Limit poker or Fixed Limit poker is a betting structure with both a set bet amount as well as a limit to the number of bets per round. Limit poker is the more common type of game played in a non-tournament setting. The “cash games” or “ring games” in most card rooms are played with a fixed limit structure. For example, you walk into a poker room and you see on the board 4/8 Hold’em; 8/16 Hold’em and 4/8 Omaha. What does that mean?

Well there are two different limit Hold’em games being spread in this room and one limit Omaha game. The first Hold’em games will begin with blinds of 2 and 4. The big blind always matches the first limit in the game section, so in a 4/8 game the big blind is 4. Betting will be in increments of 4 both before and after the flop and in increments of 8 on the turn and river. Same for the Omaha 4/8 game. The higher betting limit is in place in the last two rounds of play.
This means that after the blinds of 2 and 4 are put out and the cards are dealt the first player to the left of big blind may either fold, call the 4 or raise to 8. The next player may fold, call the 8 or raise to 12. All bets are in factors of 4 (4, 8, 12, 16, 20….). Most limit games cap the number of bets, usually at 4 or 5 bets per round. Be aware that in some games this limit is removed if and when the hand becomes heads up between two remaining players.

“Limit” games refer to the posted betting limits, these games often will have minimum buy-ins set by the house but no maximum buy-in because the amount you can wager on any hand is limited by the betting structure. Some tournaments are played with limit betting structures including most if not all of the HORSE, Razz and Stud tournaments. Omaha and Omaha Hi/Lo are played with both limit and pot limit structures.

The next post will cover “pot limit” structures.

-This is Beginner’s Poker Blog Post #112

The game that has popularized poker is No Limit Texas Hold’em. The No Limit betting structure is seldom applied to other forms of poker, like Omaha, Razz or Stud. The basic rule of No Limit betting is simple: When it is a players turn to act they may bet any or all of their chip stack. The No Limit bet or “All In” as it is commonly known is a powerful move, which some purists will tell you is overused by beginning players. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves, while your entire stack is your high end limit for your bet in a No Limit structure, there is also the minimum bet to consider.

Hold’em is generally played with two forced blind bets, called the small blind and the big blind. Let’s just take for our example a No Limit tournament situation where the blinds are 100/200. Once the 100 small blind and the 200 big blind are posted, the down cards are dealt and the first player to the left of the big blind is first to act. They may fold, call the big blind of 200 or raise. If a player decides to raise then they must raise “at least” the amount of the big blind. So the minimum raise would be 200 making the minimum raise bet 400 (200 to call the big blind + a minimum raise of 200). The next player to act may fold, call the 400 or raise to at least what? The answer is not 800 but 600. A raise must be “at least” an additional bet of whatever was the last raise or the big blind whichever is more.

Let’s try one more example. The blinds are 500/1,000. After three players fold, the next player makes it 4,500. What is the next bet, if the next player only wants to raise the minimum?

Well the first raise was 3,500, from 1,000 to 4,500; so the next player could minimum raise another 3,500 making the bet 8,000.

Now the easy question. What is the maximum raise?

That’s why so many players like No Limit Hold’em, the maximum raise is always whatever you have in front of you. If you have only 6,400, then you can make it 6,400 and if you have 65,000, well go ahead! Its called No Limit Hold’em.

-This is Beginner’s Poker Blog Post #111

This is our second Tournament Director’s Association rule discussion. Note that we are not taking the rules in order, 1 through 40, but rather looking at the rules as we feel they might help a beginning player understand the play of a sanctioned tournament. We will eventually work our way through the entire TDA set of tournament rules.

Rule #7: Penalties and Disqualifications.

A penalty MAY be invoked if a player exposes any card with action pending, throws a card off the table, violates the one-player-to-a-hand rule, or similar incidents take place. Penalties WILL be invoked in cases of soft play, abuse, or disruptive behavior. Penalties available to the TD include verbal warnings and “missed hand” penalties. A missed hand penalty will be assessed as follows: The offender will miss one hand for every player, including the offender, who is at the table when the penalty is given multiplied by the number of rounds specified in the penalty; for the period of the penalty the offender shall remain away from the table. Tournament staff can assess one-, two-, three-, or four-round penalties or disqualification. A player who is disqualified shall have his or her chips removed from play. Repeat infractions are subject to escalating penalties.

