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Yes, 100% of the time, you must raise pre flop with AA. I am sure that I have covered this somewhere before, but it is so important that I felt a refresher was in order.

The reason this subject came to mind again was a limit game I was playing in recently. It was an aggressive game with a great deal of pre flop raising, and rather poor play overall after the flop. It was folded to a middle position player who limped in and everyone folded to me in the big blind. As I mentioned, there was quite a bit of pre flop aggression, so this was an odd hand, but hey, I always appreciate a free look at the flop.

I looked down to find 76o and checked. The flop came Q 4 5 and I bet into my opponent with my open-end straight draw. He re-raised and I called. The turn was a blank, I checked, he bet and I called. The river was an 8, completing my straight. I checked, he bet and we ended up capping the betting. As I was raking in a nice pot he started ranting and raving about how bad I was and didn’t deserve to win. This continued for a bit as I sat there smiling. Oh yeah, in case you hadn’t figured it out from the title, he had pocket aces.

Of course I didn’t take the time to instruct him on all of the things he did wrong in the hand, but we are going to learn from his mistakes here.

The first mistake was not raising pre flop. With a game as aggressive as this one was, he had planned on being raised and then raising again, but what he didn’t bother to think about was the possibility of no one raising behind him. In addition, no one at the table would have put him on such a strong hand if he had raised, so he still would of received action from the late position players if they were going to play for a single bet. If he had raised, I would have folded my hand and he would have won the blinds instead of losing a big pot.

The other area where he failed was capping the river. The way I played the hand screamed draw on the flop and that I hit my draw on the river. He could have saved two big bets by calling my first re-raise on the river instead of jamming the pot.

Please, PLEASE make a commitment to raise with AA pre flop until you are at the professional level of play. You will win more over time, and have fewer frustrations like the one above.

Until next week, good luck at the tables!

As I was browsing the Internet for poker information recently, I ran across a page about chopping the blinds. I don’t chop, even when the room where I am playing allows it, but there is nothing wrong with it, as long as you keep it consistent.

If you aren’t familiar with the term, you have come to the right place. Here is an explanation and a few tips about chopping the blinds.

Chopping the blinds means that when everyone folds around to the blinds, the two players both take their bet back without contesting the hand. Some poker rooms allow players to chop, while others do not, and in the ones that do allow it, both players must agree to the chop. I am not aware of any online poker rooms where you can do this, but there may be a few smaller rooms that have this software feature.

As I mentioned above, there is nothing wrong with agreeing to chop your blinds, but there are a few etiquette guidelines that I recommend you follow. If you agree to chop your blinds with the person to your right, you should also agree to do it with the person to your left. Also, when you chop the blinds, it should be for the entire playing session whenever it is possible.

If you don’t look at your hole cards until it is your turn to act, like you are supposed to, then you won’t be tempted to say no to a chop when you have a strong hand. Only chopping when you have a poor hand is considered very poor form and will not lead to being labeled the most popular player at the table.

One thing to consider when deciding if you will chop blinds or not is the long-term effect it will have on your profitability. When you are a weaker player than your opponents it will improve your profit, or at least minimize your losses. If you are about the same skill wise, then your profit will likely be the same and if you are much better, you will be giving up a small amount of long-term profit.

When you do a good job of table selection, finding tables with overall play that is weaker than yours, you would not want to chop. This is why I don’t do it, but you will need to decide which way is best for you.

The best plan is to decide before you are sitting at a table. When a player asks if I want to chop the blinds, I simply say, “I apologize, but I never chop.” This is a very clear and exact statement that shows I have thought about it and am not interested.

Until next week, good luck at the tables!

I do not recommend limping with pocket Aces with the exception of a few very specific situations and I almost never limp with them, because it seems every time I do, it comes back to bite me.

However, I was in a no limit Texas holdem game a few days ago where the following situation came up. As you will see, it sure looked like limping may bite me again, but as it turned out, it was a very profitable hand.

