In order to demonstrate my point I will give an example. Let us say that your hand contains two small hearts and the flop comes and you get bottom pair with four hearts to a flush. You can make a bet in this case because even though your bottom pair is probably not a hand that you would bet with, the fact that you have outs means that you can. You probably do not have the best hand but you have the opportunity to make a winning hand if your opponent does decide to call and if they do not, you can happily take down the pot right then and there. This is what is known as a semi-bluff. If your opponent does call and you do make your flush, you have the chance to win a very big pot.

The next question that arises, though, is what you want to do on the turn. Depending on what card comes up in the turn, you can be in a very difficult situation. If the turn comes and you do not hit the flush, you have the choice of whether you should give up on the hand and check or if you should come out guns a’blazing and fire another bullet in another attempt to take the pot. In order to answer this question, you really need to know the other players at the table and their poker playing style. While using a semi-bluff can be quite good during the round of betting after the flop, once the turn comes your chances of making a hand if you miss are significantly slimmer and it makes it less semi-bluff and more full-on bluff. With only one more card to go, your chances of drawing into a hand are much lower. Deciding on what to do in this situation is almost entirely dependent on what you know about the players still in the hand. In most cases when I get into this situation, I will give up on the hand unless I have a great position over the opponent such as a much larger stack, an extremely tight table image, or something that will be a very large advantage to me.

Using the semi-bluff as opposed to trying to bluff when you have absolute trash will help to increase the chance that your bluff will be successful regardless of whether or not your opponent makes the decision to call. If they do call, you still have the opportunity to win by making your hand which is something that is not going to happen if you are making a pure bluff. If they decide to fold, you accomplished what you wanted to do anyway by winning the hand right then and there. By utilizing the semi-bluff, it will make you more comfortable with making stabs at pots with less than stellar hands and it will help you to be able to make true bluffs better.  Improve your income as a poker player is by getting poker rakeback. If you havent heard about rakeback before, then you can start with the article what is poker rakeback. Here at poker rakeback online we offer the best possible rakeback deals, and on top of that we also have promotions worth $300.000+ every month exclusivly for our members. Open a rakeback account here.

Before the flop, make sure you are playing AK correctly. This article explains the poker strategy for playing AK in detail so I won’t repeat what was said. What I will say though is that it’s important that you have inititiative in hand when playing AK in poker for three reasons.

Firstly, when you have inititiave in the hand by being the preflop aggressor, you gain control in the hand which is a profitable situation to be in.

Secondly, and this point is more relevant to the topic of this article, when you take initiative in the hand, you are saying to everyone at the table, I have a big hand. So if you come up against resistance, it will help avoid overplaying TPTK in many cases because your opponent is saying back at you, you have a big hand but mine is better.

Thirdly, when you raise or reraise with AK, if you have been playing a tight aggressive poker style, you will get weak hands to fold, so will only get 1-2 other players to see a flop which is the ideal situation to be in. The last thing you want is everyone seeing a flop cheap when you have a hand like AK. You would be committing poker suicide because another player can easily make a hand which is better then only one pair.

You need to understand that overplaying a hand like AK when you only have one pair is a costly mistake. AK can be such a difficult hand to play because you will often win a small pot with the hand, but have the potential to lose a big pot, because most players will only like their hand enough to continue calling bets on all three streets when they have a hand which is better then one pair. Even though it looks like you have the best hand when you flop top pair top kicker, there just isn’t many worse hands which will call or raise when you bet particularly on non coordinated boards, so you really need to evaluate if you really do have the best hand if you face aggression. Don’t ignore the information your opponent is telling you and consider all previous history with the player.

One of the common scenarios for overplaying TPTK is when you are dealt AK, make TPTK on the flop and get stacks in the middle on the turn or river vs a flopped set. At the time you get a feeling that your TPTK is probably not the best hand but still go with the hand because you think your opponent is an aggressive poker player or whatever. You need to put your opponent on a range of hands and think about what hands they could be making this play with. If they are an aggressive player, they could be raising with a flush draw, but even this is unlikely because even aggressive players will only make this play when they have overcards and a flush draw. It’s possible they are raising the flop with a worse top pair like KQ to see where they are at. And it’s possible they have a set.

