by bigspenda73 | Aug 14, 2018 | Beginner Poker, Cash Games, Featured Beginner Poker, Featured Cash Games, Featured No Limit Hold'em, No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
One seemingly simple concept in No-Limit Texas Hold’em which tends to get a large amount of discussion is continuation betting. For those unfamiliar with the term a continuation bet (c-bet) is a bet by the pre-flop raiser on the flop. The term refers to this...
by numbr2intheworld | Aug 13, 2018 | No Limit Hold'em, Poker Psychology, Poker Strategy
I think I just had a really cool epiphany. Danny and I just watched the new movie 21 tonight (meh). Obviously, when two poker players see that movie there is going to be some gambling discussion afterwards. One thing lead to another and I brought up the subject of why...
by Carl Sampson | Aug 12, 2018 | No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
I play my poker a lot differently these days. My operation has switched from high-stakes single tabling to far lower stakes and multi-tabling. So in a way this is going from high-stakes-low overlay-low turnover to low-stakes-higher overlay-higher turnover. This suits...
by spoonitnow | Aug 12, 2018 | Beginner Poker, No Limit Hold'em
The Most Important Series I’ve Ever Written Back in late 2013, I wrote a five-part series that did something that I still think is pretty incredible: I taught a process for doing complex expected value (EV) calculations without requiring any kind of advanced...
by spoonitnow | Aug 11, 2018 | No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
This week’s article is the beginning of a new series about expected value calculations. A lot of people have expressed an interest in having a good set of tutorials explaining how to do more math-related things since that’s something I’m kind of...
by spoonitnow | Aug 9, 2018 | Beginner Poker, No Limit Hold'em
Introduction This is the fifth part of the NLHE Foundations Series. This series is designed to give a clear set of topics to study and methods for studying that will bring players up to the intermediate levels in no-limit hold’em. People who are signed up in the...
by givememyleg | Aug 9, 2018 | Cash Games, No Limit Hold'em, Poker Psychology, Poker Strategy
After familiarizing yourself with key poker fundamentals such as bankroll management, positional awareness, and aggression, there are a few other aspects of your game you can improve to take the next step in your poker playing career. One of the best ways to improve...
by meeloche | Aug 8, 2018 | No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
Meeloche presents an interesting approach to table selection. Perhaps there is an alternative to just looking at preflop percentages and pot sizes… My contribution to table selection, maybe even a new idea… When it comes to table selection, we still should...
by sauce123 | Aug 8, 2018 | Featured Strategy, No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
Sauce123 destroys the competition. Trust me. He put together a really solid, concise guide to beating the 6-max no limit holdem tables – particularly on US friendly poker rooms Post-UIGEA (when many poker rooms closed their doors to US players, ultimately making...
by IowaSkinsFan | Aug 8, 2018 | Featured No Limit Hold'em, No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
Something I like to do, and what I always advocate people who seek poker help from me, is to break down the elements of poker so we can understand concepts behind them and further apply them. I feel like most of the problems with people stuck at low and midstakes is...
by spoonitnow | Aug 7, 2018 | No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
Low stakes play is all about making adjustments that exploit your opponents. Unfortunately, most players at micro stakes and many at small stakes, even winning players, don’t really understand what it means to exploit someone. While it’s easy to say that...
by spoonitnow | Aug 5, 2018 | No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
Every post in the spoonitnow strategy series has been leading up to this moment. While there is obviously going to be some math involved when it comes to basic things like pot odds, a lot of people are under the impression that things like balance and exploitation...
by spoonitnow | Aug 4, 2018 | No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
Some people have described the feeling of being overwhelmed by all of the things that go into deciding whether or not they should make a continuation bet. We’re going to make our thinking less stressful and more efficient by looking at the question from a...
by carlcarlsoniv | Aug 4, 2018 | No Limit Hold'em
In this week’s column, we’re going to investigate the idea of betting to protect your hand. A number of people bet with the excuse of protecting their hand almost every chance that they get. On the other hand, a lot of people dismiss this concept as being...
by IowaSkinsFan | Aug 3, 2018 | No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
Often in HU matches, I’ll come across a player who doesn’t seem to have many leaks. He’ll raise a solid range from the BU, not play too loose OOP, and have a good mix of cbets and two barrels, as well as balanced ranges in other areas. Many when playing, whether it’s...
by carlcarlsoniv | Aug 3, 2018 | No Limit Hold'em
This is part five of the Back to Basics series. Last week, I said that this week’s installment would be about using spreadsheets to simplify analysis. Well, I lied. I’m going to do a future series on that because I don’t think I can do the topic...
