Tag Archives: holdem

Common Holdem Mistakes

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Playing Holdem last evening, I realized, as I do every session, how bad most people play at low limit Holdem. It never ceases to amaze me how people will go without to scrape together enough money to sit down to play a few hours of poker, and almost literally throw their money away.

What is even worse or better depending on your viewpoint is everything they do is mentioned over and over in almost any poker book you pick up off the shelf. Yet many players appear to think they have an immunity, or it does not apply to them.

I thought I would mention three of the major absolutely silly errors I watch Holdem players make hand after hand, session after session, year after year. Even if no one has even read a Holdem book, or played Holdem anywhere but the kitchen table, they have seen others commit these same errors frequently.

First and foremost for throwing your away money department is the weak ace. A weak Ace is an Ace with any other card in your starting hand that does not help your hand such as A, 6 off suit. While the Ace itself is a powerful card in Holdem, one lone Ace is not going to win any pots.

It is almost a given in any round of play, someone is calling a bet with an Ace and any second card. What happens when an Ace shows up on the flop? Everyone who is breathing and does not hold an Ace checks. The person holding that lone naked Ace is feeling pretty tough because they hold the Ace, so they bet out.

In a typical low limit game almost everyone of course calls that bet. On the turn someone will bet out, but the lone Ace player has already been stacking chips in their mind, and they convince themselves the bet or raise is a weak attempt to push them off of ‘their pot’. They usually always call. The river arrives, and the lone Ace is still there only to be shown a two pairs hand or better, or Ace with a bigger second card.

Jackson Five

Jackson Five

Blinds are another big chip loser. No matter how you play your blinds, over the long haul they are not a good spot to willingly be throwing more chips into the pot. Holdem players being optimists when it comes to their blinds have invented cute sayings of why it is okay to complete a small blind bet, or call a raise in the big blind.

How many times a session do you hear, “I am calling because of the half in rule”? How about, “I can call a raise because of pot odds.” When your hand is not good enough to call a bet from any other position it certainly is not any better because you are in a blind.

Speaking of pot odds, how many Holdem players are playing absolute junk because they have three players in the pot before them, and they know at least one more will call after them? Playing junk cards even if you are ‘changing gears’ in general, is a terrible idea.

Most of the table has no idea what gear you were in to start with, so changing gears does not matter one iota. I watched a player recently win five out of six hands and never looked at his hand until the river. Hardly no one is paying attention to you and your play.

Fortunately for those few players at the table trying to learn the game and play well, these players making these same plays hand after hand, week after week are the players who keep the game going. While it is easy to look down on their poor play, and become angry enough to make some rude comment when their Q, 2 off suit drags in your pot because your pair of Aces did not get any help, remember they keep the game going.

Truth is, these players are not as stupid as many players like to believe. If they were that stupid they would not have the excess cash to play Holdem in a Card room to start with. Not every on sits down at a poker table to win money. Many players sit down to have fun knowing they are going to lose their buy in. Some want to take one or two pots away from you with terrible cards.

If all Holdem players did come to play good solid poker, your opportunity to sit down almost any hour of the night or day would be gone. One final poker truth for this post: You could print this out and give out copies at the table where you sit down, and all players will try to play correctly for about twenty minutes or so, then it is back to business as usual.

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Holdem Bets are Only A Few Dollars

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The Education Of A Poker Player by Herbert Yardley, is an old book, now available in pdf format for anyone who wants to search it out and read it. Yardley as I remember, looks at poker for what it really is, a way to part people from their money. Low Limit Holdem poker does this very well to a surprising number of people.

A common mistake in low limit Holdem poker game whether live or online, is confusing the amount of the stakes with the game level. Holdem poker is structured in some form of small bet, big bet structure. When the stakes are low to play, it is easy to think, it is only: fill in whatever level you think of as small here – and either put out our chips or click the bet/call/raise button. Yardley would jumping with joy over your thinking, as that is one of the building blocks of his book as I remember it. Yardley promotes manipulating players to become comfortable losing.

There are differences in levels of poker games. Whether the game is online for pennies, the “Big Game” for $200 $400 blinds, or the World Series Of Poker, parts of the game are consistent across all levels. The cards are the same, and the structure is the same, and the rewards are the same.

poker roomDefining the level of acceptable risk is different at different levels. In a small stakes game, it is not uncommon to watch a player burn through one to two hundred dollars a week, week after week, because they are having a great time. As the stakes go higher, money becomes more important, and players care more about their win and loss rate than about enjoyment. Having fun takes place away from the poker table in big money games.

