Betting is an art form or a science that takes some observation and experimentation in order to determine the best way to maximize your chips. As Sklansky writes in his book, the best poker play is the one that makes other players make the wrong decision. If you have the best hand you want him to stay in and pay more. And if he has the best hand you want to know that and fold faster than a towel in a hotel laundry.
This is my results of a year's worth of betting habits: the best strategy involves many factors that all contribute like player behaviour, other player most likely hands, aggression, the outs available and even the previous history of your won hands. And betting in a tournament - normally no limit - is completely different than betting in a ring game also known as a cash game. The bottom line is it depends. The main factor seems to be your opponents technique.
A bad player doesn't read the board and thinks his pocket aces are always the best. For this sort of player you can outright re-raise with the best hand and they will still call you. Reap the whirlwind.
For a good cautious player you can sometimes get them to fold to aggression if they didn't hit their flop. If they reraise you, then they probably did or they are defending their blinds. If you didn't hit yours you should fold on a reraise. Cautious conservative players normally stop trying to defend their blind after the turn and before the river. Another bet here might do the trick. To get a good cautious player to donate more money sometimes reraises on marginal hands should be replaced by calling when you hold monster hands. You can reraise now for a little more or perhaps you can grind out a little more chips from two more rounds of betting. A reraise is a warning flag to cautious players, and it may induce a fold. Either strategy works to a point.
For bad cautious players, betting seems like a feared thing- you are actually offering them a chance at more money. For these players you are better of to bet and continue betting. Of course, even bad players can be holding pocket AA.
Friday, September 17, 2010
Sunday, September 12, 2010
Poker Tactics - A Poker Inquiry
Poker players need to do many things quickly when it becomes their turn to play. Most times your brain wants to do other things, but if you wish to be successful then a consistent method of approaching the hand is a useful process to take. Any time you miss getting the truthful information can be a costly experience.
In the Army, and other walks of life, people recite a series of sayings or actions in a repetitive, machine-like way as a means to force oneself to remember the information on time and on cue to make better decisions under stress.
Poker is a similar business made up of three actions : raise, call, or fold. sounds like a walk of life that could benefit from some repetitive actions to help insure every decision under stress is better.
I made up a short list of questions to ask oneself as a way to counter the brains automatic lazy needs. I call it an inquiry because it is a method for augmenting knowledge, resolving doubt, or solving a problem. The idea is to get into the habit of saying it to yourself, in your head (because you would look crazy saying it aloud at a poker table and of course it would give you away ) during every hand at every street. You won't do it all the time, but when it counts if you use it wisely it may augment your knowledge, resolve any doubt or solve the problem of what you should do next.
The idea with my inquiry is to keep it short and to the point. I have seen lists of questions that experts want to know after every street. But they are fooling themselves if they think the average human being can repeat 20 questions let alone 30 questions. If you want people to use it, then it must be short and sweet and to the point (or succinct).
Here are my questions:
There it is. Seven questions you can rattle off in your sleep. It's that kind of simple system that can make any hand better played but not be so long people just ignore it when they need it the most. I wrote these questions once while playing online. I did this out of frustation when I didn't see a flush on the board that could beat my straight. It's a beginner skill to spot a flush on the board and I mistook the betting for he had AK but I didn't see the obvious possibility that he had AK suited in hearts which would give him the right to re-raise my re-raises.
Then I went back and asked myself should you change the order of the questions or change the questions? The answer to both was no, that they make sense and they need to be asked in about the same order. You need to start with what you hold and work from there.
Your answers to the questions can be as simple as I don't know but at least then you get a better picture. Perhaps only one of the questions helps you for this hand? So what, one answer more is better than nothing.
In the words of Francis Bacon:
In the Army, and other walks of life, people recite a series of sayings or actions in a repetitive, machine-like way as a means to force oneself to remember the information on time and on cue to make better decisions under stress.
Poker is a similar business made up of three actions : raise, call, or fold. sounds like a walk of life that could benefit from some repetitive actions to help insure every decision under stress is better.
I made up a short list of questions to ask oneself as a way to counter the brains automatic lazy needs. I call it an inquiry because it is a method for augmenting knowledge, resolving doubt, or solving a problem. The idea is to get into the habit of saying it to yourself, in your head (because you would look crazy saying it aloud at a poker table and of course it would give you away ) during every hand at every street. You won't do it all the time, but when it counts if you use it wisely it may augment your knowledge, resolve any doubt or solve the problem of what you should do next.
The idea with my inquiry is to keep it short and to the point. I have seen lists of questions that experts want to know after every street. But they are fooling themselves if they think the average human being can repeat 20 questions let alone 30 questions. If you want people to use it, then it must be short and sweet and to the point (or succinct).
Here are my questions:
- What is the nuts?
- What am I holding?
- How likely is opponent holding nuts?
- How likely can I bluff this player?
- How likely can I improve to the nuts?
- What are the odds of the draw?
- What will the pot give me?
There it is. Seven questions you can rattle off in your sleep. It's that kind of simple system that can make any hand better played but not be so long people just ignore it when they need it the most. I wrote these questions once while playing online. I did this out of frustation when I didn't see a flush on the board that could beat my straight. It's a beginner skill to spot a flush on the board and I mistook the betting for he had AK but I didn't see the obvious possibility that he had AK suited in hearts which would give him the right to re-raise my re-raises.
Then I went back and asked myself should you change the order of the questions or change the questions? The answer to both was no, that they make sense and they need to be asked in about the same order. You need to start with what you hold and work from there.
Your answers to the questions can be as simple as I don't know but at least then you get a better picture. Perhaps only one of the questions helps you for this hand? So what, one answer more is better than nothing.
In the words of Francis Bacon:
A prudent question is one half of wisdom.
Saturday, September 11, 2010
Poker Tactics - May you survive the good times
There is an old saying, when I first heard it it was called a farm saying:
"May you survive the good times".
It' s meaning may not be clear at first but when you ponder it a while the deeper meaning is clear. There will be times, like on a farm, when you have a bumper crop as they call it and you have been shown some good fortune after hard work. This is a time to celebrate.
But there will be other times when there is a drought on a farm and that causes smaller crops and even famine. The deprivation may last for a while and you may suffer if you are unprepared. For some farmers a drought meant starvation and death.
Often times farmers might spend too much of that extra celebrating, but later on when there isn't enough that unneccessary spending may cost you the farm.
In my opinion, the saying is a warning that you need preserve enough, to save enough, of that good fortune in the times that are good to hold you into the next good fortune. I hear droughts can last seven year
The smart players talk about stack management and this is just another way of saying it. It is a great thing to win $25,000 at a poker tournament except when you blow it all on bad decisions and don't have enough saved up for the next one.
My biggest strength is being able to drive up large pots and win them, not all of them but enough of them to shoot up a tournaments rankings.
My biggest weakness is I fritter away some of those large pots playing low probability hands against opponents who have waited all tournament play pocket aces. It's not a good thing to lose it all in a few bad situations. It's worse to let that happen again and again.
There is a simple set of rules to change how much your stack varies at the poker table:
Stick to a set list of good cards
Fold really bad hands after the flop
Restrict the amount of bluffing you do
Fold when you suspect you are beaten
In other words, play really really boring and conservative.
If you want to win at it, and that is what all players wish, then you need to be disciplined.
"May you survive the good times".
It' s meaning may not be clear at first but when you ponder it a while the deeper meaning is clear. There will be times, like on a farm, when you have a bumper crop as they call it and you have been shown some good fortune after hard work. This is a time to celebrate.
But there will be other times when there is a drought on a farm and that causes smaller crops and even famine. The deprivation may last for a while and you may suffer if you are unprepared. For some farmers a drought meant starvation and death.
Often times farmers might spend too much of that extra celebrating, but later on when there isn't enough that unneccessary spending may cost you the farm.
In my opinion, the saying is a warning that you need preserve enough, to save enough, of that good fortune in the times that are good to hold you into the next good fortune. I hear droughts can last seven year
The smart players talk about stack management and this is just another way of saying it. It is a great thing to win $25,000 at a poker tournament except when you blow it all on bad decisions and don't have enough saved up for the next one.
My biggest strength is being able to drive up large pots and win them, not all of them but enough of them to shoot up a tournaments rankings.
My biggest weakness is I fritter away some of those large pots playing low probability hands against opponents who have waited all tournament play pocket aces. It's not a good thing to lose it all in a few bad situations. It's worse to let that happen again and again.
There is a simple set of rules to change how much your stack varies at the poker table:
Stick to a set list of good cards
Fold really bad hands after the flop
Restrict the amount of bluffing you do
Fold when you suspect you are beaten
In other words, play really really boring and conservative.
If you want to win at it, and that is what all players wish, then you need to be disciplined.
Monday, June 14, 2010
The Tactics of Mantracker Part 7
This post highlights my thoughts on beating mantracker. As I have discussed in the past, mantracker likes to play the hunting prey game on his terms. He uses the tactics I called A & A : antagonize and ambush. And he is very successful at being cranky and winning the game in 2 days or less.
The antagonize and ambush plan plays out like this: he tries to run down the prey and he pushes the prey to waste their strength and make mistakes. He finds the prey's tracks sooner or later, estimates the overall direction of travel, and tries to think one step ahead to find the best spot to run out and ruin the prey's day. The first day is not about winning, it seems he waits until the second day to make sure he can catch the prey. This is a smart goal because he doesn't want to risk losing the prey for good. He wants to know the real direction so he can guess the final destination. This happens to be his last resort for information. If the prey keeps heading in the same general direction on day one, then he has the prey figured out and it becomes a matter of time.
Antagonizing the prey makes them exhaust themselves whacking through brush, draining their strength, and forcing them off path. Antagonizing makes for good television, it makes the prey seem desperate and the tracker seems better than normal.
Ambush requires the right direction of travel, a good guess at where the prey are, and where they will cross the dangerous areas. Ambush works this way; the mantracker finds a track behind the prey long enough to predict the next move then scouts a way around without being seen, and then moves ahead of the prey without detection to wait for the prey to approach. Mantracker likes to catch the prey in a spot where they have no cover and the horses can run them down in any case. Getting ahead is no problem if the mantracker can hide his approach and the horses are twice as fast as humans in open ground. But he can't spring the trap if the prey don't stay predictable long enough.
Mantracker's A & A strategy is successful so there's no reason to change until it doesn't work. This is the main weakness you can exploit: he uses a predictable strategy on a predictable schedule. Of course, the mantracker is very experienced at his job and the prey are first time victims so this is a real advantage unless you start the game off with a better strategy designed to defeat him before you start running.
My recommended tactics to beat this is a game plan I call D&D: distance and deception. This strategy can beat Mantracker's A & A strategy if you follow it religiously.
The first part of my proposed plan - Distance - requires the prey to run from cover to cover and hide in the cover when the mantracker antagonizes them. If you play mantracker's game you need to make up a lot of distance in a hurry. Prey seem to think they can trick the mantracker by hiding in bush and deception tactics alone. And then he rides up behind them and they run disorganized into trouble. I would argue that he is very good at tracking, so don't assume you will keep him lost for long. The prey waste time learning that he is very good at tracking. And he gets lucky. Instead of hoping the deception works, you need to make the distance. Expect he will catch up from time to time and that's when you run for cover, hide or change directions and then resume course. Above all else, you need to make it across over half the distance on day one.
I would argue deception on day one should focus more on hiding the true direction of travel from the mantracker. If your true heading is North, then you should run Northwest or Northeast for most of the day. Most of the time mantracker lost on past episodes the prey accidentally travel in the wrong direction so long, mostly by bad orienteering, that it confused and befuddled the old cranky mantracker so he can't take advantage of this key information. It's ironic that the best efforts to hide and run normally lose and the worst accident's succeed. The reason seems to be that this erratic heading does more to change the outcome than all the other reasons combined. The prey are unpredictable.
