Poker superstar Phil Hellmuth has released quite a number of poker instructional DVDs, but being a avid online and live tournament player, this was the video I was most interested in watching, and the fact that Phil Hellmuth has won more money playing tournament poker than anyone else in the world is like being able to buy a Tiger Woods Golf DVD on winning The Masters. The hard facts are that numerous players fail to adapt their style from cash game to tournament game, playing far too tight, not opening up their game enough, and just literally playing bad poker. Luckily, the DVD covered practically every aspect of the poker tournament experience, from simply entering a tournament, basic strategies, to the more advanced theories on “Making it to a final Table”, “Maintaining your chip lead”, and “Bluffing and Tells”.

I particularly found his section on “Building a chip lead during the first few hours of play”, especially informational, since in tournament play (even more so than in cash games), chips are your bullets, and the more bullets you bring into a fight, the more likely you are to win the battle. Its definitely first-class poker strategy that you’ll be rewinding over and over again so that it’s ingrained in your memory.

Other sections touched upon include

• Making it to a final table

• Building your stack by “stealing” the blinds

• Defending yourself against the world champion players

• Winning if you are low on chips

• Final table strategies

Moral of the story, I won my largest tournament payday up until that point in my poker playing (Roughly $6,500) about 3 weeks after watching this DVD. It can only improve your play, and at the going price you’ll find it for here, it’s not going to bust your bankroll to afford it, and if you take in all the info the “Poker Brat” has to offer, your going to see that in front of you grow.

By: Chris Iaquinta

There is something that gets under my skin more than just about anything else at a poker table and that is when a player groans and complains about how they always lose when they have strong starting hands like AK, KK and even AA.  These are the same players that are known to utter the phrase “I always lose when I have AA”.  There’s a reason so many players lose with big starting hands, and that is simply because they don’t know how to play those hands correctly.

The first myth to dispel is that these hands are invincible.  They certainly are not, but statistically they represent the best possible starting hands you can get, so overall they should provide you with outstanding opportunities to seize chips from your opponent.  But where does it go wrong?  Simple, it all comes down to miscalculating the revised strength of these card combinations as the hand plays out.

I’ll give you an example.  Say you have KK and there are three opponents still in the hand and the flop comes A-9-7 with two spades.  A lot of players will continue to play their pocket kings like they’re unbeatable and end up losing the majority of the time.  They fail to realize all the warning signs that the flop brings into play.  With four players in a hand (you and three opponents) it is very likely that at least one of the players is holding an ace, which automatically cancels out any foothold of strength your kings had pre-flop.  Next, there are both flush and straight draws on the board as well.  A straight draw in this situation isn’t nearly as likely as a flush draw, but it is something to consider.  And of course the biggest problem is that you allowed three opponents to see the flop in the first place.  Ideally when you have big pocket pairs you want to raise enough so that you’ll get just one to two callers at the absolute most.

So now what do you do in this scenario?  If you check, then someone will probably bet and you’ll have no idea where you sit in the hand.  If you bet and are called you’ll still have little to no idea if you’re beat, and if you bet and are raised, you’ll almost have to fold since you could be drawing thin to a paired ace.  In early position many players would check here just to try and get as much information as possible as to where they are strength-wise in the hand, and that’s what I would recommend.  Even though you may have been dominant pre-flop, the flop has now completely changed the dynamic of the hand and you likewise must change how you were going to approach playing your cards.

Just keep in mind that strong pocket pairs and hands like AK and AQ are only as strong as the flop allows them to be.  Don’t overplay these big hands, instead you must capitalize on the early strength they provide if possible, yet at the same time be able to abandon them if the situation isn’t favorable.

By: Chris Iaquinta

Ok, maybe I’m promising too much with that headline, but it is true that you can expect to pull profit out of any table/session as long as you know what rules to follow.  These aren’t necessarily tips that deal with specific card strategies or tactics, but rather just simple guidelines that are easy to adhere to and follow.

