Ability to Read Opponents’ Behaviour

There are numerous useful and effective strategies to make a poker tournament successful but it is necessary to know how to use them at the right time and in the good situations. If you want to get ready for a poker tournament, in this article, you will go to be able to clarify some points in order to elaborate a good plan.

You have to know above all that poker is a game of situation. To be a good player is to know how to determine which weapon you need to overcome your opponent in every situation happening. Often, articles which think giving advice about the good strategies to adopt in poker game or the books making reference in tournaments of poker speak about the capacity to read opponents’ physical signs and behaviour as a redoubtable weapon. Nevertheless, it is not always the case. Remember that due to relying on the readings of the opponent’s hands frequently, it becomes a very fast custom in you and can even force you to take bad decisions.

If for example, you manage to gain several shots against a player by thinking that it is thanks to your good reading of him, if you see the player curling up his lips and moving them from the right to the left, you will be tempted to read this gesture as a sign of weakness. You raise by thinking that he is going to fold quickly. It’s only after seeing him sending a massive raising at first with most of his chips in the pot (thing that you when you found a good three of a kind) then you perceive that this time, he found a better hand.

Judging your opponent by the expression of his face, by his gestures and his behaviours, is enough to know his hands if you know well your opponent or if you had the opportunity to play with him often.

Choosing Coin Flip or Not

With the progression of a poker game, after raising and re-raising more and more the pot, there are moments when we have to choose to continue or not the game by betting on them only on "coin flips", these shots which we have to toss up. Even if everybody tries to avoid this dilemma, this delicate choice often happens in a poker game leading sometimes to involvement stack in stake. But even if coin flips is an inescapable stage in poker and what everybody cannot gain each time, the fact that great players of poker often achieve on the top of classification of poker tournaments can be explained thus by other matter: a style of poker game dictated by the position and the control of the pot. Indeed, the word "edge", the advantage of a big player against the others is often advanced by especially their experience.

Purely mathematical approach which dictates the fact of choosing coin flips according to a particular hand is indeed banished from big players’ vocabulary, reading of the situations instead of the preflop and post-flop is more important for them. Indeed, mathematical approach does not take into account the dynamics of the tournament.

In practice, theory of great authors as David Slansky or Dan Harrington allows to wander from these choices dictated by coin flips. According to them, "the chips I lose have more value than the chips I gain". If the mathematical arguments give you a chance by 2 to gain a shot where you have already bet 10,000 in the pot, great players do not see it like this. Adding 50,000 to your stack would not really change the dynamics of the game. On the other hand, loosing 50,000 would change absolutely everything. Indeed, if you try to increase your pot into 150,000 by tempting coin flips, you can very well fall again in 50,000. Indeed, you depend strictly on chance. At a moment of the poker tournament, your survival depends on a decision heads or tails, but a talented player owes maintain his advantage and leave aside this desire to gain.

The initial hands in Razz

Mastering well Razz and knowing the initial hands which can be led up to the end or not is essential in this variant. As for Seven-Card Stud, but the only one difference is that the highest hand wins in this variant, the third and the fourth cards are the decisive points in Razz. The third street is an essential indication determining your first decision which can be either to go to play the hand, that is to fold and to leave your ante. Online poker game is also enough to understand and win money easily.

Given that ante theft is the main objective of Razz, the good situations which allow achieving it are there essential to know. Even if you have a low card, if no player spoke after you in spite of your low card face-up, then you should steal antes especially if you have a good face down card. But such situation should not however be repeated too often. Aggressiveness at the beginning of shots could also awaken players’ suspicion in case of disposition of such card what can entail re-raise on behalf of those who have better hands. In case you have the best hand in the game, your theft of ante establishes a value bet.

In Razz, the board which is presented against your opponent must be used also at most, every time you have the opportunity to frighten your opponent. In case if nobody entered the shot and in case it is your turn to speak, you can adopt diverse strategies as the case allow. Instead of stealing antes every time, entering the set with three low cards height 8 is already rather ideal. By receiving better cards in poker game, it is also necessary to wonder how many available cards, not yet dealt to my opponents could I improve my hand? How many cards could give a pair onto my board? These cards duplicated in your opponents’ hands give a rather global outline of the strength of your hands.

The strategy of Razz

Razz a form of stud poker with seven cards played in low ace to five is a variant of poker rarely played either online or in gaming rooms but which remains however interesting. Moreover, players who are found of this game in those places always exist. In big tournaments, Razz is often proposed within the framework of mixed games, especially the H.O.R.S.E. With fewer players participating in this variant of poker in big tournaments of world championship, pretending a title in this variant thus offer greater chances.

As basic principle, the lower hand or the bring-in is made by the player having the highest card. During the second betting round, it is the turn of the lowest hand to speak at first. In this variant, colours and flushes do not count as high hands. The lowest card is the Ace and the highest is the King and the best hand is formed by the Wheel which is A, 2,3,4,5.

With regard to Texas Hold' Em, Razz is easier to play, making the application of theoretical concepts of poker in Razz more well-to-do than in other variants of poker as Seven-Card Stud or Hold' em.