The prey must use routes to travel the distance quickly and use the bush and cover only when the mantracker nears. You may need to hide quiet for long periods and let the mantracker pass ahead. Or you may need to back track until the mantracker cannot find your direction. Your movement must be unpredictable but along a general correct direction. Keeping to the roads will speed up travel and allow the prey to rest for day two. You will give the mantracker the false direction of travel so this isn't a complete waste of time. If viewed from above, the prey's travel should look like a zig zag, where the prey move from cover to cover and hide where they are appropriate.
Day one should end with most of the distance covered and the prey healthy enough to sprint when needed. This allows the prey to wait patiently for mantracker to pass them on day two because they have the time to make up the final distance.
I wouldn't recommend sleeping that day one night: drink lots of water and keep going.
Day two's main tactic is deception. Mantracker is going to try to ambush you all day to catch you. He will get ahead of you and then make your life difficult. You need to change your direction of travel, hide and wait, and other deception tactics. Part of day two will be needed to watch for mantracker. You will need to know where he is so you can go the other way.
The first travel on day two should be in a different direction: 90 degrees from the original course on day one. When he sees these tracks, he will be lost as to the right overall direction and then he can't predict your general travel. Then in a kilometre or so, change back to the true heading for a period to make up some time.
If travel on day one resembles a zig zag, then travel on day two should be even more messy. Reading a map and understanding which ground is best for travel needs to be augmented with a prediction of what mantracker thinks you will do. If he figures you will stay to a trail along the original heading then you must deviate out of your way to stray outside his view. Mantracker doubles back when he thinks he has lost the trail, and you can make him keep guessing long enough to make up the distance from your deception tactics.
Day two is when you employ all those deception tactics people have tried in the past. Deception tactics like reverse boots, covered boots, track decoys, double back, wiping tracks, sound decoys, body decoys, wolf/bear urine, and so on will have more effect because on day one you didn't try those tactics - he will assume you won't try them on day two because you didn't try any on day one and make that one critical mistake you can benefit from. I doubt it will work for long but it may work long enough.
The goal of day two's travel is to keep him guessing long enough to avoid ambushes and have him in the wrong ambush spot when you cross the finish line.
The antagonize and ambush plan plays out like this: he tries to run down the prey and he pushes the prey to waste their strength and make mistakes. He finds the prey's tracks sooner or later, estimates the overall direction of travel, and tries to think one step ahead to find the best spot to run out and ruin the prey's day. The first day is not about winning, it seems he waits until the second day to make sure he can catch the prey. This is a smart goal because he doesn't want to risk losing the prey for good. He wants to know the real direction so he can guess the final destination. This happens to be his last resort for information. If the prey keeps heading in the same general direction on day one, then he has the prey figured out and it becomes a matter of time.
Antagonizing the prey makes them exhaust themselves whacking through brush, draining their strength, and forcing them off path. Antagonizing makes for good television, it makes the prey seem desperate and the tracker seems better than normal.
Ambush requires the right direction of travel, a good guess at where the prey are, and where they will cross the dangerous areas. Ambush works this way; the mantracker finds a track behind the prey long enough to predict the next move then scouts a way around without being seen, and then moves ahead of the prey without detection to wait for the prey to approach. Mantracker likes to catch the prey in a spot where they have no cover and the horses can run them down in any case. Getting ahead is no problem if the mantracker can hide his approach and the horses are twice as fast as humans in open ground. But he can't spring the trap if the prey don't stay predictable long enough.
Mantracker's A & A strategy is successful so there's no reason to change until it doesn't work. This is the main weakness you can exploit: he uses a predictable strategy on a predictable schedule. Of course, the mantracker is very experienced at his job and the prey are first time victims so this is a real advantage unless you start the game off with a better strategy designed to defeat him before you start running.
My recommended tactics to beat this is a game plan I call D&D: distance and deception. This strategy can beat Mantracker's A & A strategy if you follow it religiously.
The first part of my proposed plan - Distance - requires the prey to run from cover to cover and hide in the cover when the mantracker antagonizes them. If you play mantracker's game you need to make up a lot of distance in a hurry. Prey seem to think they can trick the mantracker by hiding in bush and deception tactics alone. And then he rides up behind them and they run disorganized into trouble. I would argue that he is very good at tracking, so don't assume you will keep him lost for long. The prey waste time learning that he is very good at tracking. And he gets lucky. Instead of hoping the deception works, you need to make the distance. Expect he will catch up from time to time and that's when you run for cover, hide or change directions and then resume course. Above all else, you need to make it across over half the distance on day one.
I would argue deception on day one should focus more on hiding the true direction of travel from the mantracker. If your true heading is North, then you should run Northwest or Northeast for most of the day. Most of the time mantracker lost on past episodes the prey accidentally travel in the wrong direction so long, mostly by bad orienteering, that it confused and befuddled the old cranky mantracker so he can't take advantage of this key information. It's ironic that the best efforts to hide and run normally lose and the worst accident's succeed. The reason seems to be that this erratic heading does more to change the outcome than all the other reasons combined. The prey are unpredictable.
The prey must use routes to travel the distance quickly and use the bush and cover only when the mantracker nears. You may need to hide quiet for long periods and let the mantracker pass ahead. Or you may need to back track until the mantracker cannot find your direction. Your movement must be unpredictable but along a general correct direction. Keeping to the roads will speed up travel and allow the prey to rest for day two. You will give the mantracker the false direction of travel so this isn't a complete waste of time. If viewed from above, the prey's travel should look like a zig zag, where the prey move from cover to cover and hide where they are appropriate.
Day one should end with most of the distance covered and the prey healthy enough to sprint when needed. This allows the prey to wait patiently for mantracker to pass them on day two because they have the time to make up the final distance.
I wouldn't recommend sleeping that day one night: drink lots of water and keep going.
Day two's main tactic is deception. Mantracker is going to try to ambush you all day to catch you. He will get ahead of you and then make your life difficult. You need to change your direction of travel, hide and wait, and other deception tactics. Part of day two will be needed to watch for mantracker. You will need to know where he is so you can go the other way.
The first travel on day two should be in a different direction: 90 degrees from the original course on day one. When he sees these tracks, he will be lost as to the right overall direction and then he can't predict your general travel. Then in a kilometre or so, change back to the true heading for a period to make up some time.
If travel on day one resembles a zig zag, then travel on day two should be even more messy. Reading a map and understanding which ground is best for travel needs to be augmented with a prediction of what mantracker thinks you will do. If he figures you will stay to a trail along the original heading then you must deviate out of your way to stray outside his view. Mantracker doubles back when he thinks he has lost the trail, and you can make him keep guessing long enough to make up the distance from your deception tactics.
Day two is when you employ all those deception tactics people have tried in the past. Deception tactics like reverse boots, covered boots, track decoys, double back, wiping tracks, sound decoys, body decoys, wolf/bear urine, and so on will have more effect because on day one you didn't try those tactics - he will assume you won't try them on day two because you didn't try any on day one and make that one critical mistake you can benefit from. I doubt it will work for long but it may work long enough.
The goal of day two's travel is to keep him guessing long enough to avoid ambushes and have him in the wrong ambush spot when you cross the finish line.
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Poker Tactics - Flop Rules
There is a great misunderstanding about the strength of hole cards in Texas Hold'em. There are many people who think a pair is great hand, even a pair of aces. But this game is not about the best pair of cards. You need to make the best hand out of all seven cards that you will see.
Players bet hard with a pocket pair, and then lose to a flush or a straight.
Sometimes players fold suited connectors and then watch the flop come up with a full house. This is all within the 2.5 million card permutations and combinations. Sometimes people bet on a hand and then fold it when there was a re-raise before the flop. Well, if the hand was worth betting on then why would you fold before the flop. You are simply handing your money to the more aggressive players.
Here is the reality.
The best hands before the flop become the worst risk gambling when the flop does not support it. The riskiest hands before the flop, sometimes, become the best hands on the board and you can defeat the AA or the dreaded AK hands handily if they wish to bet hard.
So there is a simple rule to keep yourself to overbet bad cards: flop out. If you don't get enough of a good hand after the flop you should look to exit. If you are playing good players, and that is likely then they will have their cards most times on the flop, or at least 4 of 5 for flushes and straights. So if you don't make your cards on the flop you can conside any more raises as gambling. And gambling has a less favorable outcome than calculated bets.
Players bet hard with a pocket pair, and then lose to a flush or a straight.
Sometimes players fold suited connectors and then watch the flop come up with a full house. This is all within the 2.5 million card permutations and combinations. Sometimes people bet on a hand and then fold it when there was a re-raise before the flop. Well, if the hand was worth betting on then why would you fold before the flop. You are simply handing your money to the more aggressive players.
Here is the reality.
The best hands before the flop become the worst risk gambling when the flop does not support it. The riskiest hands before the flop, sometimes, become the best hands on the board and you can defeat the AA or the dreaded AK hands handily if they wish to bet hard.
So there is a simple rule to keep yourself to overbet bad cards: flop out. If you don't get enough of a good hand after the flop you should look to exit. If you are playing good players, and that is likely then they will have their cards most times on the flop, or at least 4 of 5 for flushes and straights. So if you don't make your cards on the flop you can conside any more raises as gambling. And gambling has a less favorable outcome than calculated bets.
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Poker Tactics - Celebrate Good Folds
One of the simplest things to do when you want to improve is reinforce good behavior, by taking the time to celebrate your little victories on the road to better ones.
In poker, you will fold hands many times more than you will rake in chips from a won poker hand. If you are a good player then this will be the case because even with the right cards in a hand, the worst cards in a flop may mean making bets on that losing hand becomes a lost cause.
One of the common human failings is that we tend to criticize ourselves when we fail, or don't measure up to our own high standards. This is true in poker, where we can measure our success and failure with a simple number at the end of the day: how many chips did we win or lose. This is a reality that many sports or hobbies share - a real tangible sense of accompishment that few people can argue with.
I believe that in order to maintain the discipline of a good player so that you can win at poker, you need to reinforce the good behavior of folding hands even when you think it may be a winner. Sometimes we cling to the hope, and that is all it is, that one more card may turn the hand around. But that is a wrongheaded belief that will lead to sinking more chips and ultimately losing.
So in order to combine this all into practice, when you fold a hand that you think might be winnable but you know is gambling then you should take the time to celebrate your good fortune when it turns out that was the right call. You need to tell yourself that you just made a good decision on the way to victory. This is true because all the chips you don't lose on bad hands are more chips available for good hands when you need them. And poker tournaments are about outlasting the other guy as much as they are about outplaying the other.
So consider reinforcing your good folds. When you see you wouldn't win the pot that should be celebrated as a victory that left you more chips to play with and let you outlast the others in the
In poker, you will fold hands many times more than you will rake in chips from a won poker hand. If you are a good player then this will be the case because even with the right cards in a hand, the worst cards in a flop may mean making bets on that losing hand becomes a lost cause.
One of the common human failings is that we tend to criticize ourselves when we fail, or don't measure up to our own high standards. This is true in poker, where we can measure our success and failure with a simple number at the end of the day: how many chips did we win or lose. This is a reality that many sports or hobbies share - a real tangible sense of accompishment that few people can argue with.
I believe that in order to maintain the discipline of a good player so that you can win at poker, you need to reinforce the good behavior of folding hands even when you think it may be a winner. Sometimes we cling to the hope, and that is all it is, that one more card may turn the hand around. But that is a wrongheaded belief that will lead to sinking more chips and ultimately losing.
