First, taking notes keeps you head in the game and your level of concentration high. I don’t know about you, but I have a tendency to play poker, answer email, check out ebay, talk on the phone, watch a ball game on tv and eat a snack all at the same time. If I force myself to take notes, it keeps my mind from wandering making it much tougher for me to become distracted and miss something. You never know when something will become relevant later on.

Second, the notes you take must be easy to decifer later on and they must mean something. For example: “this guy is a jack-ass” doesnt really tell you much. Does he play out of position? Is he a call station? Will he make continuation bets? Will he back down from a re-raise? Any of those things may be helpful to know, but you need to be descriptive enough in your note taking to get your point across.

Something like “played 4-4 in early position and called raise with over cards on the board” might be a good way to describe a situation. You need to have useful information or it is not worth bothering with. “Seems to play A-rag out of position a lot” is short and to the point. “Will fold in the BB to a button raise” could be helpful.

You also need to make some sort of designation as to whether the tendency you have spotted is something you have seen multiple times, or is it just a first impression. I will put a question mark after my note many times and then go back and erase it if I see it proven over and over.  For example “raises from the button?” may be something that I saw once, but if I see it again 2 or 3 times, I need to know that so that I can play against it accordingly. Some players I know will also date their notes so that if you see this player again 6 months down the line, you know that the note may be less relevant because he could have adjusted his play drastically in that amount of time.

All in all, note taking is a great way to keep up your concentration, whether the note comes in handy later or not. This is one of those little tools that you are given to use in internet play that you will never have in live play, so take advantage of it.

If you are looking for a break from NL Hold’em, you might think about trying a H.O.R.S.E, Omaha, Stud, or Razz tournament of some variety. I have found myself playing more of these types lately just to get a break from NL Hold’em. Last night I made the final table in a large multi-table PL Omaha Hi game and I enjoyed it more than I have NL Hold’em games lately. I think there are a couple of reason why it can be easier to advance further in these games.

First, most of the players playing them are NL Hold’em players. H.O.R.S.E, for example requires a far different skill set than Hold’em. I think the “green-ness” if you will contributes to a little easier pickens for those of us who have some experience in these games. Maybe some signed up by mistake, maybe they wanted to try it and found them didn’t like it, whatever the case may be, I see a lot of players simply calling and then re-raising every bet until they run out of chips after they have lost one big hand. These are the kind of players that you can really capitalize off of. Look for these guys at every table in multi-table tourneys. They are there and you can increase your chip stack because of them. They seem to get frustrated by the fact that they cannot go all-in because it is a Limit game. It is a form of “Tilt” just a different one than you are used to seeing in NL games.

The other thing I notice is that you will find less suck-outs in games like Omaha etc. Not to say that there are none, but it is harder to suck out on a hand in these games and if a player is used to playing too loose in NL games, he will get eaten up in a game like H.O.R.S.E. You really have to tighen up your play and only play the hands that give you a good chance of winning, especially early on. Most NL Hold’em players play way too loose in these games and you can take advantage in a big way. If being selective in NL Hold em is important, it is 10x more so in games like Omaha Hi-lo. Many of the players you are up against give absolutely no thought to playing hands that have no chance of winning the Lo-pot. If you keep this in mind and play against them accordingly, you can take more chances to win both pots, knowing you are in better position than your opponent to win the Lo. One of the keys to playing these games is to not play hands that don’t give you a chance to win both pots.

Anyway, if you need some variation in your daily dose of poker, try straying out of the NL box. Bone up on your skills (it is a radically different skill set for these other games!) and see if your bankroll doesnt start reflecting the difference!

Standard wisdom says that you can’t win the tournament in the first hour. I agree with this. However, there are generally 2 types of players that you will be up against in a large field tournament: the types who know what they are doing and lay back waiting for the perfect situation, and the iditios who play way too loose from the start, trying to double up or bust.

Many times, if you can adjust your play to be somewhere in the middle of these two extremes, you can build your chip stack quickly, early on, thereby not having to push later in the middle rounds where you have to make a move or become irrelevant.

What I like to do early on in a NL tournament is get a little bit loose until I get caught. Here is a rule of thumb, I will play a variety of hands and take some chances until I have lost maybe $500-$800 out of a $3000 chip stack. Of course, ideally I will win and be up around $5000 or so from my original $3000, but if I lose around 1/4 of my stack, then the kidding around is pretty much over and I am waiting for perfect cards in the perfect spot. What I am saying is that you can afford to be a bit loose and take some chances trying for that early gain as long as it is not for all your chips.

You also have to know where to draw the line. If you lose $500 early on, don’t press your luck trying to get it back. Just tighten up and wait for a good spot. Otherwise, a little bad luck, and you can find yourself down to $1000 or less very quickly. Don’t let that happen. Have the sense to play around a bit while you can afford it, but know when to stop.