There are bets that can made in the stock market commonly called puts and takes. Newspapers and financial source on the net list them. Puts and Takes are bets on the movement of the stock market as a whole or certain broad categories of the Stock market. It may have changed now, but it used to be possible to bet on the movement of the S & P 500 for as little as sixteen dollars.

In the world of companies and stock, sixteen dollars is a tiny sum. Almost everyone could afford to lose sixteen dollars. Almost everyone does lose some increment of sixteen dollars bets on the stock market each betting period.

One thing I found interesting about options the on the S & P 500 is generally the majority is wrong when they make their decisions about where the stock market is headed. Options are one place where a contrarian investor, ie gambler can make their mark.

The same rules apply to the Holdem poker table. If you treat your bets as bets, and not pocket change, or a few dollars, and you manage your play contrary to the majority of the players at your table, you can not help but be a winner.

Yardley treated his poker games that way in his book. While the people he rounded up to play in his games thought they were only losing a few dollars a session which was more than offset by entertainment and bravado, Yardley was at the poker table to take their money, not give his money away.

Anyone who plays in the stock market, goes to a poker room, or online poker site should know exactly why they are there. Reasons range from entertainment, bragging rights, or gambling, to actually making a profit. Most people do not gamble in the stock market or Holdem poker table to make money. If they did, they would not be throwing their money away on bad bets, and loose calls.

After you have decided why you play Holdem poker and decide the major reason is to make money, think more like contrarian and less like the majority of people sitting at the table with you. As you play, you may pretend you are Herbert Yardley reinvented, and focus on betting structure and profit, and not dollar value.

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Holdem Hands and Holdem Duds

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One talked about hand play away from the Holdem table is the number of people who believe they need to play poor quality hands to show the table they are not as good players for deception. There are two common responses when this topic of playing poor quality hands come up.

One common response is, “The people you are playing with will not notice, so why bother.” This is true for a couple of reasons. In many Holdem games, especially games where no one is trying to make a living playing poker, the range of hands everyone plays is one of the last things players pay attention to.

The second response is generally, “Players are so clueless they will not know you played a bad hand, they will only know you won the hand.” This response is also true. The average Holdem player knows there is only a narrow range of good starting hands, but they are there to have fun and gamble. Playing good Holdem is not fun.

Bad handAt an average Holdem table few players would notice if you left and a complete stranger sat down in your place. The dealer would notice of course, but that is another matter. Playing bad hands to show off how loose you can be needs to be weighed against another more important consideration.

If you play Holdem live, it is likely that the people you play against are regular players, and generally know what your range of hands is. One poor quality hand is not going to change their opinion of you if you are a tight player. If you play on line, stats do not lie.

A good reason not to play bad hands is the chip drain on your stack. Any two cards be played Preflop, sometimes for a minimal investment, most times not. The idea is to play a bad hand to the river to be seen by the rest of the players. Getting a poor hand to the river is expensive when you add up all the costs.

Playing bad cards to the river is usually done with the expectation of winning the hand, and dragging in the pot. The possibility of playing one bad hand to the river and winning is slight, and the chip bleed is expensive. Adding the Preflop, Flop, Turn, and River Bets is three Big Bets to the river if no one raises. Three Big Bets if there are no raises to be able to lay down bad cards for anyone watching to see.

That is the cost for one attempt. The hidden cost of bad hands is getting them to the river cheaply. Then there is the flop problem. No one is going to continue playing a bad hand such as 6,2 off suit when the flop is T,J,A. One Preflop bet may not seem like much the cost adds up quickly as you repeat the process trying to get a flop to fit your bad hand.

The cost of playing one single bad hand to the river is about an hours profit for a good player in a live Holdem game. Because it will normally takes more than one try to get ot the river, a good session can quickly change into a losing session by trying to show the table how bad you play.

If you feel the need to play bad starting hands, do it smartly. Do not play a bad hand unless two or more players have been replaced by new players. Use your watch, a set number of rounds, or dealer changes as a timer if player changes does not work. Play one bad hand only!
Play bad hands more often and you are showing the table your poor decision making in action. Play too many bad hands and players will start ignoring you. Players will play against you more often and they will get tricky. If you are a strong player on a strong draw this is a good news as you want the most players in the hand you can get. Most likely you are not quite at that level yet though.

The best thing you can do for your game is play bad hands right where they belong – Into the muck preflop. If you really want to gamble, playing bad hands is a sure way to get that big rush when a long shot comes through. If you are trying to play correctly however, playing one bad hand leads to playing many bad hands. Too many bad hands is the way home a lot quicker than you planned.

