21 The key decision any Hold'em player makes is whether or not to play the starting 2-card hand they are dealt with. And if they do play, how do they play smart through the hand.
�I you are a FISH, never bet on anything but the top Ranked 24 pocket cards.� Insider Secret We would also suggest that you ALWAYS Raise on the Top 10.
Raise on the Top 16 - unless you think the Raise is not likely to drive out other players in a very loose game.
Under very tight table conditions, only the Top 5 should be Raised before the flop.
However, our advice would be if you find yourself at a very tight table, you should probably get up and go find better playing conditions elsewhere.
AK is a good example of hole cards that only do really well in a short-handed game � so you need to Raise and drive out other players right away. If you can�t, you will have lost most of the power and advantage of these cards.
22 TT on the other hand drops dramatically in power with fewer players so raising to push out weaker hands is a poor strategy.
Barracuda � The next level up from the Fish category is Barracuda. You�re not the biggest and meanest fish in the sea, but you have experience and you�ve survived.
And you�re making money when you play.
The Barracuda Player can safely play the Top 40 pocket cards as listed next.
You are now in the land of the medium-suited connectors - KQs, QJs, JTs, T9s - which do very well in small-stake games as well as the biggish Offsuit aces - AQ, AJ.
Barracuda Tip: Pick your 10-player table carefully. Look for players who seem to be having fun, and where at least half of them stay in to see the flop. Picking the right table 23 is a major determinant of how well your hands will Hold Up in the long run.
When other players know what you�re holding, you suffer tremendous disadvantage. Just playing good cards is not enough as a Barracuda. Raising AA and KK is clearly not enough.
You need a carefully planned but hard to read raising strategy as well. At the Barracuda stage you begin to experiment with more aggressive play. As you will read later, timing your aggressive strategy is the key. Being aggressive with a large number of players at the table, unless they are all very conservative, will not work most of the time. And no matter how aggressive you are, if you are surrounded by sharks, you will be Chum.
As a Fish you were focused on the top 10-16 pocket cards dealt.
You need to expand this now in two ways.
One, you need to be more aggressive before the flop on a wider range of cards.
Two, you need to mix up your betting strategy. As you will see later, the best player type is �tight-aggressive�. This characterization is based more on how the other players see you and less on your own strategy. In poker, perception is everything.
You need to be seen by your opponent as someone who�s style is slightly hard to read and occasionally unpredictable. Then when you do Raise aggressively, your opponents will take you seriously and surrender the pot.
Be aware that in online Poker, because players come and go constantly, it�s more difficult to build a reputation at the table. It�s like performing on the stage; you need to exaggerate your moves a bit more than you would on a one-to-one basis. Because it�s easier 24 to be aggressive online, your aggression needs to be clear � that means pushing up the bets more than you would at a real table.
Slow Play can have its advantages here too. It tends to catch the attention of other weaker players anxious to donate to the pot.
Even if you know exactly how much you plan to Raise, Slow Down.
Let the counter click off. This is a great attention-getting device. If after stalling, you fold, you communicate indecision. On the other hand, if you Raise heavy, you�ve made the move quite clear � and you�ve got the other players thinking.
Mental toughness is one of the keys to success as you move up the poker food chain. Being mentally tough means ignoring the other players concerns about how fast you play.
Mr. Slow Play One of the toughest tournaments I�ve played in had one player who constantly ran up to the last few seconds of their available time on every turn. At first it looked like they were distracted, or playing another game online at the same time. Virtually every time it came to their turn, they would stall until the count down. Soon, other players began chatting about the Slow Play. Name-calling began. One player suggested taking aggressive action against this player as a group, simply because of the shared aggravation.
Which is exactly what happened. At one point, one player bet aggressively against Mr. Slow Play and went all in and lost.
Who won the tournament? Mr. Slow Play. What a great strategy.
He rattled almost all of the other players with his slow determined pace. He went right down to the last few seconds on the clock dozens of times. The more the other players complained, the more he hesitated.
25 Because he was slow on every play, it was very tough to read his actual playing style. He was consistent. He also got a lot of attention. When he won, no one missed it. He managed to control the table in a way. Table control is clearly a goal of the consistent winner.
The Shark Player will have 80 hands in their play list (see chart following) knowing that they are good hands if the flop is good flop, that your opponents will generally discount the likelihood you'll be holding them, and that they will have the will to fold on as many rounds as it takes when the flop doesn�t go in their favor.
As a gambler, with these cards, the real magic is getting the right flop cards.
Based on using the Shark play list you would on average, participate in about 1/3rd of all pots at your table.
The actual number will fall in the range of 25% to 33% depending on the raising by other players.
26 Again, if your goal is to win, please stay away from very tight tables because no matter how well you play, only the house wins when everyone is good.
Authors Sklansky and Malmuth (S&M) have authored one of the most popular poker book to date called Hold'em for Advanced Players. Our pre-flop recommendations differ in many ways.
S&M has always advised raising with your strongest hands and limping (calling) with your weakest. But this a major mistake in tighter games, since your strongest hands are worth much more than the blinds, while your weakest hands are worth much less than the blinds. Folding is the wisest choice.
Also, S&M advises not raising with hands like KT after several loose limpers. The newest research however indicates you should usually Raise since your hand is likely to be best and will win more than your fair share of pots (though usually not much money).
S&M's argument is that fish will call correctly with Gutshots (drawing one card to a straight) and pairs on the flop if you Raise preflop, and you will suck more players into the pot. Raising will not greatly reduce your chance of your winning the pot, so if you will win more than your fair share of pots, you should generally Raise.
Stats from a number of online casinos have revealed another S&M myth - that you should Raise with baby pairs like 33 even if you know the blinds will call. The odds are that you will flop a thrip more then 1 in 9 times but you will win the pot less than 1 in 9 times. Since you will win the pot less than your fair share, you should not Raise.