Chapter

2 : Playing Styles

Against Super Aggressive Players i.e Players who can open with any two cards from
any position -

1. Use Hammer : With a moderately strong hand, reraise the SAG player because they
don't want expensive confrontations.

2. Use Rope A Dope : With genuinely strong hand call a raise and show that you have
a drawing hand or indiffrerent hand, let him try to bluff you off the pot and
then make one huge raise at river.

3. This hand shows one of the hidden strengths of very aggressive play. Because of
the active
players at the table, the player in your position was afraid to make his normal
moves. As a result,
he committed the cardinal sin of giving free cards to an opponent drawing at a
flush, then
compounded the error by betting on the end. Aggressive play puts a level of
pressure on your
opponents that conservative play does not, and that pressure can translate directly
into chips won.

4. Many players tighten their game when they find themselves in a pot with players
who
are known to push people around. It's a natural tendency, but you have to resist it
and try to play
good, percentage poker. Your real goal against players like that is to play fewer
pots, but to play
them more aggressively than usual.

5. Loose, aggressive players at the table should only force you to cut down on the
number of hands you
play. However, when you do catch some strong cards, you have to play them
decisively.
Otherwise the loose players will simply wear you down.

For 6&7, I am on BB with AQo

6. You need to establish psychological dominance. You want players at the table to
fear you, but
if you can't get fear, at least get respect. As the big blind, this is your pot.
Defend it. Show them
you can't be pushed around.

7. Player F is a tough player with a super-aggressive style. Such players are

extremely
dangerous. Because they can be playing any two cards, you won't be able to tell,
after the flop
comes, exactly where you stand. Right now, you know you have a good hand, so make a
move.
Against super-aggressive players you want to settle the hand quickly, win or lose.

For 8, I am on BB with KQo

8. You should call, although raising is quite a reasonable alternative. In either

case your
goal is to defend your big blind against an aggressive attacker. Raising might win
the pot right
here, at the risk of costing you a bunch of chips if Player C actually has a hand.
Calling, and then
deciding on your right move after the flop, is the low-priced alternative. You'll
be forced to
defend your blind on many occasions during a tournament, and the best procedure is
to vary
between the raising and calling plays on a random basis.

Note : Low End of the straight is the idiot end. Don't put money into it.

Note : Do not fall in love with a hand, you shouldn't fall

in love with your evaluation of a hand. They change all the time, and you have to
be ready to
change as well.

Chapter 3: Reading the Opponent

Some Rules for reading opponents

1. How many hands do they play? By counting the number of pots they play, you'll
start to get some idea of the strength of their starting hands.
If they play only one or two pots in each round
of the table, they're conservative players. If they're involved in three or four
pots a round, they're
probably playing an aggressive or super-aggressive style. If they're playing more
pots than that,
they're giving their money away.

2. What hands do they show down? A hand shown down is a gold mine of information.
You
not only get to see the cards they initially held, but if you can remember how the
hand was bet,
you'll see how they responded to a bunch of different situations. Did they raise or
call before the
flop? If they raised, how much did they raise? How strong was their hand after the
flop, and what
did they do with it? Did they slow play a monster, or aggressively bet a weak
holding? The more
of this information you can remember, the better.

3. Are they callers or raisers? Do they like to enter a pot with a raise, or creep
in with a call? A
player who calls more than he raises is liable to be weak. A player who likes to
raise may be
strong and dangerous; at least his heart's in the right place.

4. How do they respond when someone comes over the top? Can they stand up to a big
reraise, or will they meekly back away? That knowledge could win you a big pot
later.

Example - Player A, the player directly to my left, had previously limped in, then
called a modest raise. Here, he limped in, then folded a
raise of four times the big blind. He plays a lot of pots, so I know he's got to be
limping in with a
lot of weak hands. If this situation comes up again, and there hasn't been a big
raise, I know I can
probably steal the pot from him with a bigger than average raise.

Note : The truth is that good players are really good at remembering everything
that goes on around
the table, and making use of the information in a logical fashion.