1.  Attack the Weak – We’ve all heard the classic poker saying “If you can’t find the fish at the poker table, you’re it”, and it really does ring true.  You never want to be the weakest player at a table, as your opponents will pick up on this and begin to target you as the session plays out.  Smart players pick their battles and will avoid playing against experienced and strong opponents as often as possible and instead focus their efforts on going after those that give off weakness in their game.  If you’re confident that you are at least one of the 3-4 strongest players at the table, try to avoid the other strong players and zero in on the ones that can be pushed around when pressured and you’ll find that you can make a lot more stress free money than when going toe to toe with a high caliber opponent.

2.  Maximize Your Winnings – I’ve seen countless players win the absolute minimum in a pot simply because they did not know how to extract the maximum amount of chips from their opponents.  These players are normally afraid of getting outdrawn or beaten and will end up checking or over-raising the pot.  While you do need to protect your hand, you also need to be willing to gamble a little in order to win more chips.  Learn how to make good value bets in hands where you are extremely strong, as earning a little extra money here and there is what can change a losing session into a winning one.

3.  Know When to Change Tables – Have you ever seen people in a card room constantly changing tables and signing up for different games while already involved in one?  What they’re doing is trying to find the table that is best suited for their game.  One table may have too many good players all attacking one to two weaker ones, which will kill your chances of making any money, while another table could be full of players that play slowly and drag the action to a crawl.  If the playing conditions at your table are less than optimal and you have a few others to choose from, don’t be afraid to request a seat elsewhere so that you can change it up a little and hopefully enter a game more tailored to your abilities

By: Chris iaquinta

Unless you have money to burn, when you first get into poker you will probably be playing at the absolute smallest limit tables available. In an actual brick and mortar card room this will usually be $1-$2 limit but online you can find games as low as $.01-$.02. Playing these games is fine for getting your feet wet in poker, but at the same time you need to realize that the strategies and tactics employed at these tables is going to be far different then when you step up and play at the higher levels. Here are some things to pay attention to.

1. Bluff Less – It’s much easier to bluff someone out of a pot when you can put in enough money to put them to a decision. However, if the maximum amount you can put in is $2, you’re likely going to get called by someone that has any kind of a hand. The problem at the low-limit levels is that you can’t put enough pressure on someone because of the small stakes. Bluffing only works on two conditions; either your opponent has no hand at all, or they aren’t willing to commit a certain amount of chips in order to try and improve their hand or at least believe they have the best hand currently. Since the low-limits removes one of these possibilities, you need to be very careful when you decide to bluff off your chips.

2. Raise Often – This is not to say that you should raise the pot in every hand, but in situations where you do have to protect your hand, you need to raise frequently, especially in low-limit games. Why? In low-limit games you’ll often see the entire table match the big blind in order to see a flop since the cost of playing is so cheap. If you have a real strength hand like AK, you do not want 7 opponents seeing that flop. If someone raises in front of you, you can ever consider a re-raise in order to thin the field even more. Don’t sit back and make minimum raises or just flat call in low-limit games, you’ll end up playing against too many opponents each hand, which will diminish the strength of your hand considerably.

3. See Cheap Flops – When shouldn’t you raise? When you have a good drawing hand that can flop big and potentially net you a lot of chips. An A-2 of hearts in middle position isn’t worth raising with in most situations, and a lot of people will usually throw this hand away, however in a low-limit game if you can see a flop for cheap with a hand that can hit it big, you may be able to clean up if you make your flush, straight, trips, etc. If someone raises you can then choose to get out easily without having to commit too much of your stack.

By: Chris Iaquinta

With most forms of entertainment, knowing when to quit is easy. For physical activity you will stop either when the game ends or when you get tired, likewise with other forms of enjoyment such as movies and TV. For whatever reason though, poker can be very hard to walk away from, regardless of the playing conditions. You would think that if someone was losing a lot of money that they would want to get up and leave in order to save some of their bankroll, but all too often that same player will sit there until their whole stack is gone. The same goes for the player that will continue to play for hours long after they’ve started to fatigue and tire. Whatever the reason may be, you need to be able to identify the warning signs that will alert you as to when you may want to call it quits from your current poker session.

