The Inside Straight

Tipping in Poker Tournaments
A Closer Look at What is Already Taken Out and What is an Appropriate Tip
By Kristy Arnett

"Right now, when it comes to tipping, it is a gray area, with a capital G."
- World Series of Poker Media Director Nolan Dalla

In the past decade or so, it has become common practice for a certain percentage of a tournament prize pool to be withheld for dealers. By definition, a tip is an optional payment, usually to express appreciation for excellent service. As it relates to tournament poker, tips have traditionally been left to the discretion of individual players. But in the past decade or so, it has become common practice for a certain percentage of a tournament prize pool to be withheld for dealers. However, dealer-withholding percentages are not always readily available, and some locations do not even allow for the allocation of prize pool funds for dealers and staff. This has created a lack of clarity concerning the topic of dealer tips and continues to cause headaches for players and casino staff alike.

"In the old days, they didn't take anything out for the dealers, but all of the players would usually tip 1 percent to 2 percent. I really don't think they should take anything out," said 1996 WSOP Champion Huck Seed. "The house should get paid, and then people should tip what they want to tip. It shouldn't be a mandatory tip."

Most players say that they tip anywhere from 1 percent to 4 percent of what they win, and usually more toward the bottom of this range if money has already been taken out for dealer tips. Nearly all big buy-in events, including the recent Wynn Classic and most WSOP Circuit events, take out 3 percent for the tournament staff.

At the WSOP, the percentage taken out varies with the buy-in amount of the event. The lowest buy-ins, including the $500 buy-in event, has the most taken out, 3 percent. All $10,000 buy-in events, including the main event, withhold 1.8 percent for the tournament staff, and the $50,000 buy-in H.O.R.S.E. tournament withholds 1.2 percent.

"We have had final tables where no one tipped," said Dalla. "This is somewhat demoralizing. You have got to have some guarantees. You can't have dealers essentially gambling on whether they will be compensated."

Among the many players who agree with withholding money for dealers is 2006 WSOP Champion Jamie Gold. "I think that it is a good thing that they take out a certain percentage, because they (the dealers) deserve to be taken care of. I definitely think they should (take out the money), because there are some people who don't tip," said Gold.

"Back in the old days, it was always expected to toke," said Dalla. "Now we are in a new age where some people say, 'Well, they are already withholding this amount of money for the dealers, so why should I be expected to tip more?' Those are both legitimate, valid points of view. Ultimately, the industry standard should be a compromise between the two."

Taking a percentage out of the tournament prize pool has become standard in the U.S., with the exception of San Jose, California, and New Jersey. Atlantic City is home to the famous Taj Mahal and Borgata casinos, which host a number of big buy-in events, but New Jersey law prohibits the allocation of a percentage of buy-ins for dealer tips, forcing the dealers to rely on the players to compensate them.

Widely respected in the poker industry for overseeing many of the most prestigious events in the world, Matt Savage concludes that taking a percentage out of the prize pool is the best way to make sure that all parties are happy. "If two or three percent is taken out of the prize pool, the winners won't feel as though it affects them so much. I would never ask for players to give anything more if money has been withheld for dealers, but, obviously, if they leave something on top, it is very generous and appreciated," said Savage.

While the dealer withholding percentages and suggested tip amounts vary, it remains that it is the sole discretion of the player to give any or any additional gratuity. As of now, there is no clear answer as to what is a standard tip in tournaments, but the gray area is becoming more defined as players become more informed.

"This is a work in progress," said Dalla. "Eventually, there will be a sense of what is right, and there will be a so-called industry standard."

Massachusetts House Rejects Gambling Bill
Returned to a Study Committee
By Bob Pajich

The Massachusetts gambling bill that would have allowed the prosecution of online poker players has been voted back to a study committee, killing it for this year. The Massachusetts Casino Expansion bill would have allowed the state to license three more casinos, but it also contained a provision that would punish online poker players and gamblers with fines of up to $25,000 and jail time of up to two years.

The vote came after the state's Committee on Economic Development and Emerging Technologies voted against recommending its passage. The Poker Players Alliance and Harvard's Global Poker Strategic Thinking Society teamed up and organized a rally in Boston Commons the morning before the hearing, and about 40 people attended. Those who spoke at both the rally and the public hearing on the bill included Harvard Law professor and GPSTS founder Charles Nesson, and Randy Castonguay, the PPA state representative for Massachusetts.

The Massachusetts House of Representatives voted 106-48 to send the bill back for more study. The vote came after a six-hour debate.

Ask Jack
Have a question about a specific tournament poker rule or past ruling you've encountered? E-mail Bellagio Tournament Director Jack McClelland: [email protected].

Tom: Late in a tournament, a card was exposed during the deal. That player was dealt a new card and the exposed card was to be the burn card. The dealer accidentally burned another card before the flop. The two players in the hand had both acted, when a player not involved in the hand pointed out the dealer's error. As the tournament director, I ruled that the flop and two burn cards should be reshuffled into the deck and a new flop should be dealt. There were objections, because the players said that they had already exposed the range on their hands by acting on the first flop, but I stuck with my decision. Was it right?

