by cobere | Dec 18, 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 spoonitnow | Dec 16, 2018 | Beginner Poker, Cash Games, No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
A lot of people get caught up thinking about what cards are going to come after the flop when they are considering a continuation bet. However, it’s usually more important to think about betting and position. When you’re considering making a continuation...
by Carl Sampson | Dec 13, 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 Carl Sampson | Dec 10, 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 Renton | Dec 10, 2018 | No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
Reversing the initiative in a hand (when is this appropriate and why is it valuable) First I think it’s important to define what initiative is, and how it varies. Player A open raises preflop, and Player B calls in position. Player A has the initiative. In order...
by Carl Sampson | Dec 10, 2018 | No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
Let’s face it, poker is played by humans for money and sometimes very substantial sums of money. This is the case be it live or online. Unfortunately, my understanding of human nature tells me that there are too many people out there who will stop at nothing to...
by IowaSkinsFan | Dec 9, 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 spoonitnow | Dec 9, 2018 | No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
If you haven’t read part 1 and part 2, then you’ll need to go ahead and do that before you jump into this week’s article because I’m going to assume that you know and completely understand the contents of those two parts. This week, we’re...
by Carl Sampson | Dec 8, 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 Fnord | Dec 7, 2018 | No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
The key to table selection is having a good seat at a great table. Beware, there is such a thing as a bad seat at a great table. I primarily look at games with 6-8 players and a large pot size. I do this so I’m less likely to join a game that’s already...
by Renton | Dec 6, 2018 | No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
Specific hand strategy First of all, these aren’t all the situations that occur. I only chose to outline the situations that occur very frequently. The situations that don’t come so frequently are the ones you’ll have to confront head on and use your best judgment....
by Robb | Dec 6, 2018 | No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
Progression through the micros naturally trends us toward unbalanced lines. We start playing basic TAGG, then learn to steal blinds more, to cbet more. Hey, it works. When we face better competition at 100nl or higher, the lack of balance is very exploitable. Trust me...
by Robb | Dec 5, 2018 | Beginner Poker, Cash Games, No Limit Hold'em, Poker Psychology, Poker Strategy, Poker Tools
How I used problem-solving theory to study cbets and villain profiles The problem is I suck at poker. But I’m reasonably good at problem solving. George Polya’s quintessential research studied great problem-solvers and suggested this simple format:...
by PokerJanitor | Dec 5, 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 Fnord | Dec 4, 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 | Dec 3, 2018 | Beginner Poker, No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
It’s one of the scariest feelings in poker – You’ve just lost a huge pot to a three-to-one underdog and given up most of your stack. As you watch the opponent sort your chips and integrate them into his pile, a sickening realization creeps up on you…...
by Renton | Dec 2, 2018 | No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
In poker, we attempt to make money by playing the best we can, making what we feel is the most profitable play in every scenario, making as few mistakes as possible. Assuming you know the exact hand range of your opponent, there is almost always a clear best play, and...
by bigspenda73 | Dec 1, 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 spoonitnow | Dec 1, 2018 | No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
The alpha value is one of the most important numbers in a discussion of poker because it gives you a lot of information with a simple calculation. However, it’s often applied incorrectly because of a lack of understanding of what it can and should be used for....
by FlopTurnRiver | Dec 1, 2018 | No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
After the Big 10 starting hands, I do not necessarily automatically raise pre-flop from any position. My play becomes more selective. Group 3: AQ 99 88 77 ATs KJs Sklansky’s Group 3 has been slightly re-arranged by the Carnegie Mellon group, which I’ve further...
by Carl Sampson | Dec 1, 2018 | Cash Games, No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
If your head starts to swim at the thought of hand ranges and default ranges and all the rest of the technical poker jargon, then don’t worry. If you are an experienced player then you will already be used to subconsciously placing your opponents on possible...
by carlcarlsoniv | Dec 1, 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....
by carlcarlsoniv | Dec 1, 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 Fnord | Nov 30, 2018 | No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
This is a discussion taken out of our very popular poker forum. A beginner was asking about what we mean by position and why it’s important. Some of our more experienced players eloquently described the importance of position in the game of Texas Hold’em. FNORD:...
by FlopTurnRiver | Nov 30, 2018 | No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
Group 0: AA KK Group 1: QQ JJ AKs Group 2: TT AK AQs AJs KQs Group 3: AQ 99 88 77 ATs KJs Group 4: AJ KQ QJs KTs JTs AT Group 5: 66 55 44 33 22 KJ(?) QTs(?) A9s(?) A8s(?) QJ(?) Group 6(?): KT QT JT A7s K9s Q9s T9s J9s A5s A6s A4s A3s A2s Group 7(?): A9 K9 98s 87s (?)...
