Learn How To Play Poker And Read Set Hands

August 7, 2010 at 11:51 am | In Poker Tournaments | No Comments
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Regardless of if you just play free poker online or play for the highest stakes imaginaable a Set is one of the most unreadable hands in Texas Hold’em. A Set is made ip of a pocket pair plus one of the Community cards that has the same rank as your pocket pair. For example, if you have 4-4 and the Community cards are 5-4-10-J-K, you have a Set of Fours. Sets are unreadable because most players are accustomed to reading (a) two different hole cards, (b) high cards or overpairs, (c) draws that complete the Board, or (d) cards anyway related to the Board cards.

Given that your hand reading habits usually are a combination of limiting possible hands to the given characteristics, how would you put someone on 5-5 or 4-4 when it is much easier for you to put him on A-K (for top pair, best kicker), A-Q (for a made Straight), or K-10 or 5-4 (for Two-Pair), or even A-A (a high pair)? Or maybe you’ll put him on one Five, say, 6-5. But on two Fours or Fives? This is why Sets are very potent in Boards which have no Straight or Flush potential.

But lets suppose in a Flop of Q-7-2 with no Straight or Flush possibilities, you have 3-3. You check in the hope of trapping and the other player bets. You raise all in then he immediately calls and reveals Q-Q. You thought your opponent had A-Q or K-Q. How is this possible? It’s possible. Even in this spot you are more at risk.

Because there are no Straight or Flush potentials your opponent will fold cards that didn’t fit into the Board cards. If you read hands according to the criteria above, you might put your opponent on A-Q, K-Q, or even Q-7 (can you go as far as 7-2?!). Here because you are the one who moved all-in, the outcome of the hand is not fully on your control; it’s up to whether your opponent calls or not. But suppose the situation is reversed. The player with the Q-Q checks, you bet, then the response is a raise all-in. What would you do?

If you find yourself slammed in a situation like this (which usually occurs on the Flop) on a cash game, take it as it is. Pay him off. Another time you will have the Q-Q, another player will have the 2-2, and you will be paid off. But in a tournament, you have plenty of givens to consider (and you might want to consider these even in an ordinary cash game). Compare your stack sizes relative to each other. If the difference is great, expect one of you to put his chips in the middle.

A Set could be the best hand both of you can have to get a double-up. If you have the smaller Set get eliminated, attribute it to bad luck. However, assuming both of you have stacks above chip average, and you are put to a decision costing you all or almost all your chips. You have 2-2. You are not likely to be blinded out in a few hands.

You might like to reason out: I have a Set. He raised me enough to put me all-in, or almost. He may do it with Q-7, (and whether your opponent had Q-7 or not will depend on what happened preflop. If no raise occurred it might be with Q-7, and you can safely call. Whether your opponent had 7-7 or not can also come under similar scrutiny) or if there is a raise, it might be with A-Q.

Now, top pair, top kicker is a weak hand to risk an above-average stack. And there is no Straight and Flush incoming, so the all-in could be made only with an extremely strong hand. It might also be with A-A or with K-K (most probably it is) but it might also be just with Q-Q. If I put him on those three hands, there is a 2/3 chance I’m right, but a 1/3 chance of wrong, and when I’m wrong I will be busted. So I’ll fold.

If you have the middle Set (Set of Sevens), the same analysis may also apply. But you will be much safer since there is only one Set to kill you instead of the two possible Sets a while ago. If you have the Set of Queens, enjoy! The above analysis is agonizing and painstaking, especially when it all amounts to giving up one of the most cherished hands in Hold’Em.

Reading Sets Summary

It takes some time to learn how to read hands, it’s not something the unthinking donk “chip flingers” seen on many free online poker tables even consider. Most players it seems can’t or won’t put the time in, they claim to play just for fun which misses out on the key fact that winning lots of money is a lot more fun!

