1. Read everything you can find on poker
2. Try to talk to everyone you can get ahold of
3. Save all the hands you have difficulties with
4. Discuss all of your hands on poker forums and anywhere you can
5. Get a poker coach or join an online program!
6. Always review your sessions and learn to improve by yourself
7. Calculate and look at your equities
8. Learn how to apply hand ranges
9. Keep an open-mind and test everything
10. Understand the concepts in poker so you can customize them to fit your own style
11. Be generous – Help others with what you know
12. Keep your life balanced – don’t let poker swings affect your life
11. Use poker tracking software to plug your leaks
12. Be a copy cat – Look at how big winners play, think about it and imitate them.
13. If you think poker will make you rich quick, you’re wrong.
14. Prolonged stretches of bad-luck will happen, tighten up during them, take more breaks and discuss more hands to make sure you are playing your best.
15. Love your mistakes – How else will you know what to improve?.
16. Be self-critical, but do not put yourself down. Every mistake is an investment if you learn from it.
17. Learn how to spot exploitable patterns in players and how to take advantage of them.
18. Focus on one game and invest in an online course – whether it be Sit & Go’s, Tournaments or Cash Games, pick one as your main focus

Essential Tips for Beginners

19. ALWAYS play tight!
20. Try different poker games – Even though Hold’em is the most popular game, it doesn’t mean it will be the game for you
21. Study the game as much as you can
22. Have patience – It was frustrating as a baloon for me in the beginning, but turn that frustration into determination and you are good to go.
23. Keep your calm – This is incredibly important throughout your whole poker career, but especially while starting out.
24. Become a master of game selection
25. Keep it simple
26. See the first 8 tips in this list and make them your 8 commandments

Forum Posting Tips

27. Post meaningful stuff
28. Post funny stuff
29. Don’t just spam the forums with standard hands – Search the forums and archives first and learn
30. Discuss others hands at least as much as you post your own
31. Don’t be afraid to get yelled at, this is how you learn
32. Participate! The more hands you analyze and think about the better you become.

Poker Coaching Tips

33. Find a coach with experience and a good track record
34. Ask around what others think
35. Don’t hire a high-stakes coach when you only need a low-stakes one
36. Hire a coach if you’re “running bad”
37. No matter how good a coach might be, he might not be the right one for you. Try many coaches to gain several perspectives, sometimes you need to hear the same information from several angles to fully comprehend it.
38. Join a subscription site like Cardrunners or Stoxpoker

Poker Strategy Tips

39. Master the fundamentals – Solid poker wins the money.
40. Don’t fall into the trap that poker is all about great moves
41. If you don’t know the correct places to bluff in – don’t bluff
42. Learn to adjust to different player types
43. Play tight as a motherfather out of position
44. Don’t get into ego contests

Bankroll Management

45. Make specific bankroll management rules
46. Have AT LEAST 20 buy-ins for the level you are playing and move down if you drop below that
47. Make your rules so specific that you cannot break them without knowing it, it is easy to fool yourself
48. Make sure you never go broke, if you go broke you can no longer play (shocking isn’t it?)

Game Selection

49. Learn in what games you win the most
50. Learn in what games you lose the most
51. Improve your weaknesses
52. Make a living off of your strengths
53. Make super specific rules for what games you play in and leave if they do not make the cut

Discipline

54. Learn how you tilt
55. Stop playing after you lose a big pot or take a break
56. If you feel any kind of emotional change in your body after taking a beat or several or just not getting any cards – get up or just quit the game.
57. Discipline is one of the key pillars in the fragile house of cards – If you do not use it, the house collapses.
58. Most downswings or prolonged stretches of bad luck are magnified by bad discipline.
59. Don’t be afraid to move down in stakes if you’re having trouble

Take Notes

60. How does he play big hands?
61. How does he play medium strength hands?
62. How does he play weak hands?
63. How does he play draws?

