Mix It Up!

If you're using proper bankroll management, you'll often find yourself playing the same stakes for long periods of time (until you get the bankroll and comfort in your game to move up a level, or the opposite happens and you have to move down a level). What you'll find is that if you play on the same site (or couple of sites), you'll encounter the same people over and over again. As the weeks turn into months at the same stakes, you will become fairly familiar with their play styles...you'll know who you can bluff out of pots, and who to only play very strong hands against. You'll know who is a maniac, and you'll know who is a mouse. Guess what? Most of them will also figure out your style of play as well. They'll start to figure out what kinds of hands you will raise from what positions preflop, and what sorts of hands you'll call raises in position with, and so on. This is when this tip becomes a very powerful tool...learn to mix up your play.

It's important that you're very comfortable with the game and the stakes before you try this. If you aren't, you'll find yourself in very bad situations, and can tear through your roll pretty quickly. Here are a couple of things I like to try from time to time to keep my opponents on their toes.

1. Raise in position with mid/low suited connectors. If you're in position and look down to see 45s, raise it up. You'll find that more often than not you'll end up stealing some blinds, and in the instances where you get called, one of three things will usually happen:

a.) You and your opponent both miss the flop. If this happens, chances are that since you're in position and raised preflop, you should take down the pot uncontested.

b.) You hit the flop in a very disguised manner. Let's say you've got your 45s and the flop is 345. This is a situation where you'll either take down the pot immediately, or you'll get your opponent to throw in money when they're (most likely) way behind. It's really unlikely he'll put you on 45 here.

c.) Your opponent will hit the flop, and you miss, or you also catch a piece of the flop. It's really unlikely that you'll catch enough of the flop to commit a lot of chips AND your opponent will have a better hand. In this case, you'll lose a sizeable amount, but it really doesn't happen often. More often than not, you'll get away pretty cheaply.

The real advantage of this move is that now when you get AA or KK, your opponent will have no idea what you're raising with. If you only raise preflop with premium hands, you will not get much action at all. If you throw in raises with hands like 45s from time to time, you'll confuse your opponents constantly.

2. Limp in with JJ/TT/99. Ordinarily, in most scenarios, I'd suggest raising these hands (especially in position). But if you limp in with these hands and hit your set on the flop, you will most likely get paid off (especially if it gets raised behind you pf). The key here is that you're seeing cheap flops with hands that can potentially become devastating on the flop. You can really get paid off with these hands as well, because everyone will expect you to raise these hands preflop--they'll never be able to put you on TT. Here's a good example of this (note, this is rare, but it will happen often enough for me to advocate limping with it preflop):

Dealt to Hero [Ts Td]
xx folds
xx folds
xx folds
xx folds
Hero calls $0.50
xx checks
** FLOP ** [Th 9s Qs]
Hero checks
Villain bets $1
Hero raises to $4
Villain calls $3
*** TURN ** [Th 9s Qs] [9d]
Hero bets $9
Villain calls $9
*** RIVER ** [Th 9s Qs 9d] [Kd]
Hero checks
Villain bets $49
Hero raises to $120
Villain calls $71
*** SHOW DOWN ***
Hero shows [Ts Td] a full house, Tens full of Nines
Villain mucks
Hero wins the pot ($265) with a full house, Tens full of Nines

Now, there are several reasons I chose to limp with TT here. First, I know this particular villain is somewhat of a maniac, so I thought that I could get more money from him by playing heads up with a strong hand like TT. Also, as the hand developed, it became very obvious to me (and you as well, if you think about it) that he had a Jack. Once the river filled his straight, since I was well aware he'd overbet the pot and would call my raise, I feigned weakness by checking to him. But as far as this exercise is concerned, let's look at his call of my raise. What hands beat him at this point? They are: 99, TT, QQ, KK, AJ, or another random full house (Q9, K9, J9, T9). From his standpoint, which of those hands will I have and not raise preflop with? Very few. So, to him, it's incredibly likely that I also have a naked Jack and am just trying to muscle him out of the pot. However, because I limped in with TT (and gave up about $2 of preflop equity), I got about $260 I otherwise wouldn't have. Obviously, sometimes the flop will be jack high and he'll win the pot, or the board doesn't pair and he'll take the pot with his straight, but I can get away from those hands cheaply. Limping in here really confuses your opponents and can sometimes net huge gains.

Keep in mind, there are some things that I will NEVER do:

1.) Play trash -- you will never see me put money into the pot with 38o or J4o unless I'm on the button and it's folded to me ... stealing blinds rules
2.) Limp/call with AA or KK preflop -- you miss out on huge value by not raising/reraising with these hands preflop

Try to mix up your game and see how you do!

How To Deal With Maniacs

We've all played against them. The lunatics who raise preflop 40% of the time. The psychos who routinely bet four times the amount in the pot. The people who could have just about any two cards, and will force you to pay a huge amount of money to ever get to a showdown. Here are some basic tips on how to play against these people. Once you get comfortable with them, they'll do wonders for your bankroll. Hopefully, instead of fearing them, you'll soon be salivating when one of them sits at your table.

Tip #1: Fold preflop, fold preflop, fold preflop. Don't go to war with these guys unless you have a hand that's likely to be playable on the flop. If you can get in cheap with suited connectors or a low-mid pocket pair, that's great, but otherwise try to stick to solid starting hands. You have to be patient, or these players will eat you alive. This is the single most important of these tips.