Ironically the fact that so many players play at this low skill level is excellent news for you. The reason why is that when you really learn how to play poker well you can go mercenary and hunt the “fun donks” down in low stakes real money games as well as free online poker tournaments sites that pay out real money while you happily build your skills and bankroll!

As ever practice makes perfect so read, understand and play free poker sites to learn how to play poker good and get your skills finely honed.

Free Poker Sites Guide To Winning A Big Hand Preflop

July 30, 2010 at 10:08 am | In Poker Tournaments | No Comments
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What do you do with a big hand preflop when you have a big stack, like K-K? And how might the other players react? Regardless of if you simply play free poker for pennies or are at the final table in WSOP this is a core situation that you must know how to explot to the full.

Here is a great example from the WSOP:

BLINDS 40,000/80,000

A has As-10c moves all-in (Pot 1.296m)
B has K-K reraises to 5m (Pot 6.296m)

B has two options here. He can call and wait for an opponent to go all-in, though that would make him think…

Could it be A-A? Or Q-Q? If it was Q-Q there is a slight chance he might fold K-K, and regret it. But a big reraise can drive Q-Q or lower out, like what happened to another player:

C has Jd-Jc

(C’s comments on B’s hand were: “Why did you make it so much? … You like your hand that much?”) If C calls, it’s for all of his chips.

C may think that B has A-K, but there are two all-ins in front of him, and one of them might be A-X (and with A-X he is still not safe) or a pair, but a suspiciously heavy raise to about 60 times the big blind is almost always a signal for A-A or K-K. So C could wait for a better opportunity than now.

C folds (Pot 2.39m)

C’s fold was brilliant, after the reraise, but it will still be brilliant even if B did not reraise. B might bet again on the Flop and C may not continue and just let go of the chips.

B’s reraise will work if he has A-A or K-K, but I doubt it if he will do the same with A-K or Q-Q, but it may have the same effect of making C fold. As for A, let us wish for his good health. B won the hand later.

Summary of Big Hand Preflop
I know this may seem like a lot to take in all at once, the fact is though that while poker is an easy game to learn it is hard to be very good at, hence the crazy stupid “chip flinging” you will come across on many poker sites.

Ironically the fact that so many players inhabit this dumb donk zone is great news for you. That’s because once you learn to play poker at an above average level and combat the “all-in-all the time” maniacs then you can take them apart in coldly calculated genocide anytime you like in low stakes money games and when you free poker that pays real cash such as that found at www.NoPayPOKER.com.

To make this work first, learn to play poker online free on free poker tables where you can learn while you lose but without losing real money, then once ready to can move up to low stakes and start to get rich!

Play Free Poker Guide To Specializing In Poker Tournaments Or Cash Games

July 3, 2010 at 10:30 am | In Poker Tournaments | No Comments
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You can’t be good at everything. In poker be it the win a lot of pennies free poker type or big cash it is why people become experts or specialists in their particular games.

It is the same as in any profession, field of study or in the workplace where people find their unique niche for the company that they work for and devote their efforts to becoming as good as they can in order to be promoted and earn more.

So how does this relate specifically to the world of poker games?

Like this, some poker players are brilliant cash game players, while others are expert tournament players. Of course, there are players that are great at both cash games and tournaments though they are few and far between.

The majority focus on one or the other because they find they are more successful in that sort of poker.

How do you determine whether cash games or tournaments are your speciality? Well, it’s not always clear. Of course you need to play plenty of both types, and while you do here are some factors to look for to help you decide once and for all.

Should You Focus On Cash Games?
If you’re a patient player who looks to play only in clear +EV situations, then you may prefer cash games. Full-ring games are all about waiting for premium starting hands and extracting the most value from them in the most favourable situation possible. Thus, cash games are good for players who don’t deal with variance very well.

The biggest mistake a beginning cash game player can make is playing too many hands. You don’t want to commit too many chips in marginal situations.