Jack: That's a tough one, Tom. If you reshuffle the deck with the flop and burn cards, you should return the two players' flop bets. My decision, in that particular case, would be to let the flop stand and just continue the hand, for the following reasons: Although the dealer incorrectly burned another card, after the flop there was substantial action accepted by both players left in the pot. The only other solution would be to completely reconstruct the pot, give everyone his money back, and have a fresh deal, based on the fact that the dealer committed two mistakes. Welcome, Tom, to the joys of being a tournament director.

Justin: I was in a tournament at a local casino, and after the first break when the rebuys were over, a player wanted his wife to take over his stack so that he could play in a cash game. The tournament director allowed it. Is that the proper ruling?

Jack: No. Once a player plays a hand in a tournament, no one else (not even a wife) can replace him.

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New partnerships always mean outstanding new benefits for SpadeClub members! SpadeClub recently announced its latest partnership with WPT Boot Camp. WPT Boot Camp is widely known for educating players through its renowned camps, featuring live instructors, exclusive footage from WPT tournaments, and integrated multimedia courseware. All SpadeClub Exclusive members will receive significant discounts on WPT Boot Camps; in addition, they will be able to compete in a series of free poker tournaments for free attendance at various WPT Boot Camps!

To learn more about SpadeClub's Club Rewards, please visit www.spadeclub.com.

SpadeClub Spotlight
SpadeClub's latest $5,000 tournament winner, George "padre99" Stamas, began playing poker with his friends when he was just 9 years old. He now frequents casino poker rooms by day and enjoys playing on SpadeClub by night. When asked what separates good players from great players, Stamas told Card Player, "It seems to me that the truly great players have something special. They can smell weakness, and always seem to know when to move their chips." Stamas believes the key to his personal poker success, which has enabled him to play seriously for more than 30 years, is that he continues to enjoy himself and tries to mix up his game as much as possible.

To view complete interviews with SpadeClub winners, please visit www.spadeclub.com/news.

Tips From the Table
User David "HodgeD" Hodge says:
I know firsthand that final-table poker takes a lifetime to master, and I'm happy to say that with a combination of good advice from friends and the very cool feature of hand-strength software provided by SpadeClub, I was able to go to the final table of SpadeClub's first $40,000 event in ninth place and finish in third place.

The hand-strength feature I was referring to is called Hand Helper. Hand Helper is featured on the tables of all Exclusive members, and is a great tool to utilize. In tournament play, there are multiple situations in which you have to evaluate the strength of cards quickly and accurately. That's easy to do on your own with a full table, but when six players remain and the stakes are high, you want to know quickly how 10-9 suited in middle position will fare. Hand Helper does the work quickly for you. You enter the number of players, the hand, and your position, and it instantly tells you the strength of your hand.

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Submit your own tips from the table along with your SpadeClub screen name to: [email protected]. If we publish your tip or tale, you'll receive a free SpadeClub T-shirt along with the pride of being published.

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PPA Launches Legal Support Network
Organization is Looking for Attorneys to Join
By Bob Pajich

The Poker Players Alliance (PPA) has launched a free Litigation Support Network to provide basic poker legal advice, as well as provide members with a network of attorneys around the country who can help players locally if needed. That includes the worst-case scenario of being arrested. If that happens, players can contact the PPA Litigation Support Network via e-mail to set up a free preliminary phone call with an attorney. If the player needs more legal support, he will be given a list of attorneys in his area who would be willing to take his case.

Players can also use the free network for any poker questions, such as the legality of charity poker or poker leagues in their states.

The PPA is looking for attorneys to become part of the network. Interested attorneys can apply through the PPA website.

The Litigation Support Network is run by Patrick Fleming, an attorney who is also the PPA state director for New Hampshire.

"The patchwork of state and local laws relating to poker is leaving PPA members confused about what is legal and what is illegal," said Fleming, through a PPA press release. "In our ongoing efforts to protect the rights of Americans to play poker, the establishment of the Litigation Support Network will provide members with an added level of security as they enjoy the game in their homes, at their local pub, or as a way to help a local charity."

As it stands, the PPA Litigation Support Network page has a list of legal articles that the organization has collected in the last few years, a number to call if legal help is needed, (888) 448-4PPA, ext. 7 (a PPA member ID number is required), a link to a legal forum that the PPA is providing, and a link for attorneys who want to join the network.

The page can be found at www.pokerplayersalliance.org/legal.

Irish Poker Open has its Winner
Neil Channing is the Champion
By Bob Pajich

Neil "Bad Beat" Channing is this year's winner of the PaddyPowerPoker.com Irish Poker Open. For outlasting the 666 other players who showed up at the Citywest Hotel in Dublin to try to capture the title, he won more than $1.2 million (€801,400) and a trophy.

The tournament had a €3 million guarantee, and PaddyPowerPoker had to contribute more than $320,000 (€200,000) to the prize pool to meet the guarantee.

Yang Helps Feed the Children
Donates 10 Truckloads to Southern California Families
By Bob Pajich

During Jerry Yang's improbable run to the 2007 World Series of Poker main-event title, he promised both God and the cameras of ESPN that he would donate 10 percent of his winnings to charity. He has kept his promise.

