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Chris Ferguson
Team Full Tilt

I never get tired of saying it: If you’re the first to enter the pot in a No-Limit Hold ‘em game, never call. If you aren’t prepared to raise, throw your hand away.

Why, you ask? Simple. By raising, you put pressure on the blinds and the other players at the table, making them consider just how strong their hands really are. Chances are that by raising, you’ll force marginal hands to fold before you even see the flop, limiting the number of players you have to beat through the rest of the hand.

OK, with that out of the way, the next obvious question becomes: How much should I raise?

To that, I say; it depends. First off, you shouldn’t allow the strength of your hand affect the size of your raise. A tough poker game is like real estate. The three most important factors in deciding how much to raise are: Location, location, location.

You always want to make your opponents’ decisions as difficult as possible. In choosing the size of your raise, you want to give the big blind a tough decision between calling or folding if the rest of the table folds around to him.

Raising from early position is to advertise a very strong hand - one that can beat the seven or more other players who still have to act. Since you are representing such strength, it doesn’t take much of a raise to convince the big blind to fold. Also, since your hand is so strong, you actually don’t mind a call from the big blind anyway. The real reason for a small raise is that you have so many players acting after you, any of whom might wake up with a monster and re-raise you.

When you raise in late position, you’re representing a hand that can beat the two or three remaining hands. This gives you a lot more freedom to raise with marginal hands, but your raise must be bigger or the big blind can call too easily. Another reason to raise more from late position is that you’re trying to put pressure on the big blind to fold, not call and, more importantly, you don’t have as many remaining opponents who can re-raise you.

One of the most common mistakes in No-Limit Hold ‘em is coming in for a raise that’s too big. In early position, you want to keep your raises at about two times the big blind. With four to six players to act behind you when you’re in middle position, raise to about two and a half big blinds, and raise to about three times the big blind from late position.

If you’re representing a big hand by raising from early position, it stands to reason that you’ll only get played with by huge hands. Why risk four, five or more bets to win only one and a half bets in the blinds when you’re often going to be running into monsters along the way? If you’re holding A-Q rather than A-A and a player comes over the top, you can lay it down without having risked much.

Some beginners raise more with their strongest hands to build a bigger pot or raise less with these monsters to get more action. Instead, I recommend that you play your starting hands the same way no matter what you have. With A-A or A-J, raise the same amount so you’re not telegraphing the strength of your hand to watchful opponents. An exception would be if you know your opponents aren’t paying attention and you feel sure that you can manipulate them.

These numbers need to be modified if there are antes. You should generally add about half the total antes to any raise. Your early position raise should be two big blinds plus half the total antes, and three big blinds plus half the antes for your late-position raises.

There are many loose live games these days. If you find yourself in one of these games and you can’t steal the blinds with a normal raise, tighten up your starting requirements slightly and make larger raises. If this raise still can’t take the blinds, don’t tighten up anymore, but choose to raise an amount that you expect to get called once or twice behind you. Since your opponents are playing too loose, take advantage of it by building bigger pots when you think you’re getting the best of it.

The last exception is when you’re short-stacked. If making your typical raise means putting over a quarter of your stack in the pot, just go ahead and move all in instead. Betting a quarter of your stack before the flop commits you to calling just about any re-raise or, at the very least, it gives you a very tough decision. Moving all in here instead of raising less forces the tough decision on your opponents and eliminates one of your tough calling decisions. All of which brings us back to my first principle: Avoid being the one to just call.

Chris Ferguson
Team Full Tilt

Rafe Furst
Full Tilt Pro

At the final table of the 2005 World Series of Poker, the media consensus was that there was only one pro at the table: Mike Matusow. We’ve since learned that that year’s champ, Joseph Hachem, gave up a 13-year chiropractic career three years ago to play poker for a living. The other seven players at the final table won over a million dollars each. It’s a safe bet that a few of them now consider themselves poker professionals. What does that mean?

Three Myths About Playing Poker Professionally

Myth #1: Either I’m a Pro or I’m Not

Consider the following players. Which ones are pros and which are amateurs?

Adam

Adam plays the tournament trail full-time. He’s up thousands one month, and broke the next. He’s always borrowing money from fellow poker players. He has no life outside the poker world and constantly thinks, “I wish I had some skills and experience that would allow me to get a normal job.”