Example - The button lost $600 on this hand, a just penalty for not observing the
action more closely on
previous rounds. Both his opponents were loose enough to call all the way down to
the end with
nothing but a king high. There's no way they could have kept those tendencies a
secret through
the first half of the tournament.

Note : It's important to

remember that in addition to noting how your opponents are playing at the table,
you must also
note how you appear to them. Sometimes that will provide a clue to interpreting
their bets. If
you've been giving action, lots of players will take any pair and come after you

Danger of trying to trap with KK - You have to raise with your kings. Some players,
especially newcomers, get carried
away and decide to start trapping with kings. You might try this for variety
against a single
opponent, but it's too dangerous against multiple opponents. The danger, of course,
is that
someone is calling with an ace and a small card, and if you let them stay in the
pot cheaply, an
ace on the flop will beat you. So raise here and try to reduce the field to a
single opponent.

Chapter 4
: Pot Odds

Very I mportant : Heads up with 5s against a tight player, my winning chance is 40%
if he went all in with Pair>5s or High Cards>10

1. In no-limit hold ’em it is often correct to accept slightly unfavorable

expressed odds to draw at
monster hands that can win all your opponent's chips on the river. This is even
more true of
potential straights than of potential flushes, since straights are easier to
conceal.

2. In online tournaments, the players, being relatively new to poker, are looser
and tend to call
larger bets than they would in live play, so you can make bigger bets and expect to
get called. I'd
certainly want to make a bet at the high end of my normal range

For 3 I have AKo, Flop is J75 Rainbow,

3. It costs you $80 to call a pot of $355. Your pot odds are about 4.5-to-l.
To improve your hand on the very next turn, you have to catch one of the six
remaining aces
or kings. You've seen five cards so far, so there are 47 cards you haven't seen.
Six of those are
good for you, 41 are bad. Your odds against improving on fourth street alone are
about 7-to-l
against, much worse than your pot odds.

If you don't improve on fourth street, you'll usually face a bet that you won't be
able to call. So
it's mainly the odds of improving on the next card that you care about, not the
odds that you
might improve on fourth street and fifth street combined. (Those odds are about 3-
to-l against.)

Your opponent might be bluffing.

Your opponent might have flopped a set, so you can't win even if you hit. He might
also have
a holding like ace-jack or king-jack, which beats you now and negates some of your
out cards.
Early in a tournament, and lacking any information on your opponent's style, you
should
probably assume that the chance he's bluffing roughly cancels out the chances that
he has a hand
you can't beat, and treat this directly as a pot odds problem. You're not getting
the pot odds you
need to call, so you're done with the hand.

Early in a tournament, and lacking any information on your opponent's style, you
should
probably assume that the chance he's bluffing roughly cancels out the chances that
he has a hand
you can't beat, and treat this directly as a pot odds problem. You're not getting
the pot odds you
need to call, so you're done with the hand.

For 4&5, I have 5s but in 4 I am heads up against 1 tight player and in 5 there are
active players to act after me.

4. The pot is now offering you slightly less than 2-to-1 odds on your money. Before
you
just shove your chips automatically into the pot, let's see if we can't do some
simple calculations
that might tell us if your call is clearly correct or not.
First question: What hands might your opponent have gone all-in with? We noted that
the small
blind was a tight player. We also noted that he lost most of his chips an hour ago,
after which
presumably he's been sitting tight and waiting for an opening. Although he's short
on chips, he
doesn't need to be desperate. He has enough chips to survive three more rounds, and
since he's
the small blind this hand, he won't need to put up any chips at all for the next
eight hands. So we
can dismiss the idea that this is just a desperate all-in bet with a couple of
random cards. You're
probably facing a pair higher than yours, or a couple of high cards.
If you're up against a high pair, it's a disaster, since you're 4.5-to-l underdog
in that situation.
However, there are just nine pairs higher than yours, and six ways of drawing each
pair, for a
total of 54 possible hands.
If you're up against two higher cards, you're quite happy, since you're a slight
favorite in the
hand and you're getting almost 2-to-l on your money. How many such hands are there?
There are
16 different ways to construct a hand like ace-king (12 unsuited, 4 suited), and if
you assume he
would raise with any two cards above a ten, but not otherwise (pretty safe
assumption for a tight
player), then you're up against a total of 6 different unpaired hands (AK, AQ, AJ,
KQ, KJ, and
QJ), with 16 ways of drawing each one, for a total of 96 hands.
Let's assume that our tight opponent won't raise with any hand weaker than these.
Of these 150
hands, how many can you win? You'll win about 10 of the 54 times he has a higher
pair. You'll
be a small favorite against the 96 unpaired hands, so let's say you win 52 of
those. The total
looks like 62 wins and 88 losses, not a bad result when you're getting 2-to-l on
your money. So
you call.