Thanks to your opponent’s face-up cards, to determine the best hand is almost possible, thus a good follow-up of these cards is always necessary. A player has thus to play his best poker at any time, as soon as he has a game. Facing specialists of this game, developing a real edge against them is rather difficult. On the other hand, in front of two bad players or “fish”, take an easy gain by avoiding the kind of variance and the level of risk as in Hold'em is possible. In Razz, raising when you are outside position or trying to take the control of the game with marginal hands or intimidating the tightest players of the table during a whole session, are just as much of tactics where the rate of success is close to zero in Razz.

Straight Flush, Full House and Four of a Kind

The Royal Flush is as any flush, that is a combination of five cards of the same colour but this time beginning with one Ace, followed at once by King, then a Queen, a Jack and one Ten. It is the highest ranking standard poker hand because it is constitute by King that’s why its name. Its combination is very difficult to establish. If the flush begins with one Ace and followed by 2, then 3, 4 and 5, this one is called "white flush" or “Quinte Blanche” in french. It is the weakest value in flush where from its name. And if, for example, the flush consists of 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 of club; we call it flush to 9.

A player has in hand a full house when he possesses at the same time a “Three of a kind” and a “Pair”. The Three of a kind is a combination of three cards of the same rank, three 8 form a Three of a Kind of eight for example; the card of stronger value determines the strongest Three of a Kind. A Pair is always formed by two cards of the same rank, two 8 form a Pair of eight for example; the card of stronger value determines the strongest Pair. Generally, a full house hand intervenes after improvement of a “Double Pair”, or a “Simple Pair” if we demand to exchange three cards, or of a Three of a Kind served automatically if we demand two cards. It is the good combination which you should not neglect.

We obtain a “Four of a Kind” or “Quads” when we have in hand four cards of identical rank accompanied by any other card. For example, we have a combination of four Jack accompanied of a 9 of Diamond; in that case we call it a Quad of Jacks. If the poker game player has from the first dealing a Four of a Kind straight draw, it is advised to him to exchange one card in order to ameliorate his hand.

The Four of a Kind or the Quads is an important and a major combination. At the first drawing, it can appear rarely, only at 10% of all cases.

How to Adopt a Winning Strategy Short Stack in a Cash Game

In front of various factors which influence gains and losses in Texas Hold'em, considering well the value of your stakes in a tournament of cash game is important. In long term, the various losses and gains which you realize will indeed have consequences on your behaviour. According to observations made, to play "short stack”, that is to bet a lower buy-in than the authorized entails, make fewer decisions to take. Therefore, you stop often in preflop and flop, and much more rarely on turn or on river. On the other hand, for players who are used to bet high stacks, 100xBB (Big blinds) for example, as soon as they have fewer chips, even in front of other players who arrange fewer chips than themselves, they feel at once ill at ease.

The advantage of playing short stack (10xBB or 20xBB) is to have only a single decision to make, the "push / fold". Therefore, either you bet or you push, it does not change anything. But such strategy does not mean either pushing your stack in any hand. In the book "No Limit Hold'em" written by David Sklansky, a calculation of the number of the proportional stack in every hand is proposed by the author.

By opting for a short stack game, it is also necessary for you to adapt your play. On a table of six players, you have to play aggressive, entailing a "light" poker game on behalf of your opponents assuring you of this fact payment more numerous. Each time a player raises, you have to tighten even more your game. And in front of other players making small blinds, you can send or pay even if your hand is limited enough.

If you want to adapt yourself to short stacks, you have to learn a real habit. It is necessary for you to know how to raise at any situation. In front of a player who raises in 3x or 4xBB, you should give up it in most of cases. A big raise means a big pot at the end; on the other hand, you will not win often more than blinds. Therefore, it is essential to consider well all these factors in order to get a positive balance at the end.

Usual Terms in Poker

Knowing technical terms used often is really important in poker. This is one of the first rules to become a good poker player. These are some key terms that you have to remember and which are usually used in every sets or poker tournaments:

- To fold: allows player to put cards in the box and to not pursue the game by leaving at the same occasion chips that he invested at the beginning, in order to save more money.
- Showdown : which is the comparison of the seven cards of players
- Ante: It is the first sum that each player has to put on the table. We talk about initial stake in Stud poker. But, in Texas Hold’em and Omaha, the blind is used. The difference is that Ante doesn’t have the value of a bet in poker.
- Blind: It is a forced bet required in certain variants of poker. There are two blinds, the small and the big one. At the beginning, player who is at the left of the dealer pay this forced bet in Hold’em and in Omaha. Moreover, big blind is made by player having seat at the left of the player making blind. Blinds are rotated clockwise turn by turn and every player has to make a forced bet during the set.
- Bluff: It is a strategy which allows player to cheat his opponents by doing paradoxical bets more than his cards allow him to do.
- Buy-in: It is the minimal sum required to participate in a game table. The buy-in depends on each set. If the value of the bet-in is high, then gains are important.
- Flop: is the three first cards face up of the community cards on the board dealt at the same time in Texas Hold'em.