Recently, Yang was in Long Beach, California, helping to distribute 10 truckloads of food, hygiene products, toys, and dry goods to Southern California families in need. Yang worked with the international hunger relief organization Feed the Children to make this happen. It cost him $72,000, a small drop in the bucket compared to the more than $8 million he won last summer. It's enough to help 4,000 families.

Yang already has given more than $1 million of his WSOP payday away. Both the Make-a-Wish Foundation and the Ronald McDonald House have received checks for $275,000, and he said that he's given money to his church, the social agency that he used to work for, as well as family members who are still in Laos, where he grew up poor. The Make-a-Wish Foundation will also benefit from a poker tournament that Yang is headlining in Fresno, California, next month.

Besides his strong faith in God, his upbringing has a lot to do with why Yang believes in being so charitable. He grew up so poor that he blew up pig bladders into soccer balls to play with.

"Even after taxes, I have enough to help my family. But at the same time, I want to be able to give something back to the community, and there are a lot of people out there who are in need. To be able to give back is actually a great honor and a great privilege."

Yang, of course, isn't the first poker player to give large amounts of money to charity. Barry Greenstein donates a large portion of his tournament poker winnings, sometimes even giving up the entire purse. Phil Ivey recently donated $50,000 to the local Las Vegas Christian Academy Empowered 2 Excel after winning the L.A. Poker Classic. He also recently announced the formation of The Budding Ivey Foundation, a nonprofit organization that collects and distributes funds to charities and schools.

Tuan Lam, the 2007 WSOP main-event runner-up to Yang, is helping to build a temple in Vietnam, joining Men Nguyen and many other Vietnamese players who send money back to their homeland on a regular basis.

Jennifer Harman works closely with the Nevada Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, and Phil Hellmuth has helped raise money for fallen police officers, joining a long list of professional players who help promote, sponsor, and play in charity poker tournaments across the country. These are just a few examples of many.

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PokerOffice is arguably one of the most intuitive and least daunting of any of the poker tracking software currently available. One of its most exciting features is the built-in Heads Up Display (HUD), which, with most other poker tracking software, requires a separate program. The HUD overlays real-time statistics for all of your opponents directly onto the table, which means you don't have to switch to the program and sift through your database to find out whom you're up against.

The stats sit below each player's screen name, and the program defaults to displaying the number of hands played, percentage of time the player has paid to see the flop, percentage of time the player has gone from the flop to the turn, and the percentage of time the player has raised preflop. Those are just four among almost 90 different stats that you can choose to display directly on the table. Among the other stats that are tracked for each player are aggression factors, steal attempts, and blinds defense. Once you know whom you're up against, you can use his own tactics against him. The HUD also automatically displays cards mucked at showdown, meaning you no longer have to dig through the hand history to find out what your opponent had when he made that big call on the river.

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Confessions of a Poker Dealer
Confessions of a Poker Dealer is a short history of poker played in casinos since the late 1970s. It covers from the late 1970s, when "snatch" games (the way casino's robbed poker players) were eliminated, to the growth of poker throughout the 1980s and 1990s, and finally to the "television" generation that started in 2002 and created millions of new poker players. The book looks at what is still today the biggest win in gambling history--$18.5 million, including $10 million in poker play between Archie Karras, a "degenerate" craps player who borrowed $30 to start his improbable triumph and beat four of the biggest names in poker one at a time in the early 1990s. It's also about Robert Varkonyi, winner of the 2002 main event at the World Series of Poker. And there are other fun stories about poker and gambling in general from 27 years in Las Vegas and Atlantic City.

World Series of Poker Main-Event Seats Up for Grabs at Caesars Palace
Win a $10,000 Buy-in in a Satellite or Freeroll Tournament
By Kristy Arnett

The richest poker tournament in the world is coming soon to Las Vegas, and in May, Caesars Palace will serve as headquarters for World Series of Poker main-event seats with satellites and freeroll tournament qualifying.

The WSOP main event is scheduled to begin on July 3, and eight seats will be up for grabs in a $100,000 freeroll. To qualify, players must log 60 hours of cash-game play between May 1 and May 31. The freeroll tournament will take place on Sunday, June 22, at 2 p.m. Along with the eight $10,000 seats, cash prizes also will be awarded.

Also starting on May 1 in the Caesars Palace poker room are main-event satellites. Daily single-table satellites will run from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Daily supersatellites will run as follows:

All supersatellites will have 30-minute blinds increases. Satellites will end on May 27. For more information, call Caesars Palace at (800) 634-6001 and ask for the poker room.

Wynn Las Vegas Introduces New Daily Tournaments

From Monday through Friday, late risers can catch the Wynn Las Vegas 2 p.m. no-limit hold'em tournament. The buy-in of $120 gets players 4,000 in starting chips, and for an extra $100, players receive an additional 4,000 in chips. This rebuy/add-on is available throughout the first three levels, which are each 30 minutes long.

