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Sept. 4 – Its better to bet bigger on the turn if you will be forced to pay off the river due to stack sizes.

Typically, when you are playing smaller, live no-limit games buy-ins are capped or are for a fixed amount. In southern California you can run into some really ridiculous structures sometimes restricting your buy-in to only forty big blinds. But even in more common 100 big blind buy-in games, because live players tend to raise larger preflop and multiway action is common, you often will get into tough spots because the pots are inflated. Smaller stacked no-limit is supposed to be easier than deeper stack play, right? Well, not in these all-in or fold situations.

The problem arises when you have less than two pot size bets left and are value betting a hand when your opponent is likely to be on a draw. Sometimes if you do not bet big enough on the flop or turn you actually price your opponent in, giving them the correct implied odds because you will always pay off a small river bet. Let us take a look at an example. Say in a $2-$5 game everyone has $300 stacks. We raise over three limpers with A K to $30 and two people call. The flop comes out K 9 6. Everyone checks to us and we bet $70. One person calls. The pot is now $235 and we have $200 left. The turn is the 2 and our opponent checks to us. What is our proper sizing?

This situation is extremely difficult because we always want to get value from worse (draws and weaker kings) but the pot size is awkward. What if we bet now, say $125? If our opponent once again check/calls, the pot will now be $485 and we will only have $75 left in our stacks. If he now shoves when a third club comes are we going to fold a $560 pot for $75? Probably not. In fact, when we do not fold, we actually give our opponent a great price on a draw because he knows we will pay off on the river. I make big calls on draws with one card to come for exactly this reason. Say our opponent had A J. If we bet that smaller amount on the turn, he is calling $125 to win $360 immediately in the pot, but also will be guaranteed to get the rest of our stack. So he is actually calling $125 to win $435. If he thinks that his ace may be good, and that you are never going to fold when he hits, he can call your bet.

So how can we combat this? Unfortunately in these spots it is better for us just to move all-in — even if it may be over a pot-sized bet — if we are never going to fold to a river bet. We need to deny our opponents the extra money that he can make from our stack on the river. We also want to gain full value from his draw on the turn. It is really a disastrous scenario if we allow him to call a smaller amount on an earlier street when he would have called an all-in. By not betting all-in he saves his last bit of money and if he hits we pay him off. You can see why we do not want to get into this situation.

Sept. 24 – Avoid taking big chances early on in your session. Let the game come to you.

I am a huge believer in having a great image at the table. I have talked in past articles about how your hourly might be as much as two or three times higher than average with an outstanding image and you may be a break-even or losing player with a horrible image. Image is not defined by looseness or tightness in live play, it is a function of winning or losing. It is amazing how many people will stay out of your way when you are running “hot.” Subconsciously players will give you respect and you will be able to get away with winning a lot of pots without actually having it. On the flip side if your opponents have been noticing that you have been losing they will have a target on you. They will call you down with super marginal hands because they think that you are “unlucky.” In these spots you have to really tighten up and value bet other players to death.

Knowing this information, it is obviously a very good thing for us to start off our session with a winning image. One of the ways that I try to do this is to avoid taking big risks early on and trying to not get myself into marginal spots. I think that it is hard to play a session when you immediately start off from a hole. We are not robots and especially if you have any sort of tilt factor it lays poor groundwork for a good session.

Now some people would say that if you win in these marginal spots you will instantly have a great image. This is partially true, but, if we are winning players and the table is good, we can definitely find spots that may be less variant and more positive expected value (EV). Now, do not misunderstand me, I will take marginal edges in big pots if I am even slightly positive EV. However, I think the times to take those risks are later on in our sessions when we are more “in to the groove”.

Sept. 16 – Fooling around with electronics at the table will affect your win rate.

It was in 2005 when I sent my first text at the poker table. Some lunatic girl of my past was complaining how I wasn’t treating her right and I had stopped taking her phone calls because I was playing. Then she sent me a text. I had never texted before so I was intrigued. I sat there for the next hour and a half fiddling with my phone sending and reading messages. A little bit later I got involved in a $6,000 pot with a player I had never seen before. He stacked me on a pretty bizarre hand. Some of the other regulars looked at me like I was absolutely crazy. ‘Didn’t you watch how that guy has been playing over the last hour,” they said. You would think that I would have learned my lesson right there.

Flash forward to the summer of 2008 when I got my first smartphone. Now I could read emails and surf the web in real time. “How brilliant, I won’t be bored at the poker table,” I thought. Little did I know that this was going to be the beginning of one of the biggest leaks in my poker game.  

Recognizing betting patterns is one of the biggest parts of becoming a successful poker player. You should pay close attention to what is being shown down at your table, as this information will allow you to play better against your opponents in the future. Especially when dealing with unknowns, poker is a game of incomplete information. But there are different stages of this incomplete information. You can come to a new tournament table where you know no one and have no reads. Or you can be at a cash game where you are familiar with everyone and have been paying close attention. Where do you think that you will do better?

I see a lot of regulars fool around on their phones because they think they are super familiar with all of their opponents. The problem with this is that our opponents do not play the same when they are winning or when they are losing. Recognizing who is on short-term tilt is absolutely paramount and can greatly increase your winrate. I have the advantage of doing commentary on “Live at the Bike” where I can actually see all of the players’ hole cards. Even after losing a small pot some players will call raises with total garbage like Q 4 or J-6 offsuit just because they got a small bad beat the hand before. You can see why paying attention to these spots is so important.

Recently I was playing in a $2,000 tournament at the Commerce Casino and Gavin Griffin was at my table. I made a pretty suspect call for all of my chips and was busted out. Later Gavin tweeted me to say that messing around with your phone is definitely minus EV in tournaments (something I had been doing at the table). From that point on, I made a pact to myself that I would no longer fool around with electronics while I played because they are too distracting. Treat your poker like any other job and pay attention.

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Follow Bart for daily strategy tips on twitter @barthanson. Check out his podcast “The Seat Open Podcast” on seatopenpoker.net and his video training site specifically for live No Limit players ­—CrushLivePoker.com. He also hosts Live at the Bike every Tuesday and Friday at 10:30 pm ET at LivettheBike.com