How To Play Advanced Poker

Posted on 4/13/2022 admin

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What You'll Need: To play most types of poker, you are going to need: 1 Deck of Cards, brand doesn't.

You are Now Starting: Unit 5 – Advanced Poker Strategy

In this final unit we are going to start to take your strategy to a higher level by introducing some advanced poker strategies and concepts which you can incorporate into your new poker strategy that you have learned so far in this course.

Phil Hellmuth: Betting Checklist ♠♦ Advanced Texas Holdem Poker Strategy Tips from Professionals 2017 Poker Strategy Texas Holdem Online was created to give.
How to Play a Poker Game. Before we get started some basic rules for how to play poker you should first get familiar with the basic poker hand rankings. Maybe 90% of all beginner mistakes happen when someone thinks they have the winning poker hand and they don’t.

We are also going to complete the Poker Bankroll Challenge and our goal of turning your initial $25 stake into a bankroll of $1,000. This new bankroll will then provide you with the funds to compete at the higher stakes table on an ongoing basis and the sky is the limit on the amount of profit you can earn going forward.

So far the strategy we have taught you is solid and should be profitable if executed correctly.

A-B-C poker is great for the lower stakes tables, but as you move up the stake levels and start to face players with a higher standard of play and experience, then you will need to take your strategy to a more advanced level.

This not only gives you more weapons in your Arsenal to use, but it will also help you to understand when some of these advanced concepts and moves are being used against you and the best way to counteract them.

We are only going to scratch the surface of advanced poker strategy in this unit. Poker is a constant learning process and we will continue to cover more advanced topics in other courses which you can take once you have completed this one.

Lets start by looking at some general advanced poker concepts…

Know When a Player is Pot Committed

Always be aware of your opponent’s chip stack and whether they have become pot committed.

When we say a player is pot committed we mean that he has already committed a significant portion of his stack into the pot, and that he is unlikely to fold now, because he would be left with too low a stack.

Usually if a short stacked player has more than half his chips committed before the flop then he is pot committed. The chances are he’ll either raise all-in before the flop if given the chance or move all in after the flop whether he has hit his cards or not.

Never try to bluff in this situation, as it will be very hard to chase them out of the pot, there’s no point in bluffing if your opponent is not going to fold.

However this also provides an opportunity, by knowing that our opponent is pot committed, we know that there is a good chance that he is betting with a weaker hand than normal, so it allows us to relax our hand requirement a little to call with a more marginal hand and still be confident that we are in the lead.

Responding to a Raise

In the situation where you are involved in a pot and someone raises behind you it is never an easy answer on what you should do. It depends a lot on the size of the raise and the situation at the table.

So there are no hard and fast rules on whether you should call a raise but there is a thought process that you can work through in order to make your decision:

Your Hand – did you come into the pot with a solid hand or did you enter with a marginal hand?
How many players were in the pot when the raise came in? – a raise against one player shows less strength than a raise against multiple players.
How many players are yet to act? – a raise from the dealer button or blinds may just be an attempt to defend the blinds or foil a steal, whereas a raise from a player in early or middle position indicates a lot more strength.
Will you have position on the raiser after the flop? – if they are one of the blinds then you will have position after the flop so this can allow you call with a slightly more marginal hand.
How aggressive is the raiser? – a more conservative player should be given more respect for a raise than an aggressive player although don’t just assume that an aggressive player is bluffing – remember – he may have a solid hand just as much as you.
What are the pot odds? – you should be more willing to call a raise with good pot odds than one with bad pot odds
Your stack – are you approaching being short stacked? Have you got time to turn this opportunity down and wait for a better opportunity to get your chips into the pot, or are you in situation where if you folded here, you would be forced shortly down the line to put in your chips in a weaker situation that this one due to your short stack.

If you work through the above factors then it should help you to make an informed decision on whether to make the call or not.

How To Play Smart Poker

Showing Hands

If you win a pot before the showdown, then you have the option to either muck your cards (without revealing them to your opponents) or to show the hand before you muck, thus revealing the hand you had.