Anybody's Game: Player of the Year Race a Tight One

It's April, and a spring logjam has formed among the top 10 tournament poker players of 2008. Only 760 points separate the Card Player 2008 Player of the Year (POY) leader, Michael McDonald, from Michael Schulze, who is in 10th place. With so many big buy-in tournaments taking place around the world that continue to attract hundreds of players, there are thousands of POY points to be won, and the best will continue to win them.

There are 60 players who have at least 1,000 points, which is essentially one victory in a major event away from taking over the lead. Another astonishing figure in this year's race is the money won so far this year. Out of the top 102 players in the POY standings, only nine have won less than $100,000 in tournaments. Nine players have won $1 million or more this year (one man, Bertrand Grospellier, has won more than $2 million).

Some great players are chasing the top 10, including Erik Seidel, who sits in a seven-way tie for 21st place with 1,600 points (all of which came from his second-place finish in the Aussie Millions, good for $880,000). Lee Watkinson is in 19th place with 1,766 points, thanks to four final tables and a victory in a preliminary event at the Aussie Millions. He's won $513,979 in 2008.

Michael Binger is also having quite a year. With seven cashes and five final tables, the third-place finisher in the 2006 World Series of Poker main event is showing that his run in that tournament was no fluke. Since then, he's cashed 20 times, but his only victory came this year in a preliminary event at the L.A. Poker Classic. He resides in ninth place with 2,176 points.
Tournament poker players are about to enter the meat of the year's schedule, beginning with the $25,000 World Poker Tour Championship, which is held during the Bellagio Five-Star World Poker Classic. The WPT Championship takes place April 19-26.

Then, it's the WSOP, which takes place from May 30 to July 17, and will undoubtedly have a major impact on the POY race. Stay tuned.

Isolating for Personal Gain
By Chris Rhodes



A key component of high-stakes limit hold'em is isolation. When a loose player raises preflop, I am more likely to reraise with a medium-strength hand, because I generally am in fairly good shape against his range and will likely get to see a flop heads up in position. The combination of these factors gives me a significant edge post-flop. Some other benefits of three-betting are possibly knocking out some stronger hands that I will not fare well against and likely forcing the blinds to fold to create some dead money in the pot.

I recently had some opportunities for isolation plays in a $100-$200 game online. The game was built around two loose players. Unfortunately, I was seated between them, and had position on only one. My image at the time of this hand was likely tight, since I had been fairly card-dead in this session and some of the players likely had respect for me already from prior confrontations.

In this hand, the villain raised from UTG and I elected to three-bet with the K 10. Against most players, I would have folded this hand, but I thought that this would be a good time to isolate. The rest of the players folded, the villain called, and we saw a flop heads up in a $750 pot. The flop came down J 8 2, villain checked, and I bet. I chose to bet because I will occasionally take down the pot immediately, and I can also maintain initiative, which could help give me more options on the turn. Unfortunately, the villain raised my flop bet and took back the initiative. I chose to call the $100 flop raise, since the pot contained $1,050 and I thought that I could reasonably continue if a king, queen, 10, or 9 rolled off on the turn.

The turn card was the 10 and the villain bet, and my plan, now that I had a pair, was to call down and likely bet the river if the villain checked. The river was the 8, which I thought was a pretty bad card, since I could no longer beat an 8; but at this point, the pot was $1,750 after he bet, and I called the last $200, hoping he had a busted draw.

Fortunately, my opponent turned over the 10 9, and my pair of tens had him outkicked. Looking back at how the money went in, I made a good three-bet with the best hand preflop. On the flop, my opponent was open-ended, so my king high was best, but vulnerable. Luckily, I turned a pair, or I may have been pushed off the best hand on the turn. The turn and river bets went in good, and I think putting in a raise would have been out of line, since I will rarely be called with a hand I can beat.

Todd Arnold Becomes a 'Wild and Crazy Guy' to Invoke Action
By Craig Tapscott

Want to study real poker hands with the Internet's most successsful players? In this series, Card Player offers hand analysis with online poker's leading talent.


Craig Tapscott: Share with us how you create a table image.

Todd Arnold: Table image is not always something that you create yourself; in fact, more often than not, it is created for you by your cards and the action. The key is to be aware of what others are thinking of you.

CT: Set up what's happened so far.

TA: I was already up more than $2,000, a few hundred of which was the villain's, when I raised his straddle without looking at my cards and he tried to defend it three hands before this.

Preflop: There are two limpers for $5. The button raises to $35. Arnold calls $35 from the small blind, holding the 9 7.

CT: What sneaky shenanigans are you up to here?

TA: I'd been picking on this guy, or at least made him feel that way, for a while up to this point. So, he raised, and I said, "If he's in, I'm in," and called. The other two players fold, which makes my "perceived attack" of this player seem even more direct.

CT: This can't be a consistent positive-expected-value play.

TA: No. I played it more to continue to set this player up for a future big pot. I equate it to a chess match; I sacrifice a pawn to kill his queen later.

Flop: 9 9 6 ($85 pot)

Arnold bets $65.

TA: Oops, I'm a lucksack. I immediately lead into it as if I was going to make that bet no matter what the flop was. I have a bluffing image due to many other plays all night, so there is no need to give away my hand by check-calling or raising. Do what they expect you to do, based on your image.