The opposite can seem to be true in the late to middle stages of a tournament.

Should You Focus On Poker Tournaments
It is correct to play tight in the early stages of a tournament, but once the blinds start to escalate you’ll need to loosen up your starting requirements. Once you’re low on chips, you’ll need to look to move all-in to survive. You may also need to put yourself in situations that may –EV in certain occasions. If you’re one of the big stacks, it’s also correct to start playing looser to bully the other players. It’s all about accumulating chips to either survive or thrive in tournaments. It’s not for the faint of heart or those who can’t deal with variance.

The biggest mistake a beginning tournament player can make is not pushing all-in enough when they get low on chips. Because the price of blinds increase as the tournament goes on, your chip stack can easily get whittled away.

Tight players can’t win tournaments.

Poker Game Specialization Conclusion
If you like tight then it is best to focus on cash games. But if you like action then tournaments are going to be your thing. With that said, it is possible for tight styles to work in tournaments with a few adjustments, and a loose style can work in cash games can work under certain circumstances.

Ideally do your testing in free poker games that way you can learn to play poker for free and find your style while not losing lots of money in the process!

To read more articles like this and learn to play hold em check out NoPayPOKER.com’s blog which is full of play free poker tutorials and offers a fantastic zero risk free poker site where you can put theory into practice.

Play Free Poker Games Guide to Winning All in or Fold Poker Tournaments

June 17, 2010 at 10:44 am | In Poker Tournaments | No Comments
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I found out that there is a tournament variant called All-in or Fold. The rules are this: There is only one blind (called big blind). Every player begins with one chip only, not that it matters much as you only have 2 options, All in or Fold! All in or Fold poker tournaments are increasingly popular in both cash and free poker why not have a play if you come across one, they can be good fun. But be sure to read this first!

If you’re on the big blind you’re automatically all in. You receive change, however, if, say, you have 5 chips and someone moves all-in with 2 chips and you call him (which is an all-in, too). He will not win five chips from you; you will get a change of three chips.

If you’re on big blind you can simply ignore everything else that follows. (It happens only about 1/10 of the time, however, in a 10-player table. If you somehow want to become hooked.) So it’s really a math game, and a position game too.

Why math game?
Because you will be relying entirely on preflop all-ins, and you have to commit to memory the probability of your winning, or at least have a gist of them. I can give some examples (You can generalize; the probability’s pretty much the same in a similar situation; for instance the first example will be: Two Overcards vs. a Small Pair, or say, A-10 over 5-5 and approximate the probabilities:

A-K vs 8-8
55%-45% in favor of 8-8

A-K vs A-Q
75%-25% in favor of A-K

A-10 vs K-K
75%-25% in favor of K-K

A-K vs 7-6
65%-35% in favor of 7-6

A-10 vs K-Q; A-Q vs K-J
63%-37% in favor of A-10 and A-Q

A-A vs 8-8
80%-20% in favor of A-A

A-A vs A-K
93%-7% in favor of A-A

A-A vs K-Q
85%-15% in favor of A-A

But these do not imply that you should wait for A-A or K-K or A-K before you move all-in, of course. Do it with two face cards, a pair, or A-x. Just make sure the big blind doesn’t reach you, for if that happens your decision’s beyond your will.

All-In or Fold is also a game of position. Oftentimes players in these tournaments play hands similar to the above, and throw away the rest.

Consider these two examples:

(1) You are in late position with 4-4 and there are two all-ins in front of you. You might be facing three or four overcards, or an overpair. Fold.

After all, if you are in late position, there will be many hands before you reach the big blind.

(2) You have A-8 in early position. You are two hands away from being the big blind, so you move all-in, and players after you will interpret an early-position all-in as a sign of strength.

What you consider, then, is the strength of your hand and the surrounding action.

