There are some key differences to how you should play in a tournament setting as opposed to a ring game. As an example I’ll provide the following scenario.

A relatively short-stacked player moves all-in, a second player calls and so do you. If this was a ring game, you and the remaining player in the pot with chips would do well to continue playing your respective games. However, if this was a tournament with a predetermined number of places “in the money,” the incentive to knock the short-stack out of the game is higher than the possibility of increasing your stack from the other player.

If the short stack has pocket jacks and you have pocket eights and the flop is 2 3 7, you might be inclined to raise thinking your hand is solid. The raise may make the other player fold with his AQ. The turn is a three and the river is an ace. You lose and double up the short stack. Now if you could take back the raise after the flop, the AQ would have stayed in the hand and picked up the higher pair on the river. You still wouldn’t win the hand, but the short-stack would be out of the tournament bringing you one step closer to placing in the money.

Of course, not everyone follows this advice, and from Mr. Short-stack’s point-of-view it probably isn’t fair, but it is good tournament strategy.

The exception to the rule? If you find yourself holding the nuts on the river, bet however you’d like.

I assume all of my American readers have been affected by and/or heard about the government crack down on on-line gambling. The quick version is this: suits from major sites like Poker Stars, Full Tilt and Absolute Poker have been formally charged with fraud and all funds and transfers from US players have been frozen, which, by all accounts, sucks.

I think we were all hoping that little bill in 2006 making on-line gambling illegal would never be enforced. Now it looks like Uncle Sam just took its sweet time making a case against the big three gaming outfits. To be fair, the enforcement is justified in my opinion. Just like I feel about immigration in the US, what laws we have in place should be enforced, but I also think we should change the laws. It appears Poker Stars and the rest were laundering money, which is illegal. They may have been forced into a life of crime by the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act, but “enforcement” is right their in the name, they should have saw this coming. Let’s face it, with their assurances of safety from the bill, they weren’t honest to their customers either.

As a fan of the game and the profits it allows, I’m still rooting for the gambling sites. I hope PPA lobbying and Full Tilt lawyers put this madness behind us. However, the perfect solution is now being called for not only by Bluff and Cardplayer, but also by Fortune and the Washington Post–legalize the damn game! Let the rake go to American businesses and provide American jobs. Let Harrahs and the Bellagio make sites to compete with Poker Stars and Full Tilt in a free market.

Will this happen? I thought so, but who the hell knows anymore? Color me jaded, which I think is a shade of green. At this point, I just hope their vague promise of letting us cash out our account comes to pass.
I guess I’m back to selling my body for cash. What? That’s illegal too?

Crap.

When playing poker face to face you should use different skills than you would to win on-line. Physical tells can give you insight into your opponent’s hand. Here are some things to look for:

• Shaking hands or a flush face usually come from the adrenaline caused by a player’s excitement about a strong hand. Don’t assume shaking means nervousness, often the player is quite confident they will win.
• Your opponent will likely cover his cards with his hand or look back at them more than once. This is a subconscious action in line with the desire to protect what one considers valuable. Keep in mind that you are looking for anything out of the ordinary. If he always covers his card in the same way, it means nothing.
• Disinterest and drawing attention away from the game is often an act to disguise a big hand.
• A player with a weak hand, hoping to bluff, may throw his chips into the pot aggressively and make a point for direct eye contact with the player thinking about the call. Often acting strong equals weak and acting weak equals strong.

It is also important to note that if you are up against an inexperienced (or drunk) player, the tells will be less reliable. This is because tells don’t really give you information about your opponent’s hand, only about how you opponent perceives the strength of his hand. If the hand is misread, you will be mistold.

I’d wager most you readers know how to deal a hand of Texas Hold’em, but apparently not everyone knows that there is a reason behind why we deal like we do. In this case, the purpose of the burn card. Beginners may think it is just out of tradition that a card is burned (or discarded) before the reveal of community cards. Perhaps they just never thought about it. Chances are you know better, but if not, allow me to educate.

After the hole cards are dealt and the players are contemplating the strength of their hands, the deck is typically out there for all to see. In the event of a marked deck, the back of the card gives away as much information as the front. Poker players, being the suspicious lot that they are, invented the burn card to take the card in question out of play. After the flop, the same deck visibility applies, so before the turn there is a burn card and likewise for the river.

How do I know other players don’t get this? The example here is a peeve of mine that has made itself apparent on too many occasions. The player on the button deals out the hands as normal then immediately burns the following card and sets the deck down. Pre-burning is completely useless and missing the point. An even better example is the amateur who burns and sets aside all the community cards in advance, usually proud of his more efficient approach to dealing.