Hands I will look to play early on that I may not play if I tighten up later would be hands like suited connectors, A-T from position, small pairs trying to hit trips, etc. These hands can become pretty marginal plays later on when the blinds and antes are high. Try and get them out of your system when it doesn’t cost you much. By doing this and catching a little luck, you might find yourself with a leg up on the other “good” players in the tournament. This will also enable you to tighten up for those early rounds if you hit something big to double up your stack. At that point, you can let the cards come to you.

“Hi  I have a  problem that I can’t solve. These are some of the hands I play and the results. I am in the big blind with 58 off limp in with the sm. Blind.  The flop is 3 8 5 r.  The sm blind bets and I raise, he goes all in I call. He has k 8 for top pair. He gets the k on the river  I lose.

I’m in a cash game where the player to my left keeps playing ace rag. I get ace queen and limp in with him. The flop is ace  8 3 . I check and pray. He bets out  and I reraise , he goes all in and I call.  He has Ace 2 vs my ace queen.  Yep river is a 2 I lose.

The problem is I grind out some wins increasing my stack and always lose it to this type of hands. I go in with 80 to 90 odds and lose. Yes I know they should even out but my stack has stayed the same for several months. I build it then lose it.  Maybe I don’t play lose or behind enough to get lucky.

Any suggestion would help Thanks”

I will make a couple of suggestions, but the bottom line answer you arer probably not going to like: suck outs happen. Get used to it. If you are going to play poker, particularly online, you have to get used to suck outs. I would remind you of this: you are 80%-90% favorite for a reason. It is not 100% that you will win, the odds are simply in your favor. Don’t forget that 10%-20% of the time you will still lose to a suck out.
I would also submit this. You remember the instances that someone sucked out on you more. In other words, you brain hi-lights when things do NOT go according to the natural order of things, ie a suck out etc. How did you build your stack up until that point? I would guess by winning those hands 80% of the time. Your brain does not pick those times out as much, attributing it to the natural order. You were favored to win and you did, end of story. If you don’t believe me, try a computer program to keep track of your stats. There are dozens of them all over the net and they will track the results of all your hands. My guess is you will find that OVER TIME, hands where you are favored by about 4:1 hold up about 80% of the time.
OK, having said this, lets get back to what to do about “bad beats” First of all, what dollar level are you playing? You will find that lower dollar tournaments especially, will have much more loose play and more suck outs because people just don’t respect the small amount of money that they put in as much. You will not find players playing A-rag nearly as much in a $100 SnG as you will a $3 SnG. Trust me on this one. You should play at the highest level your bankroll will allow, NOT OVER your bankroll. It is up to you to know what you are comfortable spending.
Next, your example where you play 5-8 off in the BB. That is just what I would call unlucky. You cant blame the SB for thinking he has the best hand with top-pair, high-kicker. Especially if it is just you two left in the pot. That is a good hand that should be bet strongly in that instance. He just got lucky and happened to suck-out a K. That 18% of the time that you wont win that hand snuck up and bit you there. Not much you can do about it.   However, I will point out this: your 2-pair us hardly unbeatable there. How do you know he didn’t have a set? He could have very easily limped in with pocket 3’s from the SB and made his set on the flop. Sure, you were an 82% favorite as the hand worked out, but how much of a favorite are you against a set?

Second example where you have A-Q. First off, if you know he likes to play A-rag, what are you doing limping in? Well, I will tell you: you are giving him the opportunity to keep limping in with A-rag! If you notice a player limping in with crap, punish him with a big pre-flop raise!  DO NOT give him the opportunity to keep seeing cheap flops. Make him pay if he wants to stay in the hand with you. 5x the BB or more will make him seriously think about playing junk like A-2. It is a major mistake to limp into pots with loose players. If you have a strong hand, show it and make them pay to play. A-Q is a strong hand, play it as such,  especially if you have loose players around you. If they call and suck out on you, oh well, at least you tried to push them out. If you limp, you play right into their style of play and you cant allow that to happen.
Next, I assume it is just the 2 of you in the hand from your description, so why check post-flop? He is a loose player who has hit top pair, what do you expect him to do? You know he will bet this and if he is dumb enough to play A-2, he is dumb enough to think his hand is best here. Your re-raise looks like an attempt to punish his continuation bet. Lead out with a pot size bet. Sure, in this situation it may not have mattered, but you cant say for sure. If you are playing loose players, play your strong hands strongly. Simple enough. Let him know that you have an Ace too. Very likely he thinks you don’t have one and his Ace is good, especially with only 2 of you in the pot. Obivously you cant know this for sure, but you need to try to find out.