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Holdem tips from the new player lane

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I see new players in the card room recently. Not a lot of new players, perhaps one every couple of times I play. I imagine these new players are sitting down for the same reasons we all sat down our first time. They want to play Holdem.

We all want to play for different reasons ranging from having fun, to the first stepping stone to the World Series Of Poker, but we are all there just the same. I see the regulars start to salivate at the sight of a new player. They know the likely outcome before the new player is dealt their first hand.

With all the exposure to poker these days someone sitting down for their first time has the opportunity to gain much more knowledge than almost everyone who sat down for the first time before them. There are excellent books, almost daily poker shows, home games, and the internet available as information resources. New players sit down and mistakenly believe they are well armed and ready to do battle.

In my experience the more a new player believes they are equal to anyone at the poker table, the quicker they find they are leaving the table – broke. Here are some of the most common beginner mistakes I observe being repeated over and over. Fortunately for better players these mistakes are not limited to only beginning players.

poker-hand1Respect the limit – It does not matter if you are playing at the lowest limit available in your card room or the highest limit, the limit of the table must be respected. Playing low limits and thinking each bet is paltry or insignificant because of the stakes is a fatal flaw. You have lost before you play your first hand.

Making too many decisions – Playing good poker is boring. There is nothing exciting about playing good poker, making the least number of decisions possible. If you find yourself having to think about what you should do with your hand in each round of play, you are making too many decisions for your level of experience. You will see other players make great plays that were tough decisions, but you are not them yet.

Playing too loose – I suffered and still occasionally suffer from this even though I thought I started out playing tighter than most players at the table. It is a fun to play loose. It is also expensive to play loose. Two things happen from playing too many hands. The first is you find yourself playing in situations where you really should not be playing your hand. The second is playing too loose tends to mean chasing in hopes of having the best hand on the river. For more experienced and knowledgeable players this is a right choice but not for a beginning player. Stick to hands and positions in your charts from your books or other sources.

Rocks and their friend Tom – Poker terminology changes almost weekly but player types never do. Rocks are players who throw away hand after hand, and when they do play, they show down only the best hands. Tom is a brother or sister of most Rocks.

Tom is an acronym for, ‘Tight Old Man’. Tight old men do not gamble much, and most older men and women you sill sit down with are Toms. They have a limited amount of money they can put towards poker. They may be losing players, but they are tight players and can hurt you. When you are in a hand, and a young Rock, or Tom (no matter their sex )enters the pot before you, stop and think. If you do not have a very good starting hand, you are not losing much by throwing it away preflop. If you call you are probably playing against one of the top ten or twenty Holdem hands.

Everyone at the table knows how to play – Many players once they get a few hours of playing time start thinking they are better than most of the players at the table. This is a major mistake. Everyone you have seen from a prior session knows how to play. They may have looked like poor players due to poor cards or frustration, but they may really be the player you should fear the most. Do not let your ego drain your wallet.

One final thought…if you ignore these few pointers as a beginning player because you know better, you won’t be sitting at the table long. You may not play long anyway because Holdem is more complex than it looks from the outside. Only experience can help you, and you need to play as long as possible with your chips at the table. Don’t be afraid of other players when you sit down, but give them your respect, as they were sitting at the table before you, so they know a little bit about the game. Finally, have fun!

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Hold’em By The Book?

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poker-booksDo you play Holdem and want to win more often? The secret is simple. Play better Holdem. That is all any of us need to crush games at whatever stakes we are playing. Oh, and put your Holdem books on the shelf too. Not too far back, but far enough back you are not pulling them out to restudy them after every session. Verifying you did exactly what the book said to do.

With the net and television saturated with, “all in” Holdem, it is hard to find a game where Holdem is played like the book(s). The throttled no limit games have changed the nature of the game at both limit and no limit Holdem.

Limit Holdem, even the lowest limits has become more aggressive, and plays more like bigger limits with minor differences. I see a lot more three betting these days preflop, with more callers, but the quality of hands has not not changed much. This makes for a great game, but also opens the door for expensive mistakes for anyone who does not change their playing style to match the game they are actually sitting in.

The most costly long term mistake I see players make other than not learning enough about the game itself, is expecting the game they are sitting in to play exactly like their Holdem book(s). Bad news – practically everyone sitting around the table with you has read those books and knows at least as much as you do.

