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While technology may have come a long way, learning by using pen and paper never goes out of style. It may not be everyone’s cup of tea but, personally, I find this approach very effective as I tend to better be able to commit things to memory when doing things this way.
For a poker player, learning and understanding math behind the game is essential. Pretty much without exception, you can’t be good at poker if you don’t understand poker math, plain and simple.
There are many ways to go about learning these numbers but if the aforementioned approach appeals to you, then you’re going to love the Poker Workbook by James “SplitSuit” Sweeney. It is an extensive source of knowledge on poker math and percentages that requires your active involvement. It may feel like you’re back in school at times, but if you do it right you’re bound to learn a lot from these materials.
So, what exactly is the Poker Workbook? It is a poker textbook containing more than 1,500 tasks involving poker math – from the simplest calculations to highly elaborate concepts. Every single aspect of the workbook is briefly explained and then followed by a number of calculations you’ll need to do on your own.
Concepts covered in the Poker Workbook include:
Once you get the basic grasp of the concept that’s being discussed, you’ll need to apply that knowledge to real examples and come up with exact answers. You’ll need to calculate percentages, number of combos, pot odds, and more, and then fill in the answers. So, it’s not the kind of book that you can just read. It only works if you actually take time to do the exercises!
The main goal of the Poker Workbook is to teach you how to quickly make all sorts of calculations while playing. Although our brains aren’t computers and most of us can’t do complex calculations in seconds, almost everyone can develop a skillset to make very good approximations. More often than not, this is all you will need at the poker tables.
To tackle tasks in the workbook, you’ll need poker software such as Flopzilla and/or Equilab. These programs will let you build custom ranges and turn percentages into visual representations (and vice-versa) of hand ranges.
As you do this, you should become much better at visualizing what a certain percentage of hands looks like. You should also learn how to quickly figure out if a particular call is +EV or not based on how it relates to the pot and the strength of your own hand.
It all may seem abstract until you actually sit down and start doing it. That’s exactly why I like SplitSuit’s approach with this product. It forces you to sit down, think about, and physically write down your results. That way, you can’t fool yourself into thinking you were “close enough”. If the number is there and it’s off by a lot (or even a little), you’ll know you made a mistake in your calculations somewhere.
When you want to check your results, there is the separate Answer Key file, which allows you to quickly find answers for particular questions without having to go back and forth through the original book. This is really helpful as it saves time and lets you focus more on the learning process.
The Poker Workbook was designed to be studied methodically. SplitSuit recommends doing a few pages every day and really focusing on getting the right answers, so this is probably the best way to go about it. If you’re already an experienced player, some of the earlier tasks will be easy to complete off the top of your head. If you’re new to poker math, though, it will take some time.
The good thing about the workbook is that you can organize your studying time so it doesn’t affect your other poker learning activities, such as watching videos or analyzing your hands. You can just do a few exercises whenever you feel like it. As you do more, you’re bound to become better at it.
Finally, there’s the price point: just $39. That’s affordable for pretty much any poker player. Moreover, when you consider it as an “investment” rather than a “money spend”, it’s tough to argue that you aren’t getting great bang for your buck.
So, to summarize, it may feel like “doing things the old fashioned way, with pen and paper” is a step back when compared to all the modern and interactive poker training systems out there but I don’t think this is necessarily a bad thing. The more traditional approach to learning poker can still work very well and the fact you’re more involved with the materials will help you memorize much more information even if you don’t realize it at first.
If you want to learn poker math from scratch or if there are certain concepts that you don’t quite understand or struggle with, give Poker Workbook a go. Odds are you’re going to love it once you get into it and begin a daily poker study routine.
In this episode of The Bernard Lee Poker Show on the Cardplayer Lifestyle Podcast Family, Bernard Lee interviews President and founder of RunGoodGear.com, Tana Karn. During the interview, Tana discusses the 2020 RunGood Poker Series: All-Star Season with an exclusive Pro-Am Event at the Poker Go Studio at the Aria Casino in Las Vegas.
