FullTilt Poker Tips

Full Tilt Poker recently released a revolutionary new form of online poker: Rush Poker. If you’re not familiar with the game, I encourage you to give it a try. Instead of the players sitting in a 6 or 9-handed game, they are seated in a game that has up to 2,000 players in it. All players are seated at a normal table, but as soon as you decide to fold, instead of waiting for the hand to finish and playing the next hand against the same players, you are immediately seated with a different group of players and play your next hand. This allows players to play around 300 hands per hour instead of the usual 80.

It’s not a sexy subject, but we all know how vital bankroll management is to your poker career. A great way to help out with managing your roll is to keep records of your play.

In tournaments, you should always be looking for ways to pick up chips. You can’t just sit around waiting for Aces or Kings and hope to double up when you do. One of the best and most popular ways for adding chips to your stack is by implementing what’s known as the squeeze play. A typical squeeze play works like this: an active and aggressive player raises in late position, and he’s called by another player on the button. You’re in the blinds and you have to decide what to do

When a short-stack moves all in and you have him comfortably out-chipped, your decision is usually straight-forward. You consider what range of hands he could have, gauge the likelihood that your hand is best, do some quick pot-odds math, and either call or fold.

Even the best poker players in the world make mistakes, and when these mistakes are not corrected, they can develop into "leaks" that can easily sink your game. There are two leaks in particular that I see all the time with regard to Hold ’em starting hands that people play but would be better off folding.
The first of these two leaks involves playing easily dominated hands. Domination in Texas Hold ’em is death, so you must make an effort to fold potentially dominated hands pre-flop if another player has voluntarily entered the pot.

When you’re on the extreme short stack in a tournament, there isn’t always a “right” decision to make. You’ll find yourself in a lot of marginal spots, such as holding an A-9 off-suit in early position or maybe holding a small pair when someone in front of you has already raised. With those hands, it’s never clear whether the better move is to shove and cross your fingers or just fold and wait for a better spot.

People always ask, “How much do I need to play in a certain stake game?” The usual answer to all poker questions is, “It depends.” But in this case, it is the wrong question. The question really should be, “Given my temperament and current financial situation, how much can I risk in a game?

In the world of Full Tilt Poker avatars there are no bad hair days. Not the type of thought I want to be having at an FTOPS final table. I want my mind absorbing and processing just the right information the best it can to put my creative mind in position to "play Mozart" to the ears of my opponents who I deem capable of appreciating it. I want to be focused. In the moment. In the flow of the game. In the "Zone".

In the game of Hold‘em, especially No Limit, aggression is usually rewarded. By being aggressive, you are putting your opponent in an uncomfortable situation and forcing him to either make a hand or make a bluff. You take over control of the pot and put yourself in the driver’s seat.

Table image can be a very powerful tool at the poker table, especially in ring games where you can expect to play a long session against the same opponents. But when it comes to tournament play, trying to project a certain table image can often times prove to be a futile endeavor. Your attempt might end up costing you precious chips now without gaining a later advantage, since you may be at a different table against different opponents a few minutes later.

When you’re playing a tournament and sitting on around 15 big blinds, you can face some seriously tough pre-flop decisions. Welcome to stack size limbo. It feels likes you have too many chips to push all-in, but a standard pre-flop raise can prove disastrous if an aggressive player comes over the top and puts you to the test.

We’ve all played poker against those guys who are relentlessly aggressive, who’ll make moves with any two cards. The fact of the matter is that you have to make a stand against those guys sooner or later. The key is picking the right time to do it. There’s nothing more painful than being the sucker who pays him off when he finally has a monster. But it’s a gamble you have to take on occasion in order to be the guy who gets all of the maniac’s chips when he runs an ill-advised bluff.

It’s been said many times that the weakest play in poker is calling – that it’s better to be raising or folding. In my opinion, there are situations where that statement simply isn’t true. I recently played a hand online at Full Tilt Poker that served as a perfect example of how checking and calling can win you a hand that you would have lost by folding (obviously) or raising.

In the late stages of a poker tournament, big pairs are generally pretty easy to play. When you have 20, 30 or 40 big blinds in your stack, and you find a pair of Queens or Kings, you usually just want to play aggressively, force a fold, or play a big all-in pot and hope things work out in the end.

When beginning poker players are describing a hand they’ve played, they usually start by saying what their hole cards were before moving on to talk about the betting. A professional poker player, however, would never describe the dynamics of a hand without first talking about his position at the table because in games like Hold ’em and Omaha, position can be even more important than the cards in your hand.

Mike Caro once said that when you join a poker game, you should say to yourself, “I am a great poker player; a powerful winning force surrounds me.” I believe it’s a technique worth trying.

Many players new to online poker find multi-tabling – playing more than one table at once – intimidating. While it might seem this way at first, there are several things that you can do to get the most out of your experience right from the start.

One theme you’ll see throughout our Tips From The Pros series is that when you’re making a move, your actions need to tell a plausible story. Some stories can be simple. For example, if you raise pre-flop and then follow up with a bet on a King-high flop, you’re telling opponents that you’re happy with the progression of the hand and maybe you have A-K or K-Q.

A lot of outstanding poker players will tell you the cornerstone of pre-flop play is consistency. That approach works for many top players, but I don’t necessarily subscribe to that theory.

As a Producer at Full Tilt Poker Academy, one of the great benefits of my job is being expected to keep a hand in the game and actually play some poker now and then. I need to apply the ideas and techniques that I learn every day while working with some of the best players in the world. At-the-table research is essential; that’s what I tell my wife and my boss, and so far they’re buying it.

While No-Limit Hold ‘em and Limit Hold ‘em tournaments might look the same to a casual observer, they’re completely different. In a No-Limit Hold ‘em tournament, one big hand can either set you up for a run to the final table or send you home early. That’s not how it works in a Limit Hold ‘em tournament – a single hand is never going to define your entire tournament. You should approach a Limit Hold ‘em tournament more like a cash game by trying to slowly accumulate chips and limiting your mistakes. For players making the transition from No-Limit to Limit Hold‘em tournaments, a good rule of thumb is to play a little tighter before the flop and a little looser after the flop.

To succeed in Pot-Limit Hold ‘em tournaments, No-Limit Hold‘em players need to make certain adjustments to their game. Perhaps the biggest modification you need to make is to recognize the importance of being the second raiser before the flop rather than the first, a change necessitated in large part by Pot-Limit’s unique betting structure.

Bluffing in Limit Hold ’em is nothing like bluffing in No-Limit Hold’em. In a Limit game, you can rarely price an opponent out of the pot if he has any kind of a made hand or draw. Sometimes you’ll try a bluff on the river because your opponent can no longer chase, but even so, his pot odds are usually so overwhelming that he’ll call with a weak hand.

I’ve been playing poker for 23 years, and one thing I can say about my play with great pride is that I never steam. In fact, that’s true of a lot of pros. In general, the more experienced a player is, the less likely he or she is to have a steam factor.

In the second week of the 2004 Series, I just missed a final table, finishing eleventh in a $2,000 Limit Hold’em event. Daniel (Negreanu) went on to win that tournament for his third WSOP bracelet. What I remember most about that tournament was a hand that came up about eight hours into Day One.