With one-on-one, which happens mostly, the above probabilities still apply. But with three or more, hand strength matters more. Big pairs are still big; medium pairs shrink in power (because you can’t see the Flop yet; usually we see the Flop with a medium pair to hit a Set). A-x becomes weaker; A-K and A-Q weaken down a little bit. However, make sure you play a hand while you’re still in control of your decision. When you get yourself blinded out, it’s for your tournament life, mostly.

This article is by NoPayPOKER, the perfect play free poker site for beginners to learn how to play poker without risking money. For experienced poker players the attraction is practice, the ability to fine tune their game and test out new techniques in a totally no risk zone while grinding away to accumulate % KEYWORD2% cash.

Free Poker Guide to How to Get Out of the Losing Trap

May 21, 2010 at 11:02 am | In Poker Tournaments | No Comments
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I’ve been a poker player since I was a teenager, I’ve played for money in casinos and lots of fun money free poker at home. For the last few years though I’ve focused most on free poker sites. Initially this was easy and fun but as time has passed I found it getting harder and harder to win, after thinking long and hard I realised that I’d become stuck in a rut I now call the “Easy Play” trap.

The trap is where you get into the habit of playing every single hand in the belief that it is the only way to win. You post and play every hand praying the flop with give you a hand. The problem with this play – You lose – and everyone playing with you learns how you play. The problem is most common I find on free texas hold em sites where, due to the very low or even no risk nature of the poker games it is easy not to be bothered. No problem is it’s just for fun but a very bad habit if you have aspirations to play live or online poker for money later.

Then last year I started playing what I call “SMART”. “SMART” players think of the odds of playing each hand based on your starting hand. The two cards in your hand give you an idea of what your chances of winning before the flop.

“SMART” poker means as follows:

Singles – A – K – Q – J

Married – AK – AQ – AJ – A10

Average – 10 10 – 9 9 – 8 8 – 7 7 – 6 6

Rare – AA – KK – QQ – JJ

Terrible – 2 7 – 2 8 – 2 9 – 2 10 – 3 8 – 3 9 – 3 10 -4 9 – 4 10 -5 10

Singles should be played with cards belonging to the same suite.

Playing singles with low off suites is dangerous because some times it is the kicker that means a win. Watch the flops to see how the cards are falling as if there are more small off suites hitting with a single you might want to try.

Married and Rare hands are your very best possible starting hands before the flop and requires you to think first. Going all in with a Married or Rare hand prior to the flop is good but can also be a killer. Watch the other players for a while and get an idea of what they play before going up against them.

Average poker hands are good to start with but the flop truly provides a picture of how you will play your hand. On an average a third will fall with the flop when holding a small pair. If not, and there is a small bet, try the turn but never the river as odds are against you.

Terrible are poker hands I try not to play because they normal are losing hands. True you might get lucky but if you do not have any money in the pot why waste the time and money on a chance. High blind and there is no raise, yes play, however low blind, forget it and wait for a better hand.

During a recent live game I was down to 80 in chips with the blinds at 10 – 20. I was not getting a hand and we were down to three players. Being “SMART” I came back and won the money.

Now the important bit, how to learn to play “SMART”: If you are new to poker or are stuck in the trap, get yourself over to a free texas hold em site and practice loads. Be serious about your game and don’t get distracted by all the Easy Play Trap people you’ll come across. The, once you are confident and showing consistent bankroll growth you can move on and up.

Free Poker Skills Heads Up and Short Handed Play

March 17, 2010 at 4:20 pm | In Uncategorized | No Comments
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Heads up and short handed poker is much different then your normal style of poker. Much like cash games you need to see more hands and become more aggressive. Way to many times I get to the end of a long free poker tournament and the player with me just seems to give up. I start off aggressive with any Q+ or good low blind hands like J7 off suit. Although these hands are often a waste of money; here they are more often then not the best pre-flop hand.

Remember that you have to be prepared in heads up & short hand to be ready to gamble almost everything that hits on the flop & even occasionally if nothing hits.