Notice that the floor staff have some discretion as penalties MAY be enforced versus WILL be enforced. I would point out that even in the “WILL be” situations, there remains a good deal of discretion left in the hands of the tournament staff. As with any tournament rule if you feel there is a violation or if you do not understand why a rule is not being enforced, you are within your rights to call for the floor and as for a ruling or rule clarification.

-This is Beginner’s Poker Blog Post #110

There is, of course, much less information available to the online poker player then there is to the live player. This is not to say that there are not tells online, there are and they are worth noting.

First of all there are the tells that are the same online or live. Most common of these are the betting patterns. Players, in fact, get into even more betting patterns online because of the ease of making certain bets. If the “pot bet” is an automated button function in the site’s software, you will find player’s who resort to that easy option except when they have a big hand or a big bluff to make. “Pot” will be their default bet with all of their drawing and middle range hands.

The most obvious online tell is time. Again if players are using the automated buttons they will often pre-select their bet before the action is on them. Ninety-nine percent of the time this action will be a call and just as often this is a weak bet, just looking to see the flop. It is referred to online as the “Insta-Call” or the “Insta-Check” and it is a lazy tell. Obviously, the “Insta-Raise” should be consider a strong tell for the same reason, the player has hit the raise button without regard to what players acting ahead of him might do. A strong tell but still a lazy play.

Finally, there is the delaying tactic; where a player holds their action until just before they are timed out. Be careful with this one. Sometimes a player has a monster and wants you to think they are really struggling with their call. Other times the delay is used to put players on tilt, the online game moves much faster then the live game and purposely slowing it down can put some players on tilt faster then a slow cocktail waitress. And don’t forget, sometimes what looks like a delaying tactic is actually a slow internet connection and it means absolutely nothing as far as the poker game is concerned.

-This is Beginner’s Poker Blog Post #109

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My first poker teacher told me that poker players will tell you how they play, sometimes they will even tell you what they have in their hand; all you have to do is listen.

Table talk is the most common source of information you can get at a poker table. Its free, it never stops and some players are just unable to control themselves. Every word spoken at a poker table potentially can give you information about a player. Here are some examples:

You have been playing a cash game for several hours when two of the players ask the floor to change the channel on the television to their team’s World Cup match. They even bring out the team colored scarves. How closely do you think these players will be paying attention to the poker for the next three hours? They are going to sit at your table, with their money and play distracted. Thank them after the match is over.

This is a very common table talk tell. A player at the other end of the table makes a questionable play and a couple of players at “your end” quietly talk about it. Not only do they tell you what a bad play it was and why…. They also tell you how they would have played the hand. Be sure to nod and agree with them but don’t thank them out loud for the free information about how they play the game.

The after-the-hand chatter is another good source of information. Players (OK bad players) like to show how smart they are by analyzing the hand after it is over. Listen up, they are telling you how they read the other players and how they would have played the hand themselves. Isn’t this exactly the information you are constantly trying to infer from the play, why not take it when it is offered for free?

-This is Beginner’s Poker Blog Post #108

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We have talked about betting patterns as a tell and chips as a tell; now let’s combine the two into my favorite poker tell. There are basically two ways to put chips into the pot; you place the chips or you toss the chips. Now clearly to avoid a chip betting tell, you should always bet with the same movement but, once again, players often do not do this.

Watch a player, if they place there chips in the pot sometimes and toss them other times, you may have a dead on tell. But be careful because some players toss when they are strong and others toss to intimidate when they are weak. Some players will gently place their chips in the pot when they have the nutz and others will place them in quietly hoping you won’t catch their bluff.

This chip tell can be different for different players but once you have it figured out, you can make a lot of money with this tell. Players are clearly unaware they do this, just as they are unaware of most tells. But this is a lazy tell, if you can’t be disciplined enough to make the same chip move each time you bet then the tell is nearly always a fool proof sign of the players weakness or strength; it is your job to figure out which.