Awareness

64. What is your table image?
65. Learn to manipulate your table image.
66. Learn how to use what others think they know against them
67. Learn to quit a game when it turns sour or when your table image is beyond repair

Happiness

68. Don’t waste your energy on whining about how unlucky you are
69. Take breaks
70. Be specific about what you want (write down goals)
71. Use you winnings to take a vacation or just take your friends and/or family for a dinner!
72. Keep the game fun

I strongly believe anyone can become a solid poker player and make a living doing it, but it takes work and it takes DETERMINATION. I know some that are in it for the money and it apparently is a strong motivator for them, when I started playing I liked playing poker, but I also liked making money. I had a kind of mix and that kept me interested.

Nowadays when I play 8 tables and my only goal is to make money I feel bored, there is no passion in the game. Sure, I still learn if I focus, but I prefer playing less tables. In that way I can get reads on opponents, I can adapt my play and I can play real poker that is challenging and fun for me.

Why then, do some of you never become the players you can be?

1. Fooling Yourself

Are you constantly fooling yourself? “Poker is all luck and these fishies don’t know what they’re doing”. You constantly get “bad beats” and that’s why you can’t win at poker. Does this sound familiar? If it does, then you are absolutely fooling yourself.

Bad players are what make it possible to win at poker, you have to embrace the bad beats because when people are sucking out on you, you are making money in the long run. If you can keep going then you will win, but if you just play bad and blame it on luck then odds are that you will never make money playing poker.

2. Playing the Ego Game

What about ego, do you get in emotional battles at the poker table? If you answered yes, then this is another obstacle in your way to becoming an excellent poker player. Don’t think I am saying that you have no chance of becoming a winning poker player, because if you are honest with yourself and work on your game, you have a phenomenal chance of doing so.

Your chances go way down if you get into pissing matches at the poker table. You have to keep your cool and be rational about how players are playing, what are their hand ranges? How can you adapt? If you only believe someone is doing something then that is often not enough, you have to see some showdowns, you have to see his hand so you can make a proper assessment of how he plays.

If you’re thinking “I’m going to get this guy because he sucked out” or anything similar, you’re in big trouble.

3. Not Putting in Enough Time

You can’t expect to become a winner if you don’t put in the study time. What is enough time? I can only tell you how much time I put in before I started to win.

I started around 2004 and after 5-6 months I was making ~$2,000 a month. During those 5-6 months I probably put in at least 3-4 hours everyday of reading forums, annoying people with my questions and reading all the books I could get my hands on.

That should give you a perspective on what it could take. Keep in mind, that was my journey, yours will most likely be completely different. What’s important is that you put in the time and be persistent, results will come if you keep working at your game.

4. Neglecting Coaching and Help

I know quite a few players who blame bad luck and whine about how they’ve run bad for the past 6-12 months and I tell them to get coaching or send me their last 500 hands so I can look through them. And what happens?

They refuse because they know they’re playing bad poker. Why would you want to do this to yourself? Is your goal to whine for the rest of your life?

If you want to become a winner you have to be willing to show your mistakes to coaches and other poker players to discuss how you can improve. If you keep losing you HAVE to figure out WHY, only then can you make progress.

5. Tilting Your Money Away

You might be one of those players who play really well until you get a few bad beats. You then proceed to throw a few buy-ins away and get pissed because you’re so unlucky. Guess what, you’re as lucky as anyone else, but you’re throwing your money away but not keeping your composure.

In the end, you are the one responsible for your results.

Learn to meditate, do yoga or anything that helps you minimize tilt. You can start by quitting INSTANTLY when you feel any of those tilty feelings come up. If you keep going you are just giving your money away, avoid doing this at all cost!

6. Money Management

Are you constantly playing in games where you are 2 buy-ins from being broke? Then you have a money management issue, you have to start making specific rules and making sure you never go broke, because if you go broke and gamble foolishly then you have no money to play with (pretty obvious isn’t it? ).

