shove. Try and spot other players in a similar situation who may be trying to ladder up as they are more inclined to fold to a raise in tight spots.

But I have both played in and heard of others playing in some live games that nobody in their right mind would want to sit down in. One of the big differences with regards live games to Online Texas Holdem poker games is that the casinos in question basically do not police the games and many casinos only have cardrooms as a way of getting punters onto their table games in the pit area.

Most casino owners and managers wouldn’t know a poker cheating move if one dropped onto their head and could hardly police the poker games that they have in their clubs. This is normal and is replicated in most casinos and certainly in the UK. But when you have a situation where the actual players themselves are left to police the game, then what happens if most of the line up is involved in a scammed game?

You then have a situation where new players and new faces and especially the new faces basically get calved up for lunch. The new faces lose money and cannot understand why so they are left thinking that they were either unlucky or they are not as good as they think they are.

A few years ago I was aware of a team in England whose leader was dubbed “Dr Death” by a few people. If someone asked me how can you tell that someone is cheating if you cannot see what they are doing then my only answer to that is “because something didn’t feel right”. That is hardly a scientific explanation but it will have to do because that is all that I have.

I know or more to the point knew live games that were crooked and I knew more or less what tactics they were using. But yet in all that, it was still very difficult to actually spot them doing anything and this is how professional cheats operate at poker. The signals and the tactics are subtle but it is a case of “you scratch my back and I will scratch yours” in many instances.

Before anyone jumps on my back here and says that I am claiming that all live games are crooked, simply re-read the article! But when you know full well that numerous live games have been crooked and you have even known the cheats personally in many instances then no one can ever tell me that what I am saying is wrong.

The amazing thing about all this is that many of these players are cheating out of simple necessity and many don’t even believe in their own minds that they are cheating. Many of the tactics that they use are deemed just that….. “tactics” in the minds of many players. In live poker there is no online casino to check the hand histories for you or to police the game.

The online card rooms have far more interest to police their games than live casinos do. Quite often, casino managers don’t even like poker players anyway and especially the types of players who do not get involved in any action in the pit area. So beware the next time you play live and if you are playing live for the first time, better watch your back.

Careful table selection will assist you greatly in making more money than you are presently making. But even that statement is misleading because if a losing player who was say losing at a rate of $10/hour at the level that he was at suddenly reduced that to $3/hour by selecting games against weaker players then he still wouldn’t be making money.

Although saving money is a way of making money I suppose so they are interlinked. There are many techniques with regards table selection that this is really a topic in its own right. For instance I know several serious players who avoid all of the major sites and networks and play only on the smaller sites.

Most serious players dodge the small sites with their clunky software, poor or no rakeback and small player pools. But if you think about this for a minute, the serious players are going to go where the best rakeback is, the bigger player pools and the best software. So what this means is that the best players or the better players tend to congregate together.

Some of the small sites that most players wouldn’t give the time of day to can be very profitable and the fish population can be considerable! Another clever tactic if you are a good player is not to sit at waiting lists but to also start new poker games yourself. If you think about this for a minute then it makes perfect sense to do this.

Firstly if you want to catch a fish then you have to learn how to think like one. Fish don’t have the time or the patience to sit at waiting lists like serious players do. But what you also have to remember is that the players who are on those waiting lists may be using table finder programs so they are more likely to be serious players. Plus whatever weak games there were at the outset will have dried up by the time that you get there so going out and actively finding your own fish is a good tactic.

Most players who attempt to select tables in online Texas Holdem poker use the same methods of looking at the average pot size and also the number of hands per hour. These indicate loose games where lots of players are seeing the flop with marginal hands. This knocks on to the low number of hands per hour as more hands are multi-way and going to the river.

Although with some sites you have to be careful with these statistics as they alter after every few hands so you can get a very skewed picture of what game you are about to play in.

Another factor to look for if you are a good player is the stack sizes of your opponents. While this isn’t always a strong indicator of skill, it is an indicator of many things including the amount of money on the table that you can possibly win and the tactics that you will be able to use. If say you are looking to play at NL50 and you have two tables each with $290 in total cash on the table.

One table has five players with $50 stacks and the remaining four have $10 minimum stacks. The other table however has seven players with $30 stacks and two players with $40 stacks. The latter table will be by far the most profitable table of the two on average. Strong players tend not to let their stacks dwindle like this below the maximum so seeing nine players all of which have stacks that are substantially lower than the $50 buy-in indicates a potentially good game.

Faster Game
The first thing you will notice about a 6 player poker tournament is the speed of the game. By nature poker is usually played at tables of 8 or 9 players. This is considered the normal makeup of the game and the speed of the game is reflected in this configuration. However, when the table has only six players the dynamics of the game change considerably. With only 6 players at the poker table you immediately feel a sense of urgency due to the blinds crashing down on you even faster. What used to be one orbit is not two-thirds of an orbit before the blinds hit you again. Depending on how many chips you start with this can affect your approach considerably. Also, when you are sitting with skilled players you will see more attempts at stealing the blinds for the same reasons. Taking a survival approach will end in an untimely and fast poker death.
The Aggression Factor
If you are going to play six-handed you must adopt a more aggressive approach to the game for your own good. The fact of the matter is that you cannot sit around folding hand after hand and expect to prosper at a six handed table. You will be eaten alive by both the players and the blinds. Any show of weakness in the face of raises or flat out blind stealing will be duly noted by your opponents. This means your hand selection has to be broader than normal. The [K][Q] that you would have folded in early position in a full ring is now a playable hand. The [J][T] you would likely fold to a raise is not as bad a hand as it may seem and may be playable depending on the situation and number of players involved in the pot pre-flop. All of these kinds of things are more reason to take a more aggressive approach with those speculative hands. They are also more likely to pay off when the flop hits you too. Remember, everyone is in the same boat in a six-handed game as the sense of urgency exists for everyone.

Countering Aggression
Just as you must increase your aggression when playing at short-handed tables you also must be capable of countering that same aggression. Don’t think that you are the only player at the table that knows they have to become more aggressive. On the contrary, these days’ players have access to the same knowledge both online and in print and video. That means you need to know how to deal with that knowledge when it is applied against you. For me counter aggression means re-raising when you are confident a person is on a blind steal. It also means re-raising with hands like [A][9], [A][T] and [A][J]. You may not win every single hand or pot. However, you will be sending a clear message to your opponents that you are not afraid to mix it up when the situation dictates.
Short-handed play makes you a better player overall. We all need to continue improving our short-handed play. Remember, every final table you make will eventually play out as a short-handed table. Will you be ready?