Keep your opponent guessing while keeping an eye on his normal bet range. If anything should seem off from what he/she is usually doing its ok to lay one or two down now and again. Also in heads up A high is most often the best hand on the flop.

If your opponent decides to try and switch roles with you by betting back even bigger or frequent my best advice is to let him/her. Switch roles and see if he/she is as good at catching the awkwardly high/low bets as you were. You may find you need to switch roles with the opposing player a few times before you get the result your looking for but eventually they will break down.

During the heads up game you will see many poor losses. Commonly due to opponents playing a vast amount of hands without anyone being able to put one another on any set hand preflop. Like most things in life its better not to put all your apples in one cart unless the cart is made of iron! Cards such as AX or K9 are decent at this phase of the competition although they’re still not brilliant- I would say a decent 30% with just about any hand.

Good luck in all of your poker and free poker.

How to win a Free Online Poker Tournament by Giving Up Hand Chasing

January 14, 2010 at 12:25 pm | In Uncategorized | No Comments
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Many free online poker players and way too many higher stake players have a bad habit called “chasing”. A bad habit that you will recognise as having analogies in many human pursuits not just poker, especially money and relationship ones!

To ‘chase’ is to call the hand when they think that they are behind in the hope that they can stay in game and get a better hand later on.

I always say that I would chase down a parked car, just in the hopes I hit. This could be considered a negative thing, because people just think “Oh, they are just a bad player”.

Some poker players to try to get the chaser out of the game by betting higher in the hope that they fold, however, there are always some chasers who are determined to stay in and will call.

Many players chase a hand because they are pot committed. This is when they have invested many chips into the hand and chase hoping to hit their prayer, regardless of the consequences.

They say people who do this have a lack of discipline, which means no patience, and in a rush to play the hand. Admittedly, chasing is a bad habit to have when playing poker. It is something that can work out beneficial from time to time, but certainly not something that needs to be played day in day out. With that said I must say that playing a 4/6 versus an AK is thrilling especially when it hits.

If you are a self confessed chaser and find it difficult to stop, try to do it less often by knowing when its time to fold. By chasing too often you can put yourself in a vulnerable position and end up losing. Pick your chase carefully if you want to win.

Chasing is also based on pot odds but that is another article in itself. I advise that you learn all about hand and pot odds whether you chase or not, it’s a very important skill for anyone who wants to move out of free online poker into higher stakes games and make a profit.

Win Your Next Free Poker Tournaments by Avoiding the Donks

December 30, 2009 at 2:16 pm | In Uncategorized | No Comments
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I was recently playing in a free poker tournament where I had pocket Aces. I felt pretty confident so made a high raise, another player then raised again. Time to call… my opponent turned over 9/2 and made a set of 9′s. I knew then that my game was over.

Im sure I am not the only one who has met this fate (and thrown my computer mouse flying across the room) and I wont be the last.

Wherever you play your poker, you are bound to play against donks day in day out. I have found that I have experienced more donks on free poker tournaments site, NoPayPOKER.com. I know the reason for this is because NoPayPOKER is a totally free poker website where you never have to spend a penny of your own hard earned cash and it does attract many types of players from all over the world.

This does not mean there are not any good players at NoPayPOKER, in fact there are some very good players, far better than me. I have been playing at NoPayPOKER for about 8 or 9 months and have won around 22k in FreeDs, not a huge amount granted, but not bad in my opinion. However most of the money I won has come in the last 3 or 4 months.

It took me a while to notice, but at the end of a tournament, the players left at the final table were the good players and not the donks who were playing earlier in the game. This made me look in to it a little further.

I devised a strategy to avoid being donked, but although these do work, they are not 100% fool proof.

If they don’t win then all they need to do is sign up for the next free roll. On the other hand some players are just genuinely bad and don’t know how to play the game. So I would say unless you have pocket aces/kings/queens, don’t play the first hand.

