Playing AA and AK:  Play Slowly or Play Aggressively Pre-Flop?

Slow playing your AA and AK:  This is the textbook rule when playing pocket Aces or a very strong starting hand like AK.  It is said that if you want to get as much money into the pot and as many players to see the flop, then you would slow play so you will get a good-size pot when you do win.

This strategy makes great sense.  It makes so much great sense that your opponents are much more likely to sense that you have a pocket pair of Aces or an AK when you slow play pre-flop – especially if you are, as a rule, an aggressive raiser.

Aggressive play pre-flop: This strategy makes better sense in practice.  Through aggressive pre-flop play, you can reduce the number of players, penalize speculative players and increase the size of the pot at one broad stroke (if there are plenty of fish at the table).

Of course, this will be more effective if you are an aggressive player to start with.  If you are a play-safe player most of the time and you are suddenly raising and re-raising pre-flop, that’s a clear indication that you have a pocket pair of aces or an AK.

Rule of Thumb When Playing AA and AK

If you are, for the most part, an unpredictable player and you hit an AA or AK starting hand, it’s best to raise and re-raise pre-flop especially if you are in a no-limit game.  Limping in is the typical strategy of players with AA and AK starting hands and the last thing you want is to be stereotypical – i.e. easy to read – because you’ll lose the chance to win as much money as you can.  Furthermore, you do want to protect your pocket cards from drawing hands; aggressive play (but not all-out play) pre-flop is a good way to achieve this and to reel enough players in for a bigger pot.

If you are a less experienced player or someone new to the game, then consider getting your feet wet at Party Poker. Although they offer less tournaments than some of the bigger sites, there are still plenty of good events to keep players busy. Thanks to the site’s smaller size, there are more chances to score a win because you are competing with less people. Sometimes size does matter.

For those that are more familiar with the game and those looking for smaller fields, then Full Tilt Poker has what you are looking for. Featuring guaranteed tournaments, freerolls and satellites, FullTiltPoker.com offers a wide variety of multi-table tournaments that offer a little something for everyone. Although there aren’t as many players as other sites, the prize pools are still sizable and well worth playing.

If you are looking for serious action, then why not try fighting the masses at PokerStars? This site offers the largest number of players and guaranteed tournaments every hour. Most tournaments on Pokerstars go beyond their guaranteed prize pools as players from all over the world participate in their events. If you feel good about your game, this site may just be the one for you because of the sheer number of fishes playing in the tournaments.

Tight poker play: You are a tight player if you fold when common-sense poker strategies prescribe that you should.  Most of the time, you wait to see the flop only if your starting hands are good or strong; otherwise, you fold before the flop.  For instance, if you get pocket cards of 4h and a 3c, a tight poker player is not going to wait around for the flop.  He will fold his cards and wait for the next hand.  More often than not, a tight player also folds with trouble starting hands say, a King and a Ten or an Ace and a Ten.

Tight play does not only apply pre-flop.  If, after the flop, the tight player sees that his odds of winning have declined, he is likely to fold.  Put simply, a tight player generally plays hands that give him good odds; otherwise, he folds.

Aggressive poker play: An aggressive poker player, on the other hand, is one that bets aggressively when he decides to play.  He is characterized by frequent betting, raising and re-raising.  He is not fond of checking, limping in or calling down other players; he leads the betting as often as he can.

From the above descriptions, a tight-aggressive poker player plays good hands or is carefully selective about the hands he plays – but when he does decide to play a hand, he plays it aggressively and plays to win.

Why Play Tight-Aggressive Poker

There are other poker playing styles.  The opposite of tight poker play is loose poker play.  Loose poker players try to see as many flops as they can (and follows the same mode at the turn and the river) whether they have good or bad starting hands.  The opposite of aggressive poker play, on the other hand, is passive poker play.  A passive poker player typically follows the other players’ lead during betting rounds.  His favorite action is calling and checking.  In poker, therefore, a poker player can be tight-aggressive, tight-passive, loose-aggressive and loose-passive.  Why then should you become a tight-aggressive poker?

Tight play means an efficient use of your chips.  You won’t waste your chips on bad hands and not get penalized for playing speculative hands.  Tight playing gives you a clear guideline to follow:  you play when you have good hands, you fold when you have bad hands.

Aggressive playing, on the other hand, lets you protect your good hands.  Frequent betting and re-raising raises the cost of speculation; as more players drop out of the betting, the bigger your chances of winning can become.

Poker Positions

In a typical Hold’em game (one with blinds), you are the small blind when you are seated to the left of the dealer. You are the big blind if you are seated to the left of the small blind and thus are two seats away from the dealer. You are under the gun, on the other hand, if you are seated to the left of the big blind or are three seats away from the dealer. The player to the right of the dealer is in the cut-off position. The rest of the players in the poker table have no special labels, however.