by Carl Sampson | Nov 30, 2018 | No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
There are many players in the online poker community who use some sort of tracking software. I have never been one to go with the masses and while others have been knocking themselves out using PokerTracker or Hold’em manager, I have and will always continue to use...
by spoonitnow | Nov 30, 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 | Nov 30, 2018 | Cash Games, Live Poker, No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
Whether you are playing live poker or online poker it really makes no difference, your opponents will still be watching how you play. If you think that low-stakes online players be it at limit, no-limit or whatever do not fit into this category then think again. They...
by carlcarlsoniv | Nov 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 givememyleg | Nov 30, 2018 | No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
Poker should not be thought of as a game that starts when the cards are dealt and ends with the showdown. At its core, poker is a game of competing strategies. This is why when we classify players, we classify them by their strategy and skill level. Here, we will...
by spoonitnow | Nov 30, 2018 | Cash Games, No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
In last week’s article, we looked at some of the reasons why equity isn’t the end-all, be-all of evaluating how two ranges will perform against each other. With that out of the way, we’re going to be able to get into the nitty gritty aspects of the...
by IowaSkinsFan | Nov 29, 2018 | Cash Games, No Limit Hold'em, Poker Psychology, Poker Strategy
Below you will see an interesting discussion on river check/raises which took place in the High Stakes forum. It started with ISF showing hands and posters such as Sauce123, Massimo, Toadstool, and gabe adding their replies. View the check raise theory...
by Renton | Nov 29, 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 spoonitnow | Nov 28, 2018 | Beginner Poker, No Limit Hold'em
NLHE Foundations Course This is the second lesson in the free No-Limit Hold’em foundations course, and all you have to do to sign up is create an account (if you haven’t already) and post in the forum thread I just linked to saying you want in. I’ll...
by chardrian | Nov 27, 2018 | MTT, No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
A type of question that continually arises on poker forums deals with whether or not it is advisable to call an all-in bet. Often the question will be something like this: I was dealt XX and raised; someone then moved all-in on me; should I have called or folded? In...
by spoonitnow | Nov 26, 2018 | Cash Games, No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
One of the things that a lot of people have a big misunderstanding about is the difference between equity and expected value. We’re going to look at a few examples in this week’s article that should help players to develop some clarity on this issue....
by Carl Sampson | Nov 26, 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 allabout | Nov 26, 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 bigspenda73 | Nov 26, 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 | Nov 25, 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 spoonitnow | Nov 25, 2018 | Beginner Poker, No Limit Hold'em
This is the third installment in the No-Limit Hold’em Foundations Course. Before you read this lesson, you should have completed lesson 1 and lesson 2, and this includes doing the exercises and posting them in the forum threads for each lesson. Also make sure to...
by spoonitnow | Nov 24, 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 Fnord | Nov 24, 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 Carl Sampson | Nov 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 FlopTurnRiver | Nov 24, 2018 | Beginner Poker, Limit Hold’em, No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
Limit Texas Holdem vs. No Limit Texas Holdem – the debate goes on. Which game should you master? Well, everyone here at FTR has their own opinion. We have very skilled and profitable players profiting from both forms of the game. I have my opinion too, and No Limit...
by Vi-Zer0Skill | Nov 24, 2018 | No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
This advice was written for 200NL or lower 6Max games. It applies when effective stacks are 80-125BB preflop. Please deviate from this strategy as necessary when you have either developed good reads or know your opponent has certain assumptions about the way you play....
by spoonitnow | Nov 24, 2018 | Beginner Poker, No Limit Hold'em
The Fundamentals Poker players have a really bad habit of getting seduced by what appear to be fancy tactics like over-the-top bluffs, laying down big hands and making huge calls with weak hands. In an effort to emulate the professionals who they see making these big...
by IowaSkinsFan | Nov 24, 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 Robb | Nov 24, 2018 | Beginner Poker, Featured No Limit Hold'em, No Limit Hold'em, Poker Psychology, Poker Strategy
I feel like tons of the noobies in the BC have serious misconceptions about microstakes poker. Here are a few I’ve seen lately. 1. The micros are just too fishy to be beat for any decent win rate. 2. The micros are too hard to be beat since UIGEA. 3. The FTR...
by chardrian | Nov 23, 2018 | Beginner Poker, Cash Games, Limit Hold’em, No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
In my last post, I talked about why bluffing is such an integral part of poker. In this post I want to focus on what conditions we need to make a bluff successful. Anyone who has played poker for a decent amount of time has had a bluff blow up in their face. ...
by FlopTurnRiver | Nov 23, 2018 | No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
Some players at a full, 10 person Limit Hold’em table will play any ace at any time. Those who have read Sklansky know that Ace-little unsuited does not make it into his 8 hand groupings and often times should not be played from early position. Suppose you are in...
