Tournament Director’s Association Rule 39: Dealers will be responsible for calling string raises (bets).

When you make a bet or a raise, you are required to make that bet in one motion. This means you cannot say put out 300 to call a bet and then go back to your stack to get more chips in order to raise. A two motion bet is called a string bet and will be (or should be) called by the dealer and not allowed.

However, the whole problem of string bets can be eliminated if you simply announce your bet. If you want to bet 500 and you say “500″, then you can drop your chips, misbet, knock your stack over or faint. The bet is 500 and there can be no string bet call made against you.

Also if you simply announce “Raise” you can put out the amount to make the call and then go back to your stack once to get the amount of chips you wish to raise. If any part of betting is unclear, then remember the golden rule: If you announce the amount of your bet, then that is the bet you have made and how you fumble or move your chips does not matter. You announced your bet and you get to make that bet.

Beginning players would be wise to make verbal calls and verbal raises to avoid and mistakes in moving your chips. Remember a string bet must be taken back but all of the players at the table know you wanted to make that bet, so they have additional information on your hand without having to call the string raise.

-this is Beginner’s Poker Blog Post #186

In the previous post we talked about attacking weakness but weak players will not be the only targets you have at the poker table. But even good players, maybe even players better than you will not have a hand every time. What you need to do when you play a hand is to apply pressure. Pressure pushes other players out of a hand. Pressure makes other players wary of playing against you. And pressure will build the pots when you have a big hand.

The way you apply pressure is with your chip stack. Let’s take an obvious example. You are in late position with AK and two players have limped in for 100. What do you do? Well you could fold, but we already know you are not a weak player. You could call and see a flop. You could raise. Let’s say you raise the minimum to 200. One or both of the blinds now have great odds to call and the two limpers have even better odds and probably better hands. You applied no pressure.

If you raised to 400, now the blinds need to wake up with a real hand to make the 350 or 300 chip call. Both limpers also face a 300 call and those small pocket pairs they limped with are not looking so good anymore. If they limped with AQ or AJ, you are just hoping they make the bad call. But they are faced with this bad call because you put pressure on them. Think of your chips as your foot soldiers and use them to pressure your opponents into folding and giving you the pot or making bad calls and giving you an even bigger pot.

-this is Beginner’s Poker Blog Post #185

One key to winning at the poker table is to play against weak players and avoid strong players. The first step in playing the weak player is identifying them. Weak players call instead of raising and check instead of betting. Weak players seldom, if ever, bluff and if they do raise, they only do it with a monster hand. Weak players are easy to read and so easy to play against. Once you have found the weak links at the table. You msut go after them.

It often doesn’t matter what cards you have against a weak player, your big weapon is betting. Weak players are reluctant to call bets with anything but the nuts. If they check, you must bet. If they call a bet and you are behind them — raise. The key to playing the weak player is keeping the pressure on them. Keep betting, keep raising until they play back at you. Some never will.

-this is Beginner’s Poker Blog Post #184

Ask any poker player what was one of the earliest skills they learned that really improved their game and many will say: Putting a Player on a Hand. The skill is easy to learn and difficult to master. All you do is guess what each player in a hand are holding. You should do it every time a hand is dealt, whether you are playing the hand or not. What did they raise with? What would they limp with? What cards does he need to call the post-flop bet? What does she have to put in a raise on the turn?

At first, when cards are shown on the river, you will be wrong a lot more often than you are right. So put the players on a range of hands until you are getting more right than wrong. Slowly you will find you are getting better and better at this and you will also begin to notice that many players are easy to read because they do not change up their play enough. The key to this important poker skill is practice. Stop looking at the game on the plasma screen, stop reading your email and practice putting a player on a hand.

Join us in the Online Poker Forum to discuss Putting a Player on a Hand.

-this is Beginner’s Poker Blog Post #183

The Recency Factor refers to a natural human tendency to attach more significance to recent events than to long term observations. In poker the application involves the reads you put on your opponents. Let’s say their is a tight, conservative player at your table, this player has been in a tight shell all day. Then he wins a hand with an outright bluff that hits a runner-runner to win, so he has to show his cards and everyone sees his bluff. Now the recency factor will make some players immediately adjust their reads on this player.

But this was only one hand and you have a tight read on this player for several hours before. The correct read is simply to note that this player is capable of making a bluff but remains, in general, a tight player or perhaps he is opening up his game. But changing a good read because of one hand is a mistake due to the Recency Factor and should be avoided. Reads are the accumulation of information on the other players where the timing of the plays should be given some but not too much weight. In fact, many players will make one loose play to throw off their tight image because they know about the Recency Factor and they know that one loose play will cause some opponents to change their read on them.

