The Poker Boom

This year looks like it may be the best ever year for poker. Even here in sleepy Saginaw, the Michigan city where I have not played a hand of poker in at least 40 years, the boom is obvious. I can see it in my book sales. The fuel is also obvious; there is an enormous and still growing interest in tournament no-limit hold'em. Three of my books, Pot-limit and No-limit Poker, Omaha Holdem Poker, and Improve Your Poker, all did roughly the same in sales in 2001. But last year, the book on pot-limit and no-limit outsold the other two combined. This year, especially since the World Series of Poker, sales of it have gone through the roof.

I also can see the boom in tournament no-limit hold'em by the direction of my poker lesson inquiries. It used to be that nearly all of the inquiries were for limit hold'em. Recently, there has been an enormous increase in interest in the game of no-limit hold'em. This boom helps the other games as well, as it's a drawing card to get new blood into poker.

It's been only the past couple of years that no-limit hold'em has been available on the Internet as a money game, and there is increasing interest in it. But most of the boom is being fueled by tournament no-limit hold'em play. People are lured by a chance to run a toothpick into a lumberyard, by tournaments whose entry fee is only $5 or $10, but that offer the prospect of winning a seat in an event paying serious money. Now that we have a world champion coming from the ranks of Internet tournament players, in the form of the aptly named Chris Moneymaker, people see that a huge payoff for a tiny investment is not as farfetched as was previously thought.

The other driver of the poker boom is the World Poker Tour, the program of tournament poker being shown on the Travel Channel. Everything I hear says televised poker lures as viewers not only serious players, but an enormous number of casual players. Many of my friends whom I did not know even played poker have told me they watch and enjoy the program. A lot of credit for the show's success goes to Mike Sexton, who now is seeing many of his dreams come true. He worked hard to put across the idea of televised poker tournaments, and now does a great job as an announcer. As someone who knows Mike very well, both at the poker table and away from it, I can say that living a dream could not happen to a nicer and classier guy. I'm sure that if he could ever learn to drive a golf ball as far as 13-year-old Michelle Wie, his life would be complete. (Those of you who know golf realize this is actually complimenting the girl – who hits the ball 300 yards – and not knocking Mike.)

Can you acquire the skills needed to do well in Internet no-limit hold'em tournaments? You sure can, and it is easier than you think. Here are a few tips:

Internet tournaments start the blinds out low in relation to your stack, but the blinds increase rapidly. In many events, they double every 10 minutes. In big-bet poker, the biggest determinant of your strategy is how deep the money is in relation to the blind structure and pot size. So, the prime ingredient for success in these Internet tournaments is mental flexibility, so that you can adjust your game and play each stage of the tournament in the proper manner. Of course, you also need to know how your stack size is supposed to be played at each stage.

At the start, you are likely to have oodles of chips for the structure. Typically, you would have $1,000 in chips, starting out with $5-$10 blinds. Position is very important. Up front, I suggest you do not raise with hands such as 10-10 and A-K offsuit. In the cutoff position and on the button, a 7-6 suited is a perfectly playable hand in unraised pots. Oftentimes you can even call a small raise with this hand, if you have players sandwiched between the raiser and yourself.

Picture the situation an hour later. The blind structure has been raised for the sixth time. If you are still in, the blinds are now $200-$400. The average stack size is likely to be in the $2,000 to $3,000 range. You usually have only one decision to make: Should I go all in or throw my hand away? The skill level required for this phase is a lot less than for a money game, in which you may well have a decision on each betting round. Even so, if you know how to play this phase of the game, you are going to have a big overlay on most of the field, because the level of play is usually abysmal.

With the blinds this high, you must play with commitment. This means putting your whole stack in if you play. It is silly calling a large amount hoping to hit the flop, or raising only half your stack when you are committed to the pot for all of it. The first rule of playing with high blinds is to play all-or-nothing poker.

The second rule is that it is desirable to win uncontested pots. You must take advantage of most situations in which you are in late position and everyone folds in front of you. Quality hands are not that easy to get. Unless your opponent has an overpair to your hand or has one of your cards tied up, you are not going to be buried if you get called (and you may well not get called). For example, if you have a 9-8 and run into A-K, your opponent is going to be less than a 2-to-1 favorite (the odds are around 16-to-9, depending on suits). So, put your money in first, and hope that no one calls or that you get lucky. Unless you have a very good hand, that's better than calling and hoping to get lucky.

Despite this type of tournament descending into a simple and straightforward strategy after it has been going for a while, the quality of opposition is so poor, especially in the small buy-in events, that you have a huge overlay if you are a good player. Even though the poker boom is worldwide, the quality of your opponents figures to go up rapidly with time, so resolve to take advantage of the present lucrative situation. When gold was discovered at Sutter's Mill in California in 1848, the forty-niners did a lot better than the "fiftiers."