My second point would be to establish who the good and bad players are on your table.

This can take ten or fifteen minutes in a free roll as there is a lot of table moving at the start. It can take a few hands to figure out whether the players are good or not. If one particular player is raising big, blatantly bluffing and generally getting on your nerves, just stay away from them. What tends to happen is they will win a few big hands, then loose a few, and then go on tilt. By working out how players are playing will not only help you avoid being donked but also in your all round game. Whilst playing on other sites I have taken notes on players to build up a profile of good and bad players. Nobody has to go as far as this when playing poker, but it is well worth keeping a mental note of the bad players.

My next bit of advice is one of the most important when playing any type of poker. Always play the cards, not your feelings. It is so hard at times not to let your feelings get in the way, but if you want to win then its imperative. Do not hold grudges against players on your table.

Finally throughout your time playing poker you have no doubt built up a whole catalogue of skills and tactics in which you use to good effect. However, my last point would be to throw these out the window when playing with donks.

Remind yourself where you learnt these skills, other poker sites, casinos, private games, etc.

What separates these from NoPayPOKER brings me full circle to my initial point. You learnt your poker skills whilst playing with your own money. It’s much harder to go all in first hand with 10/3 when you have just bought in for $100.

People always say it’s much harder to play poker against bad plays than good ones. All your bluffing skills, positional play, squeeze play forget, because a donk will call anything.

To summarise;
(a) Avoid playing the first hand
(b) Search out the good and bad players at your table
(c) Make a note of the donks you come across
(d) Don’t let your emotions get in the way of your hand
(e) Forget your poker skills when playing donks

Adopting these tactics will not win you free poker tournaments, but should help you in avoiding an early bath and should at least get you into the money.

Free Online Poker Strategy to Aggressive Hugger Play

December 18, 2009 at 8:21 am | In Uncategorized | No Comments
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I’ve been playing no limit Texas Hold’em for roughly six years now and have gained a lot of knowledge of the game. Since I have been playing the game, I have won large amounts of money playing poker on a lot of different paid and free online poker sites and in live games. I have also managed to lose plenty of games too. The times I have lost are normally due to playing an aggressive player. I’m tend to play my poker quite aggressively too and I quite enjoy being faced with another player who plays the same tactics as me.

Most recently I have decided to change up my style of play to increase and improve my earnings. My new style of play is all about ‘aggressive hugger’, a style of play that I have named. Hopefully this article will explain my new ‘aggressive hugger’ strategy.

I believe that the key to winning majority of the time is to play conservative, also known as a tight player. There are loads of poker players who do not understand the game all that well and by playing conservatively (being a tight player) should enable you to win more money from those players.

When I talk about playing conservative I mean only calling a raise pre-flop with the top 10-15 starting hands. A better time to play a hand with the top 15-20 hands would be if there was no raise pre-flop at the time, otherwise you should mostly be playing the top 10-15 starting hands.

Winning consistently you shouldn’t really chase straight draws very often especially for medium to large bets. When you are playing low stakes or free online poker tournament games you shouldn’t be trying to steal the blinds even if you are the button, also known as the dealer position.

I say this because if you are in a low stake game, the majority of the time a player will call pretty much any type of hand, whether it be decent or sometimes pretty bad. When you are playing for lows stakes or on free poker sites then winning a lot of times isn’t as important to the players as if they were playing for high stakes.

In poker there is a thing called position. Position is the spot you are playing from, for instance the first position after the cards are dealt is a lot different from the big blind position or the dealer position. The position you are playing determines how you should play the hands you have. Conservative players pay careful attention to position when playing poker. It is a critical element in their style of play.

Following the traditional, conservative strategies mentioned above explains the “hugger” part of my newly coined phrase. In the poker world, a “hugger” is referred to someone who plays very tight conservative poker. In order to bring in second word “aggressive”, I will explain how that is incorporated into my new found strategy.

