As we improve our poker game, we add more and more plays to our arsenal. At some point, usually about the time we advanced to a good solid intermediate player, many players run into Fancy Play Syndrome. This happens so often that we have a name for it. FPS happens when we let our “knowledge” of certain aspects of the game outweigh the common sense approach of playing to win. Fancy Play Syndrome is playing to be noticed, playing to show off, playing to upstage other players and almost always FPS results in losing.

Some examples of Fancy Play Syndrome are:

• Betting when you should be calling
• Checking when you should be raising
• Calling when you should be folding
• Overusing tricky tactics
• Trying too hard to outplay every opponent every hand

Often times you can recognize FPS because it appears the player caught up in Fancy Play Syndrome is actually playing all of their hands backwards. Checking every strong hand to try and trap every opponent and inevitably letting them draw out on you. Or bluffing at every missed flop, the other players can’t always miss the flop just because you do. The other FPS problem that many players overlook is that for many advanced plays to work, your opponent has to recognize the play and believe you. Advanced plays often don’t work against weaker opponents.

The opposite of Fancy Play Syndrome is ABC poker and the way out of FPS is simply to go back to ABC poker. Once you are out of the woods, you can begin to add back the moves and plays you have learned but only when appropriate. Remember the winner is the player who takes home the money, not the one who looks good at the table.

-This is Beginner’s Poker Blog Post #142

Several times we have mentioned the value of talking through your play with your poker buddies. But your poker pals are not always around, so the use of poker forums is an always available means for you to stay sharp by engaging in poker discussions with other players. Our poker forum has many ongoing discussions just waiting for you to join in.

Visit the Texas Hold’em Forum or the Beginner’s Poker Discussion.

Want to know more about Online Poker or Tournament Poker, there are separate forums for each of those.

There is a Poker News thread, one for Omaha players and just in case you need to vent, a uncensored forum for Bad Beats.

Come and join in the discussion today!

-This is Beginner’s Poker Blog Post #141

Knowing some basic statistics about poker hands and poker draws will make many of your decisions at the table much easier. Your recall of an exact percentage or the odds to the last decimal is almost never called for; simply have a rough idea of how often cards fall and what your general odds are of making a draw is generally all that is needed.

The first statistic most Hold’em players learn is this one. Your odds of being dealt pocket aces are 220 to 1. Now that may seem a daunting number, only getting those big, beautiful Aces once in every 200+ hands but the first lesson of winning poker is that you must win hands without great cards most of the time. Two hundred and twenty to one is your statistical proof.

Look a bit deeper at that number, 220 to 1, and you will see that at a full table of ten players; someone will be dealt Pocket Aces once every 22 deals; so not losing to aces is a better poker strategy to learn than winning when you do get them. You are going to be facing aces a lot more often than you have them yourself.

One more calculation you can make from these statistics. The odds on your having Pocket Kings on any given hand is 220 to 1, same odds for Pocket Queens and Pocket Deuces. So your odds of starting a Hold’em hand with a pair is 220 divided by thirteen possible pairs or 17 to 1. Every seventeen hands, on average, you should get a pocket pair. Further at a full ten player table, the odds on any one deal that one player is holding a pocket pair is 1.7 to 1.

-This is Beginner’s Poker Blog Post #140

Another in our series covering the rules of the Tournament Directors Association.

Rule #12: No Disclosure. No Advice. One Player to a Hand.

Players are obligated to protect the other players in the tournament at all times. Therefore, players, whether in the hand or not, may not:

1. Disclose contents of live or folded hands

2. Advise or criticize play before the action is complete.

3. Read a hand that hasn’t been tabled

The one-player-to-a-hand rule will be enforced.

There is some debate about what two heads up players can and cannot discuss while in the hand. Clearly, however, players not involved in the hand should not discuss the hand in any way; should not offer advice or any information they have about the hand or the players involved. No player may have an substantive conversation with any other person about the hand at any time.

The one exception to this rule is the consideration given to blind players. They may have an associate who reads their cards for them and also will in an audible voice tell them what bets are made and what cards appear on the flop, turn and river.

-This is Beginner’s Poker Blog Post #139

One of the best feelings in tournament poker is to look around the table and see that you have the biggest stack there. Playing the big stack effectively requires a couple of simple strategies. First, you should make yourself a constant presence, the short and medium stacks fear you, so keep them in fear. Pressure the small stacks, use every poker move you have. Make them play for all their chips or fold; make seeing a flop costly.

This does not mean you should be crazy. Avoid any other big stacks, just like they will avoid you. Don’t play a big pot with a marginal hand. Folding after your are reraised is fine; ego is not an issue, you can afford to lay some hands down, you are the Big Stack! The only wrong move with a big stack is to sit on it and let someone else catch you from behind.

Do keep on eye on the other tournament tables. Being the big stack at a table with little action might well mean there are many more much bigger stacks at other tables. If your table is playing very conservatively then you either need to stir up some action or take only what they give you and know that you are only the big fish in your little pond and once the tables start to break you will be a medium stack at best.