Betty

By day, Betty’s an accountant making $50K a year. She plays poker in her spare time. Some years she earns $20K playing poker, other years she earns $100K. She rarely has a losing year.

Charlie

Charlie picked up the game a year ago, entered his first tournament - the prestigious “WPT London” - and won it with flair and showmanship. He netted $500K and got a ton of TV coverage. He blew through $350K in the next 11 months playing every big event with no cash finishes. He’s still got a bankroll, thanks to some juicy endorsement contracts from an online site and a beer company that guarantee him $1 Million a year for the next three years. All he has to do is continue to play in every major tournament and endorse their products.

Debbie

Debbie has a bankroll of $500K, She makes (or loses) anywhere from -$50K to +$200K per year playing a very erratic schedule. That schedule is structured around the good games, whether they’re offline, online or on the tourney trail. She travels to far-off lands whenever she feels like it, and has plans to settle down and start a family. Someday. But not now.

Eddie

Eddie only plays online, He clocks in, plays exactly eight hours a day, five days a week, at four simultaneous tables no higher than $5-$10 limit hold ‘em. He earns a surprisingly consistent $100/hr, takes the family on vacation twice a year, plays tennis, and attends opera on the weekends.

Myth #2: I Would be so Much Happier if I Could Just Play Poker Full Time

TRUE: It’s fun playing an hour or two each day.

BUT: It might not be so fun playing all the time to the exclusion of other interests, family and friends.

TRUE: It’s low-stress and entertaining, playing as a hobby.

BUT: It might be very stressful if you have to grind it out to pay the bills every month.

TRUE: Those big tourney winners on TV live like rock stars.

BUT: What about the other 99% of the players you don’t see, all of whom are competing for your dream.

Myth #3: I Don’t Need a Big Bankroll to be a Pro

Check the long list of Former World Champions who have gone a full year without making the final table of a major event. As of this writing, it takes roughly $500K to enter all the major tournaments in a year.

Ask your favorite pro how many times he or she has gone bust in their career, or how many times they have been hit up for a sizable cash loan from one of their good friends.

Poker is a great game; it’s tons of fun, and it has never been as potentially profitable as it is today. But try to keep it in perspective.

Poker doesn’t have to consume your life. You can make a good chunk of change playing poker, and you can do it without giving up all the good things you have going in your life.

Financially, mentally and socially, you are better off making poker fit into your life rather than the other way around.

Getting back to the players in the introduction, it’s clear that Eddie is a pro. And it’s equally clear (to me anyway) that Adam is definitely not, even though he thinks he is, and so does the general public. Adam is a dime a dozen in the poker world. You’ve even seen him and his ilk on TV a number of times. As for the other three, I don’t know whether I’d call them pros or not, but I sure wouldn’t mind being in their shoes.

“Professional” is just a word. Being a professional poker player is not the same thing as being a successful poker player.

Bottom line: You don’t need to be a professional to be a poker champion.

Rafe Furst
Full Tilt Pro

Greg Mascio
Full Tilt Pro

It’s a familiar refrain at the Omaha/8 table, when the betting is capped on the turn in a multi-way pot. In theory, this request is about saving time — it’s easier to divide the chips at the end of the hand when they’re not in one monster pile at the center of the table. But the subtext is clear. “Give us the damn river already!”

It’s often just one pot like this one that makes the difference at the end of the day between winner and loser, genius and live one. And playing these hands correctly goes a long way toward determining one’s success in this sometimes volatile game.

Other than catching gin on the river, however, how does one go about getting out as cheaply as possible when beat, and maximizing profit when holding the nuts?

The first and most important thing, especially in Omaha/8, is knowing where you’re at on every street. Many players will simply not throw a hand away even when they’re sure they’re beat in a big pot. They call it down just to find out what they were right about four bets ago.

A typical hand where you can get into trouble is flopping two pair with a hand like A-3-6-K. The flop comes A-3-J, with a flush draw you don’t hold. You’re first to act and fire a bet into the pot. It then gets raised, called, called and three-bet by the time it gets back to you. You very well could be drawing extremely thin at this point. If an Ace comes, it’s likely you hold the second-best full house. If you catch a King on the turn, your two pair might be beat by the 10-Q-K wrap who called all those bets on the flop. If a 6 comes, you’re still likely beat by Aces and Jacks, and all the made lows and flush draws are Freerolling on you.