So in order to combine this all into practice, when you fold a hand that you think might be winnable but you know is gambling then you should take the time to celebrate your good fortune when it turns out that was the right call. You need to tell yourself that you just made a good decision on the way to victory. This is true because all the chips you don't lose on bad hands are more chips available for good hands when you need them. And poker tournaments are about outlasting the other guy as much as they are about outplaying the other.
So consider reinforcing your good folds. When you see you wouldn't win the pot that should be celebrated as a victory that left you more chips to play with and let you outlast the others in the
Sunday, May 9, 2010
Poker Tactics - How to beat the dreaded AK
The winners and losers in poker tournaments all have one thing in common, they play poker and the bet. The winners are different from the losers because they know how to spot a trap before all their chips are gone. Every player knows the rules to some degree and knows how to win. But playing to win means playing more than just the AA or AK hand because even those will lose some of the time, and you need to win consistently with many hands to take enough chips away from the other players before they do the same to you. In fact, if you pick the right cards to play and you get a good flop you can win at AK-killing as I call it. The trick is how to get as many chips from the other player before they fold or before they realize their top cards are the losing hand.
The better players know how to lay a trap for better cards by playing unexpected hands. The best players know how to see the trap and avoid it before the dreaded all-in call.
One of the most feared hands is a player with the Ace King as hole cards. Ace King or AK If you are going to win at a poker table you need to know how to take money from players who only play Big Slick or as I call it the dreaded AK.
The first factor to understand is the psychology of a player holding a high probability hand like AK - if you have that hand and you
In the order of hands, straights and flushes beat all set combos except full house. The best way to beat AK even with AK on the board is to combine a lower set of cards out of range of the AK. Off-suit flushes work as well. You need to strike with a higher hand he or she can't see coming.
The best way to beat a simple AK and if there is just an ace or a king on the board is with a two low pairs. When the AK player looks at the board he sees no three of a kind scare and so bets with some confusion - betting not when you get a good card but on the next card turn is enough to confuse an AK holder into giving you more chips.
The better players know how to lay a trap for better cards by playing unexpected hands. The best players know how to see the trap and avoid it before the dreaded all-in call.
One of the most feared hands is a player with the Ace King as hole cards. Ace King or AK If you are going to win at a poker table you need to know how to take money from players who only play Big Slick or as I call it the dreaded AK.
The first factor to understand is the psychology of a player holding a high probability hand like AK - if you have that hand and you
In the order of hands, straights and flushes beat all set combos except full house. The best way to beat AK even with AK on the board is to combine a lower set of cards out of range of the AK. Off-suit flushes work as well. You need to strike with a higher hand he or she can't see coming.
The best way to beat a simple AK and if there is just an ace or a king on the board is with a two low pairs. When the AK player looks at the board he sees no three of a kind scare and so bets with some confusion - betting not when you get a good card but on the next card turn is enough to confuse an AK holder into giving you more chips.
Friday, April 30, 2010
Poker Tactics - Tournament Poker
Tournaments are different from cash games, like they are different from non gambling practise games. A lot of people start to imagining that the chips mean something different from what they are. Betting all your chips to get someone else's chips is not the best idea and turns your betting strategy into a mess.
Tournaments are a special type of poker that needs a new take on rules. There will be lots of time to go all-in. But there are times when you may want to stay out of the line of fire. If more than one person is going all-in, perhaps someone with a short stack and they are getting desperate it is not a good idea to go in as well unless you are sure you have a good hand. Here is why. One person is going to lose, the other is going to have a lot more chips, but the more people that go all-in there is less of a chance that any one player will win the pot. Sounds complicated but really no matter what you hold, there are lots of combinations that will beat it. Most times people go all-in before the flop so you can't be sure of the cards and you are essentially gambling at that point. If it's the first few rounds with a set of brand new people, don't think that being macho will help you against good cards. Those players going all in are hoping to double up very quickly and that does pay off, but over time that kind of thinking leads to bad decisions and eventually those will cost you the tournament. The best players build chips slowly without the gambling.
The time I find to go all-in that matters the most is not on the flop but on the river. By then, you have seen all the cards and the other person - usually only one has a real hard decision to make about your cards. You can make them back down or you can maximize your pot win by waiting till the end. Or you go out knowing you had a good hand. Going all-in on a bluff doesn't work all that well so don't try that too often.
One thing to remember is timing. The bad decision players will drop out at the beginning so you need to remember not to be too fast to bet. Take your time. While you are prolonging your game, the other players are exiting and you can give yourself a better chance at making the final table by being patient alone. Chip counts will go up and down, and you will make some good and bad decisions, but you can control the time you play. I have had a good lead on some wild gamble bets, even been chip leader, and then went out making bad call after bad call. On the other hand, when I went all-in with a desperate small stack, I won three hands in a row and came back up to par with the other players. I was so determined that I had lost, I had signed up for another online tournament and was playing both at the same time; watching me lose the second tournament while the first one went on for another table or two. So timing and patience is a bigger virtue in tournaments than at a cash game. When you hit the end of your stack in a cash game you are finished, but wasting chips faster in a tournament puts you out faster.
Tournaments are a special type of poker that needs a new take on rules. There will be lots of time to go all-in. But there are times when you may want to stay out of the line of fire. If more than one person is going all-in, perhaps someone with a short stack and they are getting desperate it is not a good idea to go in as well unless you are sure you have a good hand. Here is why. One person is going to lose, the other is going to have a lot more chips, but the more people that go all-in there is less of a chance that any one player will win the pot. Sounds complicated but really no matter what you hold, there are lots of combinations that will beat it. Most times people go all-in before the flop so you can't be sure of the cards and you are essentially gambling at that point. If it's the first few rounds with a set of brand new people, don't think that being macho will help you against good cards. Those players going all in are hoping to double up very quickly and that does pay off, but over time that kind of thinking leads to bad decisions and eventually those will cost you the tournament. The best players build chips slowly without the gambling.
The time I find to go all-in that matters the most is not on the flop but on the river. By then, you have seen all the cards and the other person - usually only one has a real hard decision to make about your cards. You can make them back down or you can maximize your pot win by waiting till the end. Or you go out knowing you had a good hand. Going all-in on a bluff doesn't work all that well so don't try that too often.
One thing to remember is timing. The bad decision players will drop out at the beginning so you need to remember not to be too fast to bet. Take your time. While you are prolonging your game, the other players are exiting and you can give yourself a better chance at making the final table by being patient alone. Chip counts will go up and down, and you will make some good and bad decisions, but you can control the time you play. I have had a good lead on some wild gamble bets, even been chip leader, and then went out making bad call after bad call. On the other hand, when I went all-in with a desperate small stack, I won three hands in a row and came back up to par with the other players. I was so determined that I had lost, I had signed up for another online tournament and was playing both at the same time; watching me lose the second tournament while the first one went on for another table or two. So timing and patience is a bigger virtue in tournaments than at a cash game. When you hit the end of your stack in a cash game you are finished, but wasting chips faster in a tournament puts you out faster.
Sunday, April 25, 2010
Poker Tactics - Player Behavior
Poker is a game that combines many disciplines to play well and win. How many sports rely on an almost psychologist-like ability to understand a person and think fast about their true intentions? The strength of your cards is well known in poker, and that doesn't change. The ability to spot a trap is what separates the winners from the losers on bleachers watching the action.
The ability to sum up an opponent is an art that requires some science - theories and observation - and what better way than to watch the cards and watch the bets. You get to see the cards that win, and sometimes the cards that lose to get some insight on that person. Perhaps they were hoping for a gut-shot card; that tells you something.
Of course, claiming that a person is a certain way based on how they playing right now is silly. Sometimes people vary how they are playing. So to assume that what you are seeing is how they really are all the time is foolish. Daniel Negreanu argues you should vary your play a lot - and he is very successful at poker. Phil Ivey may have won more tournaments but Daniel is the all-time money leader for a reason. So that is the prime reason why you don't want to analyze endlessly how someone played one hand. You are wasting your time on the wrong thing in my opinion.
I argue that reading someone has little value past the time you are playing. In fact, I try not to remember how they played since this time it might be different. So what I am proposing is that you study the player at the time and recall a little of how they played before. Discount the history and understand how they play right now in the tournament or cash game they are in.
So based on my experience I have classified the type of players you will face. Here is my working knowledge of the different personalities - it is not complete and not perfect but it is a start.
The ability to sum up an opponent is an art that requires some science - theories and observation - and what better way than to watch the cards and watch the bets. You get to see the cards that win, and sometimes the cards that lose to get some insight on that person. Perhaps they were hoping for a gut-shot card; that tells you something.
Of course, claiming that a person is a certain way based on how they playing right now is silly. Sometimes people vary how they are playing. So to assume that what you are seeing is how they really are all the time is foolish. Daniel Negreanu argues you should vary your play a lot - and he is very successful at poker. Phil Ivey may have won more tournaments but Daniel is the all-time money leader for a reason. So that is the prime reason why you don't want to analyze endlessly how someone played one hand. You are wasting your time on the wrong thing in my opinion.
I argue that reading someone has little value past the time you are playing. In fact, I try not to remember how they played since this time it might be different. So what I am proposing is that you study the player at the time and recall a little of how they played before. Discount the history and understand how they play right now in the tournament or cash game they are in.
So based on my experience I have classified the type of players you will face. Here is my working knowledge of the different personalities - it is not complete and not perfect but it is a start.
- Aggressive - the aggressive player pushes the limits of playing. Aggressive bets a lot without a sure hand in his mitts. They run up the pots and this turns on them most times. The best way to beat them is to call behind their bets - when you have a good hand, and let them raise the pots. Because aggressive people aren't believed they tend to get others to play weaker hands trying to simply beat them with a pair. Just stay in the wake and let them do all the work. Then you turn your cards and make em weep. Of course, you need to watch for other good players using them as a shield too.
- Bluffer - the bluffer thinks you can bluff your way to win instead of holding good cards. This kind of player plays all kinds of cards and you can't predict well what kind of cards they have. So betting against the bluff does not always payoff. Bluffing against a bluffer won't work because they are trying to convince you of the same thing.
- Conservative - These players play only the premium hands; AA, AK, KK, AQ, and suited pairs. They are not here to gamble, they are going to play when they have a hand. They might play suited connectors but they like to play only when they know they have a good hand on the outset. This is a good opponent, because you know that if they have a good hand you need to get a good flop or you should fold. Because they play fewer hands, they try and maximize the winning hands. This is their undoing. I beat a conservative with 7 8 and the flop came up 9 10 J making the straight. I had that AK beat from the start, and it was a predictable outcome. He could not accept that he was beaten and he drove to the river. A King came up and sealed his fate because that's the system and he couldn't see the end. They are predictable, so use this knowledge wisely. But if they re-raise and you didn't get the good flop then get out, get out fast. Bluff work well against conservatives if they didn't get the flop or they are uncertain if you can beat their AK.
- Unsure - the unsure player looks like all the other players from time to time. Unsure wants the cards to go a certain way, or perhaps raises / bluffs to see the flop and instead of re-betting then checks and folds. Once you see a pattern that makes no other sense then perhaps that person is unsure of what strategy to take. This can be a hard player to figure out because they are unpredictable. If you think this player is inexperienced then you can take advantage of their bad card knowledge from time to time. But proceed with caution and expect that sometimes they will luck out on the river.
- Dangerous - this is the kind of player to watch for. You will know that you ran across one of the dangerous ones if you lose half your chips and still can't figure out what happened. These players vary their strategy on purpose. They know the good hands and they play the good odds. And they have figured out all the other player behaviours and how to play against you no matter what the cards are. These are the players to avoid. If you run across one of these and you don't want to lose lots of chips then fold that good hand or follow my conservative policy - flop-then-out: play until the flop and get out unless you have a solid win hand like full house or a straight don't wade into a betting war with a dangerous player. I would recommend that when you are starting out to stay away from any player at the table that can bust a player or several players in a single hand. They might have been lucky - and that's just what they want you to think.