Villain raises to $165. Arnold calls.

CT: What's the plan?

TA: I call after feigning a reraise, saying to the others, "I can't believe he would try to bluff me." Before the dealer deals the next card, he says, "I check blind," from in position. This was strange. I whip my head over toward him like I'm recognizing weakness, and casually say, "Well then, I'm all in blind." I then say to one of the other guys, "I planned to do this to him when I called him preflop; he doesn't have a 9." I am sure this frustrated the villain even more. This is just a pure ego issue. Don't be a victim of it.

Turn: J ($415 pot)

TA: The action is back on him, facing an all-in bet on the turn. He deliberates and says, "OK, I call. I have the best hand."

River: 2 ($1,625)

TA: The river is meaningless, as he turns over the A K. I quietly rake the pot. Forcing your opponents to make a mistake is one of the keys to the game. Sometimes you do it with math, and sometimes, like here, it's done with psychology.

CT: Do you play live like a maniac all the time?

TA: Mostly, yes. I'm not recommending doing "stupid" stuff like I do at a table, but use any means possible to create and take advantage of your image. Before you do anything on the crazy side to induce action, make sure that you're reading your opponents very well first. They thought I was a gambling nutcase, and were afraid of me. Fear and confusion are two very good things for your opponents to be feeling.

Todd Arnold is a professional who is best known for his tournament play, and he teaches strategy at realpokertraining.com. His specialty, however, has always been live cash-game play. Contact him for private coaching@[email protected].

SowersUNCC on Beginning, Growing, and Taking it Down
By Shawn Patrick Green

Prominent online poker pro Mike "SowersUNCC" Sowers recently made the biggest cash of his tournament poker career--but he made it live. Sowers entered a $5,000 buy-in no-limit hold'em event at the 2008 Borgata Winter Open along with 265 other entrants. He ultimately came out on top to snag first-place prize money of almost $400,000.

Sowers has earned his online poker notoriety through some high-profile wins. He has taken down six Online Player of the Year-qualified events and has earned more than a half-million dollars from OPOY finishes alone. His wins include a limit hold'em event in the 2007 PokerStars World Championship of Online Poker (worth $120,000) and the $1,000 buy-in weekly events on both PokerStars and Full Tilt (worth $80,000 and $54,000, respectively).

Card Player caught up with Sowers after his win to talk about how he started out in poker, what helped him grow as a player, and what strategies he currently uses to succeed.

Shawn Patrick Green: How did you get into poker, and what methods did you use to improve your game?

Mike "SowersUNCC" Sowers: Mainly, what got me into poker was watching Rounders in high school. It was pretty much the big poker boom; Chris Moneymaker had just won the World Series of Poker, so "Anybody can do this" was the mindset that I had. In high school, I just played in a bunch of sit-and-gos with all of my friends, and I usually won those pretty consistently. So, that gave me a sense of, "I can really do this if I try."

So, I started playing online. Online was kind of a roller coaster to begin with. I'd win some and I'd lose some. I was a pretty bad poker player, I guess. I started playing the higher limits and ran up a pretty big bankroll, and then went broke. And then, when I came back--I took about a year off when I went broke--I just decided to play well within my bankroll. I grinded sit-and-gos, so that gave me a lot of in-game strategy, from every single sit-and-go that I played, because of the bubble and all of that.

And I increased my circle of friends to those who also played poker at a high level, to talk to them about hands and talk with each other about certain situations and how they would play the situations. And I pretty much just tried to increase my mental capacity for all of the different situations, as well as just playing a lot. When you play online, you can play eight to 10 tables at a time, so you really see a lot of hands.

SPG: You said that when you started getting really serious about poker, you were playing the sit-and-gos to develop your in-game strategy. Would you suggest that that is perhaps one of the best ways to get started in tournament poker, just because you see all of the different levels of play?

MS: I definitely would. I think that, pretty much, most of the top Internet players who have gone on to do really good things in multitable tournaments all have some background in sit-and-gos. They help you learn the mathematics for push-shove, and they're really just smaller, tighter multitable tournament. It's really easy to translate from a sit-and-go to a multitable tournament. Big players like Jonathan Little and "THE_D_RY" [Danny Ryan] are two of the best sit-and-go players in the world, and you see what they're doing live and online.

SPG: How do you combat impatience, because I'm sure that's a problem for a lot of online players, even though everything is going a lot more quickly and you're playing a lot more tables?

MS: Yeah, for sure. Really, the big thing that I do is to make sure that I'm eating healthier and working out. The stuff you eat actually has a lot to do with your brain activity, so the better diet you have, the more exercise you do, and the more you do away from poker, the better your poker game will be, because you will be more patient. You won't let a bad beat hurt you as badly, because your brain activity is a lot healthier than it would be if you weren't eating as well or exercising. If you're just sitting in front of the computer all day, it's a lot easier to get impatient when things aren't going your way.

SPG: Your biggest online cash was for $120,000 in a limit hold'em event in the PokerStars World Championship of Online Poker. Most tournament players are not as well-versed in limit hold'em as they are in no-limit hold'em. How did you exploit the relatively green field in that event?