Still, most unseasoned players call in this spot nearly 100 percent of the time. Why? One reason is because average-to-below-average players rarely ever make a bet and subsequently fold on the same street. I almost never see this. To be a winning player, especially in O/8, you have to be able to lay down your losers.

On the other hand, say that same A-3-J flop comes down and you hold A-2-4-5 with the nut flush draw. Yes, you have a monster. You’re first to act and bet, and again it gets raised and three bet. This time you cap it. The turn comes a deuce. Now it’s time to make extra bets.

With all the action that came behind you on the flop, you can be almost certain someone will bet if you check. You check, which puts the thought into the other player’s mind that you may have been counterfeited, or at best are holding a set. After a bet and a few calls, now you are in position to make that check raise — and you might not even lose some of the people drawing dead! Excuse No. 1 why a losing player calls when drawing dead? “The pot is too big.”

If you had bet out on the turn when the deuce hit after capping it on the flop, any above-average player would most likely put you on your hand and you won’t get any action. That same player may still call your check-raise, perhaps hoping to fill up on the end, but at least he will have to pay to get there.

There are a lot of large multi-way pots in O/8. It’s easy to be tempted by the amount of money in the center of the table. But, like in most forms of poker, a hand that is usually strong heads-up or three handed simply doesn’t carry the same weight in a multi-way pot against multiple draws. And in O/8, you might have to fend off five or six players, each holding four cards in their hand. It’s just flat tough to make two pair on the flop hold up in that case.

Omaha-Eight-or-Better is all about holding the nuts or at least drawing to them. Its one reason why A-2 with two blanks — like say 8-10 — is such a dangerous hand. It gets played pre-flop almost every time, yet it rarely gets more than half the pot, and costs too much when the low that doesn’t get there.

Hands that work together for both high and low, like A-2-Q-K or A-2-4-K (I’ll take mine double suited, thanks) are key. “Nut-Nut” is a beautiful thing, especially at the end of a monster pot where the dealer has to do nothing with all those chips in front of everybody but push them to you.

California Assembly Bill AB2026 is working its way through the California legislative process. The bill will face an important vote in front of the Appropriations Committee in August, at which time critical economic projections and amended legislative structure and regulation will be proposed.

Simply stated, AB2026 will authorize intrastate online poker in the State of California as permitted by US Federal law. The Poker Players Alliance supports this effort and needs help to secure Californians right to play online poker.

Key elements of AB2026 include:

• Develops a framework to protect Californians from identity theft, online fraud and loss of personal financial information
• Generates an estimated $100 million to $300 million per year in new revenue to the State of California
• Permits California Indian tribes and their licensees to offer the same games online that they already legally offer in brick and mortar facilities
• Protects against underage participation in online poker and offers provisions to help those affected by problem gambling.

California poker players are urged to immediately contact your state representative to voice your support of AB 2026. It is imperative that they receive your input prior to a vote by the Appropriations Committee in August so do not delay - act now!

Showing your support is easy. Simply go to this url:

http://capwiz.com/pokerplayersalliance/issues/alert/?alertid=11663631

Phil Gordon
Team Full Tilt Poker

Once I am involved in a hand, many of the actions I take after the flop are automatic, or nearly automatic. Therefore, the most important decision I have to make in No Limit Hold ‘em takes place before the flop:

Should I play the two cards I’ve been dealt?

When I first started learning how to play, I reviewed the standard charts that suggest which two cards to play from each position. But while they provided useful guidelines, the charts don’t tell the whole story.

Poker is not a game that is best played by the numbers. Poker is a game of situations.

In blackjack, there is always a correct decision to be made - a “perfect strategy.” Once you have compared the strength of your hand against the dealer’s “up” card, the odds will — or at least should — dictate whether you should hit, stand, split, etc.