If I had to analyze your play, based on this info which is not nearly enough to even form an opinion, I would say you are playing scared a little too much. Take the lead and play your good hands strongly. Try not to allow other players to dictate the flow and pace of the hand. Don’t let the limpers limp! If they are not in the hand, they cant suck out on you. And don’t think that you are not playing loose enough! You don’t need to play like a fool just because others get lucky sometimes doing it.
Play your game and the odds will even out. Remember, a 4:1 favorite is great, but you are still going to lose 1 out of 5 times. You will only win all the time when you have the nuts and both examples you gave are far from the nuts. Yes, they were hands that put you in good position to win, but not every time.  Really, that is all you can ask for: get your chips in in the best possible situation and let the cards fall where they may.
Also, remember this: luck is what happens in the short term. The percentages are what happens over the long haul. That is not 5 hands or 500 hands, it is millions of hands. Anything can and does happen in the short term. I have lost every hand in a tournament where I was a 4:1 favorite or better.  The next tournament I won every time. Or I won when I shouldn’t have. That happens too. The point is, short term, “luck” happens. Neutralize it by playing more poker!

One tournament not to miss is the Holiday $100k on the 27th and the follow up $100k on the 28th. Satellites are running for these tournaments all the time for as little as 50 FFP’s. There are free rools 12 times a day until the 27th starting at 40 minutes past the hour. Watch for these and win your way into a $100,000 tournament with NO investment at all.

You’ll have even more opportunity for triple points on five special days, when 3Xmas Happy Hour runs for 12 hours, from noon until midnight ET. These days are Christmas Eve Wednesday December 24th, Christmas Day Thursday December 25th, Friday December 26th, New Year’s Eve Wednesday December 31st and New Year’s Day Thursday January 1st.

If you don’t feel like playing No Limit Hold’em there are Stud, Omaha, Razz, and H.O.R.S.E games going all the time as well. The cash ring games fill up quickly and the 90-player Knock-out tournaments run at $3, $11, $24 levels all the time. There is money to be won and FFP’s to grab this holiday season. If you need a break from the relatives, hit Full Tilt for some poker!

A great last minute Christmas gift is my ebook which offers a great tune up for the tables, The No B.S. Guide to Winning Online No Limit Texas Hold’em on sale now!  Merry Christmas!!!

Admittedly, there will be times when you get excited to see A-A in your hand, you put in a 3x Big Blind raise and are dissappointed to see everyone fold. All I can say to this is: “it is better to take only the blinds than to lose your entire stack.”

Because of the loose nature of online players, you are all bu forced to make at least some minimum pre-flop raises with your pocket Aces. If you do not, you simply leave way too many people in the hand. Obviously, this creates more chances for your Aces to be cracked. You have got to steer clear of this if you can.

The best way to play Aces pre-flop is to put in a raise of in the neighborhood of 3x the Big Blind and try to entice someone else to go in over the top of you, either all-in, or with a big raise. If you have noticed a particularly aggressive player at the table, he is a good candidate for this play. Sometimes you will even get a couple of calls for your minimum raise and then someone else comes over the top. This is ideal because you can call (if he went all-in) or re-raise. What this accomplishes is to most times eliminate the others from the hand, giving you a heads up shot with your Aces. This is exactly what you want. Remember, the more players in the hand after the flop, the better chance of getting your Aces cracked.

That being said, if you do not end up in an all-in situation, what you are looking at post flop is the texture of the flop. You need to be aware of 2 things: flush draws and the board pairing up. If either of these happens, proceed with caution. It is a strong player who can actually fold A-A, but when the flop comes K-K-3, you may have to do just that in the face of a big raise. No matter if your opponent was playing K-5 off suit, he has you beat in this type of instance. Get over it. Do not become one of these guys who calls or bets all of his chips when it is obvious by the texture of the flop he is beat.

The flush draw is a little trickier. What you want to do is push him off of his flush draw by not giving him the odds to call. The hard part about this is that many online players will chase that flush down well beyond the realm of reason. Sometimes there isn’t much you can do about this except to try and then decide if you want to risk your chip stack against his attempt to suck out. One thing that can sway your mind is if one of your Aces matches the suit on the board. If it does, you have a chance of making a higher flush if another card of that suit comes on the Turn or River, regardless of whether or not your opponent has a flush. Take this into account when you make this judgment.

Pocket Aces are of course, fun to play, but they can be a trap hand for many players. Beware, they are not invincible, especially in internet poker. Use some common sense, think about what you opponent may have, and you can keep out of trouble and still make them profitable.

If you would like a more in depth analysis of how to play pocket Aces, as well as many other hands, try my ebook, The No B.S. Guide to Winning Online No Limit Texas Hold’em.

A tournament that you shouldn’t miss is the Holiday 100k on December 27th and the Extra Holiday 100k on the 28th. These are going to be some rich tournaments that you can buy into with nothing more than FFP’s. For as little as 50 FFP (player points) you can get into a satellite to either of these tournies, or just buy in for only 2,000 FFP’s.  You can also win your entry by playing in one of our multiple daily Freerolls, starting at 40 minutes past every hour from December 1st through December 27th. This is a great way to use your FFP’s to buy into a tournament with plenty of prize money to be won.