The blinds were one and two dollars and the table was ten-handed. I was under the gun (first to act) and found two Aces. This game had been rather active before the flop with very few hands not being raised, so I decided to limp in and move all in when someone raised behind me. As it turned out, two other players limped and both of the blinds entered the pot, so it was five-handed. At this point I was very unhappy with my decision, since even Aces struggle to win against four random hands.

As the flop came, I was both excited and cautious at the same time, as it was A 3 5 with two Spades and I didn’t have the Ace of Spades. Both blinds checked and I was faced with a tough decision, and once again I made one the “book” would consider incorrect. The correct play is to protect your hand against a flush draw by betting more than the pot to make the pot odds incorrect for a call.

I checked and the next player to my left bet $18 (with $10 in the pot). It was folded around to me, I pushed and he called and turned over 5 3 for two pair. As it turned out, he was the one trying to protect his hand against the flush.

I was fortunate enough to win a large pot in a hand where I played incorrectly. The play after the flop could have went either way, so it wasn’t terrible, but the pre flop play was poor. If I had known that four of my opponents would see the flop with me, there is no way I would have limped. Of course if I had raised, the player with 5 3 would have folded and I would not have doubled up.

So what can we learn from this? Even when you play a hand incorrectly, you will win sometimes, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try to play every hand to the best of your ability. This goes along the same lines as the player who wins a big pot with J 5 and starts playing it every time he / she has it. Yes it will win every once in a while, but overall it will lose money, just like playing your good hands incorrectly.

For a final thought, don’t judge your playing sessions solely on results. Just because you won doesn’t mean you played well and just because you lost doesn’t mean you played poorly. Judge your play on the things you did.

Until next week, good luck at the tables.

One of the most underrated and overlooked skills in Texas holdem, particularly no limit Texas hold em, is getting an opponent to bluff at a pot when you have a better hand. In many situations, if you bet a player with a very poor hand will fold, but if you play the hand correctly, you may be able to get them to bet in hopes that you will fold, gaining you an additional bet.

Attempting to induce a bluff is not always successful and requires a solid understanding of your opponents betting tendencies and playing style. Position also plays a role, but it is not always extremely important. Here are a couple examples of inducing a bluff.

The most common way is if you must act first after the flop and check to an aggressive player. Depending on how good they are you may have to check to them on the turn also, showing weakness two times in a row to get them to bluff. Of course it is always possible that they will check behind you twice, but in this case, it is very unlikely that they would have called if facing a bet, so you don’t really lose anything by trying. The real danger is giving your opponent a free look at the turn and / or river to improve their hand to one that will beat you.

Another tactic in a no limit game is to make a small bet showing weakness to make your opponent consider raising you in hopes of making you fold. This works well against weaker opponents, but most better opponents will recognize a small bet as a trap and get away from the hand. Of course this means that you may be able to make a small bet as a bluff against a solid player at a later time. Everything your opponent does provides you with information you can use in the future.

All of this reinforces the discussions we have had in the past about paying attention and learning your opponents playing styles. Some opponents will bet every single time you check to them two times in a row, no matter what they have. Others will always check behind you unless they have a monster hand. By knowing what types of players your opponents are, you can pick up an extra bet or two every time you play. This increases your profitability a great deal over the course of your poker-playing career.

Start looking for situations where you have a strong hand and practice getting an extra bet from your opponents by inducing a bluff. You should quickly see an improvement to your bottom line.

Until next week, good luck at the tables!

My wife enjoys playing the slot machines, a little too much in my opinion, and as most of us know, they drain your bankroll pretty quickly, sometimes as much as 10% of every dollar played.

She also plays poker, mostly Texas hold em, so I decided to teach her how to play video poker so she could play longer on the same amount of money than she can on slots. Correct strategy on some video poker games returns over 99% to the player. As it turns out, this whole plan may have been a mistake on my part. I have tried to teach her correct strategy at the Texas hold em tables for years, and she has become a pretty solid player. The problem is the correct regular poker strategy can vary greatly from what is correct in video poker.

