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. 

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

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.