Start by having at least 20 buy-ins for the level you play, preferably 30 buy-ins. So if you’re playing $0.5/$1.00 No-Limit Hold’em then you would need $3,000 if you’re following the 30 buy-in rule and whenever you drop below that $3,000, even if it is to $2,999 you move down to $0.25/$0.50 to get back to 31 buy-ins for $0.5/$1.00 and then go back.

7. Game Selection

This usually isn’t a problem for beginning players as the games at the micro or low stakes are pretty good, meaning that you never have to use game selection. But when you reach stakes like $1/2 No-Limit Hold’em you have to start being picky. That means leaving games that are bad (i.e. you won’t make any profit in them) or just not playing when the games are bad.

It’s tempting to keep sitting in a game when you’re losing to get unstuck, but this is just backwards if you want to make money. Set a stop-loss, if you lose 3 buy-ins you quit playing until you’ve regained your calm.

And when you’re winning you should play longer sessions because your table image is such that you will win more pots easily and generally have an easier time. On the contrary, when you have a bad image other players will take more shots at you and bluff you at a more difficult frequency, thus lowering your win rate and if the game has gone bad you might even be a loser for that session, because of your impaired judgment, table image and the table line-up.

8. Trying to Outplay People

This should go into the Ego category, but I decided to give it its own office space. This is very prevalent in today’s online games, players are paranoid that you’re making a move on them so they will call you down very loosely. And it kind of works against the bad aggressive players, because they bluff too much and are too paranoid about anyone bluffing them.

If you put one of these paranoid players vs. a good thinking player then he will get crushed, because the good thinking player will adapt to his looseness.

This is another reason why you have to play tight solid poker in today’s games and when you learn new things you add them into your game, you do not and I repeat DO NOT start playing all those speculative hands like 97 suited out of position because you think you can outplay other players.

Avoid being that player who plays hands because he thinks he can outplay everyone and thus making the hand profitable.

9. Failing to Adapt

You cannot play a mechanical game if you want to win decent money playing poker. Poker is about people and that means you have to adapt to be able to win.

If someone is playing too loose you adapt by, for example value betting them more. You have to learn how to adapt vs. different players and this knowledge or should I say wisdom comes from mainly experience and partly having someone to discuss these concepts with.

I hope this post will help you realize if you have any flaws in your game and propel you to take action. Because if you do not see your mistakes, how can you ever get rid of them? Magic? Possible, but unlikely.

Surfing

I’ve spent the last 6 months playing poker and traveling the world surfing, most recently to Hawaii.

Poker gives me the perfect combination of flexible schedule and portability – I can play free poker from anywhere that has an internet connection, and when the waves are up I can drop what I’m doing and go!

Hawaii was incredible!   I went with my fianceé Maria, we stayed in Waikiki for 3 days, and then we stayed on the North Shore for 5 days.  We were lucky to get some late-season swell on the north shore, and Maria snapped some awesome photos.

I’ll be recounting both poker adventures and surfing adventures in my posts from now on.

Poker, too!

Poker-wise I’m continuing to play $5/10 NL, and while game conditions have changed they are still quite beatable.

I’ve seen an increase in aggression in recent months, with many players becoming more tenacious about fighting for pots, and more paranoid about being bluffed.

Here’s an example that illustrates the change in the games, and also a counter-strategy.

$5/10 w/ $1400 stacks.
I raise Q♦K♥ on the CO to $35, and an aggressive, tenacious player in the blinds 3bets to $125.  I call.

A few years ago this would be a turbofold, nowadays a call is totally standard, and some argue for reraising!

Flop: K♦ 3♣ 4♥  (Pot: $260)

Villain bets $165 into $260.  This is a standard-sized cbet especially on a dry board.

A year ago I might have called for pot control, and to see what develops on the turn and river.  I wouldn’t want to build a big pot, because if I got the full 140bbs in my opponent would usually have AK, KK, or AA.