Poker Tactics - Stack Management
There are only so many chips you can have. And poker has a way of making them go up or down a whole lot in a little time. I have started with $20, won enough to make $40, and then back down to $5 without much consistency.
Another art in poker is knowing when to say when. The most important factor is what kind of poker you are playing. And of course if you can't afford to lose the money then don't sit down in the first place.
If you are playing in a tournament, and I have won a tournament, stack management is not a problem at the beginning. The fact is that stacks don't really matter until the later rounds so you should not be too concerned with your stack getting low at the beginning. You are going to lose some chips along the way, perhaps even all of them with a re-buy, but you have to remain to the later rounds to win. A good hand to go all-in with can settle your chances in that tournament or not. So you need to risk it from time to time. In fact, when you are playing a tournament I would recommend that you go after winning hands at the beginning when the blinds are smaller so you do have a chance of winning and taking out some players. So you should not worry too much about losing some chips when you have a chance to eliminate players yourself. That does not mean chase bad hands and lose, it means take a risk on a medium strength hand now and again and you will have more chances to win. In fact, betting on an odd ball hand like pocket fours and then a good flop comes up is just the way to beat someone playing Ace King or pair of Aces.
If you are playing a cash game, I would be ultra conservative. I would start with your original total and stop if you get just below half of what you came to play with. If you lose more than half your chips, and you are a good player it should tell you something. You might be getting no help on the flop - and that goes in streaks and you should accept that - in which case you will have a harder time winning them back. It could also mean you are making bad decisions on hand strength, in which case you could be tired or not concentrating and then you are not playing poker you are just donating your money. It could also mean that someone at that table has figured you out so you better leave - leave very fast - and take a break.
If you want to control the speed at which your stack increases or decreases there is a simple rule. Stack size varies with how good a hand you decide to play. If you play lots of medium strength hands instead of just the very good hands then your stack size will go up and down. If you play only the best hands then your stack size will stay the same, dipping at one time or another, and then you can control the stack size easily.
There is a simple reason for this rule. The way to play poker is easy, you will learn most of the tactics, table talk, and betting behaviours in a few days at most. The betting will make sense when you succeed and fail when your bets become won pots and when your bad bets become loses. So then there is no real mystery. Once you learn that you will win and lose at the right times, sometimes lose at the wrong times, and so you will win chips and lose chips with regular frequency.
Good hand strength doesn't change. Only the flop changes and that is what varies whether your bet was a good one or not. As I discuss in my other post about cards, there are really only three ways to win most hands. Straights, sets, and flushes. So there is little to master in term of difficult skills or hard concepts. Chasing riskier hands means you are going to slowly lose chips. Betting on only the best hands means you will only play the best hands and you will probably win those hands - not all - and so your stack size will stay the same and you will do a lot of waiting.
If you are playing a tournament, then of course your goal is to get all the chips and so you need to be aggressive from time to time and that will mean going all-in to win it all. You need to have patience, and you need to play good cards with the occasional bluff thrown in for good measure.
If you are playing a cash game on your own money, then I would live by the rule of two. If you chips get below half - quit. If you double your money, then start to play conservatively or quit. I have given back more money with the ups and downs of playing medium hands so I can assure you that it's not fun to lose those winnings. If you need to, make a new marker with you winnings to avoid giving it all back. For example, if you start with $20, win up to $35, and then start to lose then perhaps you should think about stopping when it gets to $30. A 50% return on your money investment - not time since I am sure you are worth more than $0 / hour- is a good day at poker.
Playing when you are desperate to win it all back in a hurry is the worst way to play. The more you are desperate then how likely are you to spot the traps and avoid them? Poker is a discipline, and the best players know when to fold more than they do know how to bet on winning hands. Any idiot can raise with pocket Aces, it takes an artist to check-raise and sucker people into a straight. But if you are worried about losing a few chips to make a larger pile then perhaps you need to take up another sport. Poker stacks don't matter during play, they only matter at the end when you leave.
Another art in poker is knowing when to say when. The most important factor is what kind of poker you are playing. And of course if you can't afford to lose the money then don't sit down in the first place.
If you are playing in a tournament, and I have won a tournament, stack management is not a problem at the beginning. The fact is that stacks don't really matter until the later rounds so you should not be too concerned with your stack getting low at the beginning. You are going to lose some chips along the way, perhaps even all of them with a re-buy, but you have to remain to the later rounds to win. A good hand to go all-in with can settle your chances in that tournament or not. So you need to risk it from time to time. In fact, when you are playing a tournament I would recommend that you go after winning hands at the beginning when the blinds are smaller so you do have a chance of winning and taking out some players. So you should not worry too much about losing some chips when you have a chance to eliminate players yourself. That does not mean chase bad hands and lose, it means take a risk on a medium strength hand now and again and you will have more chances to win. In fact, betting on an odd ball hand like pocket fours and then a good flop comes up is just the way to beat someone playing Ace King or pair of Aces.
If you are playing a cash game, I would be ultra conservative. I would start with your original total and stop if you get just below half of what you came to play with. If you lose more than half your chips, and you are a good player it should tell you something. You might be getting no help on the flop - and that goes in streaks and you should accept that - in which case you will have a harder time winning them back. It could also mean you are making bad decisions on hand strength, in which case you could be tired or not concentrating and then you are not playing poker you are just donating your money. It could also mean that someone at that table has figured you out so you better leave - leave very fast - and take a break.
If you want to control the speed at which your stack increases or decreases there is a simple rule. Stack size varies with how good a hand you decide to play. If you play lots of medium strength hands instead of just the very good hands then your stack size will go up and down. If you play only the best hands then your stack size will stay the same, dipping at one time or another, and then you can control the stack size easily.
There is a simple reason for this rule. The way to play poker is easy, you will learn most of the tactics, table talk, and betting behaviours in a few days at most. The betting will make sense when you succeed and fail when your bets become won pots and when your bad bets become loses. So then there is no real mystery. Once you learn that you will win and lose at the right times, sometimes lose at the wrong times, and so you will win chips and lose chips with regular frequency.
Good hand strength doesn't change. Only the flop changes and that is what varies whether your bet was a good one or not. As I discuss in my other post about cards, there are really only three ways to win most hands. Straights, sets, and flushes. So there is little to master in term of difficult skills or hard concepts. Chasing riskier hands means you are going to slowly lose chips. Betting on only the best hands means you will only play the best hands and you will probably win those hands - not all - and so your stack size will stay the same and you will do a lot of waiting.
If you are playing a tournament, then of course your goal is to get all the chips and so you need to be aggressive from time to time and that will mean going all-in to win it all. You need to have patience, and you need to play good cards with the occasional bluff thrown in for good measure.
If you are playing a cash game on your own money, then I would live by the rule of two. If you chips get below half - quit. If you double your money, then start to play conservatively or quit. I have given back more money with the ups and downs of playing medium hands so I can assure you that it's not fun to lose those winnings. If you need to, make a new marker with you winnings to avoid giving it all back. For example, if you start with $20, win up to $35, and then start to lose then perhaps you should think about stopping when it gets to $30. A 50% return on your money investment - not time since I am sure you are worth more than $0 / hour- is a good day at poker.
Playing when you are desperate to win it all back in a hurry is the worst way to play. The more you are desperate then how likely are you to spot the traps and avoid them? Poker is a discipline, and the best players know when to fold more than they do know how to bet on winning hands. Any idiot can raise with pocket Aces, it takes an artist to check-raise and sucker people into a straight. But if you are worried about losing a few chips to make a larger pile then perhaps you need to take up another sport. Poker stacks don't matter during play, they only matter at the end when you leave.
Poker Tactics - The Art of Bluffing
There is one thing that is really misunderstood about bluffing by most people that don't play poker is that bluffing is a big part of the game. It isn't. You can't scare someone with good cards away with bluffing - in fact, they are most likely to appreciate you running up the bets while they get ready to win. Bluffing is when you pretend to have a better hand, most times by betting on bad hand, and it only works if people with better cards give up their cards and let you win. Of course, sometime people bet on speculation that the next card will be better, that is still a bluff when you don't have the cards to begin with. For any bluff to work it needs to be believable and so you need to understand it.
Bluffing takes skill and it takes some luck. In fact, I would argue bluffing only works in one case. When you are winning. You may get lucky by position when you bet on a hand and you are hoping for a card and someone mistakes your bet for a good hand already. Or if the other players have shown their weakness by checking, and then you raise you may fool beginners and you may scare off experienced players.
But I have found bluffing only works, in general, when you have been winning and the other players are scared that you have got them again. I can remember a time when I had a pair of fours, hole cards, and I was running up the bets on a table. I made most of them quit - except the eventual winner that had two Kings - because I had won some monster pots before that. I almost made him give up two kings because I had beaten them all in recent history with some lucky hands. I had won with a flush, a straight and even a straight flush before that point and that is what almost convinced him to lay down a great hand. My neighbor went all-in with pocket eights and I ended up beating him with pocket nines! All that winning made them believe I was holding better cards all the time. Almost enough to surrender a pair of Kings!
Of course, the poker championship events we see on TV tell a story of lots of people folding good hands to a losing hand that was bluffed well. But we do not see all the times when those bluffing people pulled off extreme upsets against other players and the aura and the experience made the other players stop and think. Is this going to be a big mistake if I raise a hand I am not sure of?
So I would argue that bluffing is better left until you have won some hands, some lucky hands is better, and then use that personal aura and momentum to help you in a pinch when you need that little extra assistance. But don't mistake it for good cards It is no substitute.
Poker is an art and a science. Bluffing is part of the art. And the virtue of any art is that a master artist knows when to use it skillfully and when not to.
Bluffing takes skill and it takes some luck. In fact, I would argue bluffing only works in one case. When you are winning. You may get lucky by position when you bet on a hand and you are hoping for a card and someone mistakes your bet for a good hand already. Or if the other players have shown their weakness by checking, and then you raise you may fool beginners and you may scare off experienced players.
But I have found bluffing only works, in general, when you have been winning and the other players are scared that you have got them again. I can remember a time when I had a pair of fours, hole cards, and I was running up the bets on a table. I made most of them quit - except the eventual winner that had two Kings - because I had won some monster pots before that. I almost made him give up two kings because I had beaten them all in recent history with some lucky hands. I had won with a flush, a straight and even a straight flush before that point and that is what almost convinced him to lay down a great hand. My neighbor went all-in with pocket eights and I ended up beating him with pocket nines! All that winning made them believe I was holding better cards all the time. Almost enough to surrender a pair of Kings!
Of course, the poker championship events we see on TV tell a story of lots of people folding good hands to a losing hand that was bluffed well. But we do not see all the times when those bluffing people pulled off extreme upsets against other players and the aura and the experience made the other players stop and think. Is this going to be a big mistake if I raise a hand I am not sure of?
So I would argue that bluffing is better left until you have won some hands, some lucky hands is better, and then use that personal aura and momentum to help you in a pinch when you need that little extra assistance. But don't mistake it for good cards It is no substitute.
Poker is an art and a science. Bluffing is part of the art. And the virtue of any art is that a master artist knows when to use it skillfully and when not to.
Monday, April 19, 2010
Poker Tactics - The odds are conditional on sequential events
Most people get the probability of a straight or a flush wrong because they consider the act of determining the 7 cards up as a single event. This is an assumption made by a lot of people, and it is wrong. Most people, heard it from a guy who knows a guy who plays in Vegas and he says it is rare. Well that guy who plays in Vegas is wrong.