by carlcarlsoniv | Aug 2, 2018 | No Limit Hold'em
In the Back to Basics series, we’re taking concepts that you probably learned early in your poker career and looking at them from a more detailed standpoint than you likely did when you first learned about them. This week, we’re going to look at...
by spoonitnow | Aug 2, 2018 | Beginner Poker, No Limit Hold'em, Poker Psychology, Poker Strategy
People who know how I approach things will be able to tell you that I focus primarily on depth instead of breadth. However, this week’s column is going to be a bit different. Over the past couple of months, I’ve been laying out a way to think about the...
by Carl Sampson | Aug 1, 2018 | No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
Having spent around twenty years in the gambling industry in one capacity or another and numerous years in online poker, you cannot help but become aware of the seedier side of the industry. But this applies to all fields, it doesn’t matter what it is or how high...
by carlcarlsoniv | Aug 1, 2018 | No Limit Hold'em
This is part 3 in the Back to Basics series. In this series, we take basic concepts and look at them in a little more depth than beginners typically do. The idea here is to fill in some knowledge gaps and play better poker on a fundamental level. In this week’s...
by IowaSkinsFan | Jul 31, 2018 | No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
The most repeated advice in poker. We’ve all heard it before. Position, Position, Position. The proof is in the pudding. Our statistics show that we win much more money on the button than we do UTG. But the advice to play in position is not very powerful when we have...
by Carl Sampson | Jul 31, 2018 | Cash Games, No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
A few months ago when I was participating in my NL50 poker challenge, it soon become apparent that there were an awful lot of bad regs at this level in both six max and full-ring, but especially six max. In any form of poker, the fewer players that there is on the...
by carlcarlsoniv | Jul 31, 2018 | No Limit Hold'em
Last week, we started a series called Back to Basics which is going to look at “basic” concepts in more depth than players have probably used before. Our first part of this series was on Implied Odds, and we’re going to continue with this theme in Part 2 this...
by Carl Sampson | Jul 31, 2018 | No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
As a follow on to the article that I wrote a few weeks ago regarding the likelihood of cheating in online poker increasing through necessity, here I want to talk about the effects of coaching sites, training tools and other types of software that all enable people to...
by carlcarlsoniv | Jul 30, 2018 | No Limit Hold'em
This is the beginning of the Back to Basics series. The point of this series is to use basic EV calculations to examine basic concepts in more depth than a lot of players probably ever have before. You will have needed to work through the EV Calculations Tutorial...
by IowaSkinsFan | Jul 30, 2018 | Featured No Limit Hold'em, Featured Strategy, No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
Amazingly, when I was high yesterday from some horrible weed, I came to a breakthrough thought in my poker game. I called sauce up and explained to him what I just realized and he had no idea why it was so amazing. It took me awhile, but then I realized that the...
by IowaSkinsFan | Jul 30, 2018 | No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
When I interviewed Kingsofcards for my weekly interview, one comment he made about heads up changing his game rung a bell with me. Until after playing HU, when playing 6 max I never really took into account bet sizing, timing tells or things like that nearly as much...
by spoonitnow | Jul 30, 2018 | No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
In the context of poker, preparation could mean a number of different things, but we’re going to focus specifically on a few instances here. First, we’re going to look at how to and the advantages of preparing when you make a bet or raise. Second,...
by cobere | Jul 29, 2018 | Beginner Poker, Cash Games, No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
Recently the world’s largest poker site, PokerStars, announced the way they were handling the minimum/maximum buy-in amounts at their cash game tables. This mainly affects NL/PL Hold’em as well as Pot-Limit Omaha games as shallow/deep stacks in limit games...
by Renton | Jul 29, 2018 | Cash Games, No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
First, two hands…. $5/$10 No Limit Holdem 6 players Stacks: UTG fakker11 ($1594.00) UTG+1 GIVEmeSOME99 ($815.00) CO traheho ($1062.00) BTN Bttech86 ($1000.00) SB Hero ($1095.00) BB zero2lose ($2772.75) Pre-flop: ($15, 6 players) Hero is SB 4 folds, Hero...
by IowaSkinsFan | Jul 29, 2018 | Cash Games, No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
The indepth discussion on the bet/fold and the check/call: I’d like to discuss a really simple concept that is killing your winrate. I discovered it not to long ago. It’s really not that hard, but truthfully for the 1/2 grinder who just can’t seem to...
