FullTilt Poker Tips

No matter what poker variant you’re playing, it’s vital to constantly think about the players left to act behind you and what their tendencies are. Too often, when facing a raise, poker players think only about how to play back at the raiser to their right, without thinking about the opponents still holding cards on their left.

At every stage of a Multi-Table Tournament, your stack size relative to the blinds should be crucial to how you approach different hands and situations. You may start a tournament with anywhere from 50 to 500 big blinds, but by the final table, the average stack is often between 25 and 40 big blinds. When deep-stacked, you can afford to make a lot of speculative raises, see a lot of flops, and make plays at pots without risking going broke. However, when you have about 20 big blinds or less, you should be looking primarily for favorable situations to get your money in pre-flop, oftentimes shoving all-in over the top of a raiser you suspect to be stealing.

Anyone who’s ever come close to winning a poker tournament – only to fall short – can tell you how much it hurts. It’s disappointing. It’s painful. In 2006, I finished 2nd in a $1,000 No-Limit Hold ’em event at the World Series of Poker, and then in 2007, I was the runner-up in a $2,500 Hold ’em event at the WSOP. So I came into 2008 particularly determined to win my first bracelet – not just to reach a final table, but to finish in 1st place.

Fifth Street is the big decision point in Seven Card Stud because that’s the critical juncture in the hand when you have to put in your first big bet. While it’s nice to have a made hand at this point, you don’t always need one to put in a raise on Fifth Street. If you have a big draw, that can be enough to warrant raising your opponent. Some players don’t think like this, and I believe that’s a costly mistake.

The semi-bluff is one of the most powerful weapons in any poker player’s arsenal. If there’s a decent chance you can steal a pot by semi-bluffing, you should usually take it.

Deciding how active you want to be at the beginning of a poker tournament depends heavily on what type of tournament you’re playing in. If it’s a standard Sit & Go, I always recommend playing tight and conserving chips early. If it’s a Multi-Table Tournament or a Shootout Tournament then you should consider a more active style in the early phase.

Going into any rebuy tournament, you should know before the first cards are dealt how much money you’re willing to invest. Whether you’re playing with a single bullet (not planning to rebuy at all), enough money to rebuy 50 times, or somewhere in between, you should have a number in your mind. You need to know from the start how many risks you can afford to take, and play accordingly.

When you’re at the table playing live poker, the only notes you can take - at least inconspicuously - are mental ones. Online, however, you’re granted a tremendous opportunity that doesn’t exist in live play.

When playing a turbo Multi-Table Tournament online, one of the biggest mistakes you can make is overcompensating for the fact that it’s a turbo by playing too fast and loose during the first several rounds. Because the levels are shorter and the starting stacks smaller, you’ll see players rushing to get all their poker chips into the pot with a hand like A-9 or pocket 5s. Since these poker tournaments actually play like normal tournaments during the first few levels, it’s important to remain patient and wait for big hands.

We all know that a three-bet is supposed to mean strength. When a player three-bets before the flop, he’s saying that he believes he has the best hand. One of the keys to making money at the poker table, however, is being able to interpret when the three-bet means what it’s supposed to mean, and when a player is only representing a big hand and making a move

One of the great things about poker, especially online poker, is that the game is always there when you're ready to play. It's not like being a baseball player, where you're at the mercy of your team's schedule, or like being a doctor, where you have to respond to emergency calls.

In a typical nine-handed, one-table Sit & Go that pays out three places, the most critical juncture of the tournament comes when four players remain. Three of those players will turn a profit, and one of them will go home empty-handed. It goes without saying that there's no more disappointing place to finish in a nine-handed Sit & Go than fourth.

Ace-King may be one of the strongest starting hands in poker, but you’ve got to play it right in each position to make it pay – especially in the early stages of a tournament. Being in early position adds another challenge to the situation. But if you’re betting consistently and keeping an eye on your opponents, you should be able to take more than a few pots when you’re holding Big Slick.

If you don’t have much experience playing Pot-Limit Omaha, a good rule of thumb is to play hands that can make the nuts because at a full table the pot will usually end up going to the player holding the best possible hand. If there are three flush cards on the board, the winning player will often show an Ace-high flush, and if the board pairs, the winner will usually have a full house. While flopping the nuts is nice, it’s even more important that you have redraws to make the nuts when the board changes on later streets.

One of the most important aspects of poker is establishing an individual image and using it to your advantage. By playing an extremely aggressive game, you’re likely to get paid off when you make a big hand because your opponents assume you have nothing; by consistently playing tight, you’ll get away with bluffs because they assume you’re strong. Either approach is fine, but it’s tremendously important to be aware of your table image so you can profit by playing against it.

Intuitively, it would seem that checking and calling is the best way to keep a pot small when you’re uncertain as to whether or not you have the best hand. And often, that’s the case. But believe it or not, betting out can sometimes allow you to get to the showdown cheaper than checking. If your goal is to control the size of the pot, sometimes voluntarily putting poker chips in will actually keep the pot smaller than passively putting chips in only after your opponent does.

When I first started playing poker, I had no idea what bankroll management was. I just sat in whichever games were open at the stakes I wanted to play, even if I barely had enough money in my bankroll to cover the buy-in. I worked my way up the ranks by jumping to the next level as soon as I had enough money to pay for a single buy-in.

When playing poker online, one of the most important pieces of information you can pick up on is the "timing tell." Whenever one of your opponents gets involved in a big hand, you should always pay attention to how long it takes him to make his decision because it will often give you a clue about the strength of his hand.

When deciding whether or not to make a continuation bet on the flop, a critical factor is your position at the poker table.

Continuation betting has become so common in No-Limit Hold'em tournaments that many players no longer give it any respect. They will often call your bet on the flop, whether or not they actually have anything, just to see what you'll do on the turn. Because continuation bets have lost so much value, you should be wary of making this bet if you don't have much of a hand, and, even if you do have a hand, you should occasionally check behind just to mix up your play.

Whether or not you decide to get into a coin flip situation in poker really depends upon what type of game you're playing. I'm far more likely to take on one of these challenges when I'm playing in a cash game than when I'm playing in a tournament, and I'm also more likely to do so when I'm playing in a live game as opposed to play in an online poker site.

The $50,000 HORSE tournament at the World Series of Poker is one of the most prestigious events in all of poker, but the structure does not allow room for mistakes. Typically, over 80 percent of the field is still alive halfway through the second day, but none of those players have enough chips to play more than two big hands. Everyone is in danger of going broke. In fact, it’s the same in nearly every HORSE tournament I’ve ever played in, which means it’s crucial that you never waste a single bet.

Many players' first exposure to poker comes from watching World Series Of Poker and World Poker Tour tournaments on TV, and I think that's great. It's entertaining and you'll see some interesting plays, but viewers have to understand that they shouldn't model their games based on the action they see on TV.

Poker is a game of choices. Some of these choices are fairly straight forward and simple while others take a lot of thought. The thing is that when all is said and done, there may not be just one correct path to winning a given hand; it's all up to you to decide what road to travel.

If you don't think poker is a competitive sport, chances are you've never made it to the late stages of a major tournament where the only thing higher than the blinds is the pressure of playing for thousands - or even millions - of dollars in prize money.