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Oct 3rd – You should avoid discussing poker strategy at the table. It makes people uncomfortable and can really ruin the game

In order to consistently win money at poker your skill level has to be greater than your opponents. Sounds simple right? Wrong. Players forget to take into account travel to casino, tipping, food, etcetera. In fact, your skill has to be vastly superior to other players in order to overcome these variables. And if you want to be a professional you have to be even better. It is no wonder why a vast majority of players that attempt to play for a living fail.

If there were not consistently weak players no one could make a living playing poker. The fact of the matter is that recreational players drive the poker economy. If you were to only play with a bunch of professionals all the time almost no one would be able to beat the rake. As winning players it is our job then to make the recreational players feel comfortable.

Over the last few years it is common that someone will recognize me while I play. I am generally pretty friendly and welcome the conversation. What I absolutely cannot stand, however, is people that try to discuss strategy with me at the table. And not benign strategy, advanced strategy. I am often amused when I play a small game or tournament and other players start talking about their hands. For the most part their analysis is pretty laughable. But these are not the types of discussions that I loathe. I am referring to the advanced talk that often will come from younger players and that makes the table a less friendly environment. I would be happy to never hear the word range while playing again. I think it comes from the arrogance of some of the younger players where they think that they are better than everyone so they do not care if certain opponents are driven away by their bad behavior.

These youngsters just do not get it. Poker is about creating a friendly environment where recreational players can have a fun time. These players can lose their money in any form of gambling, whether it be blackjack, baccarat, sports, etcetera, but we want them to gamble at the poker table. Driving out the easy money makes the game tougher overall so watch your mouth the next time that you are at the table.

Oct 5th – A UTG straddle is generally -EV especially with average stacks of less than 100 big blinds

You have been there before. The game is tight and almost dead. You look around for a table change but there is nothing better. Someone then suggests, “Let’s get a round of straddles going.” Seems like a good idea right? Wrong. I never understand people who think that straddling from under the gun will somehow help the game. Yes it creates more money in the form of an extra blind but people are not adding on to their stacks.

I like to use my postflop skill when playing live no-limit cash games. The shorter the effective stacks the less that we can lean on our skill and the more advantage shifts towards the weaker players (when is the last time you have seen a $300 tourney player consistently beat a $5 big blind game anyway?). In fact my token response to someone who wants a round of straddles usually is “Sure if everyone adds on a few hundred dollars.”

Now, I will say that if everyone straddles this is more advantageous than if you alone decide to straddle. There are some advantages in forcing an extra blind versus players that do not know how to adjust. However, if it is just you doing the straddling, how can we possible think that putting extra money in out of position can not be a disadvantage? To take it to another extreme, if you are playing a loose-passive game with deep stacks you might actually want to encourage a straddle because it just basically makes the game play with an extra blind. Be weary though of where the aggressive players are in the game, if any.

Of course, it is a totally different situation when dealing with a Mississippi straddle, which basically means that you can straddle from any position on the table. A button straddle is a huge advantage as you are forcing people to put more money in against you while out of position. I still do not like it, however for a number of reasons. Not only are you making the effective stacks smaller but also you are actually forcing the blinds and people in front of you to play tighter and thus it really kills the game. I have written articles in the past about how people make mistakes calling speculative hands in the blinds closing the action preflop due to “pot odds”. When you straddle on the button, you do not give the blinds the opportunity to make that mistake. The button straddle actually works in the exact opposite way of the under the gun straddle. If you are doing it yourself you have a big advantage but if everyone at the table is doing it it can really ruin the game.

Oct 2nd – Betting larger early allows you to achieve more value later on.

Whenever I see a weak player get to showdown with a flopped monster, it always amazes me how little they win from the pot. The fact of the matter is no-limit is all about winning the most amount of money that you possibly can with the best hand. Bad players think the best way to do this is to trap — good players know better.
You have to build a big pot yourself to win a big pot. It is simple math — if you bet 75 percent of the pot on all three streets you will win a much larger pot than if you check the flop and then bet 75 percent of the pot on turn and river. You have to evaluate the texture of the board when calculating your flop sizing. Let us say for example that you raise UTG plus 1 with 7 7, three people call and you see a flop of A K 7. Not only is this board draw-heavy, but when you flop middle or bottom set on high boards you should probably bet heavy against multiple opponents. People will give you action with top pair. This is different than having say 6 6 on a 9 2 6 board. For the most part, people are not going to put in a ton of three-street money here with a hand like K 9. However, when people flop top pairs that are high, they are more likely to hold on because those top pairs usually remain top pair by the river. This is also why low boards like this are so prone to semibluffing, especially against bettors that were not the preflop raiser.

So with this bottom set, let us say that the pot is $60. We bet $40 and get called. The turn is a harmless card and we bet $110. We are called again. A brick falls on the river and we bet $300. Our opponent reluctantly calls with A-Q. Our big bets were certainty set up by the fact that we bet big on the flop. If the flop was checked through we probably would have bet $40 on the turn and $110 on the river, losing out on $300 worth of value. You can see how missing out on early street value leads to an exponential loss by the river.

In capped games and in smaller buy-in tournaments, you can sometimes afford to miss one street because stacks can get all in by the river anyway. However, if you are playing in a typical game with 100BB stacks and the preflop sizing is less than 5 times the blind, you will need to bet every street in order to get all of the money in by the end of the hand. The deeper that you are the more that you have to bet on each street. ♠

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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