| 0:00 | Welcome to The Bernard Lee Poker Show as this week’s guest is President of RunGoodGear and RunGood Pokler Series (RGPS), Tana Karn. |
| 0:05 | The Bernard Lee Poker Show begins a new era as the show joins the newly created Cardplayer Lifestyle Poker Podcast Family. |
| 1:09 | Robbie Strazynski joins the show to discuss the newly created Cardplayer Lifestyle Poker Podcast Family including The Bernard Lee Poker Show and Top Pair Home Game Poker Podcast. |
| 5:20 | Brian Altman captured the WPT Lucky Hearts Poker Open beating an 843-player field, earning $482,636. He became the first player in WPT history to win the same main event twice (he also won the event back in 2015). |
| 6:13 | Lytle Allen outlasted a field of 491 players a start studded final table to win the WSOP Horseshoe Tunica Main Event for $144,313. |
| 7:57 | Next week’s guest will be renown film critic and avid poker player Richard Roeper as we have our 5th Annual Academy Awards preview show. |
| 9:06 | RunGood Gear Ad |
| 9:49 | Bernard welcomes Tana Karn to the show. |
| 11:06 | Tana joins the show |
| 11:54 | Tana describes how he started his clothing line (RunGoodGear) and the poker series (RunGood Poker Series), which was named the 2019 Global Poker Awards Mid-Major Circuit/Tour of the Year. |
| 20:17 | Tana recalls the initial tournament series with RGPS (called Showbound) back in 2019 and PokerGo with the grand prize of playing on Poker After Dark |
| 24:42 | Share My Pair Ad |
| 25:14 | Bernard continues his interview with Tana Karn, President of RunGoodGear and the RunGood Poker Series |
| 26:10 | Tana discusses the 2020 RunGood Poker Series, collaborating with Poker Central/PokerGo including an exclusive Pro-Am at the PokerGO studio |
| 31:48 | Tana announces that the RGPS is expanding out West to San Diego (Jamul Casino) and Sacramento area (Thunder Valley Casino) and new stop in Oklahoma City (Grand Casino) |
| 35:55 | Tana discusses Global Poker Award nomination for tour and ambassadors including Bernard’s ESPN column discussing Phil Hellmuth’s 30th anniversary of his WSOP Main Event |
| 41:42 | Tana discusses the future of RGPS including possible expansion to the East Coast of the U.S. |
| 44:16 | RGPS kicks off 2020 season at Horseshoe Council Bluffs on February 4, 2020. |
Many players overlook the importance of a situation when they have a chance to c-bet.
That’s a shame, as it’s truthfully one of the first things you ought to master in poker because you will play most of your hands as a pre-flop aggressor, so you will often find yourself in these situations. If you leave money on the table in common spots, you will have a very hard time squeezing any profit from the game at the end of the month.
So, if making a profit playing poker is your goal, you should learn which hands to continuation bet, how to adjust for different boards, and what sizing to use to get the most EV in every situation. While these are very extensive topics, this article will give you three simple tips that will help you make better decisions in general and hopefully begin winning more pots and stacking more chips.
One of the most common holes players have in their game is the inability to distinguish effective strategies when in position (IP) and out of position (OOP). Being OOP is a significant disadvantage for several reasons:
Thus, the best adjustment to make in these situations is to bet a much tighter range. In general, you should be checking way more strong holdings when OOP vs. being IP.
If you do not have any reasonable holdings in your checking range OOP, you will be very quickly punished by any competent opponent. You should check many hands OOP to protect your range and let your opponent bluff.
For example. Let’s say you open from the cutoff position. The player in the BB position calls your raise, and you see a flop of T85 rainbow. The BB check and PokerSnowie suggests you should be betting 44% of your range, while in the same situation against a player in the Button position instead of BB, you should only bet 14% of the time.
So even if that does not seem very intuitive, learn to check more hands when OOP and give yourself a chance against aggressive opponents by being able to bluff-catch all three streets and not over-folding in most situations.
Just because I highlighted the importance of checking strong hands when you are OOP, doesn’t mean you should not check any reasonable holdings when you are IP.
Naturally, most of the time, you will be betting your strongest hands, but you also need to check part of your range. Here are a few factors to consider that will help you decide whether you should check with a particular hand or not:
Of course, in theory, you should use a mixed/balanced strategy with most of your hands, but it is very hard to implement it when you’re first starting out. These guidelines can help you understand when you can check to get more value with your strong hands.
All night, he check, check check…
In such situations, you let your opponent improve to the second-best hand and give him a chance to bluff where he would just fold to your bet without risking much.
If you want to compete in poker games in 2020, there is no way you can avoid learning at least the basics of Game Theory Optimal strategies. That being said, there are many ways to take advantage of and exploit your opponents in order to increase your win rate even further.
The first thing you need is to identify the mistakes you’re making. If you are playing online, you can use poker statistics on your HUD to quickly see what mistakes your opponents are making. However, if you play in live games or even online at poker rooms where no HUD is allowed, it does not mean that you can’t observe your opponents and learn what they are doing.
Quite the contrary, by doing so, you will gain a huge advantage. In online games where everyone is allowed a HUD, almost everyone uses one, but in games where you do not have stats at your disposal, you can quickly gain an edge over the players who are simply clicking buttons and not paying any attention.
Try to see the showdowns and learn how your opponents are playing in various situations. Here are a few things you should observe to take advantage later on:
When you know this info, the adjustments you’ll need to make are self-explanatory. If your opponents almost always fold after missing a c-bet, bet all your bluffs and check strong hands to trap. If they bet once and give up without a hand, you should call a lot on the flop, and so on.
When you know how they are playing, it is easy to make profitable adjustments, so always be looking to get all available information in your games, and this will lead to a bigger win rate.
Be your own boss? Work from home? Earn thousands of dollars? Travel the world? Yes, that all sounds great, but stop right there for a moment. Like any other profession or discipline, poker requires a deep and genuine commitment to learning everything related to it, and if you´re not willing to do this let me tell you that you are only focusing on one side of the coin.
Becoming a professional online poker player is not for everyone. More often than not, you only see the glamorous life of poker players, but not necessarily what it takes to get there (and with a very good reason). Certain qualities and skills are needed in order to make money consistently and this could easily scare a lot of “potential customers” for the online poker industry. But don’t take this the wrong way. By default, everyone is capable of becoming a professional online poker player.