MS: I used to grind a lot of limit back in the day. Whenever you're playing limit tournaments, especially deep in the tournament, you're playing a lot of heads-up pots, and that's really all that I used to play when I first started playing poker--limit heads up. So I had a lot of experience playing heads-up limit pots. I don't really think that I had played in a lot of limit tournaments, but I still think that the things that are rewarded in tournaments, aggression and knowledge of when to call down with maybe ace high, are rewarded in a limit tournament. There are lots of times when you have to put in your money because you're getting such great pot odds, and a lot of people just don't understand that yet in limit tournaments, or in limit games, even.

So, I guess those would be my biggest exploitations, that I knew how to play heads-up limit pots, I knew how to be really aggressive, and I knew when to check-raise the turn on them. That's one of my big strategies in limit tournaments, to check-raise the turn; it looks so strong that they have to have a big hand to call, and you're sitting so few blinds deep, usually, in limit tournaments that most people are just going to give up the pot if they don't have at least top pair or a really strong draw, or something like that.

Chatbox Cunning

Chetna "Rex55" Joshi

On how to utilize all of the faceup cards and free information available in seven-card stud eight-or-better:

"When I'm playing stud eight-or-better, I'm always monitoring the low cards, starting from 32; there are 32 low cards in the deck, so I count down. Once you realize this, you're able to see all of the cards that your opponent has, with the exception of his holecards and the river. The game almost begins to click a lot more naturally; it did for me. I think that stud eight-or-better is my most natural game. I play a lot of stud eight-or-better cash games, and I wish there were more stud eight-or-better tournaments, but, unfortunately, there aren't.

"Once you realize that you can use all of the information on the table to your advantage, it becomes so much easier. Most people who are playing stud eight-or-better aren't doing that; they have tunnel vision. They're looking at their board, their cards, or what cards they need to complete their two pair or their straight or flush. They're not seeing, 'Oh, OK, three sixes have already folded.' So, once I've decided, 'OK, I'm playing this hand,' I quickly look at all of the cards that are out there, and I am mentally able to compartmentalize all of that. 'This guy can't be representing a straight because three fives have folded.' In stud eight-or-better, the 5 and the ace are the two most important cards, because without a 5, you can't make any straights inside the low, and, obviously, the ace works for low, high, and the wheel."

On some of her strategies for beating seven-card stud eight-or-better and razz tournaments:

"Well, when I'm playing razz or stud eight-or-better, especially in the middle or late stages of tourneys, I'm basically betting my board versus my opponent's board. This won't work early on in the tournament, when the blinds are small and trivial. And, to be honest, oftentimes, I'll just sit out early on in H.O.R.S.E. tournaments, because it's a showdown game. Nobody's folding and the blinds are small. And at these stages, it's really, really, really important to stick to tight starting-hand selections and clean draws.

"So, in razz, that would be 7 lows and better, with an 8 low being the upper limit. It shouldn't really get worse than that at the low blinds levels, because you are getting to the river, and you are turning your hand over. But, as the blinds get bigger and each bet becomes a bigger decision, I really, really kick in the aggression. I bet my board strongly and I force my opponents to call big bets after they catch a brick. And as the blinds get higher, I like to stick to cleaner draws, as well.

"That's pretty much the big thing; in razz and stud eight-or-better, by fifth street you should know whether you're going to go with the hand or not. At least for me, that's where I decide. If I catch a brick on fourth and fifth, I'm done with the hand. I'm not sitting there, in razz, with a 4 doorcard, hitting a 10 and a queen, and still calling."

Daryl Jace Works Hard for the Money
By Craig Tapscott

Before Daryl Jace had turned 18, he had won more than $300,000 playing tournament poker online. The big wins would eventually lead to a backing deal that would find Jace knee-deep in makeup money to the tune of six figures, and just as rock-bottom in self-confidence. Time and hard work would serve as the only antidotes to repair the damage that a little luck and an inflated understanding of the game had inflicted.

"After turning 18, I was backed and lost for about a year straight," said Jace. "At that point, I took some time off. I watched about four poker training videos a day. Then, I started posting on [a poker] forum. I've learned so much from more intelligent and better players than myself."

Within two months of Jace's return from a self-imposed hibernation, he won more than $400,000. He warmed up with a $36,000 win on PokerStars. Then, he dominated the final table of last November's $500 Full Tilt Online Poker Series main event, for a win of $385,937. His hard work had been well-rewarded.

Presently, Jace is hard at work on improving his live game, to be well-prepared for the 2009 World Series of Poker. If past performance is any indication, the results should prove to be a foregone conclusion.

Craig Tapscott: What knowledge gained during the time off had the most impact on your game?

Daryl Jace: I really started to understand my equity versus an opponent's hand ranges, and basically began understanding pot odds better. Also, SNG Power Tools helped. Working with that site definitely helped improve my short-stack game. Once you learn things in poker, you also learn how to defend against them.

CT: What else was important?

