Serious Casino Jeux

Pot-limit Omaha High. Blinds of 5-10. All fold to loose player (LP) two left of the button who makes it a quarter. He has about 1500. I have about 1000, and call with QhJsTs9h, button and SB fold, and the big blind calls. Flop 9s8s4h. BB checks, LP bets 75, I call, BB folds. Turn Kh. LP bets 200, I call. River 6c. LP checks. I have 700 left, and he has 1200. Bluff, or check it back?

Answer 1:

Make it 100 before the flop
Raise on the flop
Raise on the turn – if still with money

Most players will only be betting on the turn because it looks like you missed. Nearly all players will lay down any hand but trips to a re-raise on the flop. If the flush comes when you still have money, you will not know where you are if he bet (i.e. bare ace bluff), and you will not get paid if he hasn’t got it. You’re favorite vs trips on this flop, so I’d be inclined to try and get all in. But I really think a raise before the flop is essential.

Answer 2:

Raise the turn.

Answer 3:

Why didn’t you raise here? You have a great draw – a wrap and two flush draws. My thinking about having two non-nut flush draws and a pot-sized stack would be that if you are going to play the hand, it’s vital to get the money in now. This is because you can be pretty sure that at least one flush draw is good, so they are giving you a good chunk of equity. However, one of them may well not be good, but you don’t know which one or what the situation is.  This uncertainty gives your opponent a play advantage against your flush draws on the river; since he knows where he stands (it is very easy for you to make FTOP mistakes).  Since you have (IMHO) a big enough hand that it isn’t a disaster if he calls and it’s wonderful if he folds, I would raise.

Can someone explain Texas Hold’em pretty in depth to me, I just want to get all the rules right before I go and play and make a jackass out of myself. And please try not to use poker slang, just explain for the average joe.

Answer 1:

I’d suggest that you visit a bookstore. Or maybe read the FAQ.  They’ve got some books listed also.

Answer 2:

Hi I recommend Awesome Profits. It is a good text book on all games.

Answer 3:

You’ll find a set of 6 articles on Hold’Em poker by Lou Kreiger. They’re called Lou Kreiger On Stategy  - A beginner’s Course in Texas Hold’em Poker.

Staying at the Eldorado next week, looking for good $ 3/6 Hold’em orOmaha. Where can we play in town, or should we taxi or to Peppermill or Atlantis. Dod they have good low limit games at Atlantis?  What about CalNeva?

Answer 1:

Atlantis has a new poker room, with $3-$6 hold`em spread daily. It’s very nice. Peppermill has a tournament going on, and the Cal-Neva has a dailyOmahasplit game ($3-$6 I believe), but the room is very, very smoky.

Answer 2:

If you are staying at theEl Dorado, I would suggest playing at theEl Doradoitself (it often has $3-$6 or $4-$8 hold’em and $1-$5 stud) or Circus Circus, which also has several tables in the $3-$6 range. TheEl Dorado, Circus Circus, and the Silver Legacy are all connected by indoor walkways. For Omaha/8 in the $3-$6 range you should definitely check out Cal Neva — I haven’t played it in a while but it was always extremely fishy when I played it in the past. I believe the Reno Hilton (just outside of town, next to the airport) is the only other place with regular low limit O/8.

Answer 3:

The Silver Legacy is very, very nice, and it’s easy to get between it, Circus Circus, andEl Doradovia walkways. The food is very good both there and atEl Dorado. About 18 months ago,El Doradoonly had 3-4 poker tables in their “room”.  Circus had a larger poker room (8+ tables?), very busy. Airport Hilton has a large poker room but not very many customers while we were there midweek, early evening.  Mainly I remember hitting a royal on a progressive poker machine at the Hilton!

I consider myself an above average player. Winning more, then I lose. I play TH, Omaha, and some stud. I recently played in a dealers choice game, with the majority of the games played being what I call off the wall. Lots of H/L, 8b, Criss Cross, Muder Ball, 52kill, Double Draw H/L buying cards etc. I normally would not return to the game, but the players were good people,
great room etc. Most of all, this game was very lose, with an average of four players going all the way, with lots of mistakes. Also, a fair amount of alcohol was consumed. I think you know what getting at. Where can I go to learn more than the basics to these games ?

Answer 1:

I have never found any decent books on this type of game.  My patial solution is to sit down and deal out hands for each game and see what comes up. (You can probably do this with a computer program if you have the programming knowledge – I don’t) this will give you an idea of what it takes to win. The essence of winning in loose wild games is tight unimaginative play. Don’t commit unless you have a monster possible.  Don’t ever do anything fancy. Hang back until you have the nuts, then push hell out of the hand. If you have been sitting in the game for four hours and are getting bored to death – you are probably still playing too loose!