When you play exactly as the books tell you, and it is not your truly lucky day, you are in for a rough ride, and probably a losing session. You watch your big pair crumble, your two pairs get crushed, and your sets ran down by stellar hands like 74o, J7, or even 52. Winning hands become so incredulous that you fully expect some piece of trash hand to win every round.

Then your losing hands starts playing on your mind. Instead of meeting aggression with aggression, you are now meeting aggression with passivity. What was a raising hand is now a limp and see hand. Overcalling is the table norm, and you are now right there in the mix, over calling when you should be raising. Minute by minute your stack dwindles, almost imperceptibly because it is only a few chips at a time.

If this sounds like your game, all is not lost. All the Holdem books in the world can only take you so far. After the books it is up to you to play correctly for the table you are at, not the table the author had in mind as he wrote his book. Holdem is not a game for automated play. If it were computers would hold their own in a Holdem game as they do in chess.

Holdem is ever changing and almost always a dynamic game. If you are not asking yourself, ‘what is the proper play’ each time you enter a pot, you are making a mistake. If you limp simply because they will fold if you raise, you are making a mistake. If you are not watching for small changes in the table dynamics, you are bleeding away chips.

The Holdem books are not wrong, but they may not be right at this moment of the game. Holdem books simply can not cover every possible thing you need to know at the moment. There is no Holdem book of checklists that tell you if there two drunks, one aggressive, and five average players use the technique found on page 172.

It is your responsibility to yourself to do your best to adjust to the game you are sitting in. A books author already has his money; he did his job the best he could for what you were willing to pay him. When you sit down and put your chips on the table, do not let your brain go to sleep along with your backside, or when you stand up, one of them will be a lot lighter.

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Bad Holdem morning turns into a good Craps afternoon

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I went over to the card room a few days back to sit down and enjoy playing some Holdem. I have been playing Holdem for a little over eight years now, and although it is not the most fun in a card game, it does not cost me anything. Although as with any gambling game, Holdem has its ups and downs. Some days you are hot, and some days, well, they are not so good.

The other day was in between hot and not so good. I went down almost eight big bets and there I stayed. Up a few big bets, down a few big bets. This went on for a little over two hours, and I decided had enough Holdem for the day. Some days it seems I am not destined to win no matter how hard I try.

As I was walking out I passed a Craps table. There were about eight people at the Craps table and they were having a lot of fun. They were happy, laughing and talking. Craps is quite a contrast to the Holdem table where you try to not let too much emotion show through, happy or otherwise.

I had been reading about craps and played a few days before and understood the basics. I played a day later but I did not do well. I was not sure I would enjoy the game. I took out the forty remaining dollars of my original hundred dollar bill, added five to it. I thought I would try Craps one more time. I traded my cash for chips, and placed a red five dollar chip on the pass line (sort of like your entry fee in a round of dice throwing). The shooter (the person who throws the dice for the round) threw a seven and the dealer dropped a red chip next to mine. I had won already!

I picked up one red chip and let my five dollar chip sit on the pass line and the shooter threw a good number, a six I think, and off to the races we went. To make a long story short, I made back my losses for the day plus a few dollars more. Maybe Craps is not such a bad game after all… I understand it is streaky like cards, so some the same rules apply.

I found Craps is an easy game to play. If you ever played street Craps, or Yatzee, you have a general idea of how it is played. You throw the dice for a number that is allowed, and try to throw that same number again before you throw a seven. If you do, you are a winner and if you do not you lose. There are a lot of other bets but I won’t go into them because what I write may be wrong. Don’t let all the table markings fool you, you don’t need to know what most of them are for to play.

All in all if you are a Holdem player, and find Holdem is not working for you one day, you may want to learn Craps – if you have a game where you live. The odds of winning are almost even on some bets, and other bets are more of a long shot. Just like pocket Aces verses draws in Holdem. The game I played in, I found it hard to believe the house was making any money, but I was assured they make a lot of money.

As when playing Holdem, you have to be cautious. Trying to push things gets you broke quickly. Slow and cautious seems to work the best for me as a beginner. I did see one man take $200.00 up to $2,900.00 in less than two hours. He played an aggressive make it very quick or go home fast style. He has more gamble in him than I do right now, I suppose.

If you have some extra money and want to have some fun, I recommend you give Craps a try. It is an easy game to start playing, pays better than slot machines, and includes a lot of funny betting terms like Hopping Buffalo, Whirl, Yo, Horn, Hard Way, and other terms I have forgotten.

I think you can’t help but have fun if you try Craps. As with any gambling, be responsible with your money, and your time.

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