In Texas hold em, or Omaha Poker or 7 Card Stud Poker for that matter, most of our decisions take many things into account such as pot odds, position, opposing players, etc. Of course each game has slightly different variables and correct strategies, but overall they all operate along the same lines. On the other hand, video poker has exactly one central theme of importance. This is the pay table and the chance to draw to one of the hands on it. As an example, it is often incorrect to draw to an inside straight in Texas hold em, but there are many times it is correct in video poker.

The moral of the story is this. If you are a video poker player who wants to learn how to play hold em or some other table poker game or if you are a table player who wants to learn video poker strategy, realize that you have to forget everything you have learned and look at it as an entirely new game that requires an entirely new set of skills and strategy.

Of course video poker tends to be a consistent drain on your bankroll, as the casino still has an edge, it just isn’t a very big one, so I recommend learning Texas holdem or Omaha strategy and concentrating on it. You can gain a long-term edge playing them. Until next week, good luck at the tables (or at the video poker machines)!

If you have bothered to look around, you may have noticed that there seem to be thousands of poker forums online. These range in size from very large, with thousands of people online every day, to very small with only a few posters, and of course every size in between. I used to spend a great deal of time on poker forums, and they can be a wonderful place to learn about poker.

You must be able to tell the difference between good and bad advice though, because some of the advice given is completely wrong and can damage your game. Here are a few recommendations if you decide to find a forum.

1. Don’t take anything you read as fact until you think about it and do your own investigation.
2. Just because someone has many posts, doesn’t mean they know what they are talking about.
3. By offering advice in a constructive and professional way, you will be more likely to receive constructive advice when you ask questions.
4. Don’t get involved in the politics or petty squabbles that seem to pop up occasionally on forums. They are rarely productive and can put you in a poor situation.
5. Understand why you want to join a forum. Do you need to learn about certain aspects of poker, or are you looking for a community, or both.

I have learned a great deal at poker forums and enjoy the community aspect of them. Playing poker online can be a solitary pastime, and it is good to share views with like-minded people. I don’t spend as much time as I used to at them, but I still stop by and check out the new posts a couple times a week and often pick up some useful information.

If you don’t take part in a poker forum, you may want to find one or two that you can join, ask questions and take part in the discussions. You never know when you may learn just the thing you need to move over the top. Until next week, good luck at the tables!

Though I have written about pot odds in the past, it has been a long time and it has always been a more technical discussion than we will be having today. Below is a method that I have not discussed before. I have never used this method for determining my pot odds, and it is a great way for beginning poker players to quickly and easily figure their chances to win.

The first step is to determine how many outs you have. For example, if you have an open-end straight draw, you have eight outs and if you have four to a flush you have nine outs. The next step is to simply multiply the number of outs by two. So our new number for the straight draw is 16 and 18 for the flush draw.

The final steps are to multiply this number by the number of cards yet to be played, one for the river or two for the turn and river, and convert the new number to a percentage. So if there are two cards to come, the percentage for the straight draw is 32% and 36% for the flush draw. These are roughly the chance you have to hit your outs.

To illustrate the accuracy of this simple method, let’s compare the actual percentages with those we came up with. The percentage for the straight draw is just over 31% and for the flush draw is about 34%. So the percentages are very close. They are definitely close enough to make the correct decision in most games.

Start using this simple system and you will find that the correct play will become automatic in no time. Until next week, good luck at the tables!

Though the World Series of Poker, often abbreviated WSOP, is still a few months away, there are hundreds of satellite tournaments running both online and off for seats to the $10,000 buy in main event. This has already created a “buzz” that will continue to grow until the WSOP starts.

Though all of the satellite tournaments are for the main event, as most of you are probably aware, there are many other World Series events with buy-ins from $1,000 to $5,000. These facts lead me to a question that I found interesting. If you had the $10,000 buy-in for the main event, would you play in it or play in three of the smaller events with lower buy-ins?

Of course there are plusses and minuses to each course, but I have decided that I would play as many events as possible instead of the main event. The main event does offer by far the largest prize pool, but it also has the most entrants, which make short-term luck just as important as skill. By entering more events that each has fewer entrants, your playing abilities are more likely to award you and luck will be much less of a factor.