Aggressive play is usually all about large pre-flop raises with great cards, followed by aggressive continued betting. If an aggressive player has a rubbish hand, they will not let on that they are not in a strong position. An aggressive player usually believes and portrays that he/she has the best hand.

So the combined elements of a conservative or “hugger” and the aggressive style of play are combined to form the “hugger/ aggressive’ strategy. Observing a conservative style by playing premium hands in an aggressive manner is my new adopted strategy. While holding premium hole cards, I will then play them in an aggressive manner by raising large pre-flop bets in accordance with position techniques while utilizing aggressive betting strategies.

Give it a go, try being an aggressive hugger on free online poker sites and low stakes and as long as you’re an OK player I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised at how well it works.

Free Poker Tournaments Guide to Bad Bluffing and Coward Method

December 8, 2009 at 5:03 am | In Uncategorized | No Comments
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Many poker players struggle with bluffing. Even apparently easy game scenarios such as free poker tournaments online can be difficult; hesitation or faster than usual play can be easily read by experienced players and the bad bluffer wiped out. Once we move offline into live play then the situation only gets more difficult.

So what can you do, apart from getting better at bluffing, as a bad bluffer who still wants to play and not lose all the time?

Well, for a start, look at changing the way you play. The main reason for being so bad at bluffing is lack of courage, also known as being a coward. You can turn this around though and for this reason we will call this the ‘Coward Method’.

How it works – An Example Game

For starters, when playing in a free poker tournament, wait for the right hand before starting.

Remember though unless you have that winner hand A,A or A,K etc it is best not to get involved in the big raises and the All In bets early on.

I like to think these people are the amateur, new or players that are in a rush and quite frankly want to lose. Of course one or two of them could actually have a good hand. Either way the Coward Method will keep you in the game past these mad moments

Now comes the time to bet.
You have a decent hand, half the table have either called the Big Blind or Folded. You decide to call as well. Luckily nobody decides to raise to a stupid amount and the Dealer does the Flop.

Yes, two pairs. Scan the cards and estimate the chances of being beat with the cards as they stand. For example if you have the highest pair and for good measure a second as well you can check whether you are at risk of straight or a Flush.

It’s looking good so you decide to Check. Yes that’s right Check. Your plan now is to convince the others you have a bad hand. If somebody bets pretend to think about it and then Call. This will cause the players to think that you are in doubt of your hand and they will up the betting.

The Turn and still nothing significant to leave you worried. You check again, the same thing happens, small bet, Call and then the River, no reason to be worried, you still have the Highest Pairing and a second pairing.

This time the Opponent does a Higher Bet, this time, you think about it for even longer and then double the amount the Bet.

This approach normally causes either a match bet or an All In. This depends on the player. I have noticed some Players after putting down a large number of Chips during one hand get annoyed at this point and throw everything in.

Success the plan worked and now you have a tidy amount of chips. Sit back and Fold a lot of hands from this point on waiting for that right hand again.

Of course this doesn’t always work, despite how confident you can be you can’t always have the best hand and luck still has a say in the result of a game.

It is always worth remembering that there is a risk when you check if you have a winning hand. By the turn and river your chance may be over and you may have blown it. It is always a chance in poker, but I have found I have more success when I play like this.

Normally as the Blinds increase you have to get stuck in a bit more. Those early successes count for nothing in the end if you don’t attempt some of the bigger pots. However you should still be conservative about it and choose carefully the hands to play.

Only the other day I played my first tournament in a year or two and came 2nd out of 102. I only lost due to the other player bluffing me. He had gone all in a few times and I finally decided to call him. Typical on this occasion he had a great hand. If I had played to my strengths and waited he may have gone All In against one of my good hands.

Hopefully I have provided another option for players who don’t really have a game plan. Try this out in lower stakes and free online poker tournaments and get comfortable with it, then you can go try some high stake hands and come out ahead.

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