5. If there were no other active players in the pot, this would be an easy call
based on the
pot odds, as we saw in our last example. But the presence of two live players with
big stacks
behind you changes everything. If you call, either one could raise and make you
throw your nowexpensive hand away.
If you don't make your hand on the flop, you won't be able to stick around
for fourth and fifth street unless the hand is checked around, which is unlikely.
Always remember that the presence of active players behind you has a huge effect on
your
decision-making. Their presence makes many hands unplayable which are trivially
easy calls in a
one-on-one situation.

For 5&6 I have AK0 and after flop I Have top pair top kicker, but there is a flush
draw.

5. Your hand is quite strong, so you don't want to bet so much that everyone runs
away. But there
are two clubs on board, so you don't want to bet so little that the flush draws
have the proper
odds (including implied odds) to stick • around. This is a very common situation
after the flop,
and the right bet is something in the range of three-quarters of the pot to a
little more than the
pot. In this case, you should consider betting between $140 and $200.

Keep in mind also that you can increase your bet depending on the number of players
you're
facing. Against a single opponent, choose a bet at the low end of your range.
Against several
opponents, pick an amount at the high end of the range. The more opponents, the
greater the
chance that someone will come in against you.

6. There is flush on the board at river.

Now you've reached a genuinely tough decision. Let's work through it and see what
should go into your thinking in these situations.
The first question you should ask yourself is this: "If I check and he makes a
substantial bet or
goes all-in, will I throw away my trip kings?" If the answer to this question is
no, then you
should tend to bet now. By betting, you'll make some extra money when he calls with
some
hands that he wouldn't have bet if you had just checked. For example, if he was
holding J♥9♥ to
start, he wouldn't necessarily bet on the end, but he'd almost certainly call a bet
by you. The same
reasoning holds true if he's been playing hands like ace-jack or queen-jack, or
even slowplaying
aces or queens.

Very Important : If you would throw your trip kings away after a bet, then you
should tend to check now. In no
limit tournaments you don't throw these hands away. Your time is severely limited.
The blinds
keep crawling up behind you, and you have to keep accumulating chips to stay ahead
of them. A
set of kings against a possible flush is just too good a situation to throw away.
The real choice is between going all-in right now and betting something like $200.
The $200 bet
will win some more money from hands like a single pair that might have folded an
all-in bet, and
against stronger hands you will get all-in eventually anyhow. A bet like that would
be my top
choice, but it's a very tough judgment call.

Question 4.10 - Interesting question.

For 7&8 I have QJs

7. Beginners get excited about this hand, but they shouldn't. Queen-jack suited
isn't an
awful hand, but if anyone out there has an ace, a king, or a pair, you're playing
catch-up. This is a
nice drawing hand that you're happy to play cheap, but you should be quite willing
to let it go if
the pot generates some serious action. Because the cards are suited, you should be
inclined to call
here. With an unsuited queen-jack, you let the hand go after two early calls.