More generally speaking, however, all players in a poker table are classified by how early or late in the round they are going to act (fold, call or raise). Early position players include the small blind, the big blind and the under-the-gun player. The dealer, the cut-off position player and (sometimes) the player two places to the dealer’s right are late position players. All the rest are middle position players; of course, if there are only six in a table, then there are only early or late positions in the table.

Poker Position Implications

The best position in poker is the late position. A late poker position ensures that you will be able to gauge how good the cards of early position players are before you have to make your move. Furthermore, by the time that the betting round comes to you, you will probably have fewer opponents than the actual number of players seated at the table. Some of the early and mid-position players would have already dropped and folded by the time it’s your turn to bet – and in poker, your chance of winning becomes greater the fewer your opponents are.

However, the small blind and the big blind – although they are out of position and cannot react to other players’ moves in the initial betting round – do have a certain advantage. Since they have already contributed to the pot, waiting for the flop costs less for them than it does for the rest of the players at the table – unless, of course, someone in the middle or late position raises pre-flop.

Early position players should be careful about which hands they’ll play. Generally, they should bet aggressively if they have strong hands; otherwise, they should try to play things slowly.

This issue is also pertinent on a wider, social scale.  Some people think that poker – like slots – is a mere game of chance.  If so, then it would be right to include poker in the ban made by the United States government against payments towards online games of chance.

So which is it:  is poker primarily a game of chance or a game of skill?

The Importance of Skill in Poker

There’s no question that poker is a game where skill is very important.  You’ll decide whether or not to hold on to your hole cards and wait for the flop.  Will you play it slowly or not?  Should you check, call or raise?  How much should you bet?  Indeed, decisions and strategy characterize any hand of online poker.

You need to know probabilities.  What is the probability that you will draw a good card?  What are the odds of winning versus the odds of losing?  You also need a good head for math.  How much do you stand to win and how much do you stand to lose if you stay in the round?

The ability to understand and form inferences from hand and player histories in poker is also invaluable.  Then of course, you need to be good at reading player poker tells – even online.  What are the chances that your opponent is holding a nut?  Was that long silence from your opponent a good or bad sign?

Poker:  More than just Skill

An argument can be made about poker being mainly a game of chance.  Perhaps, this is true for newbies who have nothing more than a lucky draw in the arsenal.  However, you must remember that while you may win in poker through sheer luck at cards, you can not sustain your victory on luck alone.  Poker is a bluffing game:  someone can bluff you out of a sure win if he is skillful enough.

Luck helps in poker – so poker is not merely about skill.  However, it is still first and foremost a game of skill.

What Is Stealing the Blinds?

In Texas Hold’em, there are obligatory opening bets from the small blind and the big blind (the first and second player to the left of the button provides the small and big blinds, respectively).  Together, they make up the initial pot.

Stealing the blinds refers to trying to win the initial pot or trying to win the blinds.  Stealing the blinds serves a two-fold purpose:  it will let you win extra chips, unchallenged, and help you reduce the size of your opponents’ stack.

How to Steal the Blinds

In order to steal the blinds, you must make all your opponents drop out of the betting round/s pre-flop.  The best way to do this would be to raise and re-raise during the pre-flop betting round.  If you are under-the-gun and you wish to steal the blinds, bet more than the minimum.  If you are in a middle position or a late position, you should multiply the minimum bet by around two times.  In other words, if you are trying to steal the blinds, bet aggressively and avoid mini-raises.

Stealing the Blinds Strategy

If you are a late-position player, you are in an advantageous position to steal the blinds.  If most of the players have folded before the betting action reaches you, you can dominate the game and steal the blinds.

If you are short-stacked and wants to steal the blinds, it would be much better to go all-in rather than wait to be raised.  Take the lead in betting whenever you can.  Additionally, if only a few players are at the table (the game is short-handed), stealing the blinds is good strategy because you are obliged to post blinds more often than not and you’ll run out of chips much sooner.

You should not try to steal the blinds all the time, however.  Trying to steal the blinds means you have to make hefty raises.  If another player plays you and you miss the flop, you’ll lose all your bets. Furthermore, not all blinds are worth stealing.  If the blinds won’t significantly increase your stack, perhaps you should just let it go.  If, however, the blinds will make a sizeable addition to your stack, then by all means go for it.  The rule of thumb:  be selective of the blinds you’ll try to steal.

Of course, this definition wouldn’t help newbies much.  In fact, seasoned poker players laugh secretly (some not-so-secretly) at novice poker players who can’t tell which starting hands are trouble and which are not.

Troublesome Starting Hands

The following are a few of the trouble hands that you are advised not play pre-flop if you are a newbie.  If you are more experienced, by all means play these troublesome hands.  You’ll probably know just how to play them.  As a rule, however, newbies should gain more experience before banking on winning through the following hands.  If you want to play them, however, here’s how you can gain at least minimizing your losses:

•    A pair of jacks
If you are a newbie dealt with a pair of jacks, it would be better to fold.  If you want to give it a try, call at the first round of betting.  Do not raise.  If you want to see the flop, at least keep your cost at a minimum.  If, however, someone raises, chances are high that you are beat so it would be best to fold before your cost gets too high.

