Well, that’s what you expect at the WSOP, right? Only the very best players compete in the event? That’s just not the case. The Main Event has always attracted a healthy portion of wealthy businessmen looking for excitement, celebrities looking to raise their profile, or players who built the bank roll to buy-in but just don’t have the skills. These players are mixed in with some major sharks, yes, but don’t get the idea that the Main Event is the best of the best. All you need is $10,000 to get in and, the truth is, a lot of bad players have $10,000.

These kinds of players, from the excitement seekers to the players taking a stab, can be found in any tournament, live or online. You might be playing for profit, playing your odds, making reads, but that doesn’t mean everyone else is.

Profitable play in a tournament is determined by countless factors of strategy, but don’t forget this one. You’re already categorizing your opponents based on their playing styles, their hand ranges, and what they’re capable of. What I’m suggesting is that you categorize what motivates a player to play: are they here to gamble, to get a rush, to get lucky, to get famous? Many of these motivators make a player un-bluff-able, in which case: stick to tight-aggressive. Or trap. Or slow play (though this is rarely recommended). And, rather important to remember: as these players make their rail exit and the field thins, switch gears to deal with the remaining, more-skilled opponents.

5. Hold’Em Poker for Advanced Players, Slansky, Malmuth

The opening line in this book’s summary is: “Texas Hold ’em is not an easy game to play well.” Well, that’s true! Originally published in 1988, this book changed the poker scene forever. It’s teachings and instructions are likely known by many players today who have never read the book, simply because of how far this book penetrated the scene. In 1999, Slansky and Malmuth revisited the book and updated it for today’s game. You don’t want to miss it.

4. Championship No Limit & Pot Limit Hold ‘Em, Cloutier, McEvoy

T.J. Cloutier, one of the early road gamblers similar to Doyle Brunson, has cashed at the WSOP 55 times. Not surprisingly, you’ll find his name in the Poker Hall of Fame; he was inducted in 2006. In this book, he joins up with Tom McEvoy (four WSOP bracelets) to write about tournaments, and how to become a champion. Cloutier, it is worth noting, has won more recorded poker tournaments than anyone else in history. His advice is verifiably excellent.

3. Caro’s Book of Poker Tells, Caro

In the world of poker books, this will likely be one of the first you come across. In this classic (classic, because though it was published in 1984, it is still just as relevant), Caro reveals a laundry list of tells which have made him wealthy for decades. These tells will make you enough money in one session to buy a cart of these books. True, these tells won’t work against the 5% of elite poker professionals, but you might be amazed by how many of these tells are applicable to seemingly unreadable opponents.

2. Doyle Brunson’s Super System, Brunson

Does this book need an introduction? Doyle Brunson is a legend, still living, and his book has something to do with it. Brunson’s playing style in his early road traveling days was downright mythical: nobody understood it, everyone wanted at it, while Brunson built himself stacks of bills. In 1979, Brunson did something which he is still criticized for (but he’s okay with it): in Super System, Brunson gave away his secrets of play, why he plays the way he does, and the many tips and tricks that has earned him a fortune many times over for the better part of a century. You haven’t studied poker unless you’ve read Super System.

1. The Theory of Poker and No Limit Hold ‘Em: Theory and Practice, Slansky

These two books, which could easily be combined into one big book, are not for beginners. In fact, they’re not even intermediate: these are written for the serious, committed player who looks to improve his game every chance he gets. The Theory of Poker focuses on limit poker, but all of its lessons are applicable to NLH as well (you’ll just have to adjust your math accordingly). But instead of adjusting calculations, go ahead and get No Limit Hold ‘Em: Theory and Practice. The two of these poker books combined have been, for at least this author, the difference between barely scraping a profit to pulling in a livable income. These books lay an unshakable foundation, which produces winning results at all but the very toughest of games. These aren’t light reads, but every page you digest is money in your wallet.

5. Mike Matusow’s Poker Tells:

Click here to view the embedded video.

4. Daniel Negreanu’s Top 5 Poker Tells:

Click here to view the embedded video.

3. Annie Duke’s Top 5 Poker Tells:

Click here to view the embedded video.