The most notable and easiest sign to identify is when you’re losing. Now this isn’t to say that whenever you are losing in a session that you should get up and leave, but you need to be able to be honest with yourself as to why you’re losing. Are you awake and playing strongly but just aren’t catching great cards? Then you should be ok to keep going. However if you’re not playing anywhere near your peak level and are making bad decisions because of it, then you should strongly consider taking a break.

Another warning sign that is easy to pick up on is how you physically feel while playing. Sitting in a chair for hours on end is easy for some and miserable for others. Perhaps you are alert and active for the first four hours of a session, but then your energy drops off dramatically and you start to pay less and less attention to the game at hand. A lack of attentiveness can lead to bad calls and raises, which will eventually lead to losses. If you find yourself far too tired to play, you need to be able to force yourself out of the chair no matter how much you are losing (or even winning), as in the very near future the physical drain will end up taking a toll on your play in one way or another.

By: Chris Iaquinta

If you love to play poker, then you probably love to watch poker, and thanks to the still high popularity of poker, there is no shortage of poker TV shows to watch from, and the best part is that they all try to offer something that the other doesn’t, giving us the viewer quite a selection for our viewing pleasure.  From shows that cover the biggest tournaments on the planet, the most exclusive cash games, to even some casual single-table events, there’s definitely one that’ll scratch your poker inch.  Here are my recommendations.

High Stakes Poker – The best part about High Stakes Poker is that it’s a cash game played by the best players in the world who gamble more on a single hand than five average households make in a year.  We’ve all seen players lose hundreds of thousands of dollars in tournament chips before, but there’s a special thrill that comes from watching someone make a bluff for a quarter of a million dollars in real money.  Seeing how the pros react and adapt to the sky-high stakes is what truly makes the show interesting, not to mention that the skill level on display is also world-class.

Poker After Dark – While most poker shows air once a week at best, Poker After Dark is on almost every day of the week and is different from every other poker show in just about every way imaginable.  Every Poker After Dark match is played using a single-table tournament format, and practically every hand is shown over the course of the week.  You wouldn’t think that seeing someone raise preflop and watching everyone fold would be interesting to watch, and often times it isn’t, but it’s refreshing to see a show that doesn’t edit the game so heavily that you only get to see the huge hands that pretty much decide the overall outcome of the match.  Being able to watch Phil Ivey work a table for hours as oppose to minutes provides a much deeper insight to his playing style and adds a extra special something that the other shows just can’t match.

The World Poker Tour – The WPT was really the first poker show to prove to the rest of the world just how interesting a weekly poker TV program could be.  From the excellent commentary to the elevated production values, the World Poker Tour is constantly setting the bar for how poker shows should be packaged and presented.  They’ve made household names out of a number of poker pros (and amateurs), not to mention the whole game show type setting in itself has really played a huge part in legitimizing poker in the eyes of the general viewing public.

By: Chris Iaquinta

There are a lot of things you can do at the poker table that can show your inexperience or lack of poker knowledge, but few of them are as easy to identify as when you make a bet or raise that is either far too large or small according to the situation.  Often times new players will try to force their opponents out of a hand by overbetting a pot to almost foolish levels, you see it all the time.  Such an example would be if you’re in a $1/$2 no-limit Hold’em cash game and it’s your turn to bet on fourth street and there’s only $15 in the pot and you lead out and bet $35.  There’s almost no situation where this would be acceptable and it will really show your opponents that you might not know a lot about the basic betting structures of poker.

If you’re first to act and you have multiple opponents that still have to act behind you, then the most you should consider betting is the amount that’s already in the pot, which in this case is $15.  The problem with overbetting is that there can always be someone with a hand far better than yours and now you’ve committed way too many chips to a pot that you will probably lose, when instead you could’ve bet less and still learned just how you strong your hand was in comparison to the other players.