When playing TPTK and facing aggression, consider the position of the player who is showing aggression. If they called in the blinds and you flop TPTK and there is two low cards, would you expect your opponent to have three bet a hand like KQ preflop? If you would, then you can narrown down their range of hands to basically flopped sets or a bluff, so you know you are beat if you don’t think they are bluffing.

Experienced players can get away from their big hands. They know when to hold em and they know when to fold em based on reads on the other players at the table. Although top pair top kicker is often the best hand, you want to make sure you don’t overplay TPTK if the information at your disposal is telling you otherwise. When playing no limit hold em, keep in mind that although TPTK is a strong hand, generally it’s not a hand you want to play for 100bb. Top pair and top kicker is still a relatively small hand in comparison to hands which will continue on the turn and river, and your objective is to play small pots with small hands, and big pots with big hands. Don’t make the costly mistake of assuming TPTK is a big hand, only to lose your entire stack against a better hand, when you know you could have gotten away from the hand. Have you signed up for a poker rakeback account? If not, then you are missing out on alot of money every single month. We offer the best poker rakeback deals and you can sign up here. If you dont know what rakeback is, then get started with our article what is rakeback.

The continuation bet in poker is such a common play in online poker nowadays. Most players even at the low stakes will cbet a dry flop which likely didn’t hit anyone else. The problem with mindless cbetting is that some LAGs know you are only betting because it’s a dry board and will defend against habitual cbettors who always try and take down the flop after raising preflop. If they are playing out of position in the hand, they will typically check-raise on the flop.

I’m sure you have been involved in sessions where you have experienced this table dynamic. You have a LAG playing to your left and because they are defending against your cbets you can’t play your usual game.

So how do you deal with the check-raise happy LAGs?

I like to fight fire with fire by turning up the aggression in certain spots. It’s case of being selective with your aggression when playing against LAGs. Here’s basically what I do:

If I’m in position and was the preflop aggressor, if I have a hand I will make a standard continuation bet. If I don’t have a hand and have no outs to improve my hand, I likely won’t cbet unless the LAG is the only other player involved in the pot. When playing against LAGs you should be less worried about winning the small pots and be more concerned with playing back at them in a few larger size pots.

For example, I was playing a 25nl 6-max cash game on FT and there was a LAG type player in the blinds. Although I had no history on this player I could tell from how they were playing in the session they were definitely playing an hyper aggressive LAG style of game. They were never folding to cbets and I had seen them check-raise the flop a few times in only a small session. It was pretty clear they were check-raising the flop when they knew the cbettor was betting just to steal the pot because it was a dry board.

I was dealt Kh Ts in the CO. UTG who was a fish limps into the pot and I make a raise to try and isolate the fish and play heads up with them. The LAG in the blinds cold calls the raise and so does UTG, so it was a 3-way pot.

The flop is 6r 9s 2c which is a raggy flop which likely didn’t hit anyone. It get’s checked around to me and I cbet about 2/3 pot. The LAG in the SB check-raises (it was basically a min check-raise). On this type of board villain would expect me to make a cbet. Considering its not a drawy board they are not check-raising with a draw and probably don’t even have a pair, so with this in mind I think this is a good spot to 3bet on the flop to play back at them.

This 3bet should take down the pot because they are more then likely only raising because they aren’t respecting my cbets. They can’t continue with air and would even have to fold low pocket pairs in this spot. Turning up the aggression based on the reads I had on this opponent worked, and the LAG did find the fold button.

You don’t always want to turn up the aggression by 3bet bluffing like this but you definitely want to be doing it occassionally. They are playing the opponent more then the cards, and you have to do likewise. The LAG will sometimes have a made hand like top pair or better, so if you balance your re-raising range with bluffs and made hands, they will think you are playing more aggressive then what you really are and will stack off much lighter.