-this is Beginner’s Poker Blog Post #182

Not everyone plays the same and not everyone is capable of playing at the same level you are. Some players will just not be as good of a poker player as you and some will be better players than you. Figuring out what the skill level of your opponents is has a wide range of consequences. The most common element is simply that if a player is much less talented than you, you may discover that your super sophisticated moves will have no chance of working because your opponent will not recognize what you are doing. You can’t push a beginning rock off of a pot, even when you make the pot odds horrendous for them, because they don’t calculate pot odds. A post Oak bluff will not work if the other player doesn’t see it for what it is.

On the other end of the spectrum, your fancy moves may be completely transparent to a much better player and you will not see their adjustments to your game. Remember the old saying: “If you don’t recognize the fish at the table, it could be you.”

You wouldn’t read Daniel Negreanu the same way you read the new kid, who can’t figure out when it’s his turn to act. So figuring out how good your opponents are, should be your goal as soon as you sit down at a poker table. This is precisely why many players have a poker room they always play in, this means they will “know” some of the players every time they take a seat at the table and not be facing nine opponents of unknown skill levels.

-this is Beginner’s Poker Blog Post #181

One of the most common all in situations you will see in tournament poker is the two player heads up “coin flip”. One player holds a pocket pair and the other player has two overcards. For instance, player A holds the ever strong AK and player B has pocket sixes. When those hole cards get rolled over, someone invariably says: “It’s a race” or “it’s a coin-flip.”

Actually, in these situations the small pair is a slight favorite. If the AK is not suited then the odds are 54.82% for the pair to win and 44.79% for the AK. Not really a coin-flip at all. Notice there is a small chance of a tie here.

In situations where the smaller pocket pair is within “straight” range of the big cards the odds get better for the pocket pair. Say it’s AK up against JJ. Now the AKQJ10 straight is less likely for the AK hand, as two of the jacks are out. The odds here are 57.09% to 42.58%. It is enough to remember that in the typical “coin-flip” the smaller pocket pair, is a slight favorite. Even though you will swear every time you have the small pair you lose to the overcards, we all now know that is only 44.79% truthful.

-this is Beginner’s Poker Blog Post #180

Tables have a pace, sometimes fast other times slow. As a player at the table you have influence on this pace and can use it effectively to gain an edge on some opponents. You, of course, effect the pace by how much time you take when it is your turn to act. Beginning players often act too quickly. Notice how long it takes other players at your table to act, invariably the times will vary. You will notice that certain players take nearly the same amount of time for each and every decision, that is what you should strive for. You do not want your fast play to give away anything and in particular you do not want to be taking more time only with your big hands.

Also taking your time to make your decisions, there are less chances of making a mistake. Consider what you’re holding and what amount you’re willing to bet, raise, check or fold. Take time to notice how your opponents are acting, look for their tells. Poker is a thinking game, give yourself time to do the appropriate thinking on each hand. Never worry about holding up the game, other players will understand you are taking time for your decision and are not stalling or delaying the game.

If you remain aware of your pace as your game develops, you will fall naturally into a rhythm that best fits your decision making process.

-this is Beginner’s Poker Blog Post #179

Action means players are gambling or at least playing with some aggression and contesting the pots. No Action is just the opposite. Players are not putting chips in the pot and when they do you know they have big hands. The problem with a No Action table is not only is this boring poker but in a tournament you have no way to accumulate chips or knock players out to get new blood to your table or even better to get your table broken. In a fast moving tournament with a quick blind structure you can actually lose any chance of winning by being stuck at a No Action table.

The way out of this No Action limbo is simply to become aggressive. Even though you are now risking your chips if one of those rocks does wake up with a hand. You have to do something or just write your tournament off. So you push the action and take over your table. Most times you will begin to accumulate enough chips so that someone will play back at you. Someone will give you action. If you get no action, you just keep stealing the blinds until someone wants to play. If you can’t get no action, you can’t get no satisfaction.

-this is Beginner’s Poker Blog Post #178

There are times when a table is playing very slow or weak. No chips are really moving around the table. In a tournament this can be fatal, while your table is playing tight with little action, other tables are seeing big bets and bustouts, which means some players are building big stacks. You can’t win a tournament if you can’t acquire some chips. So you might consider “Pushing the Action”, which simply means you play aggressively. You might start by stealing the blinds, not once or twice but every time you are in middle or late position. You want someone to play back at you, you want to get some “action”.

Pushing the Action can have several results. One is that no one plays back and you build a stack based on stealing the blinds and antes. More often, one or more players will get the message and also get involved in more hands, if this happens your table will simply have more action and you have changed the table texture. You can also get caught stirring up the action because you are generally doing so without any real hands. But without action the table will limp along and no one will have a shot at the big money, so pushing the action is often the only way to wake up a sleeping table. The player who first pushes the action is often the beneficiary of a good stack of chips before anyone catches on.

-this is Beginner’s Poker Blog Post #177