2. Joe Navarro’s Poker Tells:

Click here to view the embedded video.

1. Mike Caro’s Top 10 Poker Tells:

Click here to view the embedded video.

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Would you like an hour training session with Mike McDonald, one of the world’s most successful poker tournament players? For $800 an hour, he is all yours. Phil Gordan, who has worked as an ESPN commentator as well as experienced tournament winnings in excess of $3 million, can be video chatting with you for $500 an hour. Patrik Antonius, on the other hand, charges $6,000 an hour and Tom Dwan just a hair more, at $6,500 an hour. Those who were unreachable stars are now, thanks to your expertinsight.com, at your fingertips.

Here is an obvious example of a semi-bluff-able situation.

• You hold a jack and a queen, off-suit. You are in middle position (second to act).
• The flop comes Ks 10h 6c.
• You now have an open-ended straight draw (if a 9 or an ace comes up, you’ll get quite excited).
• The player in first position checks.

You now have two options:

1. Check
You can check here, in hopes that the last player to act checks as well. Then, you could get a free card on the turn and see if you hit your straight or at least a pair. This can be a bad idea: if you have all checked the flop, and you hit your straight on the turn, your opponents aren’t about to call any big bets, and you’re going to take home at best a marginal pot. Also, if you miss your straight (which will happen most of the time here), you aren’t going to be able to bluff anybody out of the pot very easily. You have not represented strength. This can be a good idea: you believe that one of your opponents holds a made hand (in this case, maybe K10 or AK) and you don’t think you can push him off of it.

2. Semi-bluff
You can also semi-bluff here. Why is it a semi-bluff? If you get any callers in this situation (a rainbow flop, with a high card), chances are somebody has a made hand (at least a pair) and you are not the favorite to win. However, you have a chance of outdrawing your opponent for the better hand. So, it is a semi-bluff: not the favorite, could win.

If a 9 or an ace comes, you will hit your straight, and dominate your opponent. Yes, you are behind, but instead of letting the cards determine your action, you are a telling story (I have a strong hand), and telling it convincingly (I just bet four times the big blind), and you can use that to your advantage.

The semi-bluff can be a fantastic idea for many reasons:

1. If you do not hit, you can often push your opponents out of the pot on the turn or river. You are telling the story of a strong hand: use your opponent’s perception of you against them, and force them to fold with another strong bet.
2. If you hit your straight, you are going to win a big pot. On the turn and river, you can now make call-able bets, feign weakness, make the same bet as you did on the flop, put out a min-bet, bet strongly into an aggressive player: there are quite a number of ways to milk this pot! The semi-bluff is how you win big pots with straights and flushes.
3. Your bet will force your opponents to slow down. If you totally missed, you are likely going to get a free river card. Your opponents aren’t going to want to bet into the aggressor: so let it ride, and check out your final card for free.
4. You are controlling the pot: you will lose a little some of the time, and win a lot some of the time. If you are not in control of the pot, and are simply calling with draws and over cards, you are going to lose much more than if you semi-bluff a controllable amount of chips. A passive player is a losing player: take control.
5. You are confusing your opponents. Semi-bluffing will mix up your range of hands, and cause your opponents to be confused by your play. This is a good thing! Surprise your opponents every now and then; keep them on their toes, and stay unpredictable.
6. When you hit your hand, your opponent is quite often going to read you for another hand. In the above situation, the 9 or ace comes and you continue betting, your opponent will often believe the 9 did not improve your hand, and will put you on top pair (AK), two pair (K10), or the like. This is an enormous advantage, not to be underestimated, and how you win big pots.

Remember that knowing your opponent, reading their tendencies, and making good judgment on their style of play is the best information to inform your move to semi-bluff or not. If you think you can win a pot with one bet, semi-bluff away.

You have two types of equity in a hand like this: your hand equity (not that high, since you don’t have a hand and are hoping to hit a card) and your bet equity (high, if you think you can get everyone to fold). Having two types of equity is a whole lot more valuable than one type. If all you do is wait for your card to hit, you are playing one-dimensional, and often unprofitably.