The fact is, if you count up the 5 cards you need for a straight or flush and divide it by the total deck size, then you are assuming that it all happens in one event. That is not the correct way to analyse it.
The true probability requires you to add the consecutive probabilities of several events together. When the exact event could happen on multiple attempts ( like getting the right cards on the turn, and the river ) then you need to add the probabilities together. That is a mathematical fact.
All these events are mutually exclusive because the cards can only occupy seven slots. Either you get the Ace of spades in your hand or you get a two of diamonds. If that is so, then you need to consider that the probabilities of all cards adds to one after each event.
The error people make is that they don't account for the sequential events.
If you want to know how likely two mutually exclusive and yet coincident events A and B are at the same time it looks like this: P(A and B) = P (A) * P(B). But if we have different events, one that occurs after the first one, then the probability is different. If we have two possible favourable events that don't occur at the same time, A and then B, then that probability is added, not multiplied. P(A or B) = P(A) + P(B). First A happens and then B could happen.
For example, you want to know what is the probability of a second Ace on the flop when you have one in your hand then the total probability is computed for the SINGLE EVENT P(Ace in flop). Assuming no one else gets an ace for 9 players and an ace isn't burned then the flop is one event then
P(Ace in flop) = 3/34 = 0.088235294.
But if you want to know what the odds are and you have several events consecutive then you need to compute the odds of each event and add them.
Let's say you have an Ace in your hand and none show up in the flop, then you have the turn and the river events to pick up that ace. Assume you have an ace, you are playing 8 other people, assume that the aces stay in the deck and aren't burned, and there are 3 remaining in the deck after the flop.
P(Ace) = P(Ace on turn) + P(Ace on river) = 3/30 + 3/28 = 0.1 + 0.107142857 = 0.207142857 or about 20% chance. You have at most a 20% chance of getting that Ace pair best case scenario.
You might get triple aces, one on the turn and one the river, but that is a little harder P(AAA) = P(Ace on turn) + P(Ace on river) = 3/30 + 2/28 = 0.1 + 0.071428571 = 0.171428571.
The odds of flushes and straights are very low when you consider the entire chances for one hand and the flop. But when you play with nine people, there are nine chances you will to get two straight cards (the start of a straight) or flush ( two of the suit) with your hand or in the other 8 hands at the table. Consider the odds at that point with 52 cards
2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 18
-- + -- + -- + -- + -- + -- + -- + -- + -- = ---
52 52 52 52 52 52 52 52 52 52
= 0.346153846
People think that straights and flushes are low probability, but those combinations occur about one in three hands. That's quite a lot.
Most people calculate assuming 52 cards in all for this chance of a straight or flush, but it's only convenient for the first deal. It is a wrong approximation. The card count changes and therefore the probability changes as cards are removed. The trick is that as the card count reduces, the probability of one cards goes up. Sounds odd, but let's continue. Let's calculate the best case scenario for a flush.
Then you bet on those before the flop. The Flop is a separate event.
So you got your two cards and now there are 16 other cards removed. Let's say you have two hearts, Ace of hearts and 2 of hearts. You have 2 of 13 possible hearts. You want 5 of them. Of course some of them will go into other hands. If you make the assumption that hearts are 25% of the cards and there are 16 cards out there, then perhaps on average 4 cards dealt out are hearts in other people hands. The worst case is those cards are together in other hands. But since you have the Ace, and you are risking a flush, then you feel confident you have the best one out there. Of course, if the flop comes up 3 low clubs, you are going to run for the door and fold you hand. But let's say you want to know how good your flush chances are before the flop. Let's assume that the 4 hearts are in other hands. That leaves 7 more hearts. Essentially half of them are still available before the flop assuming random distribution and hearts are 25% of the deck. There will be times when there are no hearts left and there will be times when all hearts are left. But since you can't peak under other peoples hands, they frown on that I know, you need to make some reasoned assumptions.
Now there are 52 - 18 = 34 cards left in the deck. This is the new denominator for all probability. There are 34 cards remaining and you need the 3 of them to be hearts. There are 7 left outstanding. Let's say two hearts do come up on the flop, the eight and nine of hearts. Then 4 cards were used for the flop but the probability was
7
-- = 0.205882353
34
There might have been a heart as the burn card, but since the hearts occupy only 25% of the total cards that will happen on average 1 in 4 times. Let's assume that isn't the case. There are now 5 hearts left for the turn and the river.
There are now 30 cards remaining for the turn card. This is the new denominator for all probability. The turn takes 2 cards and you need one heart and it doesn't matter which. Again, there might have been a heart as the burn card, but since the hearts occupy only 25% of the total cards that will happen on average 1 in 4 times. Let's assume that isn't the case again.
Your probability of getting a heart is now
5
__ = 0.166666667
30
There are now 28 cards remaining for the river card. This is the new denominator for all probability. The river takes 2 cards and you need one heart and it doesn't matter which. Again, there might have been a heart as the burn card, but since the hearts occupy only 25% of the total cards that will happen on average 1 in 4 times. Let's assume that isn't the case again.
If you didn't get a heart on the turn, then you have one more chance at it. Assuming there are still 5 left your probability of getting a heart is now
5
-- = 0.178571429
28
So your total chances, with four hearts after the flop, are
0.166666667 + 0.178571429 = 0.345238096
Compare the chance of getting a flush (when you have four suited cards after the flop) with getting a second ace on the turn or the river.
Chances of getting an Ace = 0.207142857
Chances of getting a Flush = 0.345238096
Of course, this is predicting random events, so there is no guarantee that you will get the right cards when you want them. But don't underestimate just how likely a flush is.
Straights are a little nicer because you have 4 suits to play with. If you have 78 and on the board is 56 after the flop, then for the turn and the river you need either a 4 or a 9 to complete the straight. That is 8 cards left to get a straight rather than 7 above for a flush.
8/30 + 8/28 = 0.266666667 + 0.285714286 = 0.552380953
All these odds calculated are the best case scenario, they will almost never happen this well. In fact, the probability drops away when you start taking the right cards out in burn cards and in other player's hands. But it is important to stress that these are all likely events and you must consider the sequential nature of events to get the right odds.
The fact is, if you count up the 5 cards you need for a straight or flush and divide it by the total deck size, then you are assuming that it all happens in one event. That is not the correct way to analyse it.
The true probability requires you to add the consecutive probabilities of several events together. When the exact event could happen on multiple attempts ( like getting the right cards on the turn, and the river ) then you need to add the probabilities together. That is a mathematical fact.
All these events are mutually exclusive because the cards can only occupy seven slots. Either you get the Ace of spades in your hand or you get a two of diamonds. If that is so, then you need to consider that the probabilities of all cards adds to one after each event.
The error people make is that they don't account for the sequential events.
If you want to know how likely two mutually exclusive and yet coincident events A and B are at the same time it looks like this: P(A and B) = P (A) * P(B). But if we have different events, one that occurs after the first one, then the probability is different. If we have two possible favourable events that don't occur at the same time, A and then B, then that probability is added, not multiplied. P(A or B) = P(A) + P(B). First A happens and then B could happen.
For example, you want to know what is the probability of a second Ace on the flop when you have one in your hand then the total probability is computed for the SINGLE EVENT P(Ace in flop). Assuming no one else gets an ace for 9 players and an ace isn't burned then the flop is one event then
P(Ace in flop) = 3/34 = 0.088235294.
But if you want to know what the odds are and you have several events consecutive then you need to compute the odds of each event and add them.
Let's say you have an Ace in your hand and none show up in the flop, then you have the turn and the river events to pick up that ace. Assume you have an ace, you are playing 8 other people, assume that the aces stay in the deck and aren't burned, and there are 3 remaining in the deck after the flop.
P(Ace) = P(Ace on turn) + P(Ace on river) = 3/30 + 3/28 = 0.1 + 0.107142857 = 0.207142857 or about 20% chance. You have at most a 20% chance of getting that Ace pair best case scenario.
You might get triple aces, one on the turn and one the river, but that is a little harder P(AAA) = P(Ace on turn) + P(Ace on river) = 3/30 + 2/28 = 0.1 + 0.071428571 = 0.171428571.
The odds of flushes and straights are very low when you consider the entire chances for one hand and the flop. But when you play with nine people, there are nine chances you will to get two straight cards (the start of a straight) or flush ( two of the suit) with your hand or in the other 8 hands at the table. Consider the odds at that point with 52 cards
2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 18
-- + -- + -- + -- + -- + -- + -- + -- + -- = ---
52 52 52 52 52 52 52 52 52 52
= 0.346153846
People think that straights and flushes are low probability, but those combinations occur about one in three hands. That's quite a lot.
Most people calculate assuming 52 cards in all for this chance of a straight or flush, but it's only convenient for the first deal. It is a wrong approximation. The card count changes and therefore the probability changes as cards are removed. The trick is that as the card count reduces, the probability of one cards goes up. Sounds odd, but let's continue. Let's calculate the best case scenario for a flush.
Then you bet on those before the flop. The Flop is a separate event.
So you got your two cards and now there are 16 other cards removed. Let's say you have two hearts, Ace of hearts and 2 of hearts. You have 2 of 13 possible hearts. You want 5 of them. Of course some of them will go into other hands. If you make the assumption that hearts are 25% of the cards and there are 16 cards out there, then perhaps on average 4 cards dealt out are hearts in other people hands. The worst case is those cards are together in other hands. But since you have the Ace, and you are risking a flush, then you feel confident you have the best one out there. Of course, if the flop comes up 3 low clubs, you are going to run for the door and fold you hand. But let's say you want to know how good your flush chances are before the flop. Let's assume that the 4 hearts are in other hands. That leaves 7 more hearts. Essentially half of them are still available before the flop assuming random distribution and hearts are 25% of the deck. There will be times when there are no hearts left and there will be times when all hearts are left. But since you can't peak under other peoples hands, they frown on that I know, you need to make some reasoned assumptions.
Now there are 52 - 18 = 34 cards left in the deck. This is the new denominator for all probability. There are 34 cards remaining and you need the 3 of them to be hearts. There are 7 left outstanding. Let's say two hearts do come up on the flop, the eight and nine of hearts. Then 4 cards were used for the flop but the probability was
7
-- = 0.205882353
34
There might have been a heart as the burn card, but since the hearts occupy only 25% of the total cards that will happen on average 1 in 4 times. Let's assume that isn't the case. There are now 5 hearts left for the turn and the river.
There are now 30 cards remaining for the turn card. This is the new denominator for all probability. The turn takes 2 cards and you need one heart and it doesn't matter which. Again, there might have been a heart as the burn card, but since the hearts occupy only 25% of the total cards that will happen on average 1 in 4 times. Let's assume that isn't the case again.
Your probability of getting a heart is now
5
__ = 0.166666667
30
There are now 28 cards remaining for the river card. This is the new denominator for all probability. The river takes 2 cards and you need one heart and it doesn't matter which. Again, there might have been a heart as the burn card, but since the hearts occupy only 25% of the total cards that will happen on average 1 in 4 times. Let's assume that isn't the case again.
If you didn't get a heart on the turn, then you have one more chance at it. Assuming there are still 5 left your probability of getting a heart is now
5
-- = 0.178571429
28
So your total chances, with four hearts after the flop, are
0.166666667 + 0.178571429 = 0.345238096
Compare the chance of getting a flush (when you have four suited cards after the flop) with getting a second ace on the turn or the river.
Chances of getting an Ace = 0.207142857
Chances of getting a Flush = 0.345238096
Of course, this is predicting random events, so there is no guarantee that you will get the right cards when you want them. But don't underestimate just how likely a flush is.