Possibly the biggest reason is from a purely mathematical standpoint. Even the very best poker players in the world only win a percentage, often a small one, of the tournaments that they enter. By entering more tournaments, you give yourself the best opportunity to place in the money in at least one, hopefully more.

All of this leads me to question why the online poker rooms don’t offer satellite tournaments to many of the lower buy-in events. They would be able to award many more seats to WSOP events. For example, they could award five times as many seats with the same number of entrants to a $2,000 buy-in event, giving online players a much higher chance of winning seats. That would interest me much more than a $10 buy-in satellite that only awards one seat per thousand entrants.

Whatever your goals are concerning the WSOP; I hope you achieve them and are able to play in the upcoming events. There are hundreds of satellites running now, so find the best one for you, and good luck at the tables.

I teach a few classes at a local private college, where it is widely known that I play a great deal of poker. One of the other professors and I had an interesting conversation last week where the subject of my children came up, and if I thought it was the “right” thing to teach them how to play poker.

When I informed him that my oldest daughter (10) already played poker with us often, the look on his face made it quite clear that he didn’t approve. I have included parts of my side of the conversation below.

I do not condone children gambling, placing bets with real money, in any way. Like many things I feel are important, I have discussed this with my daughter many times, including the dangers of gambling (I have been placing sporting bets since I was 12). However, I completely separate gambling from poker, as poker can be played without money just as well as it can with it. In addition, poker helps children learn many important skills. Let’s take a look at a few of the simple skills required to play poker.

Memory plays a large part in learning the rules of the game, the ranks and suits of the cards and the order of hands (a flush beats a straight, etc.). The intricate strategy necessary to do well helps develop analytical thinking abilities and playing poker helps develop social skills. Are there other games that can offer the same kind of skill development? Sure there are, but we tend to play variations of poker more than anything else, so why not let her play too?

My colleague and I couldn’t come to much of an agreement about what was right and wrong, but he can put his side of the story in his own column. It all comes down to personal choice. Each person should raise their children in the best way that they see fit. Just don’t overlook anything on the positive side of teaching kids to play poker. Until next week, good luck at the tables.

I had the opportunity to play in my first heads-up no limit Texas holdem tournament this past week, and it was an interesting experience. This type of structure is fairly new in comparison to multi table Texas holdem tournaments, but has been around for a few years. Many of the same skills that are necessary to win multi table tournaments are required, but many things are also different.

The similarities start with the fact that one bad play or unlucky hand can end your tournament. Though it may not always be this way, the tournament I played in started with a large number of chips each round, so the blinds were never a huge factor. This allows skilled players to have a distinct advantage over less skilled opponents, as they are able to wait for situations where they are a clear favorite.

The biggest change is the inability to build a large stack and coast into the money rounds. Each round you either win or lose, and everyone starts each round with the same number of chips. Most players are not experienced in heads-up tournament play, and greatly misjudge the starting hand values.

The best strategy tends to be an aggressive one. Many opponents will fold far too many hands to aggression, and unlike full tables, many hands will win without improving by the river. I won showdowns with Ace high more than once and King high on another occasion. You should see almost every flop and should bet most flops until your opponent stops folding to your bets. Once you have them “trained” not to fold, then you can wait for a strong hand to capitalize on.

Continuing with the same idea, the biggest mistake you can make is folding too much. If you let your opponent run over you, it will be a short game. When I face an opponent who is hyper-aggressive, I quickly choose a decent starting hand and move all in over the top of his or her raise before the flop. Most hyper-aggressive players don’t want to play for all of their chips pre flop and this can sometimes slow them down a little. In addition, unless they have you completely dominated, which will not often be the case, you have a good chance to win with hands as poor as JTs or K9 when playing heads up.

Heads up play is about aggression and countering aggression. Like all forms of poker, take some time to practice your heads up play and before you know it, you will be in the money. Until next week, good luck at the tables!