When it comes to very basic poker strategy, continuation bets rank right among the top in terms of tactics that beginning and novice players should have a very good grasp of.  A continuation bet is when a player that raised the pot pre-flop makes another bet on the flop.  He is “continuing to bet”, which is more popularly referred to as a continuation bet.  The reason this type of play is so super important to have in your arsenal is that it plays up one of the most successful strategies in pre-flop and post-flop techniques, aggression.

The popular saying in poker is that if you always just check and/or call, you are only giving yourself a few ways to win the hand, while if you are the player that bets and raises, you are giving yourself multiple paths to win the hand.  The main strength behind a continuation bet is that it allows you to continue to use the momentum of your pre-flop raise to try and win the pot on the flop even if you didn’t make your hand.  Let’s say you have a hand like A-Q, raise it in middle position pre-flop, get one caller, and the flop comes J-7-2.  This flop wasn’t likely to have hit your opponent who called a pre-flop raise, so if you make a continuation bet, you are very likely to win the pot right there, as you are continuing to convey hand strength just like you did pre-flop.  However if you had limped in to the pot and hand the same flop, leading out with a bet is much harder to do with confidence.

Continuation bets also are smart plays because they allow you to get a lot of information about your opponent’s hand.  If you raise pre-flop, get called, and then make a continuation bet on the flop and get called or raised, you are now going to have a very good idea of what your opponent has.  This is why aggression is usually always favored over slow, timid strategies, as if enables you to win the pot while at the same time giving near-maximum information about the hand, while simply limping and calling removes virtually all of those benefits.

Continuation bets work best primarily in heads-up situations, especially if you yourself missed the flop.  If you raised pre-flop and got three or more callers, you may want to hold off on a continuation bet if you have a hand like K-Q and the flop comes A-J-8, as it is likely that someone has an ace and is going to call your continuation bet, leaving you with few outs on the turn and river.

Making these types of plays doesn’t always guarantee victory, but they are crucial parts of your poker arsenal that you should not take likely, as in the long run it will be far more profitable.

By: Chris Iaquinta

In my last two columns, I’ve discussed hand selection as it pertains to early and middle position. Hand selection in these two classifications, especially early position, require fairly strict discipline when it comes to choosing hands to get involved in a pot with. Middle position offers up a number of opportunities to safely open up your hand wide, while late position offers the most flexibility of all the starting positions.

The biggest advantage of acting in late position is that you will have the maximum amount of pre-flop information possible for that particular hand. While early position plays won’t have a clue what their opponents in middle position are going to do, you have the luxury in late position to having already seen what course of action they took and can now plan your play accordingly. This doesn’t mean call or raise with any two cards in the deck, but it does allow for some fairly open hand selection.

In late position, you’ll want to raise with the higher end selection of hands from early and middle position, plus you can also considering raising (and definitely calling) with these new entries: 6-6, 6-6, A-10, K-J, K-10, 10-9, 9-8. Obviously K-10 and 9-8 aren’t going to be worth raising with, but if your table is constantly limping in, there shouldn’t be any harm in seeing a flip with a very marginal hand like 10-9.

If you flop top pair with a hand like K-10, you’ll want to be very cautious as it is still very possible that another player at the table limped with an above average hand like K-Q. Luckily, if you’re seating on or to the right of the button, you’ll get the opportunity to once again see all the action and decisions made post-flop before you have to make a decision as to how you want to play the hand. Did everyone check to you and you have top pair? A bet will likely get the entire table to fold, with only those that maybe hit a piece of the flop or have a draw sticking around to see the next card.

Go back now and reread all three positional hand selection pieces, as knowledge of this information is going to prove to be invaluable again and again for as long as you play poker.