Answer 2:

On Hi/lo games: Read or reread Ray Zee’s book on stud8 and omaha8. Don’t pay that much attention to the sections on hand selection, but pay careful attention to the sections about playing on later streets, the turn and the river. Many of the fancier plays there won’t work in the game you’re describing, but the principles are still valid, particularly this one: If you have a decent chance of scooping or a good chance of winning one way, you can continue. If you have only a decent chance of winning one way, you should probably consider folding. On wild card games: Play wild cards. If you don’t have wild cards or some kind of huge natural starting hand, don’t play. If you don’t catch well on your natural hands, don’t play. It’s rare for someone with less wild card to chase down someone with more wild cards.

Answer 3:

You’ve already gotten some good advice: dealing out hands, playing tight until you have the nuts, etc. One thing to add. There are a couple of books you might want to look at.  The better one is Steiner’s Thursday Night Poker. The other one, which has some reference to specific wild and crazy games, is Morehead’s The Complete Guide to Winning Poker. This is an outdated book to be sure, but it has some simple strategy for some wild card games which might be useful. One last thought. I play in many of these games and find that loosening up my starting requirements makes me more money than playing tightly.

I am having a discussion with someone about the correct way to play a hand. Your opinion would be appreciated. This is heads up in a satellite, winner takes all. Blinds are 400-800. There is a total of 10,500 of chips in play. You are on the big blind with 1,800, so you have placed 800 in the big blind leaving you with 1,000. The small blind raises you all in. You have 64o.
Should you call or fold?

Answer 1:

Call. You’re getting 2600 for your 1000 call.  Unless you are highly confident that your opponent has a pair 66 or higher, those are more than adequate pot odds.  You’re only about a 3:2 dog to 2 over cards. It sucks, but the only solution is to never get in that spot in the first place, right?

Answer 2:

Against most aggressive players you should call. This isn’t really a tournament-type decision. It’s heads-up and so you are playing for a single prize. (Note that it doesn’t matter whether there’s second place money or not — you BOTH already won that!) Because 6-4 almost has equity in a fixed-limit ring game against many types of opponents in the small blind, it almost has equity now for a 2.25 to 1 (instead of a 2 to 1) raise. Normally, it gains back something, because it will have position on future rounds of betting against the small blinds. This is not the case heads-up, where the blind positions are generally reversed and the big blind acts first on all subsequent rounds. But, you are neutralizing any positional advantage by being all-in.If you wait, you will probably have better chances next hand, but you’ll only have $1,000 and $400 will be a blind. The increased chance of winning the next hand doesn’t usually override the decrease in money if you fold. Figure you’re going to win about 1/3 of the hands now (assuming slight selectivity on your opponent’s part) and 1/2 on the next hand if you fold now and then play. This makes the decision close against some opponents, but not against most aggressive ones. There are, of course, other factors at work here, too — but that’s the main consideration. By the way, the amount of chips on the table has very little relevance — except in measuring how it will affect
the next blinds. Usually call.

Answer 3:

Of course, “it depends” (surprise!) on what you know about your opponent…  However, that having been said, you are getting $2,600-to-$1,000 pot odds, and your 6-4-offsuit is that much of an underdog or worse only to opposing pairs of 6′s or higher, plus just a few other odd types of hands*** ***Test your intuition…  Your 6-4-offsuit would also be worse than 2.60-to-1 underdog to any A-6-suited, or A-6-offsuit with the A-6 in the suits of your own two cards, or any K-6-suited, or K-6-offsuit in your two suits, or Q-6-suited in a suit different from the suit of your 4 — all in the 2.60-to-1 to 2.74-to-1 range. Now, I’ve left out one other type of opposing hand here to which you would be worse than 2.60-to-1 — can you guess what it is?!

Using 5-10 holdem as an example…It’s the middle of the night, your game has broken down it’s you and two absolutely hopeless opponents. They seemingly call or raise entirely on whim, they see 19 out of 20 flops, If they flop nothing they usually go to the river anyway. You cannot detect any pattern in there play other than they play everything and quite aggressively. The question is what’s the best strategy to get the money? It seems to me that, with minor exceptions, you just play better shorthanded starting hands than they do and meet them at the river…Specifically

1) What is the minimum starting hand you should play?

2) When if ever should you fold the big blind for a raise?
3) When you flop nothing should you chase with 2 over cards (note a king may be the best hand) ,or with various draws. Any comments on the above.