by Fnord | Nov 23, 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 givememyleg | Nov 23, 2018 | Beginner Poker, Cash Games, Live Poker, No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
In the past when live games became tough to beat players turned to online poker to hone their skills, get multi-table bonuses, and make money. With the games online getting harder by the day it is quite ironic the same players find themselves heading back to the live...
by edwarda | Nov 22, 2018 | No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
Bluffing: it’s perhaps the most exciting part of poker. When executed perfectly, the bluff can convince your opponent of anything, and win you their chip stack without a decent hand to in sight. Like the players say, cards only matter when you turn them over....
by aokrongly | Nov 22, 2018 | Beginner Poker, Cash Games, No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
Beginners generally have trouble knowing how much to bet when they hit a hand. For the most part they know to “take away the other guy’s pot odds,” but there’s more to betting than that. Because… tell me if this happens to you… You...
by sauce123 | Nov 22, 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 spoonitnow | Nov 22, 2018 | No Limit Hold'em, Poker Psychology, Poker Strategy
Over the past few weeks, we have looked at exploiting our opponents in flop situations. Our focus has been on looking at our ranges on a conceptual level, but now we’re going to look more at the process of exploitation. The goal with this week’s article is...
by carlcarlsoniv | Nov 21, 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 carlcarlsoniv | Nov 20, 2018 | No Limit Hold'em
Last week we started looking at the relationship between bluffing and semi-bluffing for the purposes of being able to construct examples to study that allow us to build our intuition, or our feel for the game. We specifically looked at scenarios where we only had nut...
by Jack Sawyer | Nov 20, 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 spoonitnow | Nov 20, 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 | Nov 20, 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 willburforce | Nov 20, 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 IowaSkinsFan | Nov 20, 2018 | No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
In an article from a few months ago, I explained the real differences between draws and made hands. In summary, draws and made hands weren’t simply names for hands, but actually each of them have certain equity qualities versus different ranges. Made hands were then...
by Carl Sampson | Nov 20, 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 givememyleg | Nov 19, 2018 | No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
If poker was all about exercising knowledge, then it would be basically all too easy to earn money at the game, but life is never that easy is it? For instance many authors have written excellent poker books without the effects of having written that book having any...
by meeloche | Nov 18, 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 IowaSkinsFan | Nov 18, 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 aokrongly | Nov 18, 2018 | Beginner Poker, Cash Games, No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
One of the biggest problems new poker players have is that they play too many hands. A simple but effective first step for new players is to learn the 19 hand strategy. This simple strategy forces the new player to exercise discipline and learn a tight game. Aokrongly...
by IowaSkinsFan | Nov 18, 2018 | No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
Note – SPR stands for Stack to Pot Ratio. I think a lot of SPR importance is based solely on the texture of the games you are playing in. To say a general statement like "SPR of 13 is bad for top pair" would be wrong, since with aggressive history 13...
by carlcarlsoniv | Nov 17, 2018 | Featured Strategy, No Limit Hold'em
The Problem With Questions on General Situations There’s an inherent problem with trying to answer poker questions about general situations, and that problem is that the answer is almost always “it depends” followed by a list of things that it could...
by spoonitnow | Nov 17, 2018 | No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
Introduction As part of the free NLHE Foundations Course, I’ve been providing a “hold my hand” approach to different types of analysis that you can do to learn about poker. If you want to take part, go to the link above, post in the thread, and...
by carlcarlsoniv | Nov 17, 2018 | No Limit Hold'em
I’m going to pick back up on the NL 2-7 Single Draw series later, but because of popualr interest, we’re going to look at a different topic today. This week’s topic is that of multiway pots, why they are different and how you should adjust to them....
by carlcarlsoniv | Nov 17, 2018 | No Limit Hold'em
Introduction In part 1 of this series, we introduced the common idea of not knowing what to do when you miss the flop. We covered a number of ideas to think about to show that there’s a lot to learn, and now we’re going to look at the specifics of some of...
by FlopTurnRiver | Nov 17, 2018 | No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
A pair of Aces is the most powerful hand in Hold’em. Ace King or Big Slick is also a great hand. Aces become very important in head-up situations and some players will raise with any Ace in head-up action. The list below documents some of the math involved in hands...
by biondino | Nov 17, 2018 | Beginner Poker, Cash Games, No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
(This is a post I wrote a while back which I hope will be useful for newcomers to micro-stakes NL. It should be useful up to 25NL, but it’s specifically aimed at the player of a few weeks’ experience, who understands the basics, but doesn’t know much...
by IowaSkinsFan | Nov 17, 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 spoonitnow | Nov 16, 2018 | Beginner Poker, No Limit Hold'em
Introduction This is part four in the NLHE Foundations Series. I’ve designed this series to give players a clear path from the beginner to intermediate levels in no-limit hold’em. There’s a lot more to this series than these posts because...
by spoonitnow | Nov 16, 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 spoonitnow | Nov 16, 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...
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