Poker, however, is a game of incomplete information. There are many factors to consider that go above and beyond what “the book” tells you to do. Some of them include:

• My opponents’ tendencies
• My state of mind
• My opponent’s state of mind
• Our respective stack sizes
• My image at the table

Computer programs can look up hands in a chart. Real poker players analyze situations and make their own decisions after processing all of the available information. I might raise with A-J from early position in one game, and fold the same hand from the same position in another.

A good chart can help give a very specific set of circumstances, namely:

• You are the first person to voluntarily put money into the pot and are going to come in for a raise of about three times the big blind
• You don’t know much about your opponents
• All the players at the table have an average-size stack
• The blinds are relatively small in relation to the size of the stacks

When the above things aren’t true, you’ll want to look beyond the charts.

If you’re a new player, these tables are a great place to start. The more poker you play, however, the more comfortable you will feel letting your experience and your instincts serve as your guide.

Phil Gordon
Team Full Tilt Poker

For the time being, the 2008 WSOP is over, sort of. All but the main event is completed and that won’t happen for a while. In the mean time…

The Full Tilt Online Poker Series (FTOPS) is back for another installment with their biggest ever guarantee. Starting on August 6, FTOPS IX features 25 individual events over 12 days with more than $15 million in guaranteed prize money. Highlights include the return of the two-day $2,500 buy-in No-Limit Hold’em event hosted by Patrik Antonius and the $2.5 million guaranteed Main Event hosted by Chris Ferguson. Qualifiers for all FTOPS events are running now and start from just $1 or 50 Full Tilt Points

Erick Lindgren
Team Full Tilt Poker

Most players eventually realize that it’s fun and fairly easy to play at multiple online tables at one time. Early in my career, I played as many as eight games at once on a daily basis. Here are some tips and instructions for playing multiple games:

1. Increase the resolution on your monitor. You can do this by right clicking on the desktop, then clicking on Properties, then clicking on Settings. You can then grab the arrow in the Screen Resolution area and move it to a smaller resolution.

If possible, use the 1,600 x 1,200 setting to get up to four games on one screen without overlap. In order to maximize your screen area, make sure your video card and monitor support higher resolution settings.

2. Once you get into playing more than one game, the best way for you to keep up with the action is to look for hands you can fold automatically. Use advance actions. That will help you pay more attention to the game you have a real hand in.

3. Play the same game at every table. It will help you avoid mistakes in reading and playing your hand, and you’ll find it easier to get into a good rhythm.

4. Most importantly: Track who has raised the pot. Make sure you make a mental note of this since it is the key to how you will play your hand later. It sounds simple, but it is easy to get in a pot and not recall who raised when you’re playing more than one game.

5. Make sure you take some breaks. When I used to play eight games, I was an animal. I would run to the bathroom and every screen would be beeping at me. Take a few breaks. The games will still be there when you get back.

Playing multiple games is a lot of fun and I hope to see you at the table. Or tables.

Erick Lindgren
Team Full Tilt Poker

Chris Ferguson
Team Full Tilt Poker

Last week I talked about not adjusting for tournament play, answered three specific tournament questions, and stressed that there is little difference between tournament strategy and ring game strategy. This week, I would like to expand on that by answering a fourth question, and address the two situations where it’s right to deviate from simply playing your best game.

The fourth question: Surely the different payout structure between ring games and tournaments means something, doesn’t it?

Yes, tournaments differ from live action in that you are rewarded for how long you last, rather than for how many chips you accumulate.

In ring game poker, the chips you save by folding are just as valuable as the chips you win by playing. In tournament play, the chips you save are actually more valuable.

Consider a typical $1,000 buy-in tournament with 100 players, where first place is worth $40,000 out of a total prize pool of $100,000.

At the beginning of the tournament everyone has 1,000 in chips with a value of $1,000. The eventual winner will have 100,000 in chips and, in live action, would be entitled to a prize of $100,000. In a tournament, that same $100,000 is worth only $40,000, meaning that, at the end, each 1,000 in chips is only worth $400. As your stack grows, the value of each additional chip decreases, which means you want to be slightly more averse to taking unnecessary risks in tournaments than you might be in live action. (And if you are at all averse to taking risks in live action, you’re probably playing over your bankroll.) Don’t overcompensate for tournament play. Most people would be better off making no changes at all, rather than the changes that they do make.