Today, however, I make a glorified min-raise to $400.  My opponent has been aggressive with 3bets, and is paranoid about being bluffed.

He also likely assumes(here his suspicions set in) that I would 4bet him preflop if I had a hand like A-K, and that I might be inclined to slowplay 444 or 333 on such a dry flop.

He quickly reraises all-in for  $1275 total, I call.  He shows 77.

While this player is more aggressive than normal, it illustrates an important point – by making my hand look like I’m getting frustrated and fighting back my opponent’s over-aggression and suspicion works to my advantage.

fThe hardest part about this hand is hitting top pair, haha!

Good luck at the tables!

I had a great Christmas, and enjoyed taking a break from poker to spend time with family and friends.

I’m ready to get back to the tables, though.

Playing In The Blinds: Comparison

In Limit, it is difficult to over-defend your big blind. Against a single raise we are typically getting 4:1 (or better) to see a flop.

If we fold, we lose .5BBs immediately. So, making the call only needs to result in us losing .49BBs or less and we have a profitable hand.

No Limit is very different, however. A typical raise is 3 times the big blind, so we are getting 3:1 on our money instead.

However, postflop is where the problem comes in. Most of the times we will miss, and against an aggressive opponent it will be difficult to show-down medium-strength hands cheaply.

Because of the huge disadvantage of being out of position in NL, we are forced to fold many hands that we would otherwise want to play.

Note that when the SB raises and we are in the BB we can call all these hands, things like Axs and JTo that play poorly OOP play well in position.

OOP we typically want hands that flop well, and can hold up to some heat. Pairs 66+, AJs+, AQo+, KQ is a decent range for calling heads-up OOP.

Against a passive / bad player we can call more hands, since he will give us cheap cards and pay off well. Hands like A9s-ATs, ATo+, KJs, PPs 22-55, and some stronger SCs like JTs become playable.

Fighting Back

There will be aggressive players at your tables who try to steal the blinds too often. How do we fight back?

The answer: Preflop Reraises.

Someone who is opening 30-40% of the time from the button very rarely has a strong hand. They don’t mind being called, however, since they have the advantage of position after the flop.

Reraising a range of JJ+, AQo+, and occasionally some “creative” stuff like JTs, 65o, etc, will make him think twice about stealing your blind.

Be Confident

It’s easy to over-defend your blinds in NL, since we put so much at risk both preflop and postflop, that it is usually correct to just fold when OOP.

However, making sure to fight back against aggressive players with liberal preflop reraises, coupled with tight starting standards, will make you a tough blind to steal.

Successful players do lots of self-evaluation, reviewing tough hands after sessions and thinking about different lines. However, there are inherent limitations to self-review.

You Are Biased

This simply means that you already know the outcome of the hand. Knowing in advance that you got stacked by a set can skew your immediate reaction.

Innovating New Strategies Can Be Difficult And Time-Consuming

Each of us have a general set of strategies we use on a regular basis. Occasionally we develop a new one, but in general our play stays pretty consistent. Having outside perspective can facilitate rapid improvement in your game.

It’s Hard To Break Habits

We each form habits over the course of our game. Some go back so far that we don’t even notice that we are making tiny unprofitable plays, perhaps by raising an offsuit broadway hand from middle position or something else entirely.

A poker instructor can help you spot these tiny leaks quickly.

A poker coach is not for everyone. However, those who are serious about learning and getting better will reap great benefits from the help of a poker instructor.

First

Ask yourself what you want to accomplish. What are your goals? Do you just want to learn the rules? Or are you after something more?

Second

Once you’ve decided what your reason is for poker or gambling, you can start reading some poker and gambling tips. I would recommend you start by reading some good no-limit holdem books.

Third

When you’ve read one good book and splashed in play money or micro-stakes real money games it is time to head to some good forums.