If you are uncomfortable playing against LAGs (especially to your left) and shut down your aggression and start playing ABC poker, you will slowly bleed your stack to the LAG because they will take over the role of the table aggressor and start stealing pots all over the place.

When possible, try and get position on aggressive players it will make your decisions a lot easier. If you don’t want to play back at them when they are sitting on your left, it would be best finding a table with fewer aggressive players so you can be the aggressor and continuation bet more often.  Raise your monthly earning by getting rakeback. Sign up for a Rakeback Account today and take advantage of our amazing rakeback deals and monthly promotions worth $300.000+. Never heard about rakeback! Then go straight to what i rakeback to get started.

The first step toward being able to read your opponents is to get an idea of how your opponent plays. It is difficult to read your opponent when you are not familiar with how your opponent normally plays. As such, in order to be able to read your opponent you should start by getting a feel for how they play, what they do in certain situations, and take notes on everything that you observe. After a while, you will begin to have a feel for the types of poker players play which is exactly what you need to be able to do in order to start trying to read your opponents.

The next step to being able to read your opponents’ hands is to focus on every detail that they do. In order to have an idea of what they might have in a future round of betting, you need to know what they did in the previous rounds of betting. For example, if a player limped in from a late position and the flop is ace, ace, king and your opponent puts in a big raise, knowing that they limped in will help you because you know they probably don’t have ace king, or other strong aces or kings. If you did not remember what they did pre-flop, you would probably think that your opponent was sitting on a full house or something to that effect. As such, remembering how your opponents played each round of betting will help you to build a clearer picture of what they may be holding as the hand goes on.

Finally, you need to talk it out to yourself. If you are playing in real life, the dialogue will have to be in your head but if you are playing online you can sit and talk yourself through what your opponents have done to get to where you are. Ask yourself what sort of hand would he do what he has done with. Keep asking yourself questions and answering them and you will start to get an idea of possible hands. It is important not to make yourself focus on one hand but rather focus on a hand range. With a range of hands in mind, you can then move on to comparing your hand and the chance of you winning (equity) with that of your opponents.

After you have what you think to be a decent read on your opponent, you can determine where you think you stand in comparison. Is your hand likely better than your opponents’ hands? If you think it is then you should be able to either call or raise comfortably with the expectation that your hand is better. It is important to remember, however, that no read is perfect and you will not be right 100% of the time. What being able to read your opponents’ hands will do is increase your chance to get away from hands that you should be out of and increase the probability of you not being scared off of your winning hand. Have you signed up for a poker rakeback account? If not, then you are missing out on alot of money every single month. We offer the best poker rakeback deals and you can sign up here. If you dont know what rakeback is, then get started with our article what is rakeback.

Loose/Tight – Describes the number of hands one plays. A loose player plays many hands, while a tight player plays fewer hands.

Passive/Aggressive – Describes how someone bets. Passive players do a lot of calling, while aggressive players do more raising.

By combining these characteristics you get 4 main types of poker players, which is relevant to both online and live play, although online players tend to use a more aggressive poker strategy. This breakdown will help you identify what category an opponent most closely matches and how to play against them.

Loose/Aggressive aka the “Maniac” – This type of player (LAG player) plays many hands and raises with them often. You can make a lot of money off them, but be careful, their aggressive betting can trap you in a big hand as well. You should tighten up a little and wait for a big hand because they will put a lot of money in the pot with mediocre hands. When the cards are hot for this type of player you can easily mistake them for being strong players, but when the cards are cold they will be giving their chips away like crazy. A standard LAG player has stats along the lines of 25/20 or higher for 6-max. The hyper aggressive players will have stats as high as 40/30, you really feel their presence at the table because they are playing so many hands and trying to dominate.

