40 POKER STRATEGY TIPS

11- 20

 11. The playing conditions are important to this strategy because you must be paid off for the big hands that you hit. If the game is too aggressive pre-flop then the price of many of the hands becomes too high, and if it is too tight post-flop then you will not get the return needed to make the hands worthwhile.

12. “No Mistakes” - This is the major principle behind this strategy. In these games everyone else is going to be making Mistakes left, right and centre. Some Mistakes will cost them money, some Mistakes will make them money, but only in the short term. Over a sufficient number of hands all Mistakes cost money. Your job is to capitalise on the biggest of other peoples’

13. A Mistake is when you put money in the pot when you are behind, and you do not have correct drawing odds.

14. A Bad Beat is when you put money in a pot while you are ahead but get beaten by an opponent(s) who did not have correct drawing odds. Bad Beats are OK. Well obviously they aren’t “OK”, they hurt like hell, but they are going to happen. Even 2-outers hit more than one time in 25 so you don’t have to play that long before one is going to hit you.

15. Mistakes are most definitely not OK. You sit and watch other people get their premium hands beaten by rags and wheel straights, and its kind of amusing. But you have to learn from it. Just because you have AA, that doesn’t mean the three fish to your left have suddenly grown a brain. If there is a hand that can beat you, you have to seriously consider it is in play, however poor that play would be. This is especially true of people hitting straights and flushes without correct odds. They don’t care about odds. Don’t let your knowledge blind you!

16. Set or Above - This is your aim. Hands that are the nuts or likely to finish up being the nuts by the river. You are going to make most of your money from these hands. You are looking at pocket pairs, decent sized connectors or one-gaps, and good suited cards.

17. Cheap Flops - You want to see as many flops as possible where if you hit you can be confident of winning, as per the Set and Above strategy. You also don’t want to invest too much up front in hands that you may be forced to walk away from.

18. 7 Card Stud (High) has long been a casino table favorite, recently supplanted by Texas Hold ‘em as poker’s premier game.  7 Stud is still a very popular game, and is actually my favorite.  There are plenty of 7 card stud games to be found online as well.  Absolut Poker has active games from micro limits to $5/$10. Caribean Sun and the Poker Room network have a good base of 7 card stud players.  Finally, for you high limit players, you can toss $100 chips into the pot at Party Poker´s 7 Card Stud tables. 

19. The Ante, Deal, and Bring In - Most 7 card stud tables require an ante of every player before being dealt any cards.  After everyone has “ante’d up”, each player is dealt 3 cards, 2 face down and one face up.  This is called third street.  The face up card is called your doorcard.  Unlike Hold ‘em, there is no button, rather, the player with the lowest doorcard posts what is referred to as the bring in.  If two or more players have the same value card, the bring in is determined by suit value.  Suit values from lowest to highest are: clubs, diamonds, hearts, spades.  Players to the left of the bring in then have the option of folding, calling or raising the bring in bet.

20. 4th Street - 6th Street - These betting rounds are almost identical.  Each round, each player gets another card face up.  Unlike 3rd street however, it is the high hand showing that determines where the betting action starts.  As you can probably guess, position does not play as important a role in 7 stud, simply because your position in order of action can change every round!  The only other difference of note is that the limits go up on 5th street.  If you are playing a $5-$10 table, 3rd and 4th street’s max raise is $5 per bet.  5th, 6th and 7th street, the limit goes to $10 per bet.  The later streets of 7 stud can be expensive indeed.

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40 POKER STRATEGY TIPS

31-40

31. The other players’ up cards. This is a very important aspect to razz strategy. Observant Razz players will view the upcards and tend to have a much better idea of their relative hand strength. Sometimes the up cards will tell you exactly what to do.

32. Live and Dead Cards. This is an important aspect of 7 card stud. While in that game, you are wanting your cards to be “live”, in Razz you prefer them to be “dead.” For example, if you hold Ace, 3, 6 to start and you see two other threes, a six and an ace, you can feel even better about your hand because it means there is less of a chance that you will make pairs! Catching pairs can kill a great starting Razz hand, so the more dead cards you see the better.

33. Jamming vs. Slow Playing: Razz is not really a slow playing game. There are exceptions of course, but generally speaking if you have a good hand, you want to jam it. One reason is that by jamming it, you generally create a big enough pot on third street that it allows you to call on fourth street even if you catch a bad card, based on the size of the overall pot. You can get right back on track with another good low card on fifth street. By all means, do your best to use overly loose and aggressive players weaknesses against them, but you won’t go wrong by just betting and raising when you have the best of it.

34. Best Draw vs. Made 9 Low after five cards. A interesting feature of Razz is the little known fact that after five cards are dealt, the best drawing hand is a favorite over any made nine low. In most forms of poker the made hand usually leads the betting to make the draw hands pay, but in Razz, the opposite is true on fifth street. Things are back to normal on 6th street however. With one card to come, the made nine low is now a favorite over the best draw and should definitely lead the betting.

35. Knowing when to fold ‘em. If you make a habit of starting with sub par hands or drawing with weak hands vs. powerful boards and stronger draws, then you will just be leaking chips and blowing your bankroll. As with other poker variations, if it looks like you are beat, you probably are. Save your money for when you have the best hand and then play aggressively. Especially in low limit games, players tend to have the hands they represent, so don’t pay off three or four more bets to “keep them honest”! When good hands turn bad, release them. Patience!

36. Stealing the Antes. Ante stealing is important, especially the higher up you go in limits. Several situations are great for ante stealing attempts. First, if the bring in player is immediately to your left and it is folded up to you, you should always complete the bet to steal the bring and antes. You do not have to be successful every time for this to be a profitable play. Another good stealing shot to take is when you are the lowest up card.

37. Study Fred’s clear presentation of starting hands and how to play them pre and post flop to start building your tournament chip stack in the early stages of the tournament.

38. Change gears and begin to play a “raise or fold” strategy that will help you survive to the final few tables where “in the money” means a significant portion of the prize pool. Again, the reader will find a very clear and concise explanation of how to change styles, proper hand selection and how to play those hands on the flop and beyond.

39. Chip stack size and aggressive play are major keys to final table strategy. Fred’s revealing articles on how to win freeroll and low buyin multi table online poker tournaments conclude by breaking down a strategy based on the size of your stack and the number of players, and includes a working method of beating an opponent heads up.

40. If you’re sitting out you auto-fold everything — even good hands. Still, if somebody knows their own skill level well enough to realize that they will not be able to stop themself from spewing their chips away on bad hands then good for them.