DJ: I learned not to raise with the intention of folding from late position if the blinds shove and I'm sitting on 13-20 big blinds, mainly because these days, the blinds usually reraise or fold against you. And if you're folding to a shove, it's turning your hand into 7-2. I really used to spew chips by folding in that spot to reraises.

CT: Does that understanding change the range of hands with which you're raising from late position?

DJ: Definitely. With so many players shoving A-X, and so on, you can't spew chips in those spots. But you do have to call, many times, a lot lighter than normal. Nowadays, most players reshove way too light more than they should. They don't base it on hand strength enough, and shove with complete trash hands.

CT: I've seen some great online players shoving with some questionable hands.

DJ: Well, the good players base it more on hand strength. They'll do it with hands that do well against their opponent's calling range.

CT: What do you pay the most attention to during a hand?

DJ: I plan out how to play each hand. I'm not thinking about just what my opponent's hand is now, but what his folding, calling, and raising ranges are if I bet. By knowing that information, it enables me to take the optimal line in every hand. I started by doing this in my head every time, and then it slowly became an unconscious habit after so many hands.

CT: What happens when you're up against a high-level opponent? Don't you have to slow down and adjust?

DJ: With so much practice, I've learned to make adjustments on the fly. It's a matter of digging it deep into your subconscious, and then it becomes an ingrained habit each hand.

CT: Many players struggle with bet sizes in no-limit. In closing, what can you share about your game?

DJ: It's about learning how to manipulate stack sizes, setting up hands in which you bet a certain amount and if you get raised, you have enough fold equity to shove all in. Don't leave yourself in spots where you bet, get raised, and can't shove over the top and are able to get an opponent to fold a draw. You have to understand what bet sizes to make to be able to get it all in on the turn. Let's say your stack is four times the pot on the flop. If you bet pot twice, you can get it all in. If you have 13 times the pot, you can bet pot three times and get it all in. Pay attention to the pot size.

Making an Aggressive Player Pay
By Mike Sexton, the "Ambassador of Poker" and Commentator for the World Poker Tour

The Bay 101 Shooting Star tournament is one of the most fun and entertaining tournaments on the World Poker Tour. It's where many of the biggest names in poker have bounties on their heads, and whoever eliminates them from the tournament gets a $5,000 cash bounty on the spot. This "open season on the pros" creates a festive and exciting atmosphere, and an action-oriented tournament unlike any other on the WPT.

This was an extraordinary final table, with top pros Ted Forrest, Bill Edler, and James Van Alstyne at the table, as well as WPT Ladies Champ J.J. Lieu. (Incidentally, Lieu finished second in this event, which at the time was the highest finish by a woman in the history of the WPT. Nice going, J.J.)

This hand took place early on at the final table. Six players were left, with antes of 1,000 and blinds of 5,000-10,000, when Bill Edler (with 895,000 in chips) limped in from under the gun with two sixes. Ted Forrest (in second place with more than 2 million in chips) called right behind him with the K 10. The next three players folded, and Amir Shavesteh (the chip leader with nearly 2.8 million in chips) looked down and found two aces in the big blind! He raised it to 50,000.

Edler now decided to reraise it another 75,000 (making it 125,000). Forrest folded and Shavesteh opted to camouflage the strength of his hand and just called. The flop came K-5-2. Shavesteh checked, Edler bet 150,000, and Shavesteh went all in over the top and took down the pot when Edler folded.

Top pros like Barry Greenstein and Todd Brunson, guys who aren't afraid to play a pot and don't worry about getting outdrawn, make this play against aggressive players who figure to continue to bet the pot no matter what comes on the flop. Edler is one of those players who make the continuation-bet after the flop, so you have to admire Shavesteh for just calling the reraise preflop with two aces. Here, it most likely earned him another 150,000.

In poker, everyone says, "You have to get lucky to win a tournament." You can be lucky in a number of ways: catching cards, having opponents make a move against you at the wrong time, and so on. Here's a hand in which I believe Ted Forrest got lucky, and he didn't even play the pot! Because Edler decided to reraise preflop, Forrest got away from this hand for the size of the big blind. Had Edler just called the 40,000 raise, Forrest, with the K 10, might have called, as well, as he was in position and had a good amount of chips. He would have flopped top pair, and certainly would have lost more chips in this pot.

Forrest went on to win this championship and took home $1 million and his first WPT title. Congratulations, Ted.

Wearing a Bulletproof Vest
By David Apostolico

There is a fine line between a calling station and a genius. Much of the accepted wisdom in no-limit poker is that you should be folding or raising. Calling is only for those with masochistic tendencies. There are times, however, when I think a call is warranted. It is sometimes necessary for self-defense. Rather than think of it as a weak move, think of it as a security blanket, or more appropriately, as a bulletproof vest.

One of my favorite things to watch for is a player who likes to fire three bullets at the pot when he has completed missed. Now, firing multiple bullets is a good way to play against most opponents. If you raise preflop, you should continue to be aggressive post-flop. There's a common poker adage that an amateur will fire one bullet at the pot while a pro will fire two or three. If you don't recognize this fact and occasionally defend yourself, you are inviting the entire table to rob you at will whenever you miss a flop.