Let’s repeat that.
EVERYONE IS CAPABLE OF DOING IT!
With that said, here are seven of the most important tips and pieces of advice to be considered before even thinking about becoming an online poker pro!
This is perhaps one of the most underrated aspects of a professional poker life by most recreational/new players. Usually, only a change in attitude is needed. People need to visualize as if they were still a student looking to get the highest grade at the end of the year. The big difference is that at school, at the end of the test studying stopped. As a poker player, that never ends. PERIOD! Poker is a game of situations, NOT CARDS. In order to be successful at the tables, you need to be familiar with as many situations as possible so when the time comes to make a decision you are ready to make the best one.
This is why dedicating time to research is very important in order to help you become an even better poker player. Try to take some time to go over extensive reviews of poker sites, which will help you find the right poker site for you and your particular style of play. Also, check hand histories, breaking down spots and analyzing them, run simulations, and discuss hands with other poker players. Doing this on a regular basis is one of the most critical and important aspects of any online poker pro.
After almost 20 years, there is still a debate about whether using aid programs is effective or not. Let’s not go into detail here on that subject. What is important to know is what is considered correct by the majority of poker pros out there.
Third-party programs shorten the development and study time of any player. It’s really that simple! So, it is highly recommended to purchase good poker software.
If you want to go the HUD (heads-up display) route, PokerTracker (PT4) and Holdem Manager (HM2) are your best bets. Generally, PT4 is used by tournament (MTTs) and Sit & Go (SNGs) players while HM2 is used by cash game players. Both programs offer a free trial period.
HUD or no HUD, a study and analysis tool is also a MUST! Programs like ICMizer (mostly for MTTs and SNGs) and Flopzilla are considered to be must-have tools for any online poker player who wants to become a professional. There are other more advanced programs, like PioSolver and Pokersnowie, for more experienced and advanced players.
Lastly, getting a mentor, regular coaching from a proven winner, or enrolling in one of the best poker training courses is something that will never get old. If the resources are available, by all means, take this into account. Getting study tips and guidance is invaluable, especially if you’ve already mastered the basics and fundamentals of the game.
This is another underrated “secret” of any successful online poker pro. Considering the enormous amount of time dedicated to poker, both on and off the virtual felt, taking care of the body and (above all) the mind is something crucial and critical for the sustainability and consistency of positive results.
Poker players are NOT robots!
So, it is important that you stop kidding yourself into believing you don´t need exercise regularly and sustain a healthy lifestyle in order to play poker. In particular, having the correct mindset is vital in order to succeed in anything in life; poker is no exception. Perhaps one of the most misunderstood and critical concepts that the vast majority of recreational players find harder to assimilate is VARIANCE. There are amazing books out there that will show the proper mindset needed to have at all times. In that respect, The Mental Game of Poker (1 and 2) and The Poker Mindset are among the best mandatory poker reading material.
Having the ability to analyze all the variables present in a poker hand in quick order requires that you place yourself in the best possible situation to do so. This means eliminating everything that takes your attention away from the game. This will vary for each person, but it has been found that turning off your cellphone, placing background music (low volume), taking occasional breaks, and closing other tabs on your computer is a great way to start.
Basically, if you want to “get in the zone”, you need to give yourself the best possible opportunity to enter said zone.
There are many people who play in tournaments because it is the format they watch most on TV and, obviously, the idea of winning hundreds of thousands of dollars attracts them. But if you want to be a professional online poker player you need to make sure you play the format you and where you feel most comfortable. It could take you some time to figure out what format best suits you and your poker game, so be sure to have patience while you figure things out.
You can make money playing any online poker format professionally; each one is unique, of course. Tournaments, for example, have more variance and financial instability. So, be prepared for the expected results of your chosen poker format.
Many professional poker players only focus on their poker bankroll and totally forget about their life-roll; or, in some cases, they mix the two. Building and maintaining these two bankrolls is vitally important, and managing both bankrolls properly requires a lot of discipline. It is easy to get carried away by the possibility of winning or recovering from a losing session, by playing at higher stakes or “outside your bankroll”. Sometimes players can think their ability or talent (often exaggerated) protects them against variance. But, the fact of the matter is that, no matter how experienced an online poker player is, nobody escapes it regardless of how good they are.
None of the above tips really matter if the poker player in question is not disciplined and consistent in applying them. They must become the personal strategic core. Everything else is optional. Consistency and discipline, on the other hand, are NON-NEGOTIABLE!
So there it is.
If you’ve been playing online poker for a while and are looking to take your game to a professional level, then we advise you heed the above advice. Becoming a professional poker player is never going to be easy and requires a lot of hard work and dedication. Like most other things in life, if you’re not ready to put in the work, you shouldn’t expect positive results. So you certainly should forget about trying to go pro if you’re not prepared to work for that kind of lifestyle.
Online poker was all the rage until April 15, 2011, commonly known as Black Friday. That was the day when everything changed and the world of online poker was dealt a devastating blow by the United States Department of Justice when they issued indictments against the three largest online poker websites operating in the USA: PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker, and Absolute Poker.