Finally

As I said, I decided to keep this post short and concise for the novice. Poker and gambling tips can be found all over the internet. Most of it is really bad though!

I want to keep you focused on simple steps that will keep you on the right track.

1. Identify Goals
2. Learn Rules
3. Read Book
4. Participate in Forums
5. Play Poker!

The biggest winrate-killer in poker is simple – TILT.

However, it is within each player’s power to control tilt. It takes discipline, and self-awareness, but to be successful one must master tilt.

It is very do-able with a couple strategies:

Prepare before Playing.

This is simple – make sure you are well-rested and well-fed before playing. There’s nothing that tilts me faster than being tired or hungry.

Don’t Play When Emotionally Agitated.

Did you just have a fight with your girlfriend?

Did your cat run away?

Are you sobbing because your favorite person got voted off the island?

Don’t sit down and play when upset, poker requires calm concentration.

Know Thyself

It is critical to know your own symptoms of tilt. They differ from person to person – some examples are:

• Whining about bad beats, either in chat or on IM or to a friend
• Feelings of frustration or despair about lost money
• Feelings of anger or thoughts of revenge towards a specific player
• Impatience, the desire to win money back right now
• Making decisions based on emotional wants rather than logical reasons

Which leads us to….

Take Breaks

If any of these tilt symptoms show up, it is time for a break to cool off.
Take a walk, get some water, grab a sandwich, check your email, whatever. Give yourself a chance to calm down so you can return to the game clear-headed.

Also, marathon sessions can be dangerous, as one’s ability to focus dwindles as sessions get longer. Taking a break every hour or two helps tremendously.

Last but not least…

Stay Hydrated

The brain needs water to function properly, and many people drink caffeinated beverages like soda or coffee which actually dehydrate the body further.
Grab a glass of water, stay hydrated, and stay focused.

With a little practice and effort, these tips will help any player cut down on their tilting.

Less tilting = less losing, and more winning!

What about if you go on a long trip, do you take a map or anything similar? The point I am trying to make here is that if you plan ahead it will make your life easier.

And I don’t care about being super effective in real life but in poker I care a lot!

Dan touched on this point in his post about Thinking Ahead. I am going to build on that post by providing a few more concepts and examples that will help you understand the concept of planning ahead.

Anticipating The Action

For you to be able to plan ahead you have to anticipate the action to some degree. For example, if you know that an opponent will check-raise you a lot on the flop. And you also know that you can’t really call a check-raise.

What happens if you check the flop? Does your opponent become more controllable? Most opponents have a plan like “I am going to check-raise this guy on the flop because he doesn’t have anything”.

When you just check it back to him he doesn’t really know what to do and becomes confused. He lacks another plan obviously!

He might just bet the turn and you can easily call a turn bet with your middle pair. Or he might check and let you value bet.

Example #1

You raise AJ on the button and an aggressive player in the big blind calls.

The flop comes KJ8

The big blind checks and you decide to check.

The reason for the check is that you know that the big blind will check-raise a lot of hands but not so many that you want to put all your money in with middle pair here. So checking here enables you to control the pot and avoid folding the best hand if he check-raises.

There are of course exceptions to this “rule”. If you know he check-raises and instantly gives up on the turn with worse than a King then you can easily bet and call a check-raise.

Turn comes a harmless 2

The big blind bets pot and you call.

No reason to raise here against a player like this. Although if your opponent was a more loose bad fishy player you could raise his bet 2-2.5 times to get a call from a worse jack or a draw like QT, AQ, AT, T9, Q9. It all depends on how you think your opponent will react to you (anticipating his actions).

River comes 4

That puts the back-door flush out there but it doesn’t scare us since it is so unlikely that he has it. Now the big blind bets 1/2 pot and we call. He flips up QT which was planning on check-raising the flop.

If your opponent were to show you a big hand here you would adjust your reads.