This tidbit is another illustration of when knowing the “whys” of life are more important than knowing the “hows.” It is sometimes in the best interest of a good player to keep a bad player in the dark, but please, if you see someone making these kinds of mistakes it is in the best interest of everyone to say something. Knowing is half the battle.

The sucker bet. (n.) A small bet made with a strong hand to increase the pot size. Usually made knowing that other players intend to fold to a large bet, but are willing to stay in for the cheap.

Most players know this definition and may fold over cards and low pairs to avoid falling victim. This over compensation allows for the cheapest bluff in poker. I bet small every once and a while and the most common response goes something like this: “Now, that’s a sucker bet! I’m not falling for that.” And fold. They don’t always state their thought process, but often they do. I suppose to show their “superior” read and justify their fold to a weak bet.

This tip works best against tight players, both passive and aggressive, and when you have established yourself as a tight player. I recommend it when you are heads-up and post-flop, best as a continuation bet. I tend to throw out my small bets when I have absolutely nothing.

Try it, you may be surprised at the results. It doesn’t work all the time, but you are only losing a little more than you would have with a fold. The beauty of the sucker-sucker bet is that it doesn’t have to have a high success rate to still be worth it.

Some of my best memories at the poker table were before my life was taken over by texas hold’em. I used to play a dealer’s choice game with a group of creative friends. We came up with a gamut of unorthodox poker variants, some of which am going to highlight from time to time.

You may have heard of Follow the Queen, a wild card stud game. The idea is after a couple hole cards, each player is dealt a card up followed by a round of betting. If a queen is dealt to a player, then the following card to the next player is wild. If no queens show, then queens are wild. The game allows for four wild cards in the deck.

With only four wild cards the integrity of poker can stand in my opinion­—meaning skill is still a large part of the game. Our version used a total of eight wilds, we played follow the king and queen. Then we added another twist. If the two of clubs was dealt up to any player the deck was shuffled again and we started over with any players that had not previously folded. Occasionally we even allowed for the two of clubs’ power to be used when dealt as a player’s hole card at the discretion of the player who had it.

I doubt any self-respecting poker pro would give said game a chance, but it was a fun diversion from more serious games. We called it, Follow the King and Queen through downtown Chicago.

Human beings (us) are the smartest creatures on the planet, I don’t care what you dolphin lover’s have to say. We have logic. (good for poker) We have reasoning. (good for poker) We have emotion. (ummm…)

Unfortunately our rational minds are often trumped by our emotions/wishful thinking/drunken state. Which leads us to the topic of today’s post: logical fallacies and how they can be applied to poker and gambling.

The Gambler’s Fallacy: This was an obvious choice to start off my list. It comes into play when you believe that your chances of winning increase with each consecutive loss. We want this to be true, but it isn’t. A coin that has landed on heads twenty times is a rarity, but it doesn’t make the chances of tails coming up next anymore than 50/50. Past occurrences can never change something with a fixed probability. In other words, throw out your roulette strategy.

Illusion of Control: This is a BIG one! It is overestimating the role of skill and underestimating the role of chance in a given game. I have known many players that attribute their wins to skill and their losses to bad luck. This is a very egotistical move of which even the TV players are guilty…I suppose that the fact they are on TV is what inflated their ego. Poker is, in part, a game of chance. You can only blame yourself and your opponent for a loss, and you can only adjust for yourself.

Going along with the illusion of control is hindsight bias. This is evaluating a decision as good or bad depending on whether it led to a win or a loss. Example: I made the right move in chasing the straight, it came! You may have been way behind for the bet that was asked of you, and if you were, it was a bad decision regardless of outcome.

Availability Error: This is the tendency to focus on the good, unusual, or easily remembered experiences, while forgetting the bad, common, or less available ones. Players often feel they are ahead in a hand because they want to be. Most the bad beats you hear people complain about probably weren’t as bad as they make it out. Hearing that someone has won the lottery sticks in our mind more than hearing that someone has lost…and lost…and lost. The draw to the long shot comes to mind. The overvaluing of high gain, low probability wagers and the undervaluing low gain, high probability wagers is a bad idea just on the fact that your profit will be less due to the high percentage rake on the one-time gain. Think of the taxes on lotto winnings for a macro example.

Mis-atribution of cause: If you have played poker as long as I have, you may have seen some unusual occurrences. The same guy dealt rockets two or three times in a row. Monster hands going up against each other. Someone going on a ten hand winning streak complete with showdowns. These are unlikely events that may make you cry foul, but then again, eventually these things just happen.