The other problem is when a player bets a really small amount.  An example would be a bet of $5 into a $40 pot.  A $5 bet into a pot that size isn’t going to scare any opponent enough to get them to fold, and in fact what will happen a lot of times when someone underbets a pot is that a more experienced player will come over the top and raise a large amount to punish the small bettor.  And nothing’s worse than betting a small amount into a pot again and again multiple times in a hand.  If the pot is $50 and you bet $10 and you get called and then the next card comes and you bet $10 again, it’s going to be extremely obvious that you just don’t know how much to correctly bet.

So what’s the structure?  The easiest thing to remember is that you can often base the size of your bet or raise on how much is already in the pot.  The classic way of thinking is that if you want your opponent to call (in an instance where you have a hand that you know is very strong), then you bet about half of what’s in the pot. This type of bet is known as a value bet, as it is designed to get extract more chips from your opponents stack.  However if you prefer that your opponent fold his hand, then you should make a bet that is closer to the full size of the pot.

There are all types of betting variations that you can read up on, but for now those two simple rules of thumb will have you betting like a veteran player right away.

By: Chris Iaquinta

Sit & Go’s (also known as SNG) can easily be some of most entertaining online poker you’ve ever played as long as you understand that they are quite unlike most other forms of poker (such as normal tournaments and cash games) and require a different type of strategy in order to be successful.  SNGs are (typically) single table tournaments where payouts go to the top three finishers and everyone else is left with empty pockets.  Since there are far fewer opponents to worry about overall than in a regular tournament and the blinds/antes also go up far faster, some key changes to your standard poker strategy will need to be implemented if you want to dominate the online SNGs.   Here are a few of them.

1.  Early Round Patience – The first couple of rounds in a SNG can definitely set the tone of how the entire match will play out, and it’s important to use this time to make some mental notes (or use the poker software to physically right them down) on the other players at the table to see if you can properly gauge to strategy.  I often recommend that you sit back and relax in the early rounds of a SNG, simply because there will usually be a couple of players that want to play too fast and too loose in comparison to what the format of a SNG allows.  Stealing blinds and small pots isn’t going to mean much at the beginning of a SNG since the blinds/antes will be fairly low in comparison to chip stacks, plus if you get overly invested in a hand and end up losing a lot of chips as a result, you’ve now ensured that the rest of the table will zero in on you as someone they may be able to quickly eliminate from the game.  Use the first rounds of a SNG to gather information, wait for premium hands, and ID the strength and weaknesses of the other players.

2.  Hand Selection – If you have a tight/aggressive poker style, you will be very well suited for the early levels of a SNG.  Getting involved in too many pots and flops with average to medium strength hands often times won’t benefit you enough to make it worth your while, and you’ll just give away precious chips in the process.  Instead, try to wait for hands that fall into the top ten hand range (such as AK and big pocket pairs) and hope that you can use the opportunity to extract a lot of chips from one or two players.  If the table is playing far too slow and the blinds and antes start to go up to an uncomfortable level then you will have no choice but to widen your hand selection, but make sure that the situation calls for it so that you don’t needlessly donate too many chips to other players.

3.  End Game Aggression – One of the biggest problem poker players have when playing SNGs is that they can’t make the necessary transition from tight to aggressive as the game progresses.  When the game is winding down to the last few players and the blinds and antes start to skyrocket, you can’t afford to sit there and wait for pocket aces, you need to make some moves.  Statistically, it is correct to always try and play for 1st place when you get down to the final three players.  Coming in 3rd will give you very little profit and second place is nice, but the real money comes when you win the whole thing.  Don’t sit back and wait for the other players to knock each other out at this stage of the tournament either, as you may just blind yourself off and be forced to move all-in with less than preferred cards.  Always play a SNG to win, never play to be satisfied with just 2nd or 3rd, because if you do, you’ll never see a profit.

By: Chris Iaquinta