Big stack play can be a little tricky but isn’t it where you want to be? You win a lot more from the front of the pack then you ever will coming from behind.

-This is Beginner’s Poker Blog Post #138

Many times in tournament play you are going to find yourself with a short stack. This means that in relation to the blinds you have very few chips. Players will have different stack sizes in mind when they talk about being “short” but in general if you have less than 10 big blinds you are short stacked. A few things to remember when you get short and you will:

-Do not give up, you are still in the tournament you can double up several times and be right back in it.

-However, you cannot afford to wait for premium hands, the blinds will eat you up. You need to pick a spot and make a move.

-Probably your only move is all in. No sense in holding back a few chips, make as strong a stand as possible.

-Try to avoid playing against the big stacks, who might find your stack so small that they will call with any two cards.

-Unless you get lucky and are dealt a monster, you should be first into the pot; don’t be calling all your chips when other players are already playing. You want your bet, if possible, to take down the pot without a challenge.

-This is Beginner’s Poker Blog Post #137

You are going to hear a lot of talk at the poker table about “outs”. This term refers to the number of cards that will make your hand. The most common examples are outs to a flush or straight. For example, you have two diamonds in your hand and two more come on the flop, so you have four of the thirteen diamonds, which leaves nine diamonds to make your flush. Or you have nine outs to the flush.

Straights come in a couple of “out” possibilities. Let’s say you hold QJ and the flop has a King and a Ten; you have an open-end straight draw, either of four Aces or four Nines will make your straight. You have eight outs to your straight. If you hold QJ and the flop is 984 then you have the inside straight draw to the ten and you have only four outs.

Players will calculate their outs in order to decide on pot odds. So if you have 9 outs and there is 47 cards you do not know about in the deck (52-2 in your hand -3 in the flop) then you are about 1 to 5 to hit your draw, if the pot gives you better odds than that you might want to make the call; worse odds and mathematically you should fold.

-This is Beginner’s Poker Blog Post #136

Casinos and card rooms both online and real world will at times offer players a free entry tournament usually as a reward for patronage in the card room. There are a few things you should know about freerolls. First, they are not exactly free. Oh sure the entry to a freeroll tournament is zero but the prizepool comes out of rakes and tournament fees paid by players just like you and if there is a “bonus” drop in your cash games that helps to fund the freeroll prize pool. So the prizes comes from the players. We are not trying to be cynical here, in fact, you should play freerolls, afterall, you paid for them!

Now about actually playing in a freeroll. These tournaments play very differently then other events. Because they are “free”, online they often attract huge fields and play in the early rounds is very loose; players will move all in with practically any above average hand. You can expect the first half or more of an online freeroll to be a wild affair.

Live freeroll events tend to play differently. The qualification for a freeroll in a card room is usually a set number of hours over a period of time. Perhaps 10 hours in a week or 40 hours over a month. Live game players often see freerolls as a bonus to their game and treat the freeroll as an opportunity to recoup losses or grow their bankroll. You already know these players have played some hours to qualify for the tournament, you should treat a live freeroll as a gathering of experienced players who will play the tournament solidly, not at all like the online freeroll.

-This is Beginner’s Poker Blog Post #135

We have been talking about bad beats and going on tilt, sometimes after a bad beat you will hear the term “runner-runner” to describe what happened in the hand. The term refers to a situation where the winning hand needed both the turn and the river cards to win the hand. For example:

One player holds KK and the other has 98s. The flop is 24Q. The kings lead by a wide margin but the turn is a J giving the 98 a gutshot straight draw, a ten will complete the straight (QJ1098) when the 10 hits the river we say: the straight went “runner-runner” for the win. This happens with flushes and straights and even sometimes with a full house, two pair or trips. It is almost always a bad beat as getting two consecutive cards to win a hand has got to be something of a draw-out.

Sometimes the player who loses the hand to the runner-runner will say they got run down and we think they would be right about that.

-This is Beginner’s Poker Blog Post #134

OK you took a nasty bad beat, you busted out of the tournament on the bubble and you missed your freeroll online because you were in the tournament right up until the loudmouth from Chicago hit a nine on the river. We have already reminded you that no one wants to hear your bad beat story ….. but wait!

There is something to be learned from a bad beat and possible the best way to learn is to go over the hand with someone else who knows poker. NO! Don’t call me up and whine about your bad beat but, as with all of my poker buddies, you can call me and go over the hand. There are always questions.

-Could you have gotten away from the hand?

-Was that the right amount to bet?

-Could you have gotten him off the hand with a bigger bet early?

-Was that guy a calling station and if so, did you have the pot odds to take him to the river?

Sometimes you just get (bad) beat. But other times, you can do an analysis of the hand and come away with another way to play the situation that might save some of your chips. It is good to know when it really was just a huge bit of luck variance that took you out and when you actually had another play. It pays to do a post-game on your tournament and sometimes it even helps the pain when you go over the bad beat with a buddy who has been there.

-This is Beginner’s Poker Blog Post #133