Winning @ Low Stakes Poker

Recently I was playing in a small buy-in 60 person tournament. As we reached the final table, I went on an extremely good run of cards. I knocked out a few players and had a decent chip stack. The tournament was going to pay out 6 spots and it didn’t take long for us to bust the 7th place finisher and make it in to the money. My good run of cards continued and by the time we were down to 5 players, I had roughly 60% of the chips in play. 3 short stacks and one medium stacked player, seated directly to my right, remained between me and first place. Then the following hand came up.

The player to my right is in first position. He raises roughly 4 times the big blind. This represents approximately 40% of his chips. I look at my cards to find two 7s. What to do?

Here are the thoughts that run through my mind.
- Short handed at the final table, this guy could be raising with a hand as weak as Q/10 in this situation where stealing blinds is an absolute must.
- I likely have the best starting hand, but do I want to move all-in and have to fade 5 cards in a coin flip situation?
- If I re-raise preflop, does the original raiser have enough chips to fold a weak hand or will he be forced to call and hope to get lucky?

When I added it all up, I decided to just call the bet and see the flop. By doing so, I get:
- lay down my hand to an all-in bet on the flop if an Ace/King/Queen come up.
- take the rest of his chips if I flop a set.
- push all-in on a flop of all low cards.

Hand outcome:
I was right about the strength of his hand. He had K/J offsuit. The flop came 9/9/5. He immediately pushed all-in and I took only a couple seconds to call. A jack showed up on the turn and he doubled up.

Even though there is a certain amount of gambling in poker, I saw no need to push all-in pre-flop simply because I thought I had the best hand. By waiting for the flop, I was able to get the rest of his chips in to the pot as a 3:1 favorite to win the hand.

It doesn’t matter what you are doing, if there is money involved, people are going to try and cheat the system. Poker is no different and comes in many different forms. Early on you had the old “ace up the sleeve”, dealing from the bottom of the deck and collusion between players. But just live everything else, cheating has become more high-tech.

In online poker’s infancy, some unethical players would open multiple accounts and simultaneously play 3 or 4 seats at a single table. Teams of cheaters would gather in a room and would all play at the same table sharing information about their hole cards. For players who couldn’t sit in the same room to cheat, chat rooms, instant messenger and internet phone service all provided easy ways for players to share information.

But the poker software began to get smarter. Multiple connections from the same IP address would be blocked from playing at the same table. Online casinos made it more difficult for a single player to have multiple accounts by requiring more information and ID verification. This is just the tip of the iceberg. As cheaters get more sophisticated, so must the detection software.

A few months back it was widely report that cheating had been going on at the online poker room Absolute Poker. The details were given and then debated in this gigantic thread at the 2+2 forum. The main difference with this scandal was that the online casino itself (or an employee of) was linked to the cheating. To summarize the story for you, it appears that an account at Absolute Poker that has administrative rights to see all players hole cards during a game was used to relay information to second player who used the information to win a large poker tournament. The video above is a replay of the hand history from the administrative account. You can see additional footage on youtube here: parts 2, 3 and 4. When I first heard about this story, I wasn’t surprised at all. Going back to my first statement, when money is involved, people are going to try and cheat. Just because they work for the company doesn’t mean they are above cheating. It just means that when they cheat, they have access to tools others may not.

Another form of poker cheating that is on the rise is the use of a poker bot. An increasing number of poker bots are becoming available and are becoming harder to detect. As hard as the online poker rooms work to keep them out, the cheaters work just as hard to beat the software and be undetected. While many of the poker bots available online (search eBay) simply calculate the best move (raise/call/fold) based on percentages, more advanced bots will record opponents betting patterns and other information that it can use to determine the likely holding for the specific opponent. With enough computing power behind it, a poker bot could be made to be virtually unbeatable.

The question is, will casual players stop playing at online poker rooms because of the use of poker bots? The answer is no, of course not. People who go to casinos to play slot machines, craps, blackjack or other table games know ahead of time that the odds are stacked in the houses favor. They still show up by car, bus, train and plane or any other way possible they flock to Las Vegas to gamble. These same people make up the majority of online poker players. I would venture to bet that if every online casino were to put a message on their login screen that said, “Our casino allows the use of poker bots”, less than 10% of the players would stop playing.

Do I think poker cheating is on the rise? Yes, of course it is. But it’s only due to the rise in popularity and the amount of money available to be gained. Think about it, nobody is going to go too far out of their way to steal a little bit of money from a small group of people. But, if the pool of people and the amount to be won is big enough, and I’d say the online poker industry certainly qualifies as big enough, then there is no doubt that more people are going to try and cheat it.