When I know that my opponent will fire those extra bullets, I will provide him with the opportunity to bluff off his chips to me. In a recent tournament, I was looking to trap a very aggressive opponent. He raised from late position and I called from the big blind, holding the J 9. The flop came Q J 3. I checked, and he made a big bet. I called. The turn brought the 4. Again, I checked. I was still fairly certain that my hand was the best and that my opponent would try to bully me off it. He made another very big bet. Again, I called. The river brought the best possible card for me--the A. I had the second nuts after backdooring a flush. I was hoping my opponent had an ace. I checked, and he went all in. I quickly called, and he reluctantly turned over his A-3 for two pair. He made some comment about how lucky I was, and then asked himself when he was going to learn not to bet against players who don't know any better to fold.

Of course, I had the better hand the entire way after the flop. I knew that I had the best hand and I let my opponent bluff off his chips to me. Usually, I am not a big fan of slow-playing, and it is extremely risky to slow-play a hand as vulnerable as mind was, even if I thought I had the best hand. If I had bet or raised anywhere along the way, I could have helped define my opponent's hand. In this case, though, I really didn't think I needed to do that. I knew enough about my opponent to know that I thought the best way to maximize my profit here was for him to bet the hand for me.

I was also happy to see my opponent react the way that he did. Not only did I win a sizeable pot, but my opponent would now think twice about firing blanks at me. A nice added benefit was the free advertising to the rest of the table. Some of the more astute opponents recognized what I was doing, but I know that others thought I was just chasing a flush.

It's amazing how many times I see similar plays (either from myself or from others), and the reaction of the aggressive player is always one of indignation that he can't believe the winner of the hand could call. Now, in some of these cases, I do think some players are just calling stations, and are calling with marginal hands and praying that they have the best hand, rather than having a good read on their opponent. However, I know for certain that many of these so-called weaker opponents are completely exploiting their overly aggressive opponents to maximize their profits.

I find the arrogance of the aggressive player when he is called down and caught bluffing to be very telling. These players believe that they are entitled to the pot for their so-called correct aggressive play, and that their opponents are too dumb for their own good. While that may be the case at times, I think a lot of these so-called calling stations are more crafty than they are given credit for.

David Apostolico is the author of numerous books on poker, including Tournament Poker and The Art of War and Poker Strategies for a Winning Edge in Business. You can contact him at [email protected].

Attitudes for Success (in Poker and in Life)
By Tim Peters

How to Think Like a Poker Pro by Roy Cooke and John Bond (Conjelco; $19.95)

These days, books on poker strategy are more than plentiful (though there will always be room for new approaches, new tactics, and new ways of explicating the game); ditto for books on poker psychology. Both of these categories can and will improve your game. But how many poker books will improve your life?

Until recently, I would have said, "One": Barry Greenstein's Ace on the River (see my review in Card Player, March 7, 2006). Greenstein's book has value on many levels, but its articulation of the character attributes of the successful professional is eye-opening. Now, with the publication of How to Think Like a Poker Pro--by Card Player columnist Roy Cooke and his longtime collaborator John Bond--readers have another fine perspective on poker and life, and this one is ideal for the serious amateur. It's a collection of Cooke's poker columns, covering a wide range of subjects, from the general, such as developing a healthy attitude toward the game, to the specific, with a number of chapters devoted to expected value ("The Edge Concept") and other tactical and strategic considerations.

The strategy material is useful, of course (even if you're familiar with these ideas, it cannot hurt to approach them from another perspective). But the most valuable part of this book is the section titled "Philosophy of Life and the Game." Poker, the authors remind you, "is part of your life, [but] does not rule your life." "Have acceptance of adversity." When you take a beat, don't fume, steam, or berate: "Play the next hand." Be honest with yourself. And remember that poker is not an "exact science": "there are no absolutes, no right answers." It's a situational game.

Have you heard these ideas before? Undoubtedly, unless you're brand-new to poker. Are they still valuable? Absolutely, unless you've already developed the mental toughness that is a requirement for long-term success.

Another chestnut in How to Think Like a Poker Pro is that life is one long poker game, and that it's by taking the long view that you avoid the anxiety and frustration of running bad. Poker, like life, is a journey: "How do we make the journey a blissful one?" ask Cooke and Bond. "We do it by visualizing the game as a lifelong endeavor, and choosing the paths that serve the whole of one's life well."

The more I play, the more I see how profoundly poker and life are intertwined. The game isn't just a metaphor for life; it is life, albeit on a smaller scale (most of us, after all, aren't risking our livelihood at the felt). So it makes perfect sense to me that our approach to poker should mesh well with our approach to life; that's how we "make the journey a blissful one"--even if there are bound to be plenty of ups and downs.

It takes a particularly thoughtful player to write a book like Ace on the River or How to Think Like a Poker Pro. And it takes a thoughtful player to appreciate what these books have to say. But the experience is well worth it. This new book by Cooke and Bond will help cultivate the right attitude toward the game, which "will make for a happier you, a more fun game, and make you a better poker player." How can you not embrace that advice?

Read any good books? Have any thoughts on my reviews? E-mail me at [email protected].