-This is Beginner’s Poker Forum Post #107

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The most common action a player takes at the table is to fold; you don’t get a lot of useful information when a player folds. The second most common action is to not fold, which requires the player to bet. Betting action requires using your chips and chips are the source of many different tells. If you are going to repeat an action over and over in a tournament situation then you want to complete that action the same way each time, so as to not give off any tells but players do not move their chips the same every time and how they move them is very, very telling.

There is a powerful tendency when dealt a strong hand or when you flop a big hand to look at your chips or even reach over and touch your chips. Don’t do it! That is a dead giveaway that you are preparing to bet. Watch for it in other players, particularly on the flop.

Chip tricks or simply playing with chips can also be a tell. What about the guy who is always shuffling his chips, you know the one-handed split-and-stack move that everyone learns (see picture above). What does it tell you when he suddenly stops doing that? Has he made a hand? Is he unable to do his little chip trick and think at the same time?

Attaching the chip movement to the right read is key to this tell but the more important practices are for you not have a chip tell but to watch for them in your opponents.

-This is Beginner’s Poker Forum Post #106

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The most common action players take at the table is betting. How a player bets can give away huge amounts of information about their holding. Being aware of any “patterns” in how your opponents bet will give you information about their hand. Betting patterns are one of the easiest tells to overcome yet many players are unable to do so.

The most common betting tell is when a player tries to see flops cheap with marginal hands but will raise with their strong hands. The suited connectors and small pairs get limped and the big pairs and big aces are raised. The simply way to avoid any betting pattern is to bet the same amount every single time you enter a pot. If you always come in for a 3 times the big blind raise, no one will know what you have based on any betting pattern.

By the same token, players who are able to randomize their bets can lure their opponents in making bad decision based on perceived betting pattern tells. Suppose you limped 20% of the time, regardless of your holding; which means that 1 in 5 times you limp with a playable hand. You will limp with Aces once in five; and you limp with deuces the same. Now not only are you not giving a readable betting tell but you are luring your opponents into making false assumptions about your hands.

As far as reading your opponents betting patterns, watch for limpers who fold to most post-flop bets; they are trying to get in cheap and hit a monster flop. Such players are often going to lay down those limped hands to a pre-flop raise and hand you uncontested chips.

-This is Beginner’s Poker Forum Post #105

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We mentioned body language first for the big obvious nervous tells. Then we spoke about the Poker Face or rather the lack of poker face that so many players show. Even more specific and perhaps the hardest tell to control is the eyes. I remember when I went to get my first pair of contact lenses and I was having trouble holding my eye lid open to get that pesky bit of plastic onto my eye; the optometrist said: “Do you really think your eyelid is stronger than your index finger?” The point is that eyes are very hard to control.

I once played against a player blinked at every flop that missed his hand and stared completely wide-eyed at every flop that helped him. He had no idea and I made a lot of money. Watch the eyes.

The most common attempts to control eye tells are just as easy to see. If a player quickly looks away from a flop, it usually helped them; they are attempting to misdirect you with their eyes. If a player stares at a flop, they are trying to figure out if it helped them; if you can’t tell if a flop helped you immediately, it didn’t help.

One final common “eye” tell, when a player looks back at their hole cards they usually don’t need to. The “relook” is a false tell, they are attempting to make you think they are unsure of their hand; don’t fall for it, they have a hand.

By the way, eye tells are exactly why many players wear sunglasses at the table and why many want that practice banned. The eyes are the windows of the soul or at least a reflection of the hole cards.

-This is Beginner’s Poker Forum Post #104

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If body language is an important tell then the most important part of your opponent’s body to watch is their face. We’ve all heard the term “poker face”, but truly controlling your facial expressions is not as easy as it sounds. Take just one session at the poker tables (or just stand near a table and watch) study the player’s faces and you will see nervousness, excitement, anxiety, shock, fear and confidence.

There are players who are completely unaware that their facial expressions are giving away their hands. Others are trying so hard to not show any signs they get so stone-like when they have a hand that the non-expression gives them away. Some players will tighten their jaw when they hit, others will begin to blink wildly when they bluff. If you pay attention you will become aware of patterns in their facial expressions that will give you information what they hold in their hands.

Eyes dilate, veins bulge, lips purse, nostrils flare. The “Poker Face” is known by everyone but mastered by few; all of the others are giving off tells that you should learn to decipher.

-This is Beginner’s Poker Forum Post #103