Last column we talked about hand selection as it applies to players in early position, and now I would like to take some time to cover the next level in positional hand selection from the middle spots. Middle position is assigned to players seated to the three to four seats to the left of the early position players. While it is very tough to try and open up your hand selection from the early positions, doing so in middle position is often far easier considering that players in those spots have been able to see some of the table action progress by the time it’s their turn to act, which gives them additional information to use when deciding what to do with their hand.

By: Chris Iaquinta

Hand selection, especially for newer players, is absolutely crucial for poker success.  Understanding what hands you should play and when will only make a number of decisions that come later in the hand easier to make.  Failure to know exactly which hands to raise, call or fold with depending on your position often leads to players not knowing how strong or weak their hand is compared to their opponents.  To get a better idea of how to base your hand selection on when it is your turn to act, lets start with early position.

Early position is the designation assigned to the first 2-3 players that have to act in the hand.  Players in these positions are at a disadvantage since they need to make a decision without knowing a lot of information about that particular hand.  Coming in with weak to marginal hands in early position is strongly discouraged because it opens you up to being raised by an opponent in mid to late position who holds a better hand.
To protect yourself as much as possible, you’ll want to limit your hand selection in early position to include AA, KK, QQ, JJ, 10-10, 9-9, AK, AQ.  These aren’t completely steadfast choices either.  AQ in early position can often be a dangerous hand to play, as if you’re raised pre-flop it’s hard to tell if you’re dominated or not, so you’ll want to reserve playing AQ in early position when you’re at tables where there is not a lot of pre-flop raising.

Occasionally you can try and limp in with weaker hands like KQ suited or small pocket pairs in early position, but you should only do so when it is likely that you won’t get raised.  It’s hard to call pre-flop raises with hands like these, and you’re just giving the chips away if you’re seated at a table with opponents that like to pre-flop raise all the time.  Next time we’ll take a look at hand selection as it applies to middle position.

By: Chris Iaquinta

There are great live poker players and there are great online poker players, but being one does not automatically mean you’re also the other.  Online and live poker have a number of important differences between them, and being aware of these separations can help players that started their poker careers online make a safe transition to live play.

The biggest change from online poker to live poker is the comfort factor.  Online poker offers the benefits of being able to play in your own on your own time under optimal conditions.  Making good calls and laydowns is easier online because the stress that inherently comes from playing live poker is greatly diminished while playing online.  When you can physically see your opponent, emotions play a much larger factor in your decisions.  Maybe this one player is very annoying, loud, and has been bullying you at the table.  Now when it comes time to make an all-in call or laydown, you’re likely to have other elements such as anger or the need to not want to be embarrassed at the table factoring into the decision you need to make.  This is why you need to make sure you are prepared for the social aspects of live poker when you venture out into that world.

Another big problem online poker players have in the transition to live play is that they lose confidence in their hands and strategies.  It’s much easier to make a mathematically correct tough call online than it is live, as it’s far simpler to click “call” on your screen then to physically grab chips and put them in the middle.  Because of this, you’ll see online players laying down big hands simply because they feel out of their comfort zone in a live atmosphere.  The best way to overcome this problem is to build confidence in your own game.  If making a certain move is mathematically correct online, it will likely be just as good of a play in a live setting.

Learn to downplay the fear and social aspects of live play and you’ll be able to successfully bring your online expertise into the real world.

Read an interview on practically any successful poker player and the one thing most of them will have in common is that they’ll openly admit to having gone broke at least once in their poker careers, sometimes even frequently.    Proper money management is easily one of the biggest problems that affect the vast majority of poker players, from the newcomer all the way to the experienced pro.  Here are a few tips to help you keep control of your bankroll.

1.  Play The Right Game – One of the fastest ways to blow through your chips is to play in a game that far exceeds your skill level.  It’s okay to test yourself against tougher games every once in awhile, but typically you want to frequent games where you are consistently a better player than at least half the table.  Weak players are usually the most profitable ones to play against, rather than having to struggle and make tough plays against great opponents.