Tip #2: The top-pair flop check-raise. If you flop top pair against a maniac and you're acting before him, check. When he bets, raise it, and raise it hard. Maniacs tend to be much more willing to bluff than to make loose calls. So when you're pretty sure you're ahead, let him take a stab at the pot before you do anything. Yeah, occasionally you'll run into a great hand, but he's usually just throwing free money at you. Remember, because you're only playing solid starting hands, you have a good kicker. The probability of him having two pair or better (or an overpair) is very low if he's frequently playing hands and betting flops hard.
Keep in mind that if he's only moderately crazy, he may check behind and get a free card. If this is likely to be dangerous for you, betting is usually a better idea than check-raising.

Tip #3: The pre-flop jam from the blinds. If you're a blind, and you have a good but not premium hand (something like AQ, TT) that might be hard to play out of position without a friendly flop, your defense against the maniac's raise is very simple. Huge reraise. If blinds are $1/$2, and he raises it to $10, reraise all in for your remaining $70. This eliminates your positional disadvantage, and is likely to get him to fold hands which are behind, but could easily catch up on the flop. Depending on the nature of the maniac, you may even sometimes get a call from a weaker hand. If this particular maniac raises preflop reliably, you may want to limp with these hands from early position with the intention of reraising huge.
Keep in mind that you should NEVER use this play against good players. The success of the play is reliant on high pocket pairs being a very small portion of his raising hands. This guy literally has to be raising 1/3 of the time preflop, unless he's very likely to call you with anything. You should also not do this if you're deep-stacked. In this example, his initial raise is 14% of your stack. If his initial raise is 5% of your stack, taking his raise becomes less important than how you'll fare against the range of hands he'd call you with.

Tip #4: Make your ultimate decision on the flop. If you have a marginal hand on the flop, and you're facing a significant bet from Maniac Jones, you ABSOLUTELY CANNOT call him and then fold to a bet on the turn or river (barring very scary turn/river cards). Decide on the flop whether or not you're willing to commit a lot more chips to this hand. If the answer is no, fold. If the answer is yes, you may want to raise, or you may want to check/call all the way down; it's usually a judgment call that depends on the situation and the player. In general, you want to avoid the "call the flop and pray" mentality against maniacs.

Tip #5: The river trap. If you're in early position and have been betting the whole way with a good but not outstanding hand (e.g. top pair, good kicker), check the river intending to call any bet that the maniac makes. A check in this position screams weakness to non-sophisticated players, and the overaggressive ones are likely to stab at the pot with a lower pair, a missed draw, or whatever other godforsaken trash they have. Occasionally they'll have hit a miracle and you'll lose the pot. But if they did, and you bet, they'll probably raise you, in which case you're losing this money anyway, and possibly a lot more.

Bet Sizes

One common source of confusion for beginners is how to properly size their bets. I frequently see bad players bet 20 chips into a pot of 100, or bet 120 chips into a pot of 40. Both of these are almost always terrible bets. So how much should you bet?

Obviously, it depends on many things. However, if you always bet between 2/3 and 3/4 of the pot, your bets will usually be appropriate. Betting much less than that is just silly, because it allows your opponents to call correctly with a wide range of hands. Betting much more than that is pointless, because the suggested 2/3-3/4 pot bet will already be getting out most of the hands that you want to fold. All you're doing by overbetting is giving away more money to an opponent who has a monster.

If your bet is a value bet that you'd like a weaker hand to call, ~2/3 is usually a good amount. Betting much more than this will make too many marginal hands fold, and betting much less will not extract very much money.

If your bet is intended to prevent drawing hands from calling correctly, you must usually bet a little bit more. 3/4 of the pot, or maybe a little more, is probably your best option.

If your bet is a bluff, bet an amount that would be appropriate if you actually had the hand you're pretending to have.

There's also the concept of a probe bet, which is usually no more than 1/2 of the pot. The point of this bet is to find out where you stand with a marginal hand without spending too much on the information. Don't use this very often.

On the river, your value bets and bluffs can sometimes be smaller than 2/3, depending on the size of the pot and the action to that point. The reason is that there are no longer any draws, and thus no need to charge opponents to chase them. If you think it's unlikely that a very large bet will be called, for whatever reason, betting half the pot or even a little less can sometimes be appropriate. I don't often do this, but it's a good option to have in your repertoire.

Never min bet. Min betting means betting the amount of the big blind (the smallest bet allowed). It's extremely stupid 99.99% of the time. When an opponent min bets against me, all it accomplishes is that it tells me he's bad at poker. In most cases, I treat a min bet almost like a check that costs me a couple of chips. I generally fold to min bets only if I have absolutely nothing (no pair, no draw), and I'll occasionally even call with nothing. When you're learning to get good at poker, don't min bet. Ever.

Of course, these suggested bet sizes are just general guidelines; you should certainly adapt them to the particular table you're at. If players are willing to call huge bets with weak hands, by all means throw out huge value bets.

There's one more advanced idea to consider as well. I've been assuming that everyone's stacks are pretty deep. Small stack sizes will often affect your bet sizing. Don't even begin to worry about this until you're comfortable with the previous points, and you've completely cured yourself of any horrible betting tendencies.

When value betting, you want to avoid leaving yourself (or your opponent, if he has fewer chips than you) with a stack of about 1.5-1.75 times the size of the pot for the next betting round. This is an awkward situation, because a reasonably sized bet in the next betting round would commit you to the pot, and is therefore often practically equivalent to an all-in. However, an all-in for 1.5-1.75 times the pot would be an overbet. Basically, this situation makes it more likely that you'll make a costly mistake. Once you're comfortable with basic betting patterns, you should keep resulting stack sizes in mind when deciding how much to bet.