Situations where it might not be the best to semi-bluff is against a table of novices (who will call anything) or a loose-aggressive game where every semi-bluff will be met with a steep raise, a type of pressure most semi-bluffs can’t withstand. Another situation is where you have flopped a flush draw of very low cards: over cards can too easily call and will beat you the majority of the time. Look for mediocre flops (middle range, varied suits) and at least competent players to try the semi-bluff on.

The semi-bluff: a powerful tool not to be forgotten! Brush up on your skills, put this shiny tactic in your arsenal, and bring home the bacon.

If you can obtain that information (through legal and accepted means!), you are on your way to making a lot of money. The study of reading your opponent is a never ending endeavor, because making your reads is going to be different with every opponent. It’s a moving target: it depends on the player, on the mood of that player, on the table, on the location, and a hundred other variables.

At the same time, recognizing reads is very possible! Your brain is processing millions of pieces of information all day long, and the trick is to analyze and synthesize that information, not to create new information. I like to avoid using the term “making reads” and prefer the term “recognizing reads.” This is because your brain already has the information. You just need to extract it.

Here are 3 of my favorite exercises to help players tap into the host of information the brain is just waiting to give away:

1. Host a running commentary in your head. As the hand plays out, comment on everything. Literally everything. “Player so-and-so raises 3 times the pot. Next player pushes all-in. Playing like he has kings.” This is information your brain is already storing. The difference here is that by commenting to yourself on it, constantly, all of that information is then flowing through the conscious mind. This creates an enormous opportunity for you: by bringing this information into the conscious mind, it can be analyzed and acted upon with reason, rather than subconscious feelings.
2. After a fold, watch the players playing. How is he touching his chips? How is he touching is face? Why is he doing both of those things in this particular way? A particularly useful tactic is to pick just one player, and watch him for the duration of the hand from pre-flop to the showdown. Each street is a different situation, and in one hand, you can gain a fairly successful understanding of your opponent. These reads are going to be more accurate than the reads you make during a hand, since you do not have anything at stake.
3. After a fold, watch players socializing. What body parts does he use to be expressive in conversation? Hand waving? Well if it’s hand waving, guess what part of his body is going to be the most expressive when he has something valuable to hide (monster hand) or something toxic to hide (bluffing hand)? Also look for facial expressions: is his mouth what’s communicating most of the emotion in his conversation? Well, if so, guess what part of his body will be most expressive when he is feeling emotions during the card game?

You know all those subconscious feelings or gut instincts you get, that are telling you how to act with a fundamental conviction? This doesn’t come from nowhere: it comes from your subconscious brain processing loads of information to great for the conscious brain, and coming back with an answer, i.e. an instructive feeling. As a poker player, perhaps the most lucrative thing you will ever do, is learn to tap into that, and learn to bring portions of it up into the conscious mind.

Tilt happens. When it does, it can hit the fan harder and faster than you’re prepared to deal with. It should be the goal of every poker player who aspires to profit to know how to control tilt.

I am not the world’s foremost expert on controlling tilt, but I have learned to control it in myself, and have coached players to control it in themselves. It’s not rocket science, but it is absolutely crucial to winning poker.

Here’s the crash course:

1. Understand tilt, deeply
2. Identify what triggers YOUR tilt
3. Outsmart yourself
4. Know yourself
5. Take action

1. Understand tilt, deeply

When you are not on tilt, tilt sounds like a silly concept, not worth much of your time. It is so painfully obvious looking from the outside in, that you probably don’t think about it very much. After all, who needs to? If you’re experiencing some strong emotion which has been caused by poker, you’re on tilt. Ta-da!

It’s not that simple.

When you are experiencing an emotion, you are almost always unaware of it. That’s not good for your poker game.

Good poker is reacting to observations, insights, and facts. Bad poker is reacting to how we feel at that moment. When we are playing good poker, we are playing with our brain and our insights. When we are playing bad poker, we are reacting to our emotions.