Accounts were frozen and American online poker players were left bewildered and bereft of their account balances. However, the advent of legal online sports gambling in America has tacitly warmed the waters for a resurgence and as of January 2020, there are four states — Delaware, New Jersey, Nevada, and Pennsylvania — currently operating online poker sites for those who are physically within their borders. The “rebuilding” process has been long and painful, and while there’s no comparison between the “wild west” days of pre-2011 and today’s online poker landscape, at least there’s something, and hopefully growth if on the horizon.
WSOP/888 US is currently the only site that has been given the authorization to pool players within the borders of Delaware, New Jersey, and Nevada in order to create larger games within the site. West Virginia is the fifth state in the union to legalize online poker, however, there is currently no site in operation. That said, because it has been approved, there ought to be online poker running in the Mountain State in the near future.
Perhaps the biggest change in the online poker landscape has been the technological advancements in playing off of mobile devices. Before Black Friday, the overwhelming majority of sites were designed to play off of laptops or desktop computers. Playing on a smartphone these days is quite common and PokerStars is at the vanguard, currently operating in New Jersey and Pennsylvania.
Poker began to catch mainstream fire shortly after the movie “Rounders” starring Matt Damon, but it didn’t hit a fever pitch until Chris Moneymaker, an aptronym to be sure, won the WSOP Main Event in 2003. Remember, Moneymaker won his seat into the Main Event by playing in a series of online poker satellite events. Back then even casual players knew the names of the big guns like Phil Ivey, Daniel Negreanu, Howard Lederer, and Sammy Farha, to name a few. However, things are different now and poker has yielded in mainstream importance to everything from E-Sports to the apps found on Google Play Store.
To be sure, players like Negreanu, Moneymaker, and Phil Hellmuth are plenty popular — they’re poker Hall of Famers after all — but a new crop of players seem to be top achievers in the live poker world nowadays.
So if you’re one of poker’s lapsed fans, it pays to get acquainted with some of the top players making headlines and winning big in recent years. Recently, fellow Cardplayer Lifestyle contributor Geoff Fisk published a list of the top 10 poker players destined for success in 2020. The three players below made that list, but we’ll take a slightly deeper look at their player profiles so you can get better acquainted with them.
Playing Texas Hold’em, after the flop most often you will have a drawing hand. Generally, you’ll need to improve to a made hand to win the pot. Studying your hole cards and the board, you identify those cards remaining in the deck that will complete your hand. These are your “outs.” How many do you have? The more outs you have, the more likely you will be to complete your hand. Of course, we are talking about “good outs” – those that will most likely make you the winner.
As the dealer places the turn card face-up on the board, the number of outs may change – sometimes substantially. That could make a big difference in how you continue playing your hand to see the river. Of course, this holds true whether you’re playing poker in a brick and mortar casino, online poker room, or even at one of the best new casino sites Canada has to offer.
Let’s analyze a limit hold’em example.
From late position, you start with Ks-Js in the hole – a good starting hand, readily satisfying the Hold’em Algorithm criteria. (See ad below for Hold’em or Fold’em? – An Algorithm for Making the Key Decision.)
The flop comes down: 8s-Jd-3c. Studying your hand, you now hold top pair on the board. If you are fortunate, it may well be the best hand in play at that point. But, if an opponent holds a higher pocket pair in the hole, you are in bad shape. If that’s the case, you have only two outs to catch trip Jacks.
With four opponents still in the hand, it’s likely that your pair of Jacks is still in the lead; but you cannot be sure. After two checks, a middle-position player opens the betting. He is a rather loose-aggressive player, so your hand may still be the best. (Remember, he has no idea what you hold in the hole and can only guess.)
You decide to make a raise for information and, especially, to thin the field so your pair of Jacks will have a much better chance of holding up to the end. An early-position player and the opening bettor call your raise.
The turn is the deuce of spades. Now, in addition to the pair of Jacks, you also have four cards to the King-high spade flush. Quickly sizing up the situation, there are nine more spades remaining in the deck that will give you the second-nut flush – a very strong made hand and even more likely to take the pot. Adding those 9 outs to the other two, you now have 11 good outs, any one of which is almost certain to take the pot.
With only the river card to come, using the 4-2 Rule, your card odds are less than 4-to-1 against connecting. Quickly glance at the pot. There is about $80 in chips waiting for you. The pot odds are well above 4-to-1, giving you a Positive Expectation even if an opponent were to have a pair in the hole higher than your pair of Jacks.
After the two remaining opponents check to you, you decide to make a value bet, expecting to increase the size of “your” pot. It’s sort of a semi-bluff; so you use the Esther Bluff tactic for more leverage. (again, Ref. The Art of Bluffing; see ad.) Both decide to fold their hands. You rack up a very nice pot. Ecstasy!
In response to my recent column on “Creating the Poker Player,” a Cardplayer Lifestyle fan who goes by the name Jesse James submitted an extensive commentary offering much food for thought. (I truly appreciate his effort; see below.)
