by sauce123 | Oct 19, 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 Vi-Zer0Skill | Oct 17, 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 | Oct 16, 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 carlcarlsoniv | Oct 16, 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 IowaSkinsFan | Oct 15, 2018 | No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
There has been a request for a beginners guide to equity so that’s going to be the article for this week. Equity is our mathematical chance of our hand or hand range winning the hand against our opponents hand or hand range. For example, the hand AA has 80% equity...
by spoonitnow | Oct 14, 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 edwarda | Oct 14, 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 PokerJanitor | Oct 13, 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 spoonitnow | Oct 13, 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 spoonitnow | Oct 12, 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 bigspenda73 | Oct 12, 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 carlcarlsoniv | Oct 12, 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 Renton | Oct 11, 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 allabout | Oct 11, 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 FlopTurnRiver | Oct 10, 2018 | No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
One of the most difficult and yet crucial decisions you will make when playing no limit Texas holdem will be whether to even play your hand. This decision should not be made haphazardly. Hitting your card on the flop only to end up with the second best hand can be...
by spoonitnow | Oct 10, 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 carlcarlsoniv | Oct 10, 2018 | No Limit Hold'em
Introduction A lot of the time in poker, we get caught up on the idea of wanting to know if something is profitable or not. We often make mistakes in our game because we’re taking an aggressive action that we have deemed to be profitable since we have made a...
by spoonitnow | Oct 8, 2018 | Beginner Poker, No Limit Hold'em
Introduction More than seven years ago, I wrote a post titled Blind Stealing 101. A lot has changed in terms of what’s fashionable and what’s well-known in the online poker world. For a fun piece of evidence of this, note that the standard size of an open...
by Carl Sampson | Oct 7, 2018 | Cash Games, No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
I have to say that I absolutely love poker but I guess that I have written enough articles now for FlopTurnRiver for you to already now that. In this article I want to look at the concept of pot control. This is something that has been expanded over the past few years...
by IowaSkinsFan | Oct 6, 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 bigspenda73 | Oct 6, 2018 | Beginner Poker, Cash Games, No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
Most players who are new to online poker will start at the lowest stakes possible, commonly known as “Microstakes”. In general, microstakes are considered to be any poker stakes up to $0.10/$0.25 blinds in NL and $0.50/$1.00 in Limit games. The concept of...
by IowaSkinsFan | Oct 6, 2018 | No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
From now on every Friday I will be taking some of the strategy discussion from the forums, sum up some of the cool content in case you missed it, and make my own comments on the issues discussed. In the high stakes forum this week, there was a hand posted by...
by Fnord | Oct 5, 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 FlopTurnRiver | Oct 5, 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 spoonitnow | Oct 4, 2018 | Cash Games, No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
Surprisingly I couldn’t find any posts detailing this, so I’m going to do my thing. A Common Scenario With 100bb effective stacks, EP opens for 4x preflop, there are 2 callers, and we call on the button with 9 8 . Both of the blinds call. The flop pot is...
by carlcarlsoniv | Oct 4, 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 bigspenda73 | Oct 4, 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 | Oct 4, 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 chardrian | Oct 3, 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 FlopTurnRiver | Oct 3, 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 FlopTurnRiver | Oct 3, 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 IowaSkinsFan | Oct 3, 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 aokrongly | Oct 3, 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 Marshall28 | Oct 2, 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 spoonitnow | Oct 2, 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 carlcarlsoniv | Oct 2, 2018 | No Limit Hold'em
Introduction A lot of players, especially newbies, get confused on what to do when their AK misses the flop. This is especially true in 3-bet pots where you aren’t really sure just what you’re supposed to be doing. A lot of players will blindly c-bet, but...
by spoonitnow | Oct 2, 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 carlcarlsoniv | Oct 1, 2018 | No Limit Hold'em
Why You People Need Help I’ve seen quite a few posts recently in the Small Stakes No-Limit Hold’em forum that center around a multi-player hand that was handled in a really poor way just because someone didn’t adhere to the basics concepts that drive...
by meeloche | Sep 30, 2018 | No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
Balance by Meeloche Simple Definition as it applies to poker: Taking the same line as a bluff as you would for value, example a cbet on an AK9 board with 78o. The point is not to bluff 50% of the time and value bet 50% of the time on the example board, but to credibly...
by biondino | Sep 30, 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 chardrian | Sep 29, 2018 | No Limit Hold'em, Poker Psychology, Poker Strategy
The ability to bluff in poker is perhaps the biggest allure of the game. At its core, the game of poker can be reduced down to one huge game of bullshit (or if you grew up in a household where swearing was frowned upon, the game was likely called “I doubt...
by spoonitnow | Sep 29, 2018 | No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
List of Topics: 1. Introduction to Hand Combinations 2. How to Calculate Possible Combinations of a Pocket Pair Hand 3. How to Calculate Possible Combinations of a Non-Pocket Pair Hand 4. Brief Discussion of Blockers 5. Effect of Blockers on a Villain’s Range...