Most internet poker rooms give you this option, with two buttons that will popup with an option to show your cards, after you have just won a pot by your opponent folding.

I see a lot of beginner players showing their hands, and most of the time this really is a mistake. Why? Because you are are giving free information to your opponents about the actions you took with that particular hand or type of hand, it helps them to read your future actions.

The general rule is to not show your hand unless you have to – stick to this, there is no need to give additional information to your opponent if you don’t have to.

However, even though you are not going to use this tactic in your strategy you need to be aware of it, and why other people might do it. Every time an opponent shows us their hand we are going to pay a lot of attention to it, and then walk through the actions they took throughout the hand to help us spot betting patterns and read our opponent in future hands.

But we can’t automatically assume that those patterns will repeat in the future, and you need to understand the reasons why someone might have shown their hand.

Players who show good hands are either

Overexcited at getting a big hand and not getting a chance to show it or
They are showing you a good hand so that next time they want to steal the pot you give them more respect because they have shown you that they raised with a good hand.

Players who show bluffs are either

Trying to temp you into tilt mode or
Trying to get you to jump to the wrong conclusion – the next time they make a raise the chances are they’ll have a good hand, and because you’ve seen them bluff the pot, they are hoping that you jump to conclusions and assume that this is just another bluff and call with a weakened hand.

Generally you will be able to judge the above based on how good the player is, and whether they are capable of advanced moves like this designed to trick you.

Back to the statement of “Poker being a game of information”, yes we are constantly trying to interpret the information that our opponents gives us, but also you can control the information that you send out to opponents as long as you are aware of what information they have received and how you can use that against them by reversing the story next time you are in a pot with them. Keep them guessing and keep control of your information flow and you will be the one in control.

Time to Up the Stakes

You are nearing the end of the course and so it is time that we again stepped up our efforts to reach our goal of $1,000 from an initial stake of $25. Your bankroll should now be over $200 and things will start to move quite quickly from now with just 4 more stages of the challenge remaining before you hit your goal of $1,000.

So far you have learnt a solid basic strategy and built upon that with some advanced strategies. You now know the process and tools required to make all your poker decisions.

We are going to move away from the 5c/10c tables and on up to the 10c/20c tables for the next few stages. Again you may see a slight improvement in the quality of opponent, but there are still plenty of bad players at these stake levels.

Don’t be intimidated by the increase in stake level but as usual be cautious when you first start until you get used to any differences it may present. Remember the amount of the bets and raises will go up in line with the increase in stake levels, but the maths and our strategy remains the same. There will still be plenty of fish at this level, but there will also be a few more better players thrown into the mix as well.

Now we’re moving onto bigger stake levels, make sure you do not stray from your strategy at all, any mistake will have a bigger dent on your bankroll at higher stake tables. Just play how you have learnt and practised throughout this course and remember the returns from a higher stake table are also more!

How To Play Poker For Beginners

Poker Bankroll Challenge: Stage 9

Stakes: $0.10/$0.20
Buy In: $20 (100 x BB)
Starting Bankroll: $203
Target: $100 (5 x Buy In)
Finishing Bankroll: $303
Estimated Sessions: 5

Use these practise sessions to continue to get into the minds of your opponents, study what actions they are taking and try to understand their aim behind each action. Try to spot patterns and when an Opponent shows their hand, pay attention and step back through all their actions and store that information. At the same time be in control of the information that you are sending out and always be aware of what your opponents know about you and factor that in to your future decisions and actions.

David Randall

We all acknowledge that poker is a game of skill, but because of the uniqueness of each situation, we can often miscalculate our own skill when self assessing. I'm sure you have seen a bad player turn his hand into a bluff with no real idea why he's betting, have it work out, then pat himself on the back for his great play because it worked out in his favor. When the circumstances are right, turning a marginal hand into a bluff can be a very effective, high-level play. However, it can also be done randomly in spots by a bad player who doesn't know what to do. Without knowing what to do, he then bets or raises as a default.