Some readers may recall that many years ago there was a man named Jesse James (1847–1882) who was a notorious American outlaw famed for robbing banks and trains, who led the James–Younger gang. He was assassinated in 1882 in Saint Joseph, Missouri.
Our modern-day Jesse James may well be a sly and notorious bluffer at the poker tables where he delights in “robbing” his opponents. “Some of us are born and bred to be poker players,” he says. His father who taught himself to become a poker pro years ago, passed on to him the strategies he used while winning at the poker table. “I discovered his strategies were very sound. Does this mean it’s in my genes?” Perhaps so. Our Jesse is also adept in statistics (probabilities), helping him to be expert at using the card odds and the pot odds to make key decisions at the poker table.
In fact, it’s quite possible that Jesse also enjoys other gambling games at live casinos online, visiting sites like https://mrcasinova.com/live-casinos/ and specifically selecting the games in which knowledge of statistics and probabilities play enough of a role to give the player a leg up.
In any event, here’s what he has to say about using the knowledge of an opponent’s profession – be he an engineer, a salesman, or a businessman: “As I learned in my psychology studies, you can’t effectively derive someone’s tendencies (while playing poker) from their profession,” as my column had posed. “This is just stereotyping and can easily open you up to confirmation bias which, given enough time, will cost you lots of money. (Note: Confirmation bias is the tendency to search for and interpret information in a way that affirms one’s prior beliefs or hypotheses, leading to errors in inductive reasoning.) “Far better to watch the players’ tendencies than try to capitalize on knowledge of their profession.” In that, I am convinced.
On the other hand, he does recognize that a person’s profession can affect how he plays the game – which is my main point here. Then, he continues: “But, as the author (referring to me) touched on briefly, the individual differences between how engineers use their math abilities will be greater than their similarities, one will use it to justify chasing outs while the other will use it to fold.” With that, I must disagree. Engineers, I wrote, are more likely to use their math abilities “in analyzing data, thereby reducing dependence on luck (chance). . . (so) they can avoid the losing hands.” Those were my exact words, and I stand by them.
Our Jesse makes an interesting observation based on his years of experience at the poker tables and thousands of hours as a forensic psychologist in academia – combining psychological theory and practice to the criminal, court and corrections systems.
With regard to detecting deception by your poker opponents, “live reads are an art and not a science. It’s not something you can teach due to the variance in individual differences. The exact same tell in one person can mean the exact opposite in another.” Food for thought? (I’ll consider this for a future poker column.)
On that note, I’ll announce that our Jesse James has won a free copy of my book on The Art of Bluffing. Kindly get in touch and I’ll be happy to send you a copy.
I’ve gotten into the habit, whenever I go play poker at the Commerce Casino, of writing little notes to myself about the random/fun/straight-up weird stuff that can happen during my day there. For example:
*Guy smoking weed-dealer wanted to smell him
These are notes just for me or to share with one of my family members who’s a poker player, as they’re the only ones who can truly understand what I’m saying. Otherwise, it just sounds like I’m spending my day thinking about the new casinos 2020 will have to offer, or at a weird carnival, on purpose, and sometimes paying money for the random privilege of seeing things like a dim sum/burrito hybrid cart that has a woman saying in a monotonous tone for an hour-“Dim sum, burrito”, until you can’t not hear the refrain and wonder if in fact, I do want a burrito. (There’s always a part of me that could have a burrito for dinner, however, I’m not OK eating a burrito while at the table. I’m trying to draw LESS attention to myself, not more.)
I wrote the note above when a player came back to the table after being gone for around 30 minutes. It felt like a long time, but poker time varies – it either flies by or it seems as if mountains can form in the amount of time it takes someone to make a decision or for the next hand to be played. Upon the player’s return, the dealer said at a group level how happy he was that he could smell this player before his shift was over. Being me, I said it depended on what he was smoking, and it was verified that it was “green”.
I never know what my notes are going to say, or even remember them until I read them later on. The cards always come first and sometimes blot other details out of my brain.
Sometimes they’re non sequiturs, like the fact that someone tried to raise themselves in a pot, or that I’m still seeing proof that mullets are alive and well.
However, a few weeks back, I was getting a diet soda for the road at the Commerce Casino gift shop, as I needed some energetic help getting back home while driving on the craptastic road that is the Interstate 5 freeway, and I saw something I’ve never seen while playing poker. I was in line to buy my drink, and a tall man came in and asked the clerk about to ring up my purchase if they had a belt. The clerk, without taking a beat, pointed to the wall. The man walked over tried on one and said “perfect, I’ll take it”. I laughed after he left and said to the clerk, “that’s random, right?” He laughed as well and agreed.
I wondered after I left, what other random items did this gift store have? Mind you, this was a gift store at a CARD club, not a big Vegas hotel gift store. The next time I came in to play cards, I checked out the area with the belts, and in a small square area there were two types of boxer briefs for men, three types of men’s socks, wet wipes, a lint roller and a strawberry air freshener. The combination gave me some…interesting scenarios in my brain, but made me wonder: where’s MY panties?
