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.