by spoonitnow | Jul 28, 2018 | Cash Games, No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
This is the fourth part in a series dealing with the key ideas that can be used to accelerate the process of gaining a feel for equities in different spots. In this week’s edition, we’re going to discuss some major cases for when the turn comes and how you...
by Renton | Jul 28, 2018 | No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
Addendum to Preflop adaptations that must occur Dealing with reraises- When you get reraised from position from a typical player, it sucks, and you’ll have to fold most hands if the reraise is substantial, such as AJ/AQ/KQ and weaker cards than that. Oftentimes it is...
by allabout | Jul 28, 2018 | Beginner Poker, Cash Games, No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
Over the past twelve months, I have been observing the lower stakes no-limit games and playing in them quite extensively including around 100k hands at NL50. I have been observing the games on Pokerloco recently which is a site that is situated on Ongame. I have been...
by IowaSkinsFan | Jul 28, 2018 | No Limit Hold'em, Poker Psychology, Poker Strategy
When it comes to getting better in an early stage of your career, hand reading is a premium. You can understand poker as much as you’d like, but it’s not going to help if you can’t read hands well. It’s hard to know what to do when you have no idea what your opponents...
by Carl Sampson | Jul 27, 2018 | Cash Games, No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
Let’s face it, we all know how important aggression is in poker. But years ago I used to remark how easy it was to be aggressive and that anyone could do it. If I told a novice player to empty the clip every time he entered a pot then his violent aggression...
by sauce123 | Jul 26, 2018 | No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
So everyone who reads and posts in this forum knows how to evaluate a HH, knows about preflop, knows about continuation betting and knows something about hand values and hand ranges. Perhaps the most important thing about poker though, and why some "bad"...
by Fnord | Jul 25, 2018 | No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
General Approach: Buy-in for 50bb. Re-load when you drop below 40bb. At 75bb re-evaluate table conditions. If you don’t like your seat or table, nit it up until your blinds hit, then leave. Tend to leave if you drop 100bb at a table. Advantages to a less than...
by PokerJanitor | Jul 24, 2018 | Beginner Poker, No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
We’ve all run across players who refuse to put their money in the pot without the benefit of premium cards. Indeed, players who wait on suited connectors, pocket pairs, or high face cards are practicing sound poker strategy, and will almost always make deep runs...
by IowaSkinsFan | Jul 24, 2018 | No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
These thoughts about manipulation keep running through my mind and it’s keeping me awake, so I decided I’d write them down. A few months ago I got really into manipulation and made some pretty good blog posts about it. Eventually, I got more into exploring...
by IowaSkinsFan | Jul 24, 2018 | Beginner Poker, Cash Games, No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
I have to admit, most of my articles give advice that is hard to understand. When you don’t understand preliminary concepts to the ideas of talking about, it’s almost impossible to truly understand anything I or high stakes players talk about. In later articles I’m...
by spoonitnow | Jul 24, 2018 | Beginner Poker, No Limit Hold'em
Introduction When you’re calling hoping to hit a hand, there are a lot of variables at play that aren’t always in your favor. We’re going to look at some of those variables here and see how they all come together to affect your total EV of calling....
by Carl Sampson | Jul 24, 2018 | No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
As you begin to peel away the surface of no-limit Hold’em and in particular, no-limit Hold’em cash games, it becomes apparent that the game itself has design problems. What in heavens name do I mean? Well to put it in plain English, what other field of...
by carlcarlsoniv | Jul 24, 2018 | No Limit Hold'em
Introduction If you’re reading this, then chances are that you don’t check-raise enough and that you really have no idea when you should be doing it except when you decide to on a whim. We’re going to set out to change that today by giving you an...
by bigspenda73 | Jul 24, 2018 | No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
#5 Hand-Reading Being able to process information from your opponent, the texture of the board, and past experiences will help you become a better hand-reader. Improving your hand-reading skills will allow you to make more “correct” decisions in a session, thus...
by spoonitnow | Jul 23, 2018 | No Limit Hold'em, Poker Psychology, Poker Strategy
Our objective here is to start to use second-level thinking principles to anticipate the strategies of regular opponents. This information will be used in tandem with other information we know about our opponents to formulate strategies used to exploit them. The State...
by Fnord | Jul 23, 2018 | Cash Games, No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
Group 1: any two cards Group 2: any two cards you found in your wallet (Blockbuster, Visa, library card) Har har! Not really. But yes, the starting requirements are a lot looser and a lot more vague than in a full ring game. I don’t consult a chart – a lot...
by spoonitnow | Jul 22, 2018 | No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
I’m sort of at a weird spot in the development of my game. I’m going to type out a bunch of random crap about common drawing spots with straight or flush draws in hopes that it’ll internalize some things I still probably screw up occasionally. Also,...
