Professional Poker Players
So much can be learned from simply watching professionals play. Not only during a World Series of Poker tournament, either. Some of the best moves are during these huge, high stakes poker games.
Here’s a hand where a few players already dropped out. Sammy Farha has King, Q of diamonds and opens the betting, raising the pot to $6,400. While he chatters back and forth with Doyle Brunson, Patrick Antonius quietly bumps the bet to $16K, and just there you can feel it’s going to be one of those hands. Just watching Antonius, you can sense his enjoyment from making his move while the attention was on two other players…like he was “getting away with something.”
Doyle folds, but Farha of Titan Poker calls with a wad of cash while trying to arrange his chips – multitasking at its finest. Antonius, by the way, has the weaker hand of the two with J, 9 of hearts. The pot sits at a modest $34,200.
Flop helps both players, 6D, 9D and 3C. So Antonius catches top pair, and Farha has four to a flush with two more to come. This is a tough situation for both players, and this is what I’m talking about when I say you can learn by just watching these guys. What do they do here? How would I play it, from both sides of the fence?
Antonius, liking his pair, bets $20K. The largest bet so far in the game, but not a huge move, which is somewhat revealing in my opinion. Farha seems to agree, and raises to $100K. This forces Antonius to sit and think…or allows him to play like he’s struggling with a decision while fondling his chips. I personally think he’s just considering how much to raise back.
And…I’m right. He goes all-in, currently with a slight statistical disadvantage of 47%. Farha never takes his eyes off the community cards and calls, bringing the pot to just under $1M. Now the talking begins, and neither player will say what they have. Farha thinks Antonius of FullTilt is bluffing – he’s not exactly right. I think the audience is hating the discussion because it’s only adding to the buildup before the turn and the river.
Now it gets crazy, and they run the deck 4 times, meaning there’s four turns and rivers and they split up the pot four times. The first one is 3D, 9S, which first gives Farha the huge advantage only to see Antonius steal it back for the win at the end. This is, by far, the most interesting of the runs.
At the end, Farha took one pot, and lost ¾ of the pot.
Aside from the unconventional finish, it’s a textbook example of learning from the professionals successful decisions – and their mistakes.
Online Black Jack Card Counting
If you’re playing black jack at the casino as a serious card counter, you know it’s not as simple as doing your thing and walking out with a stack of chips. While what you’re doing isn’t technically illegal, it’s certainly not allowed by the casinos, and if you’re caught, you’ll be asked to leave and likely banned from the casino. You’ll probably get to keep what you won, but any potential for future gains will be lost. So to thwart the casinos from catching on, counters will employ a tactic called “cover.” This basically means making somewhat “wrong” decisions to throw off the people who might be watching, and making them believe you’re just another player. The trick is to work this cover while not sacrificing too much of your winnings to keep your efforts worth it in the long run.
Let’s take a look at some types of cover.
First, you don’t increase your bet after you suffer a loss. The count doesn’t factor into this, either. You simply can’t do it, ever. If you stray from this rule, the online black jack casino might become wise to the fact that you’re counting. Second, you can’t decrease your bet after a victory. Typically, a counter would bet say XX units on a specific hand, and then if he won, the bet would reduce to XX minus 2 or 3 betting units.
Under this cover, the XX remains consistent regardless of a win or loss. Some players fall back on the shuffle as an acceptable time to stray from the rule and reduce their bet down to a single gambling chip (unit). This is more difficult to get away with the fewer number of decks are in play, and is in my opinion and unnecessary risk.
Third, keep the same bet after a tie with the dealer. This isn’t that difficult to follow, as seldom do players raise or lower their bet after a push anyway. And fourth, do not make any large increases or decreases in your betting units at all. Keep your increments of betting units to 1 or 2 when you do change. This means if you’re betting in increments of $10, you can go from $10 to $20, but don’t jump from $10 to $60….or from $50 down to $10. That looks suspicious and will draw the attention of the eye in the sky. This is where you can get murdered, though, as the true blackjack card counting will beg for you to maximize your bet at certain situations. Patience and will power will be essential to maintaining a strong cover using this system in these situations.
Beginner Strategy for Rebuy Tournament Players
Most online poker rooms offers what is known as a rebuy tournament which is close to a regular tournament except for the fact players can rebuy into the event for typically the first hour. During the first hour of the event you will be able to buy more chips if you run out and the rebuy money will go into the prize pool. The prize pool is always larger in rebuy tournaments then regular tournaments and this is one of the benefits of playing in rebuy tournaments.
If you’re going to play in a rebuy tournament then you first need to make sure that you have time to play the tournament. These events often will take several hours of playing in order to complete so you need to make sure you have the entire day to play or else you’ll be usually too anxious and lose your chips. The tournament won’t end any quicker by you playing aggressively so keep that in mind and ensure you have the time to finish the tournament if you were to make it that far.
During the first few levels of a poker online rebuy tournament the action is going to be very loose because everyone will be able to rebuy if they wish. Often players will make a lot of all-in moves in the early stages of these tournaments so you need to try and take advantage of that. Don’t force any bets or anything, but when you have a hand make sure you do your best to get paid off by your opponents.
After the first hour or however long the rebuy period is in the event you’re playing in the action will generally slow down a lot and you’ll be playing real poker at this stage. A lot of players will be being a lot more careful with how they play after the rebuy period so even if the players was bluffing early in the event doesn’t mean they will be later on in the event. At this stage in the event you need to do your best at winning all of the big hands on your table.
The chip lead for most of the tournament is completely irrelevant because it changes so often throughout the course of the tournament, but near the end it becomes important. If you make it deep into a rebuy event then you will need to make sure that you’re careful at the end. You should generally only play hands that you’re willing to go all-in with at this point and you shouldn’t chase many hands unless you’re getting good value.
In PokerStars rebuy tournaments the prize pools are often very large so you will want to make it as deep as possible in the event so you can win the most money. Generally the top positions pay a lot more then the other positions so if you have a lot of chips you should basically sit out and only play your best hands until you make it to the top ten. Of course you won’t always have this luxury, but if you ever do make sure you don’t waste the advantage you’ve earned.