So what is the difference between the skilled player that turns his hand into a bluff and gets his opponent to make the tough laydown and the bad player that accidentally wins the pot? If you guessed 'intention,' then you are correct.

The skilled player made an assessment of his opponent's range, analyzed how he would react to aggression, and then acted in a manner to get the desired result. The bad player acted on his emotions. He wanted a certain result to be achieved, didn't know how to achieve it, and reacted according to his feelings, which can result in any number of ways.

Let's look at an example so you can see what I'm talking about:

Hero opens to $30 at a $5/$10 table with an effective stack of $1,000 holding pocket sixes in middle position. Villain calls in the cutoff. The flop is . Hero continuation bets $40, and Villain calls. The turn is a . Hero checks, and Villain checks behind. The river is a , and Hero decides to turn his hand into a bluff and bet three-quarters of the pot. In this example, Hero is putting his opponent on some type of one-pair hand no better than tens. Hero realizes it is easier to represent a broadway combo that improved than it is for Villain to do the same. So, Hero took the opportunity to bet in order to get those one-pair hands — the ones that beat his pair of sixes — to fold.

On the flipside, a bad player could actually play his hand the exact same way, but his thought process would look something like this in his head: 'I have pocket sixes. That's a pair, so I raise.' The flop is . 'I don't think he caught any of that. I'll bet $40.' The opponent calls. The turn is a . 'That's another overcard. There are so many hands that beat me now. I'll check.' The opponent checks. The river is a . 'He checked, so I can win if I bet. I'll bet $110.' The opponent folds. 'I did it!'

As you see in this example, there were a few flaws in the bad player's thought processes, but it did not hurt him in this hand. The over card queen on the turn was not a scare card because it hits very little of his opponent's range. He also did not think through what his opponent's range on the river was. He just simply reacted to his opponent checking back on the turn. Had the opponent bet the queen against the bad player, he would've been able to win the pot (especially if he was willing to follow up his aggression with another bet on the river) even though his line represents only a small range in reality.

Now, let's take a look at an example that shows how these leaks could cost money.

Hero opens to $30 at $5/$10 with an effective stack of $1,000 holding pocket threes from middle position. Villain calls from the cutoff. The flop comes . Hero continuation bets $40. Villain calls. The turn is an . Hero checks, and Villain checks. The river is a . Hero checks, and Villain checks. Villain shows pocket fives and beats us.

For the bad player, his thought process is as follows: 'I have pocket threes. That's a pair. I raise.' The flop comes is . 'I don't think he caught any of that. I'll bet $40.' The opponent calls. The turn is an . Now stop the tape.

From here, I have seen this play out two different ways. Either the bad player bets the turn because they think, 'I still don't think he has any of that, and I want to find out where I'm at.' And then the bad player will check the river when they realize they're probably beat. Or instead, the bad player will check the turn, and if the opponent checks behind, the bad player will bet the river. The reasoning for this river bet will be similar to the reasoning in the first example. The bad player is unable to see the differences in board textures, which affects the opponent's range in this situation. As you can see, either way the bad player is going to lose an extra street of value because of these flawed thought processes being exposed.

Everyone has tendencies similar to the 'bad player' I've talked about, and I made these examples extreme to highlight my point. Sometimes you can get away with flawed thought processes, but over time, it will cost you money. Make sure that when you are self assessing, you do not place too much stock in the end result. Remember, poker is a game for the long run, and making the correct decisions over time will turn you into a profitable player. Being results oriented in the short term will do the opposite.

David Randall is an instructor for Pocket Fives Training and has shot over 100 hours of instructional video and coached over 120 students privately. His most recent project is called 3D Poker Training, which is centered around hosting poker camps in Europe alongside, Sorel Mizzi. The next camp begins October 1st in London. The 3D Poker Training method teaches players to develop adaptive thinking using interactive questions and examples from actual hands students have played. If you are interested in learning from Randall, you can contact him via 3D Poker Training's Facebook page or at the 3D Poker Training website.