by lolzzz_321 | Jul 22, 2018 | Beginner Poker, No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
Most of us have played poker in one form or another. The game is universal, reaching across the world to unite players of all ages and nations. Let’s get to the basics. Players are each dealt a set number of cards in a predetermined timing system (deal, flop,...
by edwarda | Jul 22, 2018 | Beginner Poker, No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
The semi-bluff: know it, use it, love it. To be a poker rock star (i.e. you turn a profit!), it is necessary to have in your arsenal of moves. David Slansky defines the semi-bluff as “a bet with a hand which, if called, does not figure to be the best hand at the...
by carlcarlsoniv | Jul 22, 2018 | No Limit Hold'em
A while back, I wrote the EV Calculations Tutorial series to help people to deal with the math side of poker. We followed a very simple process that kept our analysis organized and clean, and we did so only requiring basic addition and multiplication. While this is...
by Marshall28 | Jul 22, 2018 | No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
I decided to write this entry because I feel like I’m responding with the same answers to the same questions over and over and over about playing in 3bet pots. I think this forum could definitely benefit from this article and it will make it much easier the next...
by Carl Sampson | Jul 21, 2018 | No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
Actually, I almost didn’t write this article simply because I thought that writing it might be a waste of time. The reason being is that the vast majority of players who read this will probably, through a combination of conceit and egotism, think that I am not...
by carlcarlsoniv | Jul 21, 2018 | No Limit Hold'em
Introduction Back in part 1 of the Bluff or Check? series, we briefly looked at the concepts that govern firing the second barrel. Also known as a turn continuation bet, we’re talking about betting again as a bluff or semi-bluff when we’re called on the...
by spoonitnow | Jul 21, 2018 | No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
Over the past three weeks, we have been building up to this week’s material. This week, we’re going to look at how to use what we’ve learned so far to perform EV calculations for extremely complicated scenarios. The math involved does not change at...
by FlopTurnRiver | Jul 21, 2018 | No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
There are still some good hands yet to be played, but you must be careful! We are running pretty thin at this point. Here are my Group 6 hands: Group 6: KT QT JT A7s K9s Q9s T9s J9s A5s A6s A4s A3s A2s Again, this group is a clear departure from Sklansky and the...
by IowaSkinsFan | Jul 20, 2018 | No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
A great piece of advice Sauce123 gave me is put people on ranges on every street. I tell this to many people and post it in many threads, because it is some of the best advice around. But sometimes you can hear something, try it, and just not get it. So this week, I’m...
by spoonitnow | Jul 20, 2018 | Cash Games, No Limit Hold'em
Introduction Open limping before the flop in no-limit hold’em cash games is almost always the sign of a loose/passive, weak player. However, this doesn’t have to be the case, and you can definitely add open limping to your game in the right circumstances...
by Carl Sampson | Jul 20, 2018 | No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
Written by Carl Sampson, aka The Dean, 2009. Years ago the continuation bet was a very little known poker concept. This was knowledge that only regular strong players tended to have. This is not the case anymore and continuation betting is so basic that it basically...
by bigspenda73 | Jul 20, 2018 | Beginner Poker, No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
This seemingly simple topic might be one of the most misunderstood by beginners in poker. Learning about reverse implied odds was quite eye-opening for me and led to a large improvement in my ability. Most players, even those new to the game, understand what is meant...
by bigspenda73 | Jul 20, 2018 | No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
One of the recent trends in online poker is the introduction of No Limit Hold’em cash games with an Ante. Major sites such as FullTilt, UB (formerly UltimateBet), and Absolute Poker have added these games to their lobby looking to attract more players. Ante games tend...
by spoonitnow | Jul 19, 2018 | Beginner Poker, No Limit Hold'em
Introduction I’ve seen so many players make this same mistake over the years that it’s almost comical at this point. Hero has some medium-strength hand, some loose/passive player raises against Hero, and Hero calls down anyway to be faced with the...
by spoonitnow | Jul 19, 2018 | Cash Games, Featured Cash Games, No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
One of the things that I’ve seen people struggle with is getting a feel for how different ranges come together on boards to create equities. It’s one thing to be able to get a relatively good idea of what both you and your opponent’s ranges look like...
by IowaSkinsFan | Jul 19, 2018 | No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
We are on the river with 97s on a JJ922 board. Our opponent has bet 3/4ths the pot into us, and we are put in a tough spot. We know from the past streets that our hand look weak and our donk opponent, who seems to never fold (ever), could easily have a J, 2, overpair,...