Tight/Aggressive – Most poker players strive to play TAG poker. This type of player is viewed as playing only premium hands and betting them aggressively, forcing opponents to make decisions and mistakes. Once they steal have your chips they will be difficult to get back. They have the ability to fold good hands when they believe they are beat, and the ability to raise with lesser hands when they believe they have the advantage or sense weakness from an opponent. A standard TAG player has stats in the range of 17/15 to 21/17 for 6-max.

Loose/Passive aka the “Calling Station” – This type of player is viewed by experienced players as a weak player, and good aggressive players are looking to exploit their weakness. A LP player plays a lot of hands and does a lot of calling. They won’t make you pay when you’re beat or on a draw, but you will be able to extract the maximum number of bets from them when they are drawing against you. Be careful not to over bet your hands against this player because your bluffs won’t work, they will call you and try to hit their drawing hands. A loose passive player has stats along the lines of 33/5. There is a large gap between VPIP and PFR because they choose to play most of their hands passively preflop.

Tight/Passive aka the “Rock” – This player only plays premium hands. You should like to play against them because you know what they have. If they are involved in a pot you can be sure they have a good hand, and if they raise, look out. They likely have something big like AA, KK, or QQ. You can make this player fold with your aggressive bets when they fail to connect with the flop. Being heads up against this type of player is ideal, and come out raising. If they hang around you’re probably beat and you can fold without losing too many bets. A tight passive player will have stats along the lines of 12/10.

Tight-passive players are the easiest to play against because you know when they have a big hand and they will not put you to tricky decisions because they rarely bluff. This is not to suggest that its not profitable playing against aggressive players, its just a matter of properly adjusting.

Using Your Opponents Stats

Once you are able to identify the poker playing style of your opponents (by looking at VPIP/PFR and observing their play), it will allow you to make an adjustment and play the opposite style. A winning player knows that there is not one winning poker playing style, you are required to adjust to players and the table conditions so you can exploit your opponents tendencies. For example, if a player at the table is playing an aggressive style of poker you should tighten up and be selectively agressive. If you are playing against tight players then always be looking to steal the hell out of him until they start adjusting. Weak players won’t notice what you’re doing (they are just playing their cards) and if they do they will improperly adjust. Also, you should notice the more aggressive poker playing styles have a smaller gap between VPIP and PFR. TAG players play their hands more aggressively before the flop and will either raise or fold preflop instead of limping in.

Believe it or not, when considering online poker table selection, it is possible to get a bad seat at a good table. When you start playing online poker more regularly, you will begin to develop a history of playing with the same players (which happens when you play at a certain limit for a while), and because you already know how they play, it will allow you to sit to the left of aggressive players so you always have position on them, and sit to the right of passive players, allowing you to steal the blinds because they never defend them. Now that you know about the different types op playing styles, its time to learn about poker rakeback. We offer the highest rakeback deals for online poker players, and also offer promotions worth $300.000+ every month. Sign up Here to get started.

In poker, there are two different ways that you can win a hand. Either you can win the hand at showdown or you can win the hand by getting the rest of the players at the table to fold. Winning at showdown only requires that you have the best hand but winning by forcing all the other players to fold is a much more difficult feat to accomplish. The good news is is that you do not even have to be holding the best hand, you just need to get the rest of the players to think that you are holding the best hand – or, rather, holding a hand that is better than their own.

Being able to utilize fold equity successfully requires a number of different things. The first is the ability to read your opponents hands’ to some degree. In many ways you are playing the player more then your own cards. You do not need to be able to read your opponent like a pro and put them on a specific hand down to the very suit – who can do that anyway? – but you do need to be able to narrow them down to a range of possible hands. Without the knowledge of a possible range of hands, you cannot determine how likely they are to fold and you cannot determine the fold equity that you have.