Having said all this, there are two cases where adjusting will help:

1. When you are just out of the money.

If you are short stacked, you need to be very careful when committing your chips, especially with a call.

If you have a large stack, look for opportunities to push the short and medium stacks around - especially the medium stacks. These players will be a lot less likely to want a confrontation with you, and it should be open season on their blinds and antes.

If you have a medium or small stack, you need to be a bit more careful. Remember, though, that the other players - even the larger stacks - don’t want to tangle with you. They just want to steal from you without a fight. Be prepared to push them around a little, and even to push back occasionally when they try to bully you. This often turns into a game of Chicken between the bigger stacks to determine which large stack will let the other steal most of the blinds.

2. At the final table.

Very little adjustment is necessary until you are one player away from the final table. Here, again, you should tighten up slightly because this is the next point where the payout structure handsomely rewards outlasting other players.

Look for opportunities to push around the other players, and the smaller stacks in particular. This is good advice throughout the final table.

What about heads up?

There are no more tournament adjustments necessary. You are essentially playing a winner take all freeze-out for the difference between first and second place.

Remember: Tournament adjustments should be subtle. It is rare that your play would be dramatically different in a tournament. When in doubt, just play your best game. And if you never adjust from that, you’ve got a great shot of winning, no matter what game you’re playing.

Chris Ferguson
Team Full Tilt Poker

Chris Ferguson
Team Full Tilt Poker

People often ask very specific questions about how to be a winning tournament player:

• How many chips am I supposed to have after the first two levels?
• Should I play a lot of hands early while the blinds are small, then tighten up later as the blinds increase?
• I seem to always finish on the bubble. Should I tighten up more as I get close to the money, or try to accumulate more chips early on?

Surprisingly, all three questions have the same answer:

Stop trying to force things to happen. Just concentrate on playing solid poker, and let the chips fall where they may.

In fact, that’s the best answer for almost any specific tournament question. Here is a more useful question:

How much of a difference is there between ring game strategy and tournament strategy?

The answer: Not as much as you think.

Before you worry about adjusting for tournaments, concentrate on adjusting for the other players. The most important skill in poker is the ability to react to a wide range of opponents playing a wide range of styles. Players who can do this will thrive in both ring games and tournaments alike.

Many of the most costly tournament mistakes are the result of players over-adjusting for tournament play. Let’s look at these questions again:

How many chips am I supposed to have after the first two levels?

The short answer is: As many as you can get.

Play your cards. Play your opponents. Do not try to force action simply because you think you “need” to have a certain number of chips to have a chance of winning. You should be thinking about accumulating more chips, while trying to conserve the chips you already have. The more chips you have, the better your chances of winning. The fewer chips you have, the worse your chances.

Forget about reaching some magical number. There is no amount below which you have no shot, nor is there any amount above which you can be guaranteed a victory. A chip and a chair is enough to win, and enough to beat you. Getting fixated on a specific number is a good way to ensure failure. Next question:

Should I play a lot of hands early while the blinds are small, and then tighten up later as the blinds increase?

Your play shouldn’t change much as the tournament progresses. Gear your play to take maximum advantage of your opponents, irrespective of how far along the tournament is. Most players are too loose in the early stages of a tournament. Rather than become one of these players, adjust for their play instead:

• Attempt to steal the blinds less often
• Call more raises
• Re-raise more frequently

Likewise, when opponents typically tighten up later on, you should steal more often and be less inclined to get involved in opened pots. Again, this should be a reaction to the way your opponents are playing, not an action based on any particular stage of the tournament.

Last question: I seem to always finish on the bubble. Should I tighten up more as I get close to the money to avoid this, or try to accumulate more chips early on?

Usually the people asking this question are already tightening up too soon before reaching the money. In other words, they are over-adjusting to tournament play. Not only is it incorrect to tighten up considerably before you are two or three players from the money, doing so is the surest way to finish on or near the bubble. Just play your best, most aggressive game, and try not to let your stack dwindle to a point where you can’t protect your hand with a pre-flop all-in raise. If you do, your opponents will be getting the right pot odds to call, even with weak hands. Look for opportunities to make a move before you let this happen, even if it means raising with less than desirable holdings.

Next week, I will address the two situations where adjusting your game will help.

Chris Ferguson
Team Full Tilt Poker