by spoonitnow | Jul 19, 2018 | No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
Last week I said that we would look more at the turn. Instead, I’ve decided that we’re going to look at something else that will be more useful: hitting pairs with different ranges. It’s fairly easy to see how many draws ranges have and if those...
by IowaSkinsFan | Jul 19, 2018 | No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
There are many names of hands in poker. For example we often call pocket Ace’s pocket rockets, or Ace-King off suit big slick. There are also names for the type of hands we get. A pair is normally referred to as a “made hand,” and four cards to a flush or straight are...
by carlcarlsoniv | Jul 18, 2018 | No Limit Hold'em
Introduction In last week’s column on dealing with ranges, I talked about how to incorporate both your range and your opponent’s range into a single, cohesive thought process that allows you to exploit players and deal with balance issues at the same time....
by givememyleg | Jul 18, 2018 | No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
Importance of Table Position Location, location, location. This is the mantra for businesses such as retail stores and real estate. In poker, it’s position, position, position. There is simply nothing more important in no-limit hold’em than position. In...
by carlcarlsoniv | Jul 18, 2018 | No Limit Hold'em
Introduction Last week, we looked at a very specific question that gets asked a lot about 3-bet pots: How to Play AK When You Miss the Flop. We discussed a number of topics briefly, and there was a good response to the article, so we’re going to parlay that into...
by spoonitnow | Jul 18, 2018 | Beginner Poker, No Limit Hold'em
Introduction I’ve been doing the free NLHE Foundations Course here on FlopTurnRiver to give players a straight-forward path to go from the beginner levels to the intermediate levels with a mind towards being able to systematically improve over time. If you want...
by IowaSkinsFan | Jul 18, 2018 | No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
A lot of people don’t think about their bet sizing much. They have a “standard” bet size they use in nearly all situations, in hopes of not giving away further information as well as not wanting to make a mistake by betting too much or too little. However, some go a...
by Jack Sawyer | Jul 18, 2018 | Beginner Poker, Cash Games, No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
Out of all the strategic aspects at play in any given poker game, there is none more important than table position. Players who can manipulate the hand-to-hand shift in the betting patterns will have a greater chance to be successful, regardless of the cards in their...
by Carl Sampson | Jul 17, 2018 | No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
Recently I have switched poker sites again, I do this periodically if I find good games and plenty of fish. I don’t play anywhere near as much poker these days and most of that is at between NL50 and NL200 full-ring NLHE. Recently I have been watching the games...
by spoonitnow | Jul 17, 2018 | Beginner Poker, No Limit Hold'em
NLHE Foundations Course This is the first lesson in the free No-Limit Hold’em Foundations course that I’m running here on FlopTurnRiver. There’s a lot more to these lessons than what you see here. If you would like to take part in this, all you have...
by Fnord | Jul 17, 2018 | No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
Since this has come up a couple times on this board, please correct any errors. I only have the equivalent of a minor in math. There are a lot of factors not included in this simplistic analysis such as straits, quads, flushes, other pair on board and bluffing....
by willburforce | Jul 17, 2018 | Beginner Poker, Cash Games, No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
This is about how to stop being the lowest of the low in the online poker world, a micro-stakes noob fish – yes right down the bottom at $2nl, $5nl and $10nl. Not some advanced game theory essay or difficult maths stuff, just my thoughts on how my own game...
by Parasurama | Jul 16, 2018 | No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
This is my winning essay, cross-posted in the win money, coaching from nutsinho thread. I agree with nutsinho that I should have discussed bluffing more. I also suspect that many will have a problem with my supposed ranges. I wrote the essay as a FR player guessing at...
by bigspenda73 | Jul 16, 2018 | No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
#3 Value Betting and Bet-Sizing Being able to size bets correctly in No-Limit Hold’em is a critical factor in improving your win-rate. Bet-sizing as a concept is not the easiest to explain or master but I will do my best. There are many different types of bets one...
by Carl Sampson | Jul 16, 2018 | Beginner Poker, Cash Games, No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
There is a tremendous sub-culture of players who see small pocket pairs and get carried away with their profit potential. Personally I play pocket pairs very sparingly in full-ring NLHE games. The modern online poker environment is getting tougher by the month and...
by carlcarlsoniv | Jul 16, 2018 | No Limit Hold'em
Introduction In last week’s edition of this series, we looked at some specific things that you can tell about the flop texture that will give you a good idea of which types of flops are good for continuation betting with all other factors being considered equal....
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