Here are a few common psychological reactions to a hostile environment:

• Something goes terribly wrong and hurts you. You become angry, and you react against the creator of this situation. The last thing you want to do is admit to yourself (or anybody else!) that you’re angry or that you’ve been harmed.
• Despite your best efforts for hours on ends, things just aren’t going your way. You become down, feeling blue. You don’t want to interact with much, become bored, and dodge questions. The last thing which will feel “natural” is picking yourself up and moving on emotionally.
• You just made some great moves, and you have been playing what feels like your A-game, for a solid 2 hours. But there is just this one guy, and he is playing back at you, and doing his best to make your evening terrible. You become frustrated with this player, that you cannot beat him, that despite your efforts, you are left unrewarded. You’ve played a winning game, and your stack has lost? How fair is that! You become hell-bent on fixing the problem and ignore all outside observations.

If you want to control your tilt, you have to be smarter and stronger than these emotions and all the other emotions you will feel during the game. As you know, emotions can be both incredibly strong and surprisingly sneaky.

If you want to turn a profit, take tilt seriously. Because whether you want it this way or not, your emotions are already a huge part of your game.

2. Identity what triggers YOUR tilt:
What puts you on tilt is different from everybody else. This is big. Your tilt is different from Phil Hellmuth’s tilt (thank goodness!) and from Phil Ivey’s (yes, even he goes on tilt). While there will be common themes to your tilt triggers (such as your opponent spiking the only card in the deck to make their full house on the river), what puts you over the edge is what puts YOU over the edge.

The next time you play, keep a notepad nearby. As you play, write down commentary on the hands you’re playing and when you hit that stretch of bad cards, or you play that terrible hand, or you face a donkey suck-out, write about it. Write about everything. Analyze yourself and discover what made you mad, what made you frustrated, what made you want to target that other player. Was it the snarky attitude? The 2% suck-out? That you played badly and you’re beating yourself up about it?

There’s not a lot of pressure here. Just keep a running commentary and when the inevitable frustrating run of cards comes by, comment to yourself about it. Easy, and very powerful, insights are created this way, in a natural environment.

You can’t skip this step.

3. Outsmart yourself
After a few sessions of analysis (and I suggest you are always keeping a commentary log, for the rest of your poker days, but that is a different matter), formulate a plan. Keep your plan extremely simple, so simple that if this was your second time playing cards, you’d know how to follow it. For example:

1. These are my top three tilt triggers: 1, 2, 3
2. The first time any one of these happen, I will take a stroll away from the table/computer
3. I’ll put my mind on other things, and come back in 10 minutes (but no sooner)

(You can take a stroll, you can smoke a cigarette, you can call a friend, you can eat a granola bar, you can play tetris. But whatever you ever do, do these two things: get up and away from the game, and do something that is not poker for a time. This is essential.)

The goal is [1] to know your triggers, [2] to have an action pre-meditated which you will take to alleviate the stress (simple things like walking for 5 minutes or reading 10 pages in a book), and [3] a time limit for when you are allowed to return to the game. (It’s a simple system, and it has worked for me for many years now.)

Making a plan is easy. Just keep it simple, and write it down. But  what’s not easy are the next two steps to controlling tilt.

4. Know yourself
Know when you’re on tilt.

Admit it. Admit to yourself that you are flawed, that you are emotionally compromised. Admit that you are being beaten by your own emotions, and that they are controlling your game.

Ouch! That is your pride being hurt. It’s okay. It is better to play winning poker with humility, than terrible poker with pride.

The only way to control tilt, is to grab it by the horns and wrestle it to the ground. Know yourself, know when it is happening, and have the guts, the cojones, the wherewithal, the pizzazz, and the steel nerve to say to yourself, in a clear and firm voice, “I am on tilt.”

This is huge and you should be proud of yourself for your honesty.

5. Take action
Admitting to yourself that you are on tilt is hard. Very hard. Once you’ve done it, do something about it.

Before you got on tilt, and because you are a wise, profitable, and ambitious poker player, you already formulated a plan to outsmart yourself (remember step 3?). Here, put it into action.

If you do aspire to control your tilt, you need to understand tilt deeply (step 1!), you need to be able to quantify what is putting you on tilt (step 2!), you need a plan (step 3!), and you need the guts to say you are on tilt (step 4!). But none of that will bear any fruit until, like all things, you put your plan into action (step 5!).