The idea of fold equity should not be used as your sole reason for playing hands and you should avoid using it as a justification for stone-cold bluffs as this will get you into trouble when playing against players who can’t find the fold button. It is, however, extremely helpful in determining what to do when you are using a semi-bluff and can help to make these moves more viable in the long term for you. For example, let’s say that you raise pre-flop with an ace jack of hearts from the button and an early position limper calls. That player is fairly loose so there is a wide range of hands he could be playing. The flop is king of hearts, queen of clubs, and a six of hearts. The player makes a bet of about 50% the size of the pot. In this scenario, you cannot call because the numbers are not in your favor but you can raise for a number of reasons. The first reason is that because your opponent is weak you can probably push him off a mediocre pair or draw and even if your opponent does call, you have a decent number of outs to make a hand.

There are also situations where you cannot really apply the idea of fold equity to what is happening. For example, if you are playing against a call station, you will have a difficult time figuring out fold equity because there is none. If there is no chance of your opponent folding then there is no fold equity with which to work.

Using the idea of fold equity to your advantage will go a long way toward improving your showing at the table. It will give you the opportunity to pull in pots that you would not have been able to otherwise and give you an improved view of how the game is unfolding. Raise your monthly earning by getting rakeback. Sign up for a Rakeback Account today and take advantage of our amazing rakeback deals and monthly promotions worth $300.000+. Never heard about rakeback! Then go straight to what i rakeback to get started.

The first and most important part to being able to isolate the fish is that you must be observant of your surroundings. If you are a poker player that only looks at your own two cards and does not pay attention to what is happening with the players around you, you need to change that right away. Watch how each player at the table is playing, whether or not their stack is growing in size or decreasing in size, how many hands does that player participate in, do they fold to aggression, and a million other different observations you can have if you watch the players at the table. Now that you are watching the players at the table, there are a number of different things to look out for in order to find the fish.

The first thing that I suggest that you look for is the number of hands that a player plays in. Usually, weaker players are going to play in a greater number of hands than players who are better. In addition to playing a large number of hands, the fish will most likely play hands further than they should be played. A calling station – a player that is “always good for a call” – is another big sign that you are dealing with a fish.

Another good sign of fish is if the player is playing with scared money and will easily give on their hand when there are signs of aggression. That´s why playing aggressive poker can be a huge advantage. Another extremely good way to find the fish is to find which player other players at the table are attacking the hardest. Chances are they have already found the weakest link and done the hard work for you. Once you have identified the fish, you can begin to exploit his or her fishiness to your advantage which is where the real fun begins.

With the fish identified, it is time to start making moves to take their chips and put them into your stack. Getting involved with the fish is what you want to be doing. Try to play hands that the fish is participating in and try to push out any other sharks who may be trying to get some meat for themselves. Depending on the type of fish you are dealing with, you will have to play differently. If you are playing against a fish that is sitting on scared money, you are going to want to be extremely aggressive and attack them extremely hard. If you are playing against a fish that is a calling station, you are going to want to avoid bluffing and focus on squeezing all the money out of him when you have a good hand.

Isolating the fish is extremely easy provided that you pay attention to the rest of the players sitting at the table. By watching the way the players play and understanding the sort of play that is indicative of a fish, you should have no problem isolating and exploiting the fish at your table which will enable you to win more money playing poker. You will also earn more money by getting rakeback when you play online poker. If you havent heard about rakeback before, then read our article what is poker rakeback to get started. Poker Rakeback Online offers the best rakeback deals and we also have monthly promotions for our members worth $300.000+. Open a rakeback account today – Click Here

Spot the tells on other poker players

Poker is a game of information. The more information that you have available to you, the better your ability to make good decisions that will make or save you money at the table. Because information is so important, it is vital that you use all the tools at your disposal to get information from every source that you can. One tool that is imperative to your success at the table is the ability to read the tells of other players at the table. Being able to read tells of other players gives you insight into their hands that you would otherwise lack. Since online poker is lacking the ability to see your opponents, you must use other tells than you might use in a game in real life.

The first and most important thing to remember when looking for tells is that every player has different tells. Also, some players may have the same tell but they mean two different things. For example, one player may talk a lot when he has a monster; whereas, a different player may talk a lot when he is bluffing in poker. Because every player has different tells, it is important to get comfortable with the players that are sitting at your table. You should spend time observing their habits and keeping notes on what they do in given situations. All the information that you gather during this introductory period you will be able to use when you figure out what their tells are so it is extremely important that you take note of all the inconsistencies that you spot.

