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April 4th – Tiny, unbalanced raises preflop in no-limit games usually mean hands that can’t stand a 3-bet.

One of the easiest things that you can pick up about the strength of your opponent’s hand comes from raise sizing preflop. Often times recreational players are totally unbalanced when it comes to this concept. In a $5-$5 game maybe they raise to $20 with a hand like A-Q and $40 or more with a pair or very premium holding. This stems from them not wanting to get drawn out on with their made hands just like when they size their bets to protect against bad beats postflop.

A lot of times you will see easy pickings when several people have limped in and a player makes a small raise over the top. Let us say, for example, in a $5-$10 game, three people limp in and the hijack raises to $40. It is almost guaranteed that this is a pot-sweetener raise with a pocket pair or some sort of suited connector. Nine times out of ten when you reraise you will take down the pot. You can also reverse this concept upon an aggressive player to your left. Let us say that you think someone will bounce on your small sizing, a few people limp in and you only make it $35 in the hijack with A-A. With aggressive players next to act, especially in the blinds, it is not uncommon that you will be squeezed.

Now, this is not to say that you should always keep your preflop raise size 100 percent consistent. Sometime changing up your amounts is definitely the best play given the situation. On super loose tables, I may raise twice as much as I normally would because players will call larger sizings. At a nittier table, I might raise smaller so that I can get action from worse. Adapting to table dynamics is the reason to change preflop raise sizes, not hand strength.

April 10th – So called professionals that are table rule sticklers just don’t get it.

One of the most important skills in being a good, professional poker player, especially as the games toughen up, is making the recreational players feel comfortable. I have touched on this in the past but I really think that it is worth mentioning again. Recently, I have actually seen big donators to the game get up and leave when they do not want to play with certain players. This is part of the reason that there has been such a growth and influx of super high-raked “home games,” even in areas where poker is legal in casinos. Not only do the recreational players feel like they have more of a shot to win when playing with fewer pros, proprietors can hand pick their lineups and only allow players that people actually like and make for a good game.

Obviously the worst thing that you can do to a recreational player is berate them for their poor skill. It still amazes me that I see this from experienced guys from time to time. I mean, if poker did not have luck in it we would not have a game. There is going to be variance and that is what keeps the bad players coming back for more. But besides berating behavior, the other major thing that I see time and time again from so called “bad” professionals is strictly enforcing mundane, inane rules against weaker players. Sometimes I will knowingly allow a big fish to angle me — so long as it is not so over the top — because I know that the money is going to be coming back. Now I would not let a fellow pro do this, but if it gives a bad player a little bit of satisfaction so be it. However, I would never angle anyone and most specifically a recreational player who is losing money. And that is really how I treat enforcing ridiculously strict interpretations of rules.

But rules are the rules, you say. Well I disagree. We all know that some laws and rules in society are not enforced and do not hold the same weight as others. There are some crazy blue laws that are on the books — some about the size of your donkey and others prohibiting pockets in your pants. More practically, we in the poker community are up in arms about federal resources being used to prosecute online poker sites and processors. Selective enforcement is something that definitely exists in our society and I think we should apply the same line of thinking at the poker table.

It is pretty obvious that someone new to the game might not be familiar with all of the intricacies of live poker. Probably the biggest example of how this is taken advantage of is regulars calling string raises against beginning players. And these experience players certainty are angling as they are trying to achieve whatever advantage they can. Are the beginning players technically breaking the rules? Yes. Should we enforce that as players? No. If a regular or more experienced player does the same thing is it different? Yes. Again, it is very important for us as professionals to keep the new blood coming into poker. The best way to do this is to make newbies experiences enjoyable and make it seem to these players that they at least have a chance.

April 2nd – Watch for recreational players dumping money towards the end of their sessions. Some guys are addicted to losing

Just like most of the money at the higher levels is won and lost through players steaming, there is a lot to say about the timing within a session when the recreational players dump the most. A lot of the guys that come to play poker have gambling problems. And a lot of people with those issues are addicted to losing. It has something to do with self-punishing behavior. You have to grapple with this when you are taking poker seriously in order to make profit because you have to beat these types of players. I justify winning from them because if these guys were not losing through poker they would be dropping their money at a table game or through sports gambling to a big conglomerate.

When you identify this type of player, you will see that the times that he wins he will sometimes sheepishly leave the table at the end of his session almost as if he is ashamed of the fact that he has won. He is so used to losing and projecting this upon his own persona that it is very rare that he ends up leaving the table without being stacked.

These guys are looking to lose their money at the end of the session and you should pay careful attention to their playing patterns. Whether it is a small business owner that leaves at 4:00 p.m. every day to get home to his wife for dinner, or a guy that needs to leave to go to work in the morning, there are definitely cues that will indicate when someone’s session is about to conclude. And if you watch these players in those final few rounds, you will see that their gambling goes up and the skill level of their play goes remarkably down. ♠

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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 LiveattheBike.com.