Last night I found a new level of tilt. It was the first time I’ve tilted in quite a while. I have been working diligently to control my tilt factor at the table. Over the past few months I’ve been able to avoid letting a lucky river card for my opponent cause me to spew chips.

Here’s the set up. I was playing at a casino that has a $60 buy-in tournament. If you go broke in the first hour, you can buy back in as a new player. Often times they will let you have your same seat back. Though, I don’t know if they are doing you any favors there. Because of the rebuy rule, it’s not uncommon to see short stacked players play crazy for the last 10 minutes before the break period in order to double-up or rebuy back to a full stack.

On the first hand of the tournament I had A/A against K/K and won a big pot. 10 minutes later I had K/K on the button and won another big pot against a guy who hit a Jack on a Jack high flop. Things were going along great. I was by far the chip leader at my table. A short time later I limped in with K/J. The flop came A/Q/T, with 2 diamonds. I made a healthy raise on the flop and got called. The turn was a diamond. It got checked to me and I made a bet. This is where things started to fall apart. I had put the guy on 2 pair. A/10 or Q/10, something like that. Or, perhaps we even had the same hand. But since I had the J of diamonds, I felt I had a nice re-draw with the second nut flush draw if a 4th diamond were to hit. The guy check raised the flop and at that point there was too much money in the pot and I felt like I still had outs, even if I was behind to a couple of diamonds. Instead, the guy turned over K/6 of diamonds for the nuts. I was drawing dead.

The combination of losing a large portion of my stack, plus being completely wrong about where I was at in the hand sent my reeling. Here is where I made my biggest mistake; rather than sitting out a few hands to cool off, I dove right back in 2 hands later by calling a raise with K/Q suited. I missed the flop and folded to a bit. The very next hand I called a raise with 6/6. I failed to improve and folded to a bet on a flop with an ace and 2 face cards. A few hands later I called a raise with 10/J suited. Missed the flop and folded to an all-in bet. By this time, I had gone through quite a few chips.

As the time was running out on the rebuy period, I made yet another mistake. I decided to “gamble” since I could just rebuy before the end of the round. After several players had limped in, the player from the small-blind pushed all-in. I knew if I called I would be heads up with him so I would only need to get lucky against one player. I didn’t get lucky and I was now out of chips. I went to the desk, did my rebuy and went to my new table just as everybody went to break. I got back from the break and had 5000 chips with blinds at 100/200 and I folded for 2 complete orbits getting dealt no playable hands. I felt like I had gotten over my tilt and I was back to thinking clearly and was going to give myself a chance to win the tournament. Oh, how wrong I was…

3 players limped in to a pot and I check from the BB with J/7 of diamonds. The flop comes with all diamonds, 8 high. The player on my left had been pretty aggressive against flops with all small cards, and with 5 players in the pot I fully expected him to stab at the pot. I planned to check raise him all-in against any bet he made on the flop. My plan went downhill when everybody checked the flop. To make things worse, the turn was another diamond. I hate my hand now. To my complete surprise, everybody checks again. On the river, the board paired 6s. I thought it was possible that I have the best hand. I bet out 500 and the player to my left thinks for a minute and then flat calls. After everybody else folds, I say “You probably got me” and turn over my hand. The player says, “I got you” and flips over just a 6. He then waits about 5 or 10 seconds (felt more like a minute) and turns over the ace of diamonds and laughs. I was livid. I asked him why he slow rolled me. He laughs again.

It’s at this point where my tilt meter went haywire. I calmly folded the next two hands against all-in bets before me. But on the first hand that folded to me I raised with J/7 suited. I got re-raised. I pushed all-in and was called by 6-6. I made 2 pair and doubled up. That would be the last pot I would win. My bust-out hand was completely uneventful. I pushed with A/4 and got called by K/5 and 10/8 suited. It didn’t hold up and I was on my way home.

I can’t say that the night was without it’s lessons learned. Mainly this: don’t consider doing a rebuy if you have been on tilt for the past 30 minutes.

We’ve all done it. You just pulled off a huge bluff and got your opponent to fold the winning hand. But rather than throw your cards in to the muck you turn your hand over and show the table your moxie. You feel like the king of the world. But have you thought of how that one move has affected your table image and how other players will play against you? If not, it’s time you do.