•    King and Ten
Most experts, when faced with this hand, muck it.  Newbies, however, are enamored with the King and play it.  It’d be better to fold pre-flop with this hand.  If you get a top pair (KK) after the flop, chances are high that you’re not alone – and a 10 is definitely not the best kicker out there.  The chances of getting a straight, furthermore, are very slim; you can lose your stack while waiting for that straight that may never come.

•    Ace and Ten
You can flop a top pair with this combination, but if there are other people besides you raising and calling through the flop, chances are high that they have better cards than you.  If you flop a pair of Aces, someone else probably has the same pair (with a King kicker) or even a trips.

What are poker statistics?

Poker statistics are simply a way of tracking your poker hands and “measure” how you tend to behave at the poker table. Poker tracking software tools are useful for saving and compiling this information about your opponents, as it can give you information that you can use against them. But it is also helpful for compiling information about yourself.
The more you know about your tendencies in your game play, the easier it is for you to identify tendencies that could be hurting you rather than helping you. It’s about aligning your actual game to you intended poker strategy.

Example of poker statistics helping you

You may find that you are a loser over your last ten sessions and don’t understand why. You may think “I’m a tight-aggressive player, I should be winning consistently.

However when you look at your statistics over those sessions you may discover that your VP$IP percentage (voluntarily puts money in pot) is 65 percent, while your pre and post flop aggression numbers (ratio of raises-opens to calls) are below 1%. While in the game it may feel like you are folding everything and that you attack opponents frequently, but looking at the hands you’ve played in the cold light of analysis, you may discover that just the opposite was true.

Why you need to analyze your poker hands

Unfortunately, people are rarely completely honest about themselves, even to themselves. Human tendency is to attribute good things to one’s own skill and bad things to random misfortune. This reality can be death at the poker table and is the main reason why skilled poker players are able to consistently find amateurs to take money from.  This tendency can skew your impression of your style of play as well, which is where statistical analysis can help. By looking at hands that you’ve played, you’ll learn things about yourself and your game. This is where your voyage begins.

Poker is a game of luck, implied odds, and above all discipline. You must have the discipline it takes to play tight all night long, folding hand after hand. When it seems like you cannot take down one pot, even with great starting cards, guess what? It is probably time to cash out. It is very difficult to try to keep you cool and play the next hand, when your aces get cracked over and over, or someone hits their one outer on the river. All of this and more, have happened to me, more times than I can count. It seems like it’s the same guy all night long, playing substandard cards and winning against you. Someone told me once when I felt frustrated with my poker strategy, “Don’t let it be about your ego.” I thought about this for a minute, I certainly didn’t think I was the best player at the table, in fact, I just worked harder than everyone else. But he was right, it stung my pride when I lost a monster pot, and I was letting it affect the way I played the rest of the night. I realized that I couldn’t continue to play a game that I loved, if I could not avoid the tilt. It was just too expensive.

Common Characteristics of Poker Tourneys

Generally speaking, poker tournaments players need to register for the tournament (you can find one here, download poker client from 888.com).  Players also need to pay the required buy-in.  The buy-in is the initial amount of chips that each player will have at the start of the tournament.  Some tournaments, however, allow rebuys so players can top up their stack by buying more chips.  Typically, this kind of feature is available in cash games.  In a tournament like the Annual World Series of Poker, however, rebuys are typically not allowed; when you lose your stack, you’re out.

Naturally, there is a prize involved.  Typically, prize money or a seat at a bigger tournament is at stake.

Typical Poker Tournaments

Multi-table tournaments:  Multiple table tournaments require players to fight their way through multiple tables and other players.  The blinds and stakes involved are predetermined before the start of the tournament; they increase as the tournament proceeds or as the player reaches higher levels in the tournament.  To join a multi-table tourney, a player must buy a seat by paying the buy-in.  Initially, he will sit at one of the poker tables (seating is assigned).  As the tournament progresses and as more and more players drop out of the game, the players are frequently rearranged so that they are always sitting at a full table.  The final game occurs when there are just enough players to fill one table.  The winner at the final table is the tournament winner.

Sit and go tournaments:  Sit and go tournaments are the simplest type of tournament there is.  You will find this ongoing at various online poker sites.  After you have registered and bought the required buy-in, you can sit at the table and wait for other players.  The tournament starts when the table is full.

Satellite tournaments:  Satellite tournaments can be sit and go or multi-table tourneys with small buy-ins.  The prize at stake is a seat at a higher-level tournament, say, another satellite tournament or the ultimate poker tournament.  World Series of Poker satellite tourneys typically have multiple levels; the ultimate prize is the buy-in for the WSOP event (sometimes, with expenses), but to win this prize, a player may have to fight his way through multiple levels of satellite games.