19
You should enter the tournament as early as possible. Presumably, you're participating in the tournament because you have some sort of edge against the field. In other words, you should be playing the tournament because it is profitable for you to do so.
Playing the earlier stages of the tournament lets you play more hands against your opponents, which (...
8
Check raising can be used to punish people who auto-bet in position too often. It's also good for semi-bluffing or building a pot when you've got a made hand vs normal betting frequencies.
It's part of a balanced strategy. If every time you have a hand you donk and every time you check you either check-call or check-fold then your opponents can take ...
8
OK, let's break it down mathematically. I'm going to use a standard poker equity calculator for this.
You have T⋄ 9⋄
You say the all-in player had a medium pocket pair. For this "exercise", let's pick 8♠8♣
Let's consider the third player a typical tight-agressive player, in this case with a standard 18% Range of hands preflop
...
8
Jam on the flop after the small blind bets $80 into a $210 pot.
This is a perfect opportunity to semi-bluff. You have 9 outs to the nut flush and 3 outs to top pair. The only hands that are going to be comfortable calling your all-in are a completed straight or combo draw. You'll get a fair amount of folds from overpairs/top pair in this spot and many good ...
8
My interpretation is that mathematically, the expectation in EV is taken across the probability distribution of poker cards that are yet to be dealt in a particular hand as well as the randomness in opponents' play, and it is assumed that every other piece of information (including situation, position, etc) you can have is already taken into account when you ...
8
I found some opening charts here which you might find useful:
Semi-Loose
Tight
There is also a chart here with calling, 3-betting and 4-betting ranges:
7
The problem with with making a standard raise with an M under 5 is that you will be left with a stack that is too low if you lose the pot. If a standard raise for this tournament is 2.5BB then you are raising to 2K to open the pot. If only the big blind calls you now have a 5K pot and a stack of 6K behind. Should you decide to push all in at this point your ...
6
It's not just home games that view check-raising as "pejorative" as you say. Most of the lowball games spread in Southern California flat-out banned check-raising. The other answers are generally correct... the reasons you would check-raise are the same as why you would bet out. Sometimes, though, check-raising makes a lot more sense than just betting out ...
6
In a smaller home game just be nice. If you are a bully you might not get invited back. In my home game I had one guy that would taunt when he would win. I just did not invite him back.
Just pretend you are a guy that at least knows the rules.
Don't use terms they might look up and get better. I forget what book but a pro was ridiculing a fish and ...
5
The books I have read by professional poker players discuss the check raise as part of a balanced strategy and discuss its use. The authors specifically point out that is perfectly acceptable. I surmise that those who object simply don't like having to cope with this particular tactic. If its a game among family or friends and someone objects, you might ...
5
Generally, low suited connectors don't have enough value to be played consistently and they have high reverse implied odds, meaning that even when you hit two pair, a straight, or a flush, it's still a second-best hand and you lose more than you should.
One time to go ahead and play them is when it's cheap to do so and you're capable enough to not lose too ...
5
If a person's end goal is to become a good enough poker player to win money consistently, play money is a great way to get started. BUT over time, it becomes less productive and at some point becomes counterproductive to learning.
It's a great place to start because:
1) There is no risk involved
2) You can learn the rules and get comfortable with general ...
4
Critical points to consider:
You are on bubble and you are second biggest stack.
Player with a lower stack just went all-in having 5 players in front of him
In double or nothing all winners get same reward ammount
What this should tell you:
You should avoid any play which risks loosing a whole stack
Opponent has something really strong
There is no need ...
4
No one has answered the actual answer to the question. ICM. ICM stands for Independent Chip Model, taking storm in the late 2000's. ICM determines the value of chips at a given point in the tournament based on pay structure, and players remaining. In essence, the more chips you accumulate, the less they are worth, since the tourney is not a winner take all. ...
4
This has to do with the fact that late-position players in a poker hand have an advantage, having seen what early position players did, or didn't do.
A check raise represents an attempt by an early position player to reverse the order. That is, he will wait for the late position player to bet first, before showing his strength. If a player never check ...
4
Rich? It's extremely hard to be "rich" just by playing poker, but it's simple enough to make a living off it. The reason being that you have to be vastly superior to the field to make steady money off poker with a rake (like at Casinos). For example, in order for you to "break even" with a 7% rake, you need to be a 53.5% winning player. If you eat fancy ...
4
I think you played this hand ok, the only thing I see a problem with is your bet on the flop.
This flop is a terrible one for TT, not only are there connected overcards here, but there is also a diamond draw. If you bet this flop, hands like JT, AJ, AT, Kx, Qx, and any 2 diamonds will always call. Most of the time if you get called you will be in bad shape ...
3
I like the accepted answer but I disagree with "get a large stack early".
Playing big pots to build a stack early is risky. Even a fish can wake up with or draw to the nuts.
Play pot control unless you have the nuts or are sure you have the best hand. It is better to be up 20% at the end of registration where you minimized risk than to double and have ...
3
There was a fair bit of discussion about this back in the poker boom days on DeucesCracked. The conclusions were mixed (and based on very anecdotal data). Three items of consensus appeared:
Names in CamelCase and names that referred to "grinding", "graphs", "ev", "flips" or any other regular slang denoted a "regular" of some sort. Not necessarily good ...
3
This is likely to be very situation dependent.
There is however, a section in the PokerTracker tool that analyses the range of common actions that players have taken, (eg. Cbet flop, fold to flop Cbet, 3bet stats, aggression stats, etc.), and gives a broad estimate of how often profitable players are taking those actions, whilst comparing your stats ...
3
You should always be looking for the weak players first. So this would be things like limping, severely under-betting the pot, playing bad hands etc. With regulars you want to try and figure out which ones are weak and which ones are aggressive. Weak players will fold to 3Bets too much and give up easily postflop. Aggressive players will play back at you too ...
3
If everyone is folding to your raises more often than they should, raise more hands. This is particularly true if you have tighter players on your left and action is folded to you. You can either steal blinds pre-flop or win post-flop with a single continuation bet many times when your opponent misses.
Sometimes when you have a great hand like AA, nobody ...
3
If they have cards but no money left they're all in and thus the other player cannot bet more to make them fold. Whatever money was in the pot before the other player bet is all the money the person with trips can win. The player without any money left cannot be bet out of the hand.
Run the cards out and see who has the best hand, if trips person ends up ...
3
That's an interesting structure. I would play pretty tight at all stages with the mindset of surviving as long as possible. Once you have 10 outcomes that you're satisfied with, and maybe a couple MTT's left, that's when I would more aggressively go for higher spots to try and improve your overall standing.
In a normal MTT that pays cash, you generally ...
3
A bluff catcher is a hand that isn't necessarily strong, but strong enough to call an opponent and beat them if you believe they're bluffing. It's a hand that's not good enough to value bet, as you'll have to fold if raised as it isn't good enough to beat your opponents value-betting range. However with that said it is strong enough to call your opponents ...
3
It is always better to hit a set (you have the pair).
A pair on the board is shared with your opponent.
If you have a single A and the board is AA8 and your opponent has 88 you are behind.
If you have AA and your opponent has 88 and the board is AT8 then you are ahead.
If the board is AAQ and your opponent has AQ and your hand is AK you are behind.
3
But flush K, Q, J, 10, 9 does beat flush 5, 4, 3, 2, A
King high straight flush versus a five high straight flush
You want to make it more complex and you are getting the current rules wrong
The rules for equal rank hands were picked that way because it made sense to the inventor(s) of the game.
It may seem illogical to you but it is logical to me. ...
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