Full Tilt continues to garner more and more players with well over 80,000 playing at any one given time. Because of this, there are plenty of fish and plenty of action to be found in pretty much any game you might choose to play. Cash game tables fill up quickly and there are tons of SNG’s running non stop. Even the high dollar tables are getting lots of action. It seems that with the economy in the state it is in, more and more people are statying home and playing online poker. Take adavantage of this and make some money!

If your game needs a quick pick-me-up, try my ebook, The No B.S. Guide To Winning Online No Limit Texas Hold’em. You will find many tips to take your game to the next level and take money from your opponents bankroll as well.

The one I like to play the most when I don’t feel like spending alot of money and getting too serious, is the $24+$2 tournament. For each player you knock out, you get $4 added immediately to your account. This tournament runs constantly with 90 players, but you often also find it with over 1000 entries playing. This gives you ample opportunity to knock players out and collect their bounty. These can get to be profitable very quickly, long before you have even made the money and reached the final table.

Some small adjustments in strategy are necessary to have sucess in these games, mainly DO NOT MAKE STUPID, LOOSE, PLAYS JUST TO KNOCK SOMEBODY OUT!!!

Time after time, I see players ruin their tournament by playing way too loose simply because they could not resist calling a big raise or an all-in for the chance to suck-out and put someone out and collect their bounty. More than most, these tournaments have people chasing because of the bounties. The best strategy for you to use is to simply sit back, wait for premium cards and punish them! It is really that easy most of the time.

The other thing that I would strongly recommend is changing that strategy later in the tournament and becoming somewhat loose by trying to put out the very small stacks. If you have say, $8500 in chips in the Big Blind and the Buttom player goes all-in with his stack of $600, by all means call with any two cards. The potential equity gained by collecting the bounty AND putting a player out of the tournament is well worth it. Sure, the short stacks don’t like it much when your J-7 off suit catches a Jack and puts out their A-K, but thats what they get for being short stacked in the first place. Remember, don’t chase hands and you won’t find yourself short stacked most of the time.

If you have not tried a Knock-out tournament on Full Tilt, give it a try. They are very entertaining and alsoo quite profitable!

If you play alot of poker online like I do, you want to spice it up every now and then. With more of these games becoming available it is much easier to do so. I played a Limit Stud-Hi game last night that was very competitive and fun. I also had no problem finding one.

Much of my Sunday was also spent playing H.O.R.S.E. which offers  real challenge and a nice break from standard NL Hold’em. Weekends in particualiar seem to be a great time on Full Tilt to find these games, I noticed alot of Razz tournaments going on as well.

Many of the weekend offerrings included Freerolls so that you can practice up and learn a new game before you start putting your money in on it. Of course, you can always play for play-money as well, although many of the players playing don’t take it very seriously, making it hard to gain experience and you will also have to look hard to find games other than NL Hold em in the play-money realm. Still, for a minimum spent, you can find a $5-$10 tournament that gives you the experience you need for a low price.

As Full Tilt continues to grow, it is becoming a better site to find variety for your poker game. Take advantage of this and stray out of the box-you might find it to be quite profitable!

Early on in the tournament, I was dealt pocket J’s on the button. I got 2 limpers in front of me and I raised to 4x times the Big Blind with my Jacks.  The Small Blind called, as did one of the limpers.

The Flop came 6-5-2 rainbow. The Small Blind led out with a pot sized bet, the limper in early position folded and I raised to double the bet of the player in the Small Blind. he promptly went all-in. Since he did not raise pre-flop, I could not really put him on a high pocket pair. My best guess was that he paired up a 6 and felt that his high pair on the board was good. I called his all-in.

He flipped over Q-6 off suit and when no help came on the Turn or River, my Jacks held up and knocked him out of the tournament, doubling me up with a big pot.

There are a couple of obvious, easy lessons to be learned from this example. First, why in the world would you call a 4x Big Blind bet pre-flop out of position with Q-6 off suit? There is no reason to even be in this hand at that point. ESPECIALLY from the Small Blind.

Second, just because you have high pair on the board, does not mean you are strong enough to win the hand. If he would have thought for a moment, my 4x Big Blind raise was a pretty good indicator of strong hand. I suppose he could have put me on Big Slick or something like that, but many times a large pre-flop raise points to a pocket pair. In any case, 6’s are not a high enough pair that I would trust my entire chip stack to, with the Turn and the River still to come.

All in all, this is a good example of a player only being concerned with, seeing every flop (dumb, dumb, dumb!) and  focusing on his cards only, instead of thinking about what other players at the table might have. Remember, you are not the only one with cards at the table. Just because your high pair looks good, doesn’t mean it always is.