What if I’m on a heater and I desperately need my own extra pair of panties? I mean, the odds of that happening are less than the odds of being dealt a royal flush, but still! They had boxer briefs, but no women’s underwear that I could see in this close-to-the-counter hot zone. All the other items could be used potentially as unisex, and if women’s panties are offensive or incendiary, what about women’s underwear that comes in a tube, usually from a Walmart or a Target?
Women normally carry more gear than the average bear – I myself have an extra tank top, 4 jackets, and more Kleenex than a human being should have in my car, among other items. Also, could the men exchange the comps earned on their players’ cards for this underwear? I want in! Most of me is kidding, and the majority of women would take a hard pass on buying underwear from a poker room gift store. However, I need to do more research into what more is in that gift store. I could call, but what’s the fun in that?
This is part of what I love about poker, I HAVE stories to tell, ones that crack me up, keep me engaged during the moments when I’m so bored at the poker table I wonder why I’m playing at all. I’m not going to see any of this in any other segment of my life, and in between our big moments, moments like these make me glad I’m alive and think this is funny, that this is the sensibility I take with me when I play cards.
What’s the weirdest thing (not disgusting or sexual) you’ve seen in a poker gift shop?
If you play enough poker that your income depends on it to a degree, there will likely be times when you just lack the motivation to play, the game just isn’t fun for you anymore, or you’ll struggle to put in enough hours at the tables.
Don’t blame yourself for being such a position; this is bound to happen to every player at some point. I’ve had such days and most of my students constantly encounter these types of situations, too, so you aren’t that different than most other poker players.
At times like these, it makes a lot of sense to stop thinking about poker for a bit and just enjoy everything else life has to offer. It can be a number of things, like going out with your friends, enjoying dinner with your partner, diving into another one of your hobbies, or one of plenty other options.
If you prefer to keep your thoughts focused on poker, however, there are still plenty of ways to take a mental break and instead just try to look at poker from a different angle by concentrating on the fun parts of the game. Instead of memorizing new ranges or putting in a usual studying of grinding session, trying something different that’s still plenty poker-related, and perhaps you’ll fall in love with the game once again.
When was the last time you read a poker book — especially one that wasn’t strategy-related?
Nowadays there’s plenty of poker media content you can consume, including following players on Twitter, visiting poker news sites or blogs, and watching poker vlogs, but a good old poker books can give you a different kind of experience.
Firstly, actually holding a physical book in your hand is almost by definition more relaxing than staring at a screen (which we all do way too much anyhow, right?). I’ve made a list of the best poker books, so even if you aren’t already familiar with too many of the titles out there, you can certainly find something that’ll be interesting to read.
For example, you can grab the autobiography of a famous player and enjoy learning about his/her journey in the poker world. Case in point is Eli Elezra’s book “Pulling the Trigger”, in which you’ll read about his progression from childhood to crushing the highest stakes games, and realize along the way that that there’s plenty happening behind the scenes that we don’t necessarily get to see on TV.
I like watching movies when I have free time, but the experience is even more enjoyable if I can get hold of something related to poker. I just love this game!
While I am sure everyone reading this knows movies like “Rounders,” with plenty of Teddy KGB quotes floating around the internet, there are of course many more excellent poker movies to watch.
Recently, I put together a list of the best poker movies and was honestly surprised by how many choices there are. You can find great biography videos, action-packed films, and even a comedy, so there’s definitely something to suit almost anyone’s tastes.
So next time you don’t feel like playing but still want to do something poker-related, just grab a snack and treat yourself to a poker movie. This is something I do quite often.
I recently wrote a post about poker forums and what you can find inside those communities. I want to highlight them one more time, as they’re good for much more than just hand discussions.
Forums can be a great place to not only get but also discuss the latest news in the industry. In particular, something I like is that many controversial topics hit the forums and become buzzworthy very quickly. When Mike Postle was recently accused of cheating in live games, there was a thread created on the 2+2 forums almost instantly. The same happened with many other notable events in both online and live poker worlds on numerous other poker forums.
Moreover, because of the active poker forum community, these threads are often updated so you can easily track how any issue progresses in near real-time, which is not so easy to do via other mediums.
While forums might not be the best place to learn poker strategy, you can have a great time perusing them while catching up on the news or chatting with other poker players.
So, as you see, there are plenty of options you’ve got to recapture your love for poker or boost your motivation if you’ve lost it along the way. When those times come that you stop enjoying the grind, it’s likely to lead to struggles on so many fronts. For that reason, it’s so important to keep the game fun. If you do, you will keep returning to the tables for years to come.
I had a student last week bring me some hands for analysis. This is quite common. When my students show up with hands to talk about, it really helps us to find leaks in their game and help them learn how to handle tough spots. Many poker coaches would have been dismayed by the hands this student showed up with because they were all bad beats.
In the first hand, she three-bet pre-flop from the cutoff seat with aces and the original raiser called. The flop was 664 rainbow — a great flop for her hand — and she was able to get all the chips in the middle against a pair of jacks. You may be thinking that there is nothing that can be done about this situation. She got her opponent all-in as a huge favorite, and no amount of coaching would help her do anything different because she played the hand perfectly.