Although I would not stop calling someone down in this spot with a hand like this just because they show me two pair or something like that a few times, his hand-range is so wide for me to be folding AJ when the action goes check, pot, 1/2 pot. If he does it a few times with the same betting pattern I would note it.

Example #2:

You raise AQ UTG+1 and get a call from the button who you don’t know that well but he seems loose and doesn’t like to give up pots.

Only the two of you see the flop which is 67T

Many players would just tell you to bet your Ace high here but I disagree. How do you think your opponent will react?

A board like this hits your opponents hand-range hard, even if he is loose and you are out of position. Which means that you will have a hard time contesting the pot.

If your opponent is someone who calls you all the time then you shouldn’t focus on betting him off a hand. You should focus on value-betting your made hands MORE.

If you had a hand like A7 or 99 you could value-bet him relentlessly. We are of course assuming he will not be raising you off that hand if you do, that is for another post though.

Position plays a huge part in a game like No-Limit Hold’em. In this spot I would simply check-fold my Ace high.

How can you adjust to a player like this?

1. Play tighter when he has position on you
2. Value bet more
3. Learn his patterns
4. Continuation bet/bluff less

Those are a few things you can do. You can always leave the table if he is making your life difficult. I am pretty sure there are a lot of better tables out there.

Summary

In summary, what I do is simplify my decisions. Below are a few examples…

Tendency: Opponent calls too much in position with weak hands

Adjustment: Value bet, Tighter when he as position, Bluff less

Tendency: Opponent check-raises flops

Oops, you forgot to mention with what? Never base your decisions on reads that do not exist.

Tendency: Opponent check-raises flops with any pair, any draw and big hands.

Adjustment: Check behind on the flop and learn how he plays after that.

I know it is easy to get caught up in a personal vendetta against someone. I have done it and still do.

Someone who constantly floats (calls) you in position and you have to check-fold time and time again.

You want to start firing those 2nd and 3rd barrels, because he is owning you.

What you have to consider is that he will be very likely to call you down no matter how much you bet.

That is why you have to adjust your strategy wisely and not just throw more money at him and hope he folds!

In ~1,500 hands I won a little bit over $8,500 – not bad for about four hours work!

Most of this was at 5/10NL, with a little bit of 3/6 and a quick shot at 10/20 thrown in.

While I won a couple pots with “tricky” plays like floats(calling without a hand to represent one, usually in position) or “squeeze” re-raises, the majority of the winnings were accomplished with solid fundamentals:

• Planning the pot-size
• Extracting value
• Inducing bluffs / pot control
• Tilt avoidance

Plan the Pot from the Beginning

5/10 NL, $1000 effective stacks.

I am dealt AK in the cut-off, the UTG player folds and the HJ, an average player, limps.

The standard play is to raise 4-5x the BB. However, I’ve kept my eye on the table and the BB is a complete maniac:

• He will raise around 30-40% of his hands from any position if there is no raise
• If there is a raise, he will usually just call.
• If he gets reraised, he will almost always see a flop.

He’s the “easy money” at the table, so I target him first.I decide to take a chance and hope he has a hand to raise, so I overlimp behind the HJ. The button folds, the SB completes, and to my delight the BB raises to $50.

The first limper folds, and I reraise to $150. It is folded back to the BB who pauses and calls.

At this point my planning has started to take shape – I’ve got a good enough chunk of my stack in preflop that if I hit a pair I can happily get the rest in, since the pot will be ~$320 and we will have $850 remaining.

It may get a bit dicey if I do not hit top pair, but I have position and my opponent is generally entering the pot with a significantly weaker hand, so I’m willing to take that chance.

The flop is the beautiful: A T 2 (Pot: $320)

I bet $225, and villain thinks for a moment, then check-raises all-in for $625 more. I call quickly – villain has QT and my hand holds up.

Careful attention to my opponents, a little planning, and that pretty Ace allowed me to double up here.

