Gambling Guide and Directory

You’ve been setting this guy up for an hour. You finally got him right where you want him. Then your world is shattered.

A very loose aggressive player has raised the pot in front of you. You make the easy call with your 88. Out comes the flop, A83. He makes a big bet. You pause for a moment, and make the call.

The turn is a harmless 5. He bets the pot again. This time you know he’s calling so you push all in. He doesn’t hesitate, and calls immediately. He turns over A4. When a 2 hits on the river, you are left with a sick feeling in your gut.

What you do after that can be the difference between a profitable player and a big loser. Can you stay on your game? Or, does this bad beat freak you out, and get you to make bad plays.

The classic follow up is getting a good, but not great, hand and overplaying it. Like, you have AJ on an A94 board, against a super tight player. He bets the flop, and you go all in, only to get called by his AA, and find yourself drawing dead. Yo top it off, you knew better.

When lady luck slaps you in the face like this, you need to avoid tilting off chips. The classic instinct is to gamble wildly at the next reasonable chance. You want to get those chips back. This is a big time tilt.

The best way to avoid a hand like this, right after a bad beat, is to get away from the table as soon as possible. Once you have collected yourself you can go back to playing.

Remind yourself that you had played great in that losing hand. You can’t control the fact that he got super lucky. There is almost always some chance you will get hit with a bad beat. It’s rare that your opponent is drawing dead. Therefore, you need to get used to having this happen.

When you are getting unlucky, the statistics are skewed against you. This creates an even tougher environment to avoid tilting. Every play you make starts to feel hopeless. Your opponents make bad plays, and beat you anyway.

Your good hands run into better ones. Your opponents make bad calls, and hit their draws. Then, you finally get all you chips in with AA versus 99, only to see two nines hit the flop.

You haven’t made one single mistake, and you’re getting killed. Poker is a tough way to make an easy living. In the long run, this will come back to you. It never feels like it, but you must believe and understand this.

It’s the chips you lose making mistakes, when you’re tilting, that don’t come back. Done too much, this can make a winning player a loser, maybe even a big loser. Avoid tilting, and keep yourself profitable. Good luck at the tables.

When trying to win a poker tournament, almost all pros will tell you, you need to win hands when you don’t have the cards. When you pull this off you are “making a move” in poker terms. Let’s take a look at some of the ways a player does this.

You can steal the blinds. You can fire twice at a pot with absolutely nothing. Whatever the type of bluff, you are trying to get your opponent to fold the better hand.

When you are the first to act, any raise with a weak hand is an attempt to steal the blinds. When the blinds get big, you will have no chance to win the tournament without stealing some of the blinds. This is the nature of tournament poker.

One of the most powerful plays in poker is the check raise. You are in the big blind and call a raise from the button. You miss the flop completely.

You check and he bets the pot. You come back with a pot sized, or more, re-raise. If he doesn’t fold, you will stop betting and cut your losses.

You can also use the semi bluff. You have KQ of hearts. You have called a raise.

The flop shows J74 with two hearts. When your opponent raises you have to decide how to play this. I think here you can go all in, and put your opponent to the test.

You might get a fold. If he calls you have outs, at least nine of them. If he has AJ you will be a mathematical favorite. This is a classic semi-bluff.

The post oak bluff is quite different. You have been calling some moderate raises with a speculative hand. When the last card hits you know your only chance to win is to get a fold.

Now on the river you come out with a small raise. This raise is intended to induce a fold. The small bet is to convince your opponent that you have a huge hand, and have been slow playing it. You need to believe your opponent will think this way.

These are just a very small sample of the bluffs you can try. You need to creatively win chips some of the time. You can’t expect to get enough big hand to avoid this need.

When you have a big hand, and you check, call, or bet small, you are slow playing your hand. This tactic sometimes pays off big. Generally, this is a dangerous and foolish play that can cost you chips.

A slow play can work well at times. There are times when it’s the right move. But, many times, players use this tactic when it’s just not worth it. Let’s look at a hand that shows this.

Let’s look at a classic slow play as it goes terribly wrong. Your hand is AA. With the blinds at 10/20 you bet 40 from under the gun. There are two callers. The flop comes out A 6 10 rainbow.

Then you decide to make a small bet to hope for some action. You get one call. The turn card is an innocent looking 9. Again, you bet small, trying to milk this hand.

Then your opponents make a big raise. Convinced he has no idea what you have you happily call. The river is a harmless 2, so you make a bet hoping for a call. Your opponent immediately pushes all in.

Well, you can’t fold, can you? You call, and when he flips over 78 of diamonds, your jaw drops. You’re out of the tournament. Out because you slow played yourself out.

Maybe the first minimum bet was a little wrong. But the small bet on the flop was even worse. Now, when he hits his hand, there’s nothing you can do. You’ve dug your own grave.

Most players then think about how unlucky they were in this hand. Are they right? Well, a little, but not completely. Let’s take a closer look.

All the bets you made were designed to keep players in the hand. By doing so you helped someone hit a long shot. When you call at the end you plan on seeing two pair, or a smaller set. But, when you think about it, these hands would be calling big bets too. You didn’t need to slow play against these hand that you’d beat.

By not betting much, you wouldn’t have made that many chips against some hands that would have been calling you. On the other hand, you get creamed when you make it cheap for someone to hit a long shot.

This is a good example of the risk of slow playing. There is a time and place for this tactic. Normally, just bet your good hands, and take what you can get.

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