There are four generic types of style in poker and these are based on how many hands you play and how you play those hands. So players who play few hands are “tight” and players who play far more are deemed loose. If you play your hands passively then you are either tight-passive or loose-passive and if you play them aggressively then you are either tight-aggressive or loose-aggressive. However there are certainly styles within styles and no two tight-aggressive players are the same and in fact can be vastly different in terms of skill and thus results. (more…)

Everywhere you look these days then there are people talking about EV and maximising EV in all sorts of poker situations. I always feel that this is missing a trick because EV and the attaining of it is a complex subject. To see why this is the case then let us look at other forms of gambling for a minute. We all know that casinos have the edge in all of their games and under normal circumstances then these edges cannot be overcome. However it would be perfectly possible for any casino to install games that had a much larger house edge. (more…)

There is a reason why many intelligent and academic people believe that poker is 100% luck. In fact many people who have played the game for a long time may also still be of that impression as well. I think that an underlying reason as to why this is has something to do with the short term variance being very severe. However lessons from financial day trading are pretty powerful here and once we go deeper into that subject then similarities with poker stand out. Many academics believe that the stock market is totally random (just like in poker).

However it is possible to make money in random markets and it has simply to do with staking levels, profit and loss levels and money management. If a stock is trading at $2.00 and you have good reason to believe that it will fluctuate by $0.50 and you would only be right 50% of the time then you could cut your losing trades and place a stop loss at $1.70 so that you only lost $0.30 per share. But you rode the entire profit and each winning trade saw you close the position at $2.50 if you bought the stock at $2.00.

This gives you a profit of $0.50 per share when it goes your way but you lose $0.30 per share when it doesn’t. If you bought 10,000 shares then you make $5000 when you win and lose $3000 if it goes bad. If you have a 50% strike rate of winning trades to losing trades then you will make $2000 on average for every two trades or $1000 per trade on average. But this still does not get around the fact that 50% of your trades will be losing trades. This situation is identical to poker, no matter what you do then you will experience horrible losing days and sessions. In fact most professionals only win a percentage of sessions that is close to 50%.

But their money management skills are very strong and so they make sure that their winning sessions amount to more than their losing sessions even though the number of winners to losers may be as low as 50-50. So it needs pointing out that a strong poker player often loses just as many pots as a losing poker player but the difference comes from the level of pots that they win and lose. Skilled poker play leads to bigger average winning pot sizes and lower losing pot sizes. This when compounded over any one week, month or year leads to profits.

Novice poker players or inexperienced poker players tend to assume that professional players make huge bluffs and reads more than what lesser players do but this simply isn’t the case at all. Poker should be treated as a business and this means minimising your losses the best that you can. To be able to do this means basically being at one with the game and feeling out what your opponents are doing not just in the game that you are in at the moment but at the level that you are playing at in general.

Many people these days go down the route of getting themselves a poker coach. There is nothing wrong with this and if you want to get better in poker then this is a better way to do it than reading poker books in my opinion. You get a far better feel for the game when you can see coaching that is visible and you can also hear that person speak and feel the emotion in their voice. This is a big reason as to why your average poker player has become far tougher online because the coaching that they are receiving is better and clearer than the books of yesteryear. (more…)

Just what can you expect when you move through levels at limit Texas Hold’em? Well the micro-stakes levels are what I would call anything up to and including $0.25-$0.50. These levels are basically nothing more than primers for the higher levels. The level of play is very poor but a sound and solid player can make money. However the effect of the rake is very substantial at this low level and any serious player should be playing higher. Also the calibre of play is better and more serious at levels like $0.50-$1.00 and higher.

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