From a strategy standpoint you would be correct. But strategy isn’t everything. Once the chips are all-in, you have to get your hand to hold up. Lucky for my student, she chose the right coach. No one knows more about running good, winning coin flips, and getting lucky, than me. Two hours later, she had a good grasp on all the high-level strategies that pros use to increase their luck factor. I have increased the luck factor scores of some of the best players in the world, increasing one well known pro from a 5.2 to a 7.5 in just a few short weeks. And now, for the first time ever, I’m revealing those strategies to the public. You are welcome.
Poker players have been learning about ways to increase their chances of getting a good hand, or winning once the chips are all-in, since the first bet was placed at least a century ago. After years of study, I have found four basic strategies for increasing your luck factor.
When you declare your certainty that you are going to lose a hand, you are essentially daring the universe to prove you wrong. This serves two purposes. First, it works like a challenge. When the poker gods hear you talking like this, they want to prove you wrong. You are daring them to prove you wrong and give you the pot. You are also hedging your bet mentally. If you lose, at least you were right in your prediction. And if you win, who cares what you had to say to win the pot? It’s a win/win!
To execute this play, you have to make sure everyone knows that you believe that you have absolutely no chance to win. The more certain you sound, the better the challenge to the fates. Something like:
“I don’t have a chance.”
That’s a good start, but you have to let the universe know that you are COMMITTED! Standing up from your seat and putting on your coat is a good way to do this, but there are lots of similar tactics that show how certain you are that you cannot possibly win. Wishing your opponents good luck also works well.
This strategy has been shown in clinical testing to improve your chances of winning the hand by 19%. While this may not sound like much, it’s basically a punch card that allows you to win one out of every five hands for free. That extra 19% really adds up over time.
Sometimes the negative approach of daring the universe to prove you wrong doesn’t work. In situations where you are way ahead, introducing too much negativity can actually hurt your luck factor. Instead, try going the positive route. Concentrate hard on a specific card that doesn’t change the hand in any way. Most players find that calling for a deuce is the most effective in these situations. Focus hard on that deuce of clubs. Call for it. Pray for it. Picture it snapping into place on the board. If you concentrate hard enough, you will summon that card out of the aether.
At the American Luck Factor Institute, or ALFI, we study the effects of all kinds of strategies. Recently we concluded a study on the effectiveness of the most simple of all luck strategies.
It turns out that calling for your card in situations where you are slightly behind has been shown to increase your odds of winning the hand by 6%, while calling for a blank when you are ahead is 23% effective, making it one of the largest known increases in luck factor of all the strategies we’ve studied.
If you want something in this world, you start by asking for it. Any sales guy will tell you that asking for the sale is the only way to get it. Want a raise? The only way to get it is to march into the boss’ office and ask for it. This is true in poker as well. If you haven’t seen a premium hand in a while, asking the dealer for a hand has been shown to be 7% more effective than complaining about not having a hand for the last two hours.
This strategy also works for bad beat jackpots, high hand of the hour bonuses, and other house promotions. Requesting a bad beat jackpot from a dealer is only 3% more effective than doing nothing at all, but that request doesn’t cost you anything and a 3% increase in your chance of winning a huge jackpot can have significant value.
When requesting that the dealer deal a jackpot hand to you, we have also discovered a significant “dibs effect”. If another player has already requested a bad beat jackpot hand from the dealer within the last 30 minutes, your request will have no significant effect (statistically speaking). Wait your turn and get in there with your request as soon as 30 minutes has passed since the last player’s request. And don’t worry about the dealers; they enjoy this type of request. They find it humorous, especially since it will often be the first time they’ve heard someone ask to be dealt a jackpot, and they will probably give you a sincere smile and do their best to make it happen.
If a current is strong enough, it’s much easier to use it than to try to change it. But first you need to know what direction that luck current is running. This requires careful attention to which cards are running hot, and which hands are winning and losing. This concept can also be applied to “hot seats”, players who are running well, and which cards a dealer tends to put out on the board. If you ask the dealer, they will often tell you which cards they usually put on the board, which can help you decide which cards to play.
We have found that tracking a trend and using it correctly results in a 12% increase in your win rate. This is true fairly consistently over a wide range of situations from tracking which seats are best for you, to knowing that sixes are hot tonight. Even folding a few extra hands until you can get a seat change when you are in a cold seat can result in saving a few dollars.
We have also tracked the opposite of the continuing trend, called the “due effect” and determined that it has virtually no value. A trend is much more likely to continue than it is to stop. If you think you are due, use one of our previously mentioned strategies, or simply rack up and leave because you are running bad and it isn’t going to change anytime soon.
While this article was a basic overview of the strategies you can use to increase your luck, it is by no means complete. That would require an entire book. Maybe two. Stay tuned for my upcoming book Run Good and Win Flips: A Poker Player’s Guide to Luck (Volume 1).
It may surprise you to know that the answer to our title question is yes; quite a bit! The online poker world is a significantly different place than it was in 2010. It’s fascinating to look back at the changes.
Arguably, one of the biggest changes occurred in 2011 when Black Friday happened and the online poker world was hit hard. However, other more subtle changes have also made a big difference overall. Let’s take a closer look at some of them.
At the start of the last decade, online poker sites focused much of their marketing attention on attracting high rollers and successful players. They put out the message that there were plenty of unskilled players available just waiting to be conquered.