by spoonitnow | Sep 28, 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 Carl Sampson | Sep 28, 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 IowaSkinsFan | Sep 28, 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 Carl Sampson | Sep 28, 2018 | Beginner Poker, Cash Games, No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
A few years ago I wrote an article for a poker magazine called “coming in under the radar”. In that article I mentioned playing lower stakes games than you normally would and taking advantage of weaker players. In essence, online poker has grown up an awful lot since...
by Carl Sampson | Sep 28, 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 IowaSkinsFan | Sep 27, 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 chardrian | Sep 27, 2018 | Beginner Poker, Live Poker, No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
For many U.S. players, Black Friday has meant the end of playing poker online. For those players, the only way to currently play poker without the worry of legality or cashouts is to go to a brick and mortar cardroom and play honest to god live poker. I happen to be...
by Renton | Sep 27, 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 IowaSkinsFan | Sep 26, 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 | Sep 26, 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 Carl Sampson | Sep 26, 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 spoonitnow | Sep 25, 2018 | Cash Games, Featured Cash Games, Featured No Limit Hold'em, No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
A few people have been posting stats threads lately and I’ve seen a trend that really needs to be addressed. Most of the people I’ve seen stats on are not stealing blinds nearly enough, and aren’t defending their blinds nearly enough. I’ve...
by carlcarlsoniv | Sep 25, 2018 | No Limit Hold'em
Introduction If you look over the past few weeks of my strategy column, you’ll see how this week’s topic came together. I had a set of Mental Tricks for Preperation in NLHE which was related to the Basics of Thinking Ahead in Poker. I also covered Double...
by IowaSkinsFan | Sep 25, 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 carlcarlsoniv | Sep 24, 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 | Sep 24, 2018 | No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
I was watching a NL100 full-ring game on Pokerloco yesterday when the following hand came down which I thought was somewhat instructive. It was folded around to our hero who raised from the hijack to $3.50. The button called as he had done several times already. Both...
by carlcarlsoniv | Sep 24, 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 PokerJanitor | Sep 24, 2018 | Beginner Poker, Cash Games, No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
Online poker has blown up in the past decade. It has become the favorite past time of many people around the world. With the software online poker sites use, tables can be created at no extra cost. This means that online poker sites do not require all tables to be...
by Robb | Sep 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 Renton | Sep 24, 2018 | No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
Introduction After reading through the latest gut wrenching 19 hands chart thread, I am going to try an experiment. We don’t have enough people writing interesting and informative articles around here anymore. The stickies are becoming stale and outdated. I...
by spoonitnow | Sep 24, 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 spoonitnow | Sep 24, 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 Carl Sampson | Sep 23, 2018 | No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
Lets face it, if making money playing poker was that easy then there wouldn’t be so many people who are still scratching their heads trying to figure it all out. There are many facets to playing successful poker but one of the least understood is in selecting suitable...
by carlcarlsoniv | Sep 23, 2018 | No Limit Hold'em
Introduction Learning to deal with ranges is hard enough as it is, but there are a number of ideas about handling no-limit hold’em ranges that are a bit mislead. In this forum thread, I asked about the questions that people had about learning to work with...
by carlcarlsoniv | Sep 23, 2018 | No Limit Hold'em
In last week’s column, we looked at the idea of betting to protect your hand. One of the main themes with last week’s column and what we’re going to talk about this week is that a lot of people get into habits of how they think about their range...
by carlcarlsoniv | Sep 23, 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 Carl Sampson | Sep 23, 2018 | No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
Over the years, many people have asked me for advice on what is the “perfect” strategy for certain types of games. I think people get somewhat seduced by the thought that something as complex as poker can be simplified to a few basic strategies that can be...
by Carl Sampson | Sep 22, 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 IowaSkinsFan | Sep 22, 2018 | No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
For the original ISF theorem post go here: ISF Theorem When I wrote ISF Theorem a half year ago, I was at a very frustrating point in my game. I was a very marginal winner at 200nl and was going on two straight losing months, which was absolutely devastating to my...
by Parasurama | Sep 21, 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 | Sep 21, 2018 | No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
#4 Adjusting to Certain Player Types Poker is not an easy game. There are so many variables that a lot of the time it could be classified as a glorified guessing game. We are presented with many different opponents, all who have different ideas on optimal plays. To...
by Carl Sampson | Sep 21, 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 | Sep 21, 2018 | No Limit Hold'em
Last week, we took an initial look at the [0, 1] model for ranges and looked at a couple of examples of how it can be put to work for us. We tied this into our previous discussion of how to calculate the EV of different types of situations, and we looked at how to use...
by IowaSkinsFan | Sep 21, 2018 | No Limit Hold'em, Poker Strategy
Gah, I got this idea in my head and thought I’d write it down. A month ago I essentially explained to my AIM buddies something I was thinking about in a lot of depth, as it was a concept that was integral in killing tight passive games. Pretty much everything I...
by IowaSkinsFan | Sep 21, 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 | Sep 20, 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 Jack Sawyer | Sep 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 IowaSkinsFan | Sep 20, 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...
888
PokerStars
bet365
Ladbrokes
William Hill