Believe it or not, this article is ultimately about playing good poker, but we’re going to approach the topic from a slightly oblique angle, so hopefully you’ll forgive me. You see, I’m currently listening to my latest downloads on iTunes, which