More recently, the number of deposits from recreational players has decreased. The overall player pool, especially of unskilled players, has become smaller. This has resulted in an increase in marketing and promotions aimed at recruiting recreational poker players.
There is no doubt that live streaming has changed the world of online casinos overall, over the last decade. Online gaming providers like NetEnt use the latest technology in live streaming to bring table games like poker and blackjack into the homes of players.
Since it first started to become popular, mid-decade, live streaming has become mainstream. Just last year, PokerStars gave players the opportunity to link their account with a Twitch account, in order to live stream their play. To mark the occasion they announced a competition with two Platinum Passes as prizes. Georgina “GJReggie” James and Mason “pyefacepoker” Pye were recently announced as winners, in recognition of their committed streaming.
When Lottery SNGs first came on the scene, they were ridiculed by many players. However, they are now a feature of virtually every online poker operator. Their rise in popularity owes a lot to the simplicity of play that is attached to them and the fact that they provide the opportunity for a quick game.
The truth is that there are very few aspects of life that have not been changed by the continuing increase in smartphone use. After all, in 2012 there were around 1.08 billion smartphone users worldwide. This figure has now increased to around 3 billion, according to Statista.
As far as online poker is concerned, the changes that smartphone use has brought about are significant. Prior to the start of the last decade, online poker was played using a desktop or laptop. This meant that players were restricted as to when and where they could play.
Serious players still often choose to play live at the table or on a desktop. However, recreational players are more likely to use a phone or tablet to enjoy their regular poker play. This is especially the case when it comes to quick games, such as when playing a Lottery SNG.
When you start to look at the last decade in some detail, it’s interesting to see just how much the online poker experience has changed.
Whether you’re a serious poker player, a recreational player, or just a fan of the game, there are many reasons you’d want to visit poker forums. Many of them represent an invaluable source of information on all things poker, from recent news to various debates. There is even a TwoPlusTwo NVG poker section dedicated to that.
Often, people avoid forums because they don’t want to deal with all the trolls and rude users they’re bound to come across. The fact of the matter is, though, a majority of people you’ll meet on these forums are normal and friendly. You just need to learn to ignore the toxic ones and don’t engage with them in any conversations and you’ll be fine. Plus there are exceptions to the rule, such as the well-revered CardsChat forum, which is known for being universally friendly and welcoming.
Some people are afraid of the overwhelming amount of information a forum present, and while that’s kind of true to some extent, if you know what you are looking for you can easily navigate past this problem.
In short, there are plenty of great reasons to visit poker forums, and below I list my top three.
Large poker forums usually feature a dedicated section covering recent news. In a way, these are better than run-of-the-mill news sites because you’ll come across reports from all over the globe. Major news sites usually only cover big events; on the poker forums, you’ll find many reports from local communities and smaller venues.
So, if you want to know what poker really looks like in different places, you’ll want to visit poker forums. Beyond this, if you’re planning a trip to somewhere and want to know what the poker scene looks like there, you’ll have no problems finding people who are more than happy to share their knowledge with you.
Big poker news sites don’t have the time, the capacity, or the motivation to cover everything. Forums, on the other hand, are community-driven, and you’ll find people from all over the globe who can share the first-hand experience of their local $1/$2 games or tell you about the local tournament schedule.
Just like the news section, every poker forum has a sub-forum dedicated to strategy. If you’re interested in becoming better and talking about the game, these forums are pretty much the best free resource available online.
You can jump into existing threads and share your opinions or create your own and ask for advice. Your question may be about a particular hand or of a more general nature. Either way, you’ll usually get quite a few people chiming in and providing their insights.
Of course, not all the advice you get on poker forums or Reddit will be of the highest quality since pretty much everyone is allowed to post. But, after spending a bit of time on the site, you’ll learn who the good players are, and you can focus on their suggestions and disregard the rest.
Since most poker forums are international, there is almost always someone around. Even if you post your question late at night and are eager to find out the answer, you likely won’t have to wait long for a few responses.
Eventually, you might get to know enough like-minded poker players to put together your own strategy group. Having a few players to talk strategy on Skype or whatever else means of communication you use can do wonders for your game, and poker forums are pretty much the only place where you can find and recruit such a group – especially if you’re new to the game.
Last but not least, by frequenting poker forums, you’ll start to feel like a part of a larger community. There are countless thousands of poker players out there. They have different skill levels, come from different backgrounds, and have various life goals. But they all have one thing in common – love for the game.
It is this common thread that brings people together on poker forums. Beyond that, however, they all have other interests outside of poker and enjoy talking about them as well.
That’s why many poker forums have off-topic areas where people can chill, talk about sports, movies, or whatever else they feel like. Being a member of a poker forum can provide you with that sense of community and help you meet new people from all over the world. Since many players spend countless hours sitting in front of the computer or visiting casinos, chatting with others surely helps in terms of avoiding loneliness and isolation.
This may not be as important to everyone as it doesn’t necessarily help you poker-wise. That said, meeting new people with different interests and world views will help you broaden your perspective and is likely to improve your overall quality of life.