Had I just raised pre-flop like normal the BB would have called, and I might have won a small- to medium-sized pot, since I would be forced to play for pot control with such a small portion of my stack invested preflop.

Extracting Value

Extracting value goes hand-in-hand with planning the pot. Here’s an example from 5/10 NL:

Hero(100bb) raises AK to $35 UTG, and gets 3 callers – a shortstack(30bb) in the HJ, a fishy player on the button(100bb), and a TAG in the SB(125bb).

Flop: A 2 2 (Pot: $150)

At this point, I notice a few things before acting:

1. The short-stack is irrelevant as I’m happy getting 30bb in w/ TPTK on this board
2. The TAG never has a 2 unless he has specifically 22 or A2s
3. The fishy button may hold a 2, but he will likely pay off 3 streets of betting with just an A

As a result, these factors along with the pot size ($150 with $965 left to bet) let me bet my TPTK aggressively because there are so few hands that beat me.

This results in a rare situation where I can commit my stack with top-pair in a multi-way raised pot.

So, I come out and bet $130 into $150. The shortstack folds, the fishy button calls, and the tag folds. This is my ideal scenario, heads-up with the deep fish.

Turn: 4; (pot: $410)

I bet $305, button calls.

River: 8 (pot: $1020)

I go all-in for my remaining $530, and villain calls with AJ.

AK was good to me on Friday

Solid Play Pays Off

Many players get caught up in the idea of “outplaying” their opponents. When it comes down to it, a solid, tight strategy and attention to your opponent’s habits are the most important factors – play well for long enough, and it will pay off!

What I want to talk about in this post is experimentation. Learning by trial. Learning by applying basic math, odds and brain!

Experiment

Don’t be afraid to experiment. Experience is the best teacher. Reading, talking and coaching only take you so far.

After awhile you have to step out of your comfort zone and try things. Although a slight warning before you do so. It is easy to fool yourself to playing bad and shrugging it off while saying “I’m experimenting!”.

On the other hand, a friend of mine who learned by experimentation. Be smart when you do it though, it is easy to fool yourself

Don’t start re-raising hands out of position which put you in extremely tough situations.

Start with something lighter and where your success rate is higher.

One example could be playing a few more hands on the button, in position. Always think of what kind of range your opponent has, you do not want to be calling a hand like A5s on the button to an under the gun raise if the raiser is tight. Because his range crushes yours.

A better spot would be against a loose opponent who opens in the cut-off and you call on the button with A5s.

I have always leaned more to the conservative side. That is my weakness, I don’t move up the stakes when I could make even more at a higher limit. Sometimes I am too complacent and don’t make the play that has the most expected value.

But I am learning, just as you are.

Analyze

I usually go through my sessions in Pokertracker after my session is done. It costs $55 or so and is a very helpful tool. I bought it around August 2004 I think and it has been well worth it

Il also use Holdem Ranger and Pokerstove which are very helpful for calculating equities. It might be confusing in the beginning. If it is, send me your questions and I will answer them. It is a lot easier for me to help when I know what specific questions you have.

What all these programs help you do is assess when a play is correct and when it is not. For example with equity calculators like Holdem Ranger and Pokerstove you can input your opponents perceived range of hands and start calculating if a bluff is correct.

For example if a slightly loose and aggressive opponent who steals a lot opens in the cut-off and you call on the button with two cards. The flop comes down something like K72 rainbow.

He fires out a continuation bet like he does 90% of the time. How often do you think he will fold on this flop if you raise? How will he react when you just call?

First you have to think about his hand-range, it might contain a lot of hands like 65s, A5o, Q9o and such. He will easily fold hands like that to a small raise if you have a solid image.

When you first learn to use calculators like this it is kind of a revelation. It was for me because I had a good method of figuring out when I could do different things to take advantage of my opponents. I am still learning and lost in many places but with the help of calculating, discussing, coaching and playing I am getting better.

And to win in poker you have to be learning constantly.