After observing the players you are playing with and gathering information, you should have some ideas about the tells that they may have. There are a number of different types of tells in online poker which need to be discussed. The first type of tells are conversational tells or tells that you get from communicating with the players at the table. Table talk is always a good way to feel out your opponents and this is just as true online as it is offline. Players will often say certain things depending on the quality of his or her hand. Some players talk up their hand when they are sitting on nothing and will downplay their hand when they have the nuts. For others, their verbal cues are exactly the opposite.

Another type of tell that you can utilize in online poker is how long it takes someone to make a call, bet or raise. Depending on the player and the situation, you can often get an idea of the relative strength of someone’s hand by how much hesitation or lack of hesitation that they have when calling, betting or raising. If, for example, a player instantly raises, this is probably a good sign that he or she has a very strong hand. If at the end of the hand this turns out to be true, you can be fairly certain that the next time you get instantly raised or he bets instantly that this player probably has a very strong hand. On the other hand, hesitation is often a sign of weakness.

Due to the fact that there is no option to see your opponent in online poker, online poker tells take different forms than you might find at a poker table in real life. In order to determine the online poker tells of your opponents, you must spend some time playing with them and understanding how they play. After some careful observation, chances are you will find a number of tells that you will then be able to exploit. Have you signed up for a poker rakeback account? If not, then you are missing out on alot of money every single month. We offer the best poker rakeback deals and you can sign up here.

Regardless of whether the emotions you are feeling are good or bad, the result is still negative on your play. Any and all emotion can cloud your judgment at the table even if it is a feeling of elation after winning a huge hand. It is a very common occurrence for player to win a big hand and afterward to play much more recklessly and spew a lot of those chips away because they were not thinking clearly. This is the sort of thing that happens when you let emotions get the best of you at the table and go from doing things methodically and logically and start letting your emotions play a role. Even worse than getting emotional after something good happens is letting your negative emotions get the best of you. A negative emotional state at the table is usually a result of some sort of unfortunate circumstance that you could not have prevented and this will severely influence your play if you are not careful, because you could be tilting when playing poker.

After these disastrous and unforeseen occurrences happen, it is important that you get a hold of yourself and manage your emotions. For example, let us say that you got a really bad string of cards where you have not had a playable hand in hours, you need to be able to talk to yourself and not let your emotions about your bum luck and how it is not fair what is happening. These emotions that you are feeling are a result of your conscious thoughts and you can control what you are thinking. Instead of thinking about how raw your luck is, remember that statistically these sorts of runs of cards have to happen and that you cannot control the fact that it is happening. You cannot get a decent hand to play but you get a great opportunity to pay attention to how all of the other players are playing. In another example, you were a huge favorite to win a pot and knock out your opponent and he sucks out with a runner runner and ends up winning the pot. The natural result of this would be to get angry at what happened but there is nothing you can do about it and you need to accept it. Events are inherently unemotional and unbiased. In this instance, you may feel miserable at getting sucked out on while your opponent is elated because of the extremely fortuitous turn of events. These two conflicting emotions arise from the exact same event. It can often come down to just telling yourself that you played that correctly and there is nothing that you could have done any better to change the outcome of that situation. If this is the case, you should be extremely happy with yourself as you were completely right in what you did.

It does not matter whether the emotions you feel at the table are positive or negative, keeping those emotions in check and preventing them from influencing your play is vital to your long-term success as a player. Emotions eat up precious mental resource and cloud your judgment leading you to take actions you would not take if you were acting rationally and logically. By separating your emotions from the equation, you will be able to greatly improve your results at the table and have more fun in the process. Dont miss out on rakeback when you play online poker. We give away $400.000+ every month in promotions on top of the best possible poker rakeback deals. Sign up Here. If you are new to poker and dont know what rakeback is, then read this article about rakeback in poker.