I get by with a little help from my facts…
http://www.theskepticsguide.org/resources/logicalfallacies.aspx
http://www.math.byu.edu/~jarvis/gambling.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacies

Some of my best memories at the poker table were before my life was taken over by texas hold’em. I used to play a dealer’s choice game with a group of creative friends. We came up with a gamut of unorthodox poker variants, some of which am going to highlight from time to time.

You may have heard of Follow the Queen, a wild card stud game. The idea is after a couple hole cards, each player is dealt a card up followed by a round of betting. If a queen is dealt to a player, then the following card to the next player is wild. If no queens show, then queens are wild. The game allows for four wild cards in the deck.

With only four wild cards the integrity of poker can stand in my opinion­—meaning skill is still a large part of the game. Our version used a total of eight wilds, we played follow the king and queen. Then we added another twist. If the two of clubs was dealt up to any player the deck was shuffled again and we started over with any players that had not previously folded. Occasionally we even allowed for the two of clubs’ power to be used when dealt as a player’s hole card at the discretion of the player who had it.

I doubt any self-respecting poker pro would give said game a chance, but it was a fun diversion from more serious games. We called it, Follow the King and Queen through downtown Chicago.

Ever go to a wine tasting? The process goes something like this: A gulp worth of Wine Brand A is inhaled, swished, tasted, and (depending on your gentleman to alcoholic ratio) either spit or swallowed. Repeat for Wine Brand B. Don’t worry, this isn’t the beginnings of Grundy’s Wino Blog, this is a metaphor in the making.

Before moving on to the next label, a palette cleanser is used to neutralize the taste of the previous. It is a fresh start. The flavor of the Merlot from the vineyards of Nowheresville, Oklahoma should not carry over to the aged French wines that you can’t afford. The need to get that “bad taste” out of your metaphorical mouth comes up in poker as well. A vanilla wafer will do you no good here, but that doesn’t mean we can’t find our own palette cleanser.

As I’m sure you know by now, a bad beat can spiral into a vicious cycle of consecutive bad sessions. Like I said in the past, no one is immune to the tilt. Some deal with it better than others, some internalize, but all ask “why me?” When I reach my bad luck limit, my game goes slowly out the window. This leads to more money lost which leads to an increase in speed of said game going out the window. Exponents are involved, I don’t know the exact formula.

Ah, those were the days, and by “the” I mean expensive. Things have changed now. I never fall prey to the cycle anymore because I cleanse my poker palette. I go focus on a video game, watch a movie, play with my cats, or talk to a friend. I recommend something non-stressful, so I wouldn’t jump into doing paperwork or you might go into detail about how much you hate donkeys in a client’s e-mail. Also, if your game is on-line, take your break away from the computer. Remove yourself from the scene of the crime completely. There isn’t a set amount of time you need to relax, just long enough that your loss is lost from you mind.

Obviously, if you are in a tournament, you need to push forward until the finale. In the process, you may regain your footing. The best cure for a bad beat is to get lucky on someone else, or so I hear. However, if you never recover, don’t jump into the next tourney available to avenge your financial demise. A clean palette is a profitable palette.

There comes a time in every poker player’s life when the wanderlust sets in. You grow tired of nickel and diming your friends at the kitchen table and want to explore the world of the rounders. Know thyself, caterpillar, before you spread your wings.

The number one identifier of your skill is money. It is, after all, how we keep score. Macro-consistency is everything. Marco meaning not micro. If you have a bad day, or an unprofitable week, it doesn’t necessarily meaning you are a bad player. You want to play long enough to look at the big picture. Do you average a strong profit? What’s you standard deviation? These are questions that can be, and need to be answered with good record keeping and a lengthy poker history.

There isn’t much to learn in the short run. Wins and loses are subject to some luck day to day, but you can still assess your play by looking at how you won or loss. When I correctly read my opponent on a straight draw and bet the pot at him on the turn, I played well, regardless if he calls and catches on the river. Inversely, if I catch trips on the river against an aggressive two-pair, I know I misplayed the hand even though the poker gods were kind to me. I’d go so far to say, as your play on the turn is concerned, luck is inversely related to skill.

Before you make the jump to big money games, also look at the caliber of your normal opponents. You may be winning not only on your own merit, but also due to the lack of skill or seriousness of the rest of the table. Although this is just what you want in poker, it can be hard when gauging your play relative to Gus Hanson. Be sure to go up against more than just the same five guys to experience more styles and see if your consistent winning pattern holds up.

That’s the long way of saying, if you are making money, go to the next level and make more of it. Give yourself a “raise.” You can always go back to the drawing board if it doesn’t work out. Don’t rush, but don’t be afraid to play to your potential either.