It is worth its own step, taking action, because you must deliberately and willfully pre-meditate and choose to take an action which, in all likelihood, will be contradicting all of your emotions at the moment. You are mad! You want to get even! You want to win it all back! However. If you have made a plan which includes an accurate analysis of yourself, then you can confidently make the right decision to temporarily ignore your emotions, and take constructive action (e.g. taking a stroll, doing something non-poker for a few minutes).

As a sidenote, you shouldn’t expect to pull this off perfectly the first time you try to implement it. It takes practice. But what you should expect, is that the more conscious and intentional you become about controlling your tilt, the more you analyze yourself, and the more willpower you develop, the more profit you will create every time you play this fascinating game.

And there you have it, in highly condensed form, a sensible approach to controlling your tilt!

Extra:
Here is Phil Hellmuth, becoming totally and completely emotionally compromised by his opponent:

Click here to view the embedded video.

One of Hellmuth’s tilt triggers is revealed at the very end of the clip, where Hellmuth says, “To you it’s just poker. To me, it’s my life.”

Here for you, from my secret vault of dishonorable tactics, are 9 proven methods to put your opponent on tilt:

1. Make an amazing bet which convinces your opponent that you really do have the best hand! Then show your bluff. Include with a wry comment like, “Please come again.”
2. Insult your opponent. One of the oldest war tactics, used by conquering heroes since the earth was young. I suggest making “hee-haw!” sounds after a player plays a hand poorly. Or pull out this little gem: “If you were twice as smart, you’d still be a stupid player.”
3. Slow roll. That’s when you’ve got the nuts, pretend your opponent has won, force him show his hand first, and then make a big deal of turning your monster, winning hand over. It’s a jerk thing to do, and a fantastic method to put your opponent on tilt.
4. Read your opponent’s hand. Then call it out. If you’re able to correctly call out your opponent’s hands a few times, they won’t be playing you with a logical strategy. They’ll play back at you with a defensive “I’ve got to eliminate this player because he has me read” strategy. Also known as “slow motion train wreck” strategy. Let their chips derail into your stack.
5. Talk incessantly in a high pitched and/or nasal voice.
6. Talk about your cats, what you fed them for breakfast, what time you are going to walk them later, how many friends your cats have, and the three books of history behind your furry friend’s name. (You don’t need a cat to do this. Just a terrible story nobody wants to hear.)
7. Bonus! Tell your cat story in a high pitched, nasal voice after slow rolling your opponent.
8. Act like you’re about to throw your hand away, gesturing repetitively with your cards as if you’re about to release them towards the dealer. Then when it gets to you, shove all-in. You’ll upset the table more than a stink bomb in seat 6.
9. Call the clock on a player who has just been dealt a hand.
10. Pull this one-liner out after a player who thinks they’re good, loses a big pot: “Ladies and gentleman, this is not a player to learn from.”

If you’ve got any other cruel, callous, or cold-hearted moves to put a player on tilt, let me know in the comments!

Super bonus! To finish up, here is one of the most egregious verbal assaults you might ever watch. It is truly amazing:

Click here to view the embedded video.

But let me repeat that last sentence for you again – - “bankroll management is a way of ensuring that your poker funds will last long enough to give you a reasonable shot at profitability”.  I used every typographical highlight that I could just to emphasize the point that Bankroll Mgmt. does not GUARANTEE profit, it simply gives you a better chance at it.  Why?  Well, veteran players can assure us that if you have 30+ full buy-ins for a cash table, 50+ buy-ins for a Sit-n-Go, or 100+ buy-ins for a Tournament (or whatever recommendations you happen to be reading and following), that you have an ample cash supply to outplay the short-term ‘variance’ and see long-term profitability from your solid method of play.  I’m going to suggest that in and of themselves, BRM guidelines that you follow blindly without regard for your skill level, game selection, or other basic considerations will be about as helpful to you as shotgun shells with no gun to shoot them.  Even if you have 500 buy-ins for a game in which you are the worst player, or among the worst players, you will lose.  It will take much longer and you’ll suffer more in the process, but you will lose.