2.  Don’t Risk All Your Money – It may sound like a no brainer, but you’d be amazed at the number of established players that have no problem putting a large amount of their overall bankroll at risk at the table at any given time.  There are even a select few that will put it all out there at once.  This is a terrible way of playing as you’ll probably be constantly focusing on how much your losing, not to mention that a few suckouts or bad beats could result in the loss of many if not all of your chips.  A common practice is to never risk more than 10% of your overall bankroll at any given session.  Is your bankroll $100, then play online games where you can buy-in and compete for just $10.

3.  Save A Little – Many players like to focus on building up their bankroll for the sole purpose of playing in larger games.  While this is certainly fine in a sense, there’s no rule against pulling a little bit of your profits out of your poker reserves and saving it for a rainy day.  If you’ve had a string of great sessions and have booked significant profits, you may want to consider taking a piece of those winnings and investing it in something a little more stable, like a savings account with heavy interest.

By: Chris Iaquinta

No matter what time I head to the casino and regardless of the type of game I play in, I always run across an angry player who loves to berate the dealer.  I’ve never understood the mentality of someone that will get seriously angry at the dealer for dealing them two bad cards, like somehow they’re doing it on purpose.  Occasionally though, you will get stuck with an inexperienced dealer that can make the entire table run slow and allow for mistakes to be made, so here are two things to look at for to avoid any additional headaches when your dealer is less than ideal.

First off, protect your hand.  If anyone watched ESPN’s 2009 WSOP main event coverage this last Tuesday, you got to see one of the last female players still in the tournament move all-in, only to have the dealer grab her hand and muck it.  After exclaiming her disbelief, the dealer informed the floor manager that she hadn’t correctly protected her hand (done so by place a chip or card protector on top of the hand), and as a result the dealer thought she was folding, even though she moved all-in.  Was it the dealers fault for not noticing her all-in move?  Absolutely, but the casino is almost always going to side with the dealer in these matters, as shown here when the woman’s hand was declared dead.  She got back the chips she moved all-in with, but lost all the chips she had committed previously.  After the debacle ended, she revealed that she had pocket aces.  This happens often enough for players seated directly next to the dealer, so if you find yourself in that seat, make sure you protect your hand as often as you can remember.

Next, keep an eye on the pot, especially during tournaments.  Casinos like to use inexpensive tournaments to train new dealers and save their best for the cash games.  Because of this, you’ll get dealers that have trouble making side pots and forgetting to make sure that everyone tossed in their ante.  You don’t need to spend your entire session paying attention to every little thing the dealer does, but when there’s a lot of money in a particular pot that you’re in, you might want to just keep an extra eye out to make sure that all the money is getting handled correctly.

By: Chris Iaquinta

When it comes to how to play big hands both pre and post flop, there are usually two very different mentalities that players may slip into.  One is the defensive strategy that will lead a player to bet and raise a lot of chips in order to protect their hand, and the other is the sneaky player that will happily try and trap an opponent, even when it means letting the other player take a free card that could vastly strengthen their hand.  Is one style better than the other?  As usual, it depends on the situation.

As with most scenarios in poker, there is a right and wrong time to do certain things.  Slow playing a big hand can be very advantageous under the right circumstances and could lead to you netting a lot of chips, however you want to make sure you avoid putting your hand in a dangerous situation.

Here’s a simple example:  Say you have 4-4 in middle position and you limp pre-flop.  Two other players limp in and the flop comes Q-J-4 with two hearts and you’re first to act.  A lot of players will check in this situation, hoping that someone with a Jack or Queen will bet, but the problem with checking here is that it gives players with a straight or flush draw the opportunity to see a free card on the turn, one that may completely dominate your hand.  There is simply too many dangerous cards that could come on the next street here, which is why you should try and protect your hand with about a pot-sized bet.