Think of each hand of poker as a jigsaw puzzle. Each piece of information you have about the hand gets placed in the puzzle. The more information you have, the more pieces you can put in place and the better you are going to be able to play your hand. So at the end of a hand if 2 of your opponents each show their hands, this is valuable information that you can store up and use in future hands. Think about it, if you play the hand back in your head, you should be able to remember what position each player was playing from, who was betting, calling or raising, and you now have the benefit of knowing how strong each players hand was when they were doing it. Being able to recall that type of information is going to make it that much easier for you to play against these opponents in future hands.

Consider this scenario. You sit down at the poker table and quickly realize that most of the players are fairly passive. You take that that your cue to step up the aggression. You start raising every 2 or 3 hands and following up your pre-flop aggression with bets on the flop. After an hour of simply robbing the table blind, you haven’t had to show down any of the junk you have been stealing with. Everything is going your way. You are feeling invincible and you decide to show a big bluff. At that moment the tumblers all clicked in your opponents heads. You have just lost the element of mystery. You better be prepared to tighten up your game immediately or else you are going to find yourself getting called down by some mediocre hands. Of course this can work in your favor if you hit some decent hands immediately following. But you can expect to be called to the river the next few times you are in a pot.

Some people will tell you that it’s a bad idea to ever show your hands unless you absolutely have to, for example, at the showdown when you have to show your hand to win the pot. While you certainly don’t want to make a habit of it, there are certainly times when it’s not a bad idea to do some advertising. If you’ve raised 2 or 3 pots in a row and then pick up a huge hand like A/A or K/K, I’ll often show this hand before mucking to reinforce the idea that I’m only raising with “the goods.” It is typically a bad idea to ever show your bluffs. Very little positive effect can be gained by it. Sure, you get to bask in the moment as you are stacking up your stolen chips, but the likelihood that you are going to get away with another bluff in the near future his gone way down.

Use the power of information in your favor. Think twice before showing your hands when you don’t have to. If you do show hands, use it to reinforce the notion that you are always holding the winning hand. Unless you are ready to start gambling, don’t show your bluffs.

You’ve heard it 1000 times, one of the most important aspects of winning poker is position. Having position on other players (i.e. being the last player to act in a round of betting) can dictate how you play virtually every starting poker hand and should be factored in to your decision to play a hand or fold it. So, how many hands should you expect to play? Let’s break it down by position.

Small Blind (3%) – This is the worst position at the table. You are going to be first to act on every round of betting. You should be folding pre-flop with weak hands that have little chance of making a 5 card hand (flush/straight) even in an unraised pot. Consider re-raising with big hands to avoid playing out of position.

Big Blind (3%) – Your position hasn’t improved much. Again, try re-raising with big hands or calling only with hands like A/Q, A/J or medium sized pocket pairs. Also, based on the position of the pre-flop raiser, you can elect to play a wider range of starting hands, but not by much.

First position (5%) – You have 9 player to get past, your hand better be strong. Also, you should be coming in for a raise 95% of the time when you plan to play from first position. If you get re-raised from a player in later position, before you call, remember that you are going to be out of position the rest of the hand.

Second position (10%) – Your position is still pretty poor. This is another raise or fold position. By limping in you are inviting players in later position to punish you and raise you out of the pot pre-flop.

Third position (15%) – You should still be playing pretty close to the vest from here. Don’t play unless you plan to come in for a raise.

Fourth position (20%) – At a full table, you are now in middle position. Your starting hand range can start to open up. It may sound redundant, but you should be coming in for a raise from here.

Fifth position (25%) – Time to start getting more active. You are going to have position on most of the table. By coming in for a raise you are going to most likely isolate yourself against a single opponent giving you the best chance to win the hand.

Sixth position (30%) – One spot away from the cut-off position. Time to start thinking about stealing the blinds. Starting hand range opens up even further and calling a pre-flop raise from here should yield you position for the rest of the hand (with only 2 players left to have better position than you)

The Cut-off (40%) – I consider the cut-off position to be the sweet spot. Time to start raising with a much wider variety of hands. If you are going to be the first to enter the pot from the cut-off position, suited connectors, any pair, any two face cards all become raising hands.

The Button (50%) – Having the button in front of you is like a license to steal. If all players have folded to me while I’m on the button, I’m going to raise to put pressure on the blinds about half the time. Most any two cards will work in this position. If you are called by one of the blinds, you can continue to apply pressure by betting the flop no matter if you hit or not. Remember, your opponent is only going to improve his hand on the flop 1/3 of the time. So you should win 2/3rds of these pots.

Avoid playing marginal hands from early position and apply pressure from late position. These two simple tips will improve your winning percentage immediately.