Straights are a little nicer because you have 4 suits to play with. If you have 78 and on the board is 56 after the flop, then for the turn and the river you need either a 4 or a 9 to complete the straight. That is 8 cards left to get a straight rather than 7 above for a flush.
8/30 + 8/28 = 0.266666667 + 0.285714286 = 0.552380953
All these odds calculated are the best case scenario, they will almost never happen this well. In fact, the probability drops away when you start taking the right cards out in burn cards and in other player's hands. But it is important to stress that these are all likely events and you must consider the sequential nature of events to get the right odds.
Sunday, April 18, 2010
Poker Tactics - Cards are King
The fundamental rule about Poker is this: it is governed by permutations and combinations of cards, and the better hands are governed by just how likely they are to occur. The highest hands, straight flush and four of a kind, are so rare that when they occur you will note them. They are rare because the mathematical odds of getting them in 7 cards ( Texas Hold'em two in the hand and 5 on the board ) are so rare.
This image to the left is the supremacy list of poker hands from the straight flush - all the same suit and in order - all the way down to the lowly One of a Kind where an Ace rules the world of bad hands.
The odds of a pair is 1098240 out of 2598960 or a little less than 50% of the time a pair will win the day. Aces are highest so Aces is a hand that most people play. The three luckiest hands are, AA, AK, and KK. So most people feel confident to play these hands. AK has a special place because if either a A or a K comes up then you have the high pair on the board. For those people who play the least risky, and therefore the most predictable, these are the main stable of play. For some of these players these are the only hands they will play.
When you play against people you don't know, and you are unsure of the tactics of when to bet and when not to, the most important factors to remember are the odds of a hand and the supremacy of the hands.
Bluffing won't turn away good cards. Position won't make a good player with a good hand worry. Good players wait for an hour to play good cards so they would be damned by the poker gods to let you take the pot if you try these tactics. The art of position and bluffing are important. But in the end, cards are kings.
Whenever you bet you must look at your odds of winning in the light of these two factors: can my hand beat most of the other possibilities with the cards on the table, and if not then can I get the cards I need to beat the others?
The deck of 52 cards is well known. The fact is that more players means more chances of seeing all those higher winning card hands. You need to be careful as you bet on a pair of aces that someone may have sneaked in two pairs of lowly sevens and nines. In the end two low pairs beat a pair no matter what the ranking.
Daniel Negreanu describes three levels of players. Level 1 players can figure out how good their own hand is. Level 2 can figure out what can beat what they have. And level 3 can figure out what the other player has. Before you can play well, you need to start with the basics and learn the order of cards and then learn to realize quickly how good your hand is and how to
Here is the fact about poker hands, you don't know how good yours is until you see the complete 7 cards. Until then, you are playing based on speculation, and betting and bluffing on how good you think your cards are. This game, the speculating and considering others cards, is done to cause tension on the players and make the excitement and disappointment real. Sometimes the long odds wins and sometimes the predicted hand winds. In the end, the odds favor the better cards. But what are better cards really depends on what people play.
In order to determine what are good cards, you need to consider just how you can win and lose.
There are five possible winning hands: high card, pairs (or sets), straights, flushes and straight flushes. Consider one of a kind as a special form of set and are ruled by the ace. Straight flushes are so rare that you can just consider them a form of straight. You may see a few in your lifetime, and probably not at time to win a monster pot. If you look at the compressed versions of the winning hands, that leaves really three ways to play for the best hand. Play to win with a straight, play to win with a flush, and play to win with a set.
The conservative form of play involves the sets, the harder form of play involves straights and flushes. Full house beats the straights and flushes so that is the best form of sets except four of a kind. When a full house is on the board, flush players and straight players beware.
Flushes and straights of five cards require some patience on the part of the player. A pair or two pairs only require four cards at most and therefore you don't need a complete five good cards. When you play a straight or flush however, you will need to wait for the turn or river to get that straight or flush sometimes. The best way to achieve these is playing suited connectors - cards in sequence and the same suit. The best way to play is to limp in betting and see if the cards come up on the flop. These cards make it even rarer to do well, so you may need to play more types of hands than this to survive.
Of course, since straights and flushes are rare combinations, this strategy is bound to cost you chips in the short term and make playing a lot harder to do. But the reality is that when you play against conservative players holding those good cards, aces and kings, you can defeat them easily and perhaps catch them trying to take too many chips in the process because when you play few hands you need to make a large amount of chips to make up for the lack of play.
The odds of a pair is 1098240 out of 2598960 or a little less than 50% of the time a pair will win the day. Aces are highest so Aces is a hand that most people play. The three luckiest hands are, AA, AK, and KK. So most people feel confident to play these hands. AK has a special place because if either a A or a K comes up then you have the high pair on the board. For those people who play the least risky, and therefore the most predictable, these are the main stable of play. For some of these players these are the only hands they will play.
When you play against people you don't know, and you are unsure of the tactics of when to bet and when not to, the most important factors to remember are the odds of a hand and the supremacy of the hands.
Bluffing won't turn away good cards. Position won't make a good player with a good hand worry. Good players wait for an hour to play good cards so they would be damned by the poker gods to let you take the pot if you try these tactics. The art of position and bluffing are important. But in the end, cards are kings.
Whenever you bet you must look at your odds of winning in the light of these two factors: can my hand beat most of the other possibilities with the cards on the table, and if not then can I get the cards I need to beat the others?
The deck of 52 cards is well known. The fact is that more players means more chances of seeing all those higher winning card hands. You need to be careful as you bet on a pair of aces that someone may have sneaked in two pairs of lowly sevens and nines. In the end two low pairs beat a pair no matter what the ranking.
Daniel Negreanu describes three levels of players. Level 1 players can figure out how good their own hand is. Level 2 can figure out what can beat what they have. And level 3 can figure out what the other player has. Before you can play well, you need to start with the basics and learn the order of cards and then learn to realize quickly how good your hand is and how to
Here is the fact about poker hands, you don't know how good yours is until you see the complete 7 cards. Until then, you are playing based on speculation, and betting and bluffing on how good you think your cards are. This game, the speculating and considering others cards, is done to cause tension on the players and make the excitement and disappointment real. Sometimes the long odds wins and sometimes the predicted hand winds. In the end, the odds favor the better cards. But what are better cards really depends on what people play.
In order to determine what are good cards, you need to consider just how you can win and lose.
There are five possible winning hands: high card, pairs (or sets), straights, flushes and straight flushes. Consider one of a kind as a special form of set and are ruled by the ace. Straight flushes are so rare that you can just consider them a form of straight. You may see a few in your lifetime, and probably not at time to win a monster pot. If you look at the compressed versions of the winning hands, that leaves really three ways to play for the best hand. Play to win with a straight, play to win with a flush, and play to win with a set.
The conservative form of play involves the sets, the harder form of play involves straights and flushes. Full house beats the straights and flushes so that is the best form of sets except four of a kind. When a full house is on the board, flush players and straight players beware.
Flushes and straights of five cards require some patience on the part of the player. A pair or two pairs only require four cards at most and therefore you don't need a complete five good cards. When you play a straight or flush however, you will need to wait for the turn or river to get that straight or flush sometimes. The best way to achieve these is playing suited connectors - cards in sequence and the same suit. The best way to play is to limp in betting and see if the cards come up on the flop. These cards make it even rarer to do well, so you may need to play more types of hands than this to survive.
Of course, since straights and flushes are rare combinations, this strategy is bound to cost you chips in the short term and make playing a lot harder to do. But the reality is that when you play against conservative players holding those good cards, aces and kings, you can defeat them easily and perhaps catch them trying to take too many chips in the process because when you play few hands you need to make a large amount of chips to make up for the lack of play.
Poker Tactics - Position is a Factor
Once a grizzled old farmer expounded to me, at the poker table, "Position is everything". He was trying to make a point about the position in the betting order can be a key factor in winning hands. And the way he played, it seemed like he relied on it. He liked to play very aggresively - raising before the flop and re-raising at will. It made for a hard time for the other farmers - they liked to play conservative for their Friday night poker game. These gents liked to play a slow game for the evening. They were unhappy with his constant bets and raises, they preferred to win or lose $10 in an hour and not $10 in a minute.
Position is a term used to refer to when you bet in relation to the big blind and small blind players. Sometimes position means that you get to see what the other players actions are before you get to make your move. Sometimes it helps in bluffing - when you are the last to bid and you can see everyone else call then it makes it easier to convince them that you may have the best hand. Sometimes you can bet first and even raise which may scare off players with medium cards waiting for a flop.
Poker is both an art and science. The science is in the probabilities and the statistics, and in the psychology of the other players. The art is when to apply it this knowledge to your poker game.
Position can be useful but it can also be a dangerous to your poker chip stack. Position is not a substitute for good cards. Just like bluffing can be over-used it is the same with position. It can be useful for some situations but use it at the wrong time and you will regret it.
I have learned from playing against the statistical players online that rarely do people - people that win at poker - stray from betting on good cards. They don't bet unless they can make something from the cards that they have in the hole. Perhaps they learned this the hard way, donating to other players until they learned their lessons, or perhaps they looked at the poker odds, read a few good books on poker, or just had a common sense approach.
If you are going to run against good players, and if they play a lot that is going to be true, then you need to understand that good cards are the foundation and the rest is just window dressing.
Position can help you when you need to convince others that you have a good hand but you don't when you are bluffing. You look like you have just check-raised everyone and since they will assume you are a good player so then it fits.
Position helps when you don't have a good hand before the flop and you want to scare people off. If you make a big first bet, then when the other good players see that they may leave before they see your cards. And then they may regret letting you have any easy win.
Position can help you when you have lasted in a game to the turn or the river and you are still not sure if you have the better hand. When you have an OK hand, say for example a middle strength pair and you are not sure if the other lasting players have aces etc, then position helps you if the other player has to bet first. He or she has to declare his intentions and you have the advantage. From then on in you get to see what the other person bets and you can use this either to trick them into betting more when you have the best hand or for you to bluff them after watching a check from them.
Position is a term used to refer to when you bet in relation to the big blind and small blind players. Sometimes position means that you get to see what the other players actions are before you get to make your move. Sometimes it helps in bluffing - when you are the last to bid and you can see everyone else call then it makes it easier to convince them that you may have the best hand. Sometimes you can bet first and even raise which may scare off players with medium cards waiting for a flop.
Poker is both an art and science. The science is in the probabilities and the statistics, and in the psychology of the other players. The art is when to apply it this knowledge to your poker game.
Position can be useful but it can also be a dangerous to your poker chip stack. Position is not a substitute for good cards. Just like bluffing can be over-used it is the same with position. It can be useful for some situations but use it at the wrong time and you will regret it.
I have learned from playing against the statistical players online that rarely do people - people that win at poker - stray from betting on good cards. They don't bet unless they can make something from the cards that they have in the hole. Perhaps they learned this the hard way, donating to other players until they learned their lessons, or perhaps they looked at the poker odds, read a few good books on poker, or just had a common sense approach.
If you are going to run against good players, and if they play a lot that is going to be true, then you need to understand that good cards are the foundation and the rest is just window dressing.
Position can help you when you need to convince others that you have a good hand but you don't when you are bluffing. You look like you have just check-raised everyone and since they will assume you are a good player so then it fits.
Position helps when you don't have a good hand before the flop and you want to scare people off. If you make a big first bet, then when the other good players see that they may leave before they see your cards. And then they may regret letting you have any easy win.
Position can help you when you have lasted in a game to the turn or the river and you are still not sure if you have the better hand. When you have an OK hand, say for example a middle strength pair and you are not sure if the other lasting players have aces etc, then position helps you if the other player has to bet first. He or she has to declare his intentions and you have the advantage. From then on in you get to see what the other person bets and you can use this either to trick them into betting more when you have the best hand or for you to bluff them after watching a check from them.
