Poker Chips and Payout

Every player in a poker tournament will start with equal amount of chips. The chips do not have a cash value except if you are playing in cashout poker tournaments. In these tournaments, losing your chips means you are eliminated. When you are eliminated in the early stages of the tournament, you will not be bringing home any cash. When you make it into the latter stages, there will be certain cash payouts depending on your position. A poker tournament is all about survival.

The payout structure is simple for poker tournaments, the farther you get into the poker tournament, the bigger cash prize you might get.

There is also a tournament bubble where everyone goes tighter than usual because someone needs to be eliminated. You can take advantage of this by opening up to rake in chips from very passive poker players. Go aggressive and steal blinds and antes. This way you will be able to build your stack for the latter rounds.

Increasing blinds

The blinds will rise as the tournament goes. This is the structure so the tournament can end with players forced to play conservatively. You will be in very good shape if you can take advantage of the very conservative players and steal some blinds every round.

Style of play

Tournaments will involve more aggressive players compared to cash games. The ideal strategy will be to go tight-aggressive to have a good chance of reaching the final table.

You will see A-Q among the best of hands preflop of all the possible hands that you can get.  If you are playing poker against players who will play 4-4 or offsuit 8-7, then make sure you get them into two rounds of betting. Make sure you attract them to put in more money when you make the flop, liket a Q2J or AK6. These kinds of players will want to see the next cards especially when several players call on their cards.

In poker, different cards make different amounts of money. It does not necessarily follow that the best hands will be best in terms of profitability.

Remember that if you have an offsuit Ace-Queen, you have to put in the money early to kill the chances of the other speculative hands that may make stronger finishing hands and want money in post flop. Yes high suited top cards are the gold of the game but off suit can be treated as silver which can also bring in some money.

We can not deny that poker really requires a lot skills but it also a ton of luck. The equation of winning has a big chunk relying on the luck you have when you sit down and play a session of poker. For a longer stretch, poker players will somehow admit that luck really gets in the way. You got a pair of Kings but when the cards are shown, you didn’t get any better but your opponent with pair 7s was able to make it a quad. Now what do you call that?

When you play on cash tables you need to be prepared to lose two or three buy ins or maybe it is really bad luck that you will not win a tournament even you’re a regular player. A streak of loses may come, maybe worse than the 2 to 3 buy ins we are saying here. There will be days that you just get bad cards. All day.

Big downwings are completely out of our control. Downswings are downswings and no matter how you try to adjust, there will be times that things just get worse and you end up wasting a ton of money.

Now what do you do with a big downswing. I guess we can be pretty honest with our answer – Nothing.

All you can do is take a week long off from the poker table just to help you get out of the negative psyche the series of losses brought to your game. The time out can help you get a fresh start. Then you will play the way you want it, the way you know how to.

Let us say you got an A of heart, King of diamonds. You will be the first one to act so you went to call a raise of 4BB. The flop comes out A heart, 9 spades, 3 diamonds. That sounds good so you topped it up to 8BBs.

The turn reveals A heart, 9 spades, 3 diamons, and 7 spades. The 7 spades looks harmless but it also brings into the equation the potential for a flush or a straight. You pushed for a ¾ of pot bet but your opponent raises. What should you do?

The situation is very tricky. You have a top pair but what does the other player got? Most of the time it will be best to fold our hand. Ask yourself why would the other player raise after a turn if he has anything that is less than a top pair?

Most likely he has some strong cards. A turn raise is a display of strength. This looks like a very awkward situation but folding will really be the best move for most of the time.

Calling will most likely be a losing game. If you call on the turn then the river is revealed, your opponent will most likely call and you will end up closing your eyes and hope for the best. That will not be a very good strategy.

Liz Lieu, one of the hottest little Asian chicks in the poker world is one sick donk in this one sick hand from the European Poker Tour… Funny shit actually.

When does she go broke?

Luckboxer priest against Vanesse Rousso.

“Thanks for purchasing this tape”.

Yeah my pleasure. :p

The two major psychological features of poker should be used successfully. Firstly, you should be conscious of the assorted playing methods used by the opponents and secondly, you should know the impression that other players have about you. Implementation of these psychological aspects would give you a competitive edge over the opponents.

The psychological aspect will help you be the victor and you would win money by improving your betting and increasing the stakes strategy. In order to do this you should familiarize yourself with the diverse methods used by the opponents will educate you on the diverse types of the game being played on the poker table. You should know that if the opponent is very taut and he chases all the cards duping him/her will do no good. Your strategies should change with each player because no two players think alike.

The way the opponents identify you and your playing technique is also a very significant aspect of poker psychology. If you adopt a strategy of playing only when you have well cards who would believe you when you proceed with a bluff or a demeaning flop? The important facet of poker psychology is that the opponents should never be able to judge your playing pattern. You should have the knack of surprising and shocking them with all your moves. Being a very unadventurous or an extremely loose player doesn’t help in this game. Your playing style should be mixed. A pleasant blend of both the styles will help you to dupe your opponents most of the times. This way you would have an edge over your opponents as well.

Outsmarting your opponents can be done in assorted ways. The trickiest question that has been baffling people for years is what goes on in the minds of the poker players? Your sentiment should not be reflected on your facial expressions which otherwise would give away the fate of your game. This mind reading game has its unique ways of playing techniques and the secrecy of your emotions and body language would help you become a refined poker player doing more than just playing tight aggressive poker, but also playing intelligent poker.

The whole “I have a tough opponent tomorrow, Mike Matusow“, did not look like he meant it. Funneh!

It is played with 5 cards and dealer deals them to individual players to start with the game. The betting begins once each player receives the requisite 5 cards.

In the five card draw, the players may chose to dispose off three cards, hoping to acquire better cards by drawing from the pack. The disposal depends on personal choice and it is an option. After everyone ahs drawn and bet, showdown occurs and the one with the best hand take the money in the pot.

Triple draw is a variation of the usual five card draw. But the twist in the tail is the lowest hand here wins all the money of the pot. Players can reject three cards in the four rounds of betting that takes place in triple draw. The lowest hand is the one that has the lowest card values i.e. 2 is lowest followed by 3, 4, 5 and so on up to jack, queen, king and ace being the top card( the most unwanted in this variation).

The flush draw and straight draw poker are ones with sequence of the same suite and sequence in order on any suite respectively. A flush with cards a – k – q – j – 10 is called the royal flush. The player has some chances of winning if it gets to any of these combinations first, off course most of the time players miss their draws, and bluffing is very common.