Now if you still had pocket fours, limped in against two other players and the flop comes A-9-4 rainbow (rainbow meaning that no two suits are the same), you can comfortably check here to try and induce bets/bluffs from the other two players, as it is extremely unlikely that one of them holds a hand that beats yours.  The difference between this situation and the one above is the risk percentage.  Giving a free card in scenario #1 could very easily lead to you getting beat, while a free card in scenario #2 is highly unlikely to produce the same result.

Other factors to explore when slow playing big hands is the types of players you’re playing against.  It’s much easier to try and trap a very aggressive player that has no problem betting on every turn with marginal hands, while trapping a very tight player that only plays premium cards can be both risky and far less profitable.

Now in situations where your hand is practically unbeatable, such as when you hold full houses and Ace-high flushes, slow playing is often the only way to accumulate more chips.  You may have to put out a value bet on the turn or river in case your opponent is all too happy to constantly check on each street, so just make sure you bet an amount that should incite a call from a player that holds at least top or second pair.

In all scenarios where you flop a big hand, ask yourself “How can I make the most money out of this hand while still keeping the percentages in my favor?”  In some cases you’ll have no choice but to bet out on the flop in order to protect your hand, even if that means everyone else may fold and you win the minimum.  The goal is always to keep the odds in your favor as long as possible while still attempting to win the maximum amount of chips.

By: Chris Iaquinta

By far one of the hardest skills to master in poker is the ability to call down opponents when holding marginal strength hands, such as top pair with weak kicker, second pair and sometimes even third pair.  The only real way to do this successfully is to have a very good understanding of how your opponent plays and how likely it is that they have a hand that beats yours.  Of course other variables, such as bet amount and pot size, factor into the equation as well.

One reason inexperienced and weak players are easy to push around is that they can easily be made to give up their hand if their holding isn’t premium.  These types of players will often fold if there are overcards on the board, or sometimes they’ll just fold if their opponent bets and they just don’t feel comfortable with their hand.  What these players fail to realize is that there are tons of aggressive, loose opponents out there that will happily continuation bet into a missed flop, or make a bet on the turn or river even when they hold nothing, just in an effort to try and win the pot right there.

To capitalize on this, you need to be able to identify the situations where it is likely that your opponent is either making a play for the pot or could potentially hold a hand even weaker than yours.  Normally these types of scenarios will only be easy to identify in heads-up pots, because in multiway pots it’s too likely that at least one of the other two-three players still involved in the hand has your second pair beat, so typically you only want to try and call with marginal hands in heads-up situations.

Lets say you have a hand like K-10 and the flop comes A-10-4 and you’re first to act and you check and your opponent checks behind you.  More often than not in this situation someone with an Ace in their hand is going to bet, even if it’s an Ace with a weak kicker.  Then say the turn brings an 8, you check again and your opponent checks again.  Lastly, a 6 comes on the fifth street, you check one final time and your opponent makes a pot sized bet.  At this point it would be nice you to know a little about the other player in order to make the correct decision, but it isn’t that crucial.  Does this player bluff at a lot of pots?  Would they normally bet if they hit any card at all, including the 8 on the turn?  Are they prone to try and trap their opponents?  These are all good things to know, but the single bet on the river and the amount of chips in the bet point heavily towards someone that is trying to buy the pot.

Additional info to take in is how the action progressed pre-flop.  Did anyone raise?  What position did they raise in?  How much did they raise?  This initial pre-flop information can tell you a lot about whether or not a player hit their hand on the flop, turn or river.  Pre-flop raises in early position normally mean big pocket pairs or hands like A-K, so if the flop brings an Ace or a King, then you know right away that your opponent probably hit their hand, and if they check it, they might be trapping you.

However, a mid to late position raise opens up the hand selection range to include hands like A-Q and medium pocket pairs, but if the flop comes weak with J-10-5 and your opponent is first to act and checks and you hold something like A-10, there’s a good chance you have the best hand at this point and can probably call off bets with confidence if additional streets continue to bring blank cards.

By: Chris Iaquinta