Answer 1:

When open-raising on the button, most people think I’m too loose, but I think it’s correct to play T9, 76s, K7, A3, etc. Heads up fold the bottom 20% of hands, which is all the total garbage like Q5, 73, etc.  42 is okay (!).You should try to get to the showdown with an ace. With a biggish king, you usually want to play it hard to get a weak ace to fold.  With a draw you want to play it hard to get a weak ace or king to fold.  It appears that you don’t have odds to play a draw, but you do because you have a large chance of your opponent folding, and because you’ve likely got pair outs as well.

Answer 2:

I think you’re underestimating the value of playing rather loose-aggressively and tenaciously shorthanded. If they’re really playing /everything/, then you can probably win by playing something like your normal tight-ring-game hand strategy and calling them down with somewhat weaker hands than you otherwise do, like ace-high. If they’re only playing a lot of hands, like say, 60%, then you might be in a heap of trouble and you should probably find another table. Not that it’s impossible to beat, but this style of play is very effective shorthanded: (medium-loose and hyper-aggressive).

Answer 3:

Actually I have played quite a bit of shorthanded holdem, including against some very strong players and held my own. I am happy to see that I have played very much as Abdul suggests. It seems that when I get my share of cards I bury these games…but when I am unlucky I get crushed.  Perhaps this variance should be avoided when playing on a limited bankroll. It also seems that the clueless action man who wanders in from the crap table may very well employ near correct strategy in these situations by accident.

I’ve been reading this ng for a while.  It has helped my game.  (I play daily at Viejas (Indian Casino) nearSan Diego. But, I would like to play Hold ‘em on line for practice and fun, not for money.  No way am I playing for money on-line. Can anyone recommend a site?

Answer 1:

If you want the highest quality play, go to IRC.

Answer 2:

Go to paradisepoker.com. Great graphic, action, and selection (free or real).

Answer 3:

AOL has a nice free Holdem game. (Keyword Poker) The play is very weak (can you believe 9BB/hour over 540 hours) but I have found it invaluable in learning to read hands.  Since there is no deception employed by the players there, reading hands becomes almost uncanny at times.

While playing in a small buy-in no limit tournament, I had 1900 in chips, the blinds were 100-200,we were down to four tables out of the original 10 and I was 8th to act at a 10 person table. The player 5th to act raised to 500, leaving himself with 450.I had 99 and went all in. The player to my left had about 4000(chip leader at the table) while the button and blinds only had between 400-900 each. The chip leader came over the top with AA, everyone else folded and I was out of the tournament. Would anyone else have made this play or was I overly aggressive or just plain stupid. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Answer 1:

Playing in a small buy-in no limit tournament, I have 1900,8th to act at a ten person table, blinds are 100-200 and will go up in 3 minutes. Player 5th to act raises to 500 and has 450 left. Everyone else has folded to me. I have 99 and raise all-in. Player on my left has about 40000(chip leader at the table), button and blinds have 400-1000 remaining. Chip leader raises all in behind me, everyone else folds and he shows AA, no help on the board and I’m walking. Was my play reasonable, too aggressive or just plain stupid? Any help would be appreciated.

Answer 2:

You made absolutely the right play, raising your pair to isolate the all in player — make the short stack have a hand. Your pair is a favorite most of the time. Unfortunately, this time it didn’t work. I was playing in the Friday night NL tournament at theOrleans, final table, with about $4500 in front of me, an average stack. There was one player with a monster stack, making big raises every hand to pick up the blinds. I pick up AJ one off the button, re-raise all in, on the proper assumption that he’s not betting his cards, but his stack. I’m right. He has Q8 and draws out on me at the river. IGH in seventh. Right play, but it didn’t work.

Answer 3:

Nobody can sit around and wait for AA or KK late in the tournament. It’s a good way to get blinded out of the tournament. You’ve got to make some moves. Of course, you’ve also got to be sure you aren’t walking into AA….

Hi, is it possible to develop a modeled approach to tourney strategy using certain parameters to determine you optimum starting hands during the rebuy period? What I’m considering is hands per hour, initial blind, initial chips per buy in, buy in cost etc. Is this an exercise worth attempting or a fool’s errand?? My dilemma is similar to those new to theUKtourney scene. smallish buy ins large blinds proportional to starting chip stack. Leading to at about an hour of seemingly rabid play. Until people either gives up or is happy with their stack or just settle down to slightly more sensible cards. I’m looking for some rational method of approaching these tourneys, some explanation to the approach of those I see gambling early on and nearly always being chips leaders and making final tables. Is there something I’m missing in my approach to these tourneys? Back to the modeling theme, is it sound to say over 2hrs I will be dealt 60 (any sixty hands of the many possible starting hands) hands and those 60 hands will fall into categories x,y,z, I will pay A number of blinds totaling C in chips <> B being the buy in chip amount at cost E£ and maximum acceptable number of buying being F. Then analyzing the win rate of given hands find the right path between really playing poker and just pure gambling, i.e. that optimum level of minimum starting hand requirement for this tricky period before switching back to more normal starting requirements.