Buy-in guidelines aren’t the key in this whole concept, to be honest.  Like most things, people want a quick fix that will work consistently, so simple rules to be followed have somehow suggested that this is how “smart” poker players operate.  And I’m not saying that the really skilled players among us deviate too far from these guidelines.  What I am saying is that skilled players also realize that if they want to make a profit, they have to be demonstrably better than those at their tables, so game selection is really the key.  I cannot stress this enough:  Play at the highest level that you can beat – that’s the most sure Bankroll Management plan of all.  Most likely if you can beat a given limit but are not rolled for it yet, you will be soon.  Conversely if you are rolled for a limit but cannot beat it, you need to find another game.  If you are beating a game but feel like you should be beating a bigger game, put in the time and effort until your results can back up your feelings, because the rest of us don’t really care when you sit down whether or not you feel like you can beat our game.  If you’re right, we have to pay you off, those are the rules.  If you’re wrong, you’re paying us, end of story.

My challenge as you consider what Bankroll Management means for you is to identify the type of game that you believe you can beat, and set about keeping thorough records (keep them yourself, don’t rely solely on software to do it for you) to demonstrate how you are doing in this game.  If you want to play and beat $2NL, that fine – just keep records.  If you want to play and beat low limit MTT’s, that’s fine – just keep records.  If you want to beat $25PLO or the $2/$4 10-Game Mix or whatever your game of choice is, that’s fine – just keep records.  Prove to yourself that you’ve found your sweet spot in the poker universe, and the money will absolutely take care of itself.  You’ll never need to consider BRM Guidelines again if you know where you fit in the food chain.  Let us know if this concept describes your experience as a poker player, and Good Luck at the Tables!

So far this blog has said nothing that you don’t (or shouldn’t) know, but I wanted us to consider together what will happen the next time that we are playing our normal, tight-solid game, and seemingly all the breaks are going our way.  Some might call it a “rush”, a “hot streak”, “lucky”, or whatever, but the reality is that good results can and will clump together in some places, and when they do it seems like the deck is just blatantly hitting us in the face.  We focus on what to do when the breaks are going against us – - avoiding tilt, switching games, stopping altogether for a break – - but when they are for us, the profit potential is so high that we’d be foolish NOT to have a plan.

My suggestion for you when everything is falling into place is to never be like your know-it-all Vegas buddy.  He’s got a system for everything, it seems!  He knows how to bet horses, roulette, blackjack, craps, he knows all the lingo, and he always comes home a loser.  Why?  It could be a lot of things, but one thing that I’ll guarantee you doesn’t help him is his “stop-win” limit.  Basically, his stop-win limit tells him that if he shows up to the Blackjack table with $100, he will quit when either
A) He has lost all $100 (they never stop where they say they will), or
B) He has won $50, bringing his total stack to $150.

BUT, you and I both know that he won’t win more often than he loses, and even if he’s very skilled and it’s 50/50, he’ll win $50 for every time he loses $100.  Mathematically, there’s no difference between that and walking up to the table, lighting $25 on fire, and walking away.  That is why poker games and poker players are different, and why planning for your rushes matters.  As a poker player, you are not playing the house, you are playing individual, unique, mistake-prone individuals, and many of them will make far too many errors by playing weak cards and chasing slim draws.  You have the option to play them until they quit, you quit, or they are broke.

So this my recommendation for today: NEVER, EVER, EVER choose option #2!  Never quit when your best customers are prepared to keep playing!  If you are playing online, mark them, study them, exploit them, follow them – - poker is a ruthless meritocracy at its heart, and you are holding up your end of the bargain by playing well and taking money off of the less-informed or less-skilled masses.  Rushes will come not at random, but when the fishiest fish in the tank are around, so the best way to plan for your rushes is to never plan on stopping at a certain win amount or a certain time!  If you have other commitments to tend to (family, etc.) and time is limited, play a sit-and-go.  Those at least have a pretty set time frame that everyone implicitly agrees to before cards are in the air.  But if you’re a cash game or MTT player, always prepare for the rush by being ready and able to play for as long as is necessary.  You owe it to your bankroll to pad it when able.  Let us know if this has been true for you, and as always, Good Luck at the Tables!

I just thought this could illustrate what rushes can really do!!