8. Hand Analysis : Your first conclusion should be that he's probably holding a
jack. He didn't raise before the flop
or after the flop, so a pair higher than jacks is pretty unlikely. He might have
called before the
flop with a pair of jacks, and now be slowplaying trip jacks. That's so unlikely
you should pay
off to it if that's really the case. And trip fours or deuces are similarly
unlikely, because calling a
big raise before the flop with those hands, and plenty of active players yet to
act, is just too
weird.
If he has a pair of jacks, what could his hand be? Queen-jack is the least likely
possibility,
because we have one of the queens. If he's holding king-jack or jack-ten, he should
have folded
before the flop. Likewise jack-x is very unlikely. That leaves ace-jack, suited or
unsuited. I
would have folded that hand before the flop, but lots of players would play it
because of the ace.
How about a pair of tens, nines, or even something lower? He might have called with
those
before the flop. Would he keep calling against an overcard on the flop followed by
a big bet?
That's a pretty gutsy call, but a few players would do it. He might think that your
overbet really
showed weakness, and be calling based on that.
How about A♦K♦? That matches all his plays so far. The call before the flop makes
sense, and
after the flop he has two overcards plus a flush draw, for a total of 15 outs
twice. (Three aces
plus three kings plus nine diamonds, total of 15 cards.) He's a small favorite with
15 outs twice,
so his call after the flop makes sense too.
Ace-king, ace-queen, or king-queen unsuited is a real stretch. He can call after
the flop with that
hand only if he's certain you're bluffing, and nobody's that certain.
So his most likely hands are ace-jack, which beats us, and A♦K♦ or similar hand,
which is now
an underdog after missing on fourth street. A bet of some kind looks necessary
here. We can't let
any flush draws have a free card. I'd bet about $300, which doesn't give him a call
if he does
have the A♦K♦, a hand with only 12 outs.

Note : Your opponent made bad calls everywhere and got rewarded for it. Just make
sure you
don't go on tilt when this scenario occurs. Be glad you're still alive in the
tournament, because
this guy sure won't be for very long

Preflop Stategy :

A10s Early position is a weak hand

1. Gap Concept : If you're thinking of entering a pot that has already been opened,
you need
a stronger hand to call than you would need to open the pot yourself from that
position

The logic behind the Gap Concept is easy to understand. Consider these two ideas.

* When you open a pot, part of your vigorish is the possibility that the
remaining players will
just fold their hands, and you'll pick up the blinds and antes without a fight.
Once the pot is
opened ahead of you, that vigorish disappears.
 * The player who opened ahead of you opened in earlier position and therefore (at
least
theoretically) needed a stronger minimum hand to open. But he may have opened with
a much
stronger hand than that; you have no way of knowing. If you call with a minimum
opening hand
from your later position, you're probably going into the pot as a solid underdog.
You would need
big pot odds as compensation, and you're probably not getting them.

2. Sandwich Effect : Suppose there is one active player who has raised the pot,
all other players have folded to you, and you are last to act. In this case you
have all the
information you need to calculate your pot odds and make your decision. But suppose
instead
that the pot has been opened, you are next to act, and there are several
potentially active players
behind you. Whatever you do, some or all of them may enter the pot behind you. Now
you're
operating in the dark. You don't know how many players will finally be involved in
the pot, or,
since you could be facing a raise, what your actual pot odds may be. You're caught
in a
sandwich, and as with the Gap Concept, you need a stronger hand as compensation

Note : If the raiser is a known super-aggressive player, you reraise with any hand
that you would use for an opening raise from your position.
The Gap Concept does not apply against a player who can make a move with any two
cards. You also call with any hand that is slightly stronger than a hand that could
make an opening call.

If the raiser is a solid, conservative player, however, the Gap Concept does apply,
and you need to be more circumspect. Now you need stronger hands to reraise.
To call, you need a hand that is slightly better than required to open an
uncontested pot. Here are my detailed rules.

3. Villian = UTG +1 Hero = HJ

Villian Calls then A9 through A2: Fold all these hands. This may seem an
exceptionally conservative strategy, but
if you are playing these hands, you'll often find yourself up against an initial
caller who had acex and x is a higher kicker than yours. You're a huge underdog in
these hands, and
you'll find yourself losing many big pots when an ace flops.