Answer 1:

Sure. C code follows.

double returnpctofhands(double A, double B, double C, double D, double X,
double Y, double Z)
{
printf(“It depends.\n”);
return 0;

}

Answer 2:

I don’t think I play this stage particularly well but there are two important additional factors. The first is the number of players per table. When you have 13 players – as one of my local casinos does then the nuts are often out and loose players tend to do badly. The other factor is the number of rebuys the gamblers make. Do they make enough paying finishes to compensate for them? I don’t know the answer to that but I do know that in the games I regularly play I still get paid off with my good hands despite having a tight reputation.

Answer 3:

To me there seems to be two different philosophies, what I might call the ammeter and the professional approach. Let’s consider a £100 buy in tournament, rebuy £100 during the rebuy period if out of chips.
FIRST APPROCH
It costs you Stake = £100* (1 + Number of Rebuys) to play in the tournament You need to compare your initial stake with your expected prize winnings to get the odds you are getting on your entrance money. Odds = (Expected Winnings) to Stake. E.g. if you expected winnings are £600, and you average one rebuys, then your odds are 600 to 200, or 3 to 1. If you never rebuy, you need only have expected winnings of £300 to get the same odds on your entrance fees. Someone whose averages one rebuys a tournament needs to win twice as much as someone who never has to rebuys. This would suggest playing a normal ring game strategy in the rebuy period.

SECOND APPROCH The second approach is to take into account the time you spend playing the tournament. Here you might compare you hourly rate while playing in a tournament with what you could earn playing in a side game. Your tournament hourly rate could be approximated by Hourly Rate = (Expected Winnings – £100 (1 + Number of Rebuys)) / Time spent playing tournament. E.g. someone who has expected winnings of £600 and averages one rebuy and typically spends four hours playing in the tournament would have a hourly rate of Hourly Rate = 600 – 200 / 4 = 100. Now what expected winnings would someone who never rebuys need, to earn the same rate as someone who averages one rebuy? (Expected Winnings 0 rebuys – 100) / 4 = 100 => Expect Winnings 0 rebuys = 4 * 100 + 100 = 500. In general someone who averages one rebuys a tournament, needs to increase their winnings over someone who never has to rebuy by the amount of one rebuy. Here the correct strategy will depends on their expected winnings in the tournaments. If they are big winners then they should play loosely and be happy to make many rebuys, if they are small winners then they should play very tightly. Consider the situation where someone’s expected return from the tournament is less than the cost of a rebuy, if they make just one rebuy they are making a loss.

CONCLUSION Two perfectly sensible approaches to deciding which rebuy strategy is best give completely different answers. No wonder people get confused.

Three Players in 10-20 Hold’em:

Player One:  Bets $10
Player Two:  Calls
Player Three:  Puts in $11 all-in (raises $1).

Question:  Is this a raise?  What are player One’s options? Can Player One make it $20 (re-raise $9), $21 (re- raise $10) , or something else?

Answer 1:

Usually, it needs to be at least half the bet size to qualify as a raise (that can be re-raised).  But, in some places it might be ruled a raise. You need to get Tiger to check the local house rules.

Answer 2:

The rule at the Horseshoe inLas Vegason such a situation is that player one could only call the extra dollar. Player two could only call the dollar as well. The reason being a rule in our club that defines a bet. The rule states that an action is considered a bet if the amount is half or more of what the normal amount would be. Thus in your situation if player three went all-in with $15, player one could call the $5 and raise it $10 more. Player two would have the same option. But if your situation were that player two made it $11 and all-in, then player three could call the $11 or complete the bet by throwing out $20. If player three just calls the $11, the player one could only do the same because the dollar raise isn’t considered a bet (less than half).

Answer 3:

As always, the answer to your question will depend upon what the local rule is in your card room. Generally, an all-in raise of less than half-a-bet is considered “action only” which does not re-open the betting. In this case, players #1 and #2 can only call the additional $1, and cannot complete the raise. However, if there had been another player in the hand who had not yet acted, #4 could call the $11, but would still retain the option of raising *the original bet* to $20.