Monday, April 12, 2010
Poker Tactics - War is Deception
Sun Tzu had a powerful description of war:
War is deception
I think most people like poker because it's a little like a war - a psychological war. And there's money and risk involved - perhaps even girls will like you. War is hell. Poker is fun.
There is a lot of art in both war and poker. Sometimes it is won by the sneak attack and not the best weapons or stoutest warriors. Sometimes it is luck that breaks the tie. Predictability in either war or poker can be a fatal weakness.
I think that the best poker players understand this. They try to conceal their intentions and above all conceal their card strength. The best players don't just play one strategy. They vary play according to what the other guys think. Then they vary it again to take advantage of what other people assume about how they are playing. They change their betting value, when to bet, and how to act.
So if you want to win more hands, be unpredictable to a certain degree.
War is deception
I think most people like poker because it's a little like a war - a psychological war. And there's money and risk involved - perhaps even girls will like you. War is hell. Poker is fun.
There is a lot of art in both war and poker. Sometimes it is won by the sneak attack and not the best weapons or stoutest warriors. Sometimes it is luck that breaks the tie. Predictability in either war or poker can be a fatal weakness.
I think that the best poker players understand this. They try to conceal their intentions and above all conceal their card strength. The best players don't just play one strategy. They vary play according to what the other guys think. Then they vary it again to take advantage of what other people assume about how they are playing. They change their betting value, when to bet, and how to act.
So if you want to win more hands, be unpredictable to a certain degree.
Sunday, April 11, 2010
The Tactics of Mantracker Part 6
Here is the first in my series of recommendations on how to beat mantracker. The Mantracker game between horsemen versus runners is simple: the runners need to most everything right or the mantracker will catch you.
Here is some advice that will help the prey:
Here is some advice that will help the prey:
- Make a copy map Bring a permanent marker out to the competition and copy the map to both preys' forearms. By having a permanent map you won't lose it and when separated you can still navigate.
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Poker Tactics - Bad Cards equals Bad Bets
There is no other way to say it, bad cards equals bad bets. There is a big difference between playing aggressive and playing cautious. But in the end, the good players start only when they have good cards. And bluffing won't stop a good player stop from betting more and trying to take as much from you as they can.
I have done it, tried to stay in too long on a bad hand, and I have done it enough to write this all down. I lost worst trying to protect bad cards with a bluff.
So I have a new rule; one bet after the flop with a bad hand and then out.
I believe after losing some bad hands that there should be a rule for new players that the don't try bluffing at all. You won't be good at it and a good player won't stop if they do have a good hand. So I would recommend that you don't play bluffing - at least not off the first turn - the flop - so you can concentrate on the good hands.
I would guess that the good players are like lions in the weeds. They wait for bad or aggresive players to make an ambitious move and then they pounce by meeting your bets with more bets. And they are returning the favor for the time when they were new players and they were pounced on again and again. So if you do try to get better the only way is through patience and timing.
Good players want you to be vain and try and bluff them with bigger bets - that's how they make money!!! Everyone has this idea from TV, sonething that Daniel Negreanu talked about in his book, that every hand is a winner and an exciting affair. But actually if you sit in a long game at a casino or online and even in your local game you will find that the most of the action is dull and predictable. Good players fold out quick and try and keep their winnings. Some good players wade in with a soft bet on the flop and try and win a sleeper had from players holding onto aces and kings. Bad players have a streak of good luck or a streak of bad luck and they come and go. And so the cycle of poker continues, all day long, day after day with winners toasting their good fortune and losers borrowing money from their landlords. There is a simplicity to it all.
That does not mean to say you cannot try to win hands with oddball cards like 7-2 off suit, it just means that you need to know when to say when.
Decide to bet or fold based on the strength of your cards, and if you need to get out fast. It doesn't matter that you could have won the hand after you see the cards. The good players are factoring in their odds of winning to what you bet.
Instead of using bets to try and win a hand, when you are starting out, just use the cards to do it. That will make you a more feared poker player than bluffing tactics. You can win a couple of hands with bluffing only if that other player doesn't have a good hand. Since that player is good, they are going to have good hands.
Using the cards to win does not mean playing only aces and kings. It means that you should concentrate your creativity on the possible winning hands and not the bluff.
I have done it, tried to stay in too long on a bad hand, and I have done it enough to write this all down. I lost worst trying to protect bad cards with a bluff.
So I have a new rule; one bet after the flop with a bad hand and then out.
I believe after losing some bad hands that there should be a rule for new players that the don't try bluffing at all. You won't be good at it and a good player won't stop if they do have a good hand. So I would recommend that you don't play bluffing - at least not off the first turn - the flop - so you can concentrate on the good hands.
I would guess that the good players are like lions in the weeds. They wait for bad or aggresive players to make an ambitious move and then they pounce by meeting your bets with more bets. And they are returning the favor for the time when they were new players and they were pounced on again and again. So if you do try to get better the only way is through patience and timing.
Good players want you to be vain and try and bluff them with bigger bets - that's how they make money!!! Everyone has this idea from TV, sonething that Daniel Negreanu talked about in his book, that every hand is a winner and an exciting affair. But actually if you sit in a long game at a casino or online and even in your local game you will find that the most of the action is dull and predictable. Good players fold out quick and try and keep their winnings. Some good players wade in with a soft bet on the flop and try and win a sleeper had from players holding onto aces and kings. Bad players have a streak of good luck or a streak of bad luck and they come and go. And so the cycle of poker continues, all day long, day after day with winners toasting their good fortune and losers borrowing money from their landlords. There is a simplicity to it all.
That does not mean to say you cannot try to win hands with oddball cards like 7-2 off suit, it just means that you need to know when to say when.
Decide to bet or fold based on the strength of your cards, and if you need to get out fast. It doesn't matter that you could have won the hand after you see the cards. The good players are factoring in their odds of winning to what you bet.
Instead of using bets to try and win a hand, when you are starting out, just use the cards to do it. That will make you a more feared poker player than bluffing tactics. You can win a couple of hands with bluffing only if that other player doesn't have a good hand. Since that player is good, they are going to have good hands.
Using the cards to win does not mean playing only aces and kings. It means that you should concentrate your creativity on the possible winning hands and not the bluff.
Friday, March 26, 2010
Sunday, March 14, 2010
The Tactics of Mantracker Part 5
The game of Mantracker versus prey has many twists and turns. While the TV show ( a 30 minute show for the first season or 1 hour for the rest ) tends to amp up the hype and the suspense so you will watch next week, I guess that the actual race is a lot like being in a war; long periods of absolute boredom punctuated by moments of shear terror.
Many competitors do not realize just how hard it is walking / running 50 km let alone running from a horse that can run 50 km/hr. Few people walk more than the distance from a restaurant to the car. If you compete on Mantracker you need to be ready for the adrenaline dump and the long dull pain of sore legs and bruises. You need to bring electrolyte supplements and water, and advil or Tylenol so you can keep feeling normal.
The race is a game of patience and skill as much as it is about endurance or intelligence. Mantracker has made big mistakes and cashed in on some really bad mistakes. If you are the prey you need to be right 100% of the time, so you better keep thinking and keep focussed. There will be openings to exploit just like any other competition and if you try and force them then that's when mistakes cost you the game.
Many competitors do not realize just how hard it is walking / running 50 km let alone running from a horse that can run 50 km/hr. Few people walk more than the distance from a restaurant to the car. If you compete on Mantracker you need to be ready for the adrenaline dump and the long dull pain of sore legs and bruises. You need to bring electrolyte supplements and water, and advil or Tylenol so you can keep feeling normal.
The race is a game of patience and skill as much as it is about endurance or intelligence. Mantracker has made big mistakes and cashed in on some really bad mistakes. If you are the prey you need to be right 100% of the time, so you better keep thinking and keep focussed. There will be openings to exploit just like any other competition and if you try and force them then that's when mistakes cost you the game.
Friday, March 12, 2010
The Tactics of Mantracker Part 4
I have watched Mantracker episodes over and over just like Mantracker looks for each and every footprint. His methods are revealing.
One of Mantracker's strengths is his ability to get inside the thought process of his prey. He knows how to escape and he knows how to move over all types of terrain. So he makes a simple guess as to how smart the prey is and how much he needs to out think the other side. He guesses right most of the time, and sometimes that can be his undoing.
The game of mantracker versus prey is really a mental game. His horse is the muscle and he is the brains. He has seen all the tricks, and while some of them work he knows that people are trying hard to beat him. When you try hard to trick him that is when he knows not to trust the trails he has been given. If it is too good to be true, then it is and he will distrust what he sees. That too can be taken advantage of.
Here is what he knows about you as the human prey: you are human, you need water, you are slower but can climb obstacles, you are trying to outthink him and you were dumb enough to sign up to a 36 hour foot race against a horse.
Here is what he knows about you as a human trying to outthink the Mantracker: if you can figure out the terrain ahead and how to lose mantracker, then he knows that is what you are trying to do at all times and he predicts your next move. This is the most important factor to take advantage of. If he sees you pointing right he knows you are going left. If he sees a fake trail that makes no sense to the direction of travel then he knows its a deception. More on this later on.
In an earlier post, I talked about his strategy of A & A: antagonize and ambush. He can antagonize you by keeping you from water. He can antagonize you by separating the prey and keeping you apart. He can antagonize you by sitting in ambushes or sprinting down the road at you and making you waste energy or driving you out of your way. He can antagonize you by sitting on the tallest hill or on the only bridge and force you to punish yourself through bad terrain to avoid capture.
Basically, he has it pretty easy. While he doesn't know the finish line he has a lot of time to find you and a lot of time to correct past mistakes. Of course it is easy because he is very good at finding tracks, and those times he wasn't then he was also extremely lucky. As the saying goes, you need to be good to be lucky.
One of Mantracker's strengths is his ability to get inside the thought process of his prey. He knows how to escape and he knows how to move over all types of terrain. So he makes a simple guess as to how smart the prey is and how much he needs to out think the other side. He guesses right most of the time, and sometimes that can be his undoing.
The game of mantracker versus prey is really a mental game. His horse is the muscle and he is the brains. He has seen all the tricks, and while some of them work he knows that people are trying hard to beat him. When you try hard to trick him that is when he knows not to trust the trails he has been given. If it is too good to be true, then it is and he will distrust what he sees. That too can be taken advantage of.
Here is what he knows about you as the human prey: you are human, you need water, you are slower but can climb obstacles, you are trying to outthink him and you were dumb enough to sign up to a 36 hour foot race against a horse.
Here is what he knows about you as a human trying to outthink the Mantracker: if you can figure out the terrain ahead and how to lose mantracker, then he knows that is what you are trying to do at all times and he predicts your next move. This is the most important factor to take advantage of. If he sees you pointing right he knows you are going left. If he sees a fake trail that makes no sense to the direction of travel then he knows its a deception. More on this later on.
In an earlier post, I talked about his strategy of A & A: antagonize and ambush. He can antagonize you by keeping you from water. He can antagonize you by separating the prey and keeping you apart. He can antagonize you by sitting in ambushes or sprinting down the road at you and making you waste energy or driving you out of your way. He can antagonize you by sitting on the tallest hill or on the only bridge and force you to punish yourself through bad terrain to avoid capture.
Basically, he has it pretty easy. While he doesn't know the finish line he has a lot of time to find you and a lot of time to correct past mistakes. Of course it is easy because he is very good at finding tracks, and those times he wasn't then he was also extremely lucky. As the saying goes, you need to be good to be lucky.
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
The Tactics of Mantracker Part 3
Mantracker has a few ways of finding where the prey have gone: ground signs ( tracks, love notes left behind, snapped twigs, etc.), audio signs, and visual signs. And on a few occasions eye witness help but that's a rare help.
When you plan your movement you need to consider all these signs and try and minimize them as you go. Consider moving in stages, sneaking up to ridge line to run along behind it and then duck into bushes to stop and determine if you were spotted. With this tactic in mind, here are my helpful points about the various signs.
Of course ground signs are the well known part of what he does. He looks for disturbances and mantracker prides himself with his skills. Most times he can figure out what is going on and he has the time and space to correct wrong guesses and wrong trails. He tends to look for clues to decide where the prey is going and but sometimes he forgets his discipline. He wants to stay behind the prey to confirm he is right. Since he has so much faith in his ability sometimes he has a problem admitting he went the wrong way. When he is wrong it takes him some time to admit that he was wrong and retrace his steps to find the true direction. You can exploit that, and I talk about that in a later post.
The two underestimated signs are visual and audio. If you are running from mantracker, you need to stop talking and stop standing in the open and you willl take away a lot of his extra luck away.
If you are unfamiliar with military terms, then lets use the term silhouette that means something (an outlined form) that stands out. One way to avoid giving yourself away is to not silhouette your body as you move in the open. That means keep lower than the things around you because moving objects are easier to see than static ones and the more "human like" then the more noticeable. If you move quickly it is very easy to see you from even kilometres away. When you move in the distance you are more obvious when you cross the viewpoint of an observer and less obvious if you move towards or away from observer. Slow movement over small open areas can be just as effective as running the entire distance if you move undetected. Try and stay lower than the height of the hill beside you. Try and guess where mantracker is behind you and stay on the other side of trees, hills, and dead ground (ground that drops away from the surrounding so it doesn't look like its lower) so mantracker can't find you from a kilometre away. Running along ridgeline is a very novice way of escaping. Mantracker wishes for simple mistakes like this so he doesn't have to work so hard and still keep his reputation.
In the open, sound is not such a big deal unless mantracker is near you or near water or steep slopes. Sound carries down hills and across water so you need to be aware when you cross hills and water. In the bush, sound reverbs around off trees and rocks and will give you away from any direction. So hiding in the bush does nothing unless you are quiet. Speaking should be kept to a minimum. You should speak in a low voice and as rarely as needed. Low frequencies travel farther but are less detectable further away by the human ear. The best way to talk to your team mate is to lie right on the ground facing each other and talk quickly.
To keep the signs to the minimum, it makes sense to plan out every move down to the places you will stop, the places you observe open areas and where it makes sense to move without visual detection. Mantracker thinks inside the heads of the prey. So what? So he is going to think like an escaped convict and guess at how much field smarts you have. He will think where you should go next from he thinks you are.
When you plan your movement you need to consider all these signs and try and minimize them as you go. Consider moving in stages, sneaking up to ridge line to run along behind it and then duck into bushes to stop and determine if you were spotted. With this tactic in mind, here are my helpful points about the various signs.
Of course ground signs are the well known part of what he does. He looks for disturbances and mantracker prides himself with his skills. Most times he can figure out what is going on and he has the time and space to correct wrong guesses and wrong trails. He tends to look for clues to decide where the prey is going and but sometimes he forgets his discipline. He wants to stay behind the prey to confirm he is right. Since he has so much faith in his ability sometimes he has a problem admitting he went the wrong way. When he is wrong it takes him some time to admit that he was wrong and retrace his steps to find the true direction. You can exploit that, and I talk about that in a later post.
The two underestimated signs are visual and audio. If you are running from mantracker, you need to stop talking and stop standing in the open and you willl take away a lot of his extra luck away.
If you are unfamiliar with military terms, then lets use the term silhouette that means something (an outlined form) that stands out. One way to avoid giving yourself away is to not silhouette your body as you move in the open. That means keep lower than the things around you because moving objects are easier to see than static ones and the more "human like" then the more noticeable. If you move quickly it is very easy to see you from even kilometres away. When you move in the distance you are more obvious when you cross the viewpoint of an observer and less obvious if you move towards or away from observer. Slow movement over small open areas can be just as effective as running the entire distance if you move undetected. Try and stay lower than the height of the hill beside you. Try and guess where mantracker is behind you and stay on the other side of trees, hills, and dead ground (ground that drops away from the surrounding so it doesn't look like its lower) so mantracker can't find you from a kilometre away. Running along ridgeline is a very novice way of escaping. Mantracker wishes for simple mistakes like this so he doesn't have to work so hard and still keep his reputation.
In the open, sound is not such a big deal unless mantracker is near you or near water or steep slopes. Sound carries down hills and across water so you need to be aware when you cross hills and water. In the bush, sound reverbs around off trees and rocks and will give you away from any direction. So hiding in the bush does nothing unless you are quiet. Speaking should be kept to a minimum. You should speak in a low voice and as rarely as needed. Low frequencies travel farther but are less detectable further away by the human ear. The best way to talk to your team mate is to lie right on the ground facing each other and talk quickly.
To keep the signs to the minimum, it makes sense to plan out every move down to the places you will stop, the places you observe open areas and where it makes sense to move without visual detection. Mantracker thinks inside the heads of the prey. So what? So he is going to think like an escaped convict and guess at how much field smarts you have. He will think where you should go next from he thinks you are.
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
The Tactics of Mantracker Part 2
Mantracker is a guy on a horse. He tracks people for a living and he tracks prey for TV. He has 36 hours to find you while you run like a scared chicken. That is unless you know what you are doing.
Here is the reality: you cannot move without leaving tracks. No matter what you do: wrong footwear, double back, wiping tracks, and all the other tactics, he will eventually find your tracks. So what? So there should be a simple limit to how much effort you spend in trying to confuse the tracker. Eventually, he will catch up. So what? You need to prepare for an ambush or for mantracker to just luck out and stumble on where you are. Often times prey run through the bush only to see mantracker 50 yards down the trail. Walking in thick bush may make it hard to track but you need to leave that cover eventually.
Another realization is that sometimes you want to let him find your tracks. More about this later on.
If he finds your tracks from time to time he will eventually figure out your direction of travel. This is important, and often overlooked. The shortest distance between two points is a straight line. If you were to follow a trail of bread crumbs, and then none, and then bread crumbs again soon you don't need anymore bread crumbs. You can extrapolate from the line where the line is going. If you miss it at one point, then you have a line to follow based on history. If a horse moves at twice the speed of a man then the mantracker can catch up over and over. The best way to avoid getting caught is to consider a path that doesn't give away your true direction of travel. A longer path may mean more running but it also means less predictability and that may mean less mantracker.
There are a lot of simple obstacles that stop the horses: fences, steep terrain, cliffs, thick trees, bushes, and soft sand. Very few mantracker episodes happen in complete prairies with no cover. So you need to know what the local obstacles are as you move over the terrain.
Here is the reality: you cannot move without leaving tracks. No matter what you do: wrong footwear, double back, wiping tracks, and all the other tactics, he will eventually find your tracks. So what? So there should be a simple limit to how much effort you spend in trying to confuse the tracker. Eventually, he will catch up. So what? You need to prepare for an ambush or for mantracker to just luck out and stumble on where you are. Often times prey run through the bush only to see mantracker 50 yards down the trail. Walking in thick bush may make it hard to track but you need to leave that cover eventually.
Another realization is that sometimes you want to let him find your tracks. More about this later on.
If he finds your tracks from time to time he will eventually figure out your direction of travel. This is important, and often overlooked. The shortest distance between two points is a straight line. If you were to follow a trail of bread crumbs, and then none, and then bread crumbs again soon you don't need anymore bread crumbs. You can extrapolate from the line where the line is going. If you miss it at one point, then you have a line to follow based on history. If a horse moves at twice the speed of a man then the mantracker can catch up over and over. The best way to avoid getting caught is to consider a path that doesn't give away your true direction of travel. A longer path may mean more running but it also means less predictability and that may mean less mantracker.
There are a lot of simple obstacles that stop the horses: fences, steep terrain, cliffs, thick trees, bushes, and soft sand. Very few mantracker episodes happen in complete prairies with no cover. So you need to know what the local obstacles are as you move over the terrain.
Friday, February 19, 2010
The Tactics of Mantracker Part I
The TV show Mantracker, produced by Bonterra Productions is a TV show about a search and rescue tracker that plays a 36 hour game of cat and mouse with 2 human "prey" across a roug wild terrain. Men and women pit their boastful skill against a man who can figure them out, and uses his horse for muscle. The prey have to run about 50 km in 36 hours, and usually sleep for about 6 hours of that. All the mantracker has to do is come within spitting distance and he has a nasty habit of making the prey gives up.
The prey are given a map and a compass and are told where the finish line is. Mantracker gets nothing but his horse and a guide. The mantracker starts 2 km back and can only use his eyes ears and cowboy common sense to keep up with the two fleeing victims. When a flare goes off the prey start to run and the mantracker rides up to where he thinks the chase started and then looks for the direction of travel.
Here is the reality; a horse can outrun a man on most open terrain. The man can out-traverse and out climb a horse in treed, sloped, and rough terrain. So what? The prey has to be careful about where they choose to run and which way they should escape. Bad panic decisions make for easy captures. The prey should always move thinking about the right direction to escape based on the current terrain. One wrong move means one short day.
The terrain varies per show. In most cases the distance is about 40 to 55 km over hills and valleys. The path is rarely straight and easy. The reality is that the distance is a hard one to make on foot without risking it on the paths and trails. Prey try every trick in the book to evade the tracks - but in most cases the tracker catches up because he is that smart and eventually tracks of some kind are left.
Mantracker has a common, time-tested , strategy I call A & A: antagonize and ambush. He has a capture rate of about 70% by my stats so it is nothing to trifle with. The first step in the strategy is to antagonize: make the prey tired and panic and cause them to run down their mental and physical resources. Prey lose direction, compasses, water bottles, clothing, their patience and their energy.
The second part of the plan is ambush. Once mantracker thinks he can, he gets out ahead of the prey and tries to run them down. He is not the most successful with ambush, but he has many chances in a 36 hour race to fail many times.
If you want to take on mantracker, stay tuned for more helpful tactical thinking here.
The prey are given a map and a compass and are told where the finish line is. Mantracker gets nothing but his horse and a guide. The mantracker starts 2 km back and can only use his eyes ears and cowboy common sense to keep up with the two fleeing victims. When a flare goes off the prey start to run and the mantracker rides up to where he thinks the chase started and then looks for the direction of travel.
Here is the reality; a horse can outrun a man on most open terrain. The man can out-traverse and out climb a horse in treed, sloped, and rough terrain. So what? The prey has to be careful about where they choose to run and which way they should escape. Bad panic decisions make for easy captures. The prey should always move thinking about the right direction to escape based on the current terrain. One wrong move means one short day.
The terrain varies per show. In most cases the distance is about 40 to 55 km over hills and valleys. The path is rarely straight and easy. The reality is that the distance is a hard one to make on foot without risking it on the paths and trails. Prey try every trick in the book to evade the tracks - but in most cases the tracker catches up because he is that smart and eventually tracks of some kind are left.
Mantracker has a common, time-tested , strategy I call A & A: antagonize and ambush. He has a capture rate of about 70% by my stats so it is nothing to trifle with. The first step in the strategy is to antagonize: make the prey tired and panic and cause them to run down their mental and physical resources. Prey lose direction, compasses, water bottles, clothing, their patience and their energy.
The second part of the plan is ambush. Once mantracker thinks he can, he gets out ahead of the prey and tries to run them down. He is not the most successful with ambush, but he has many chances in a 36 hour race to fail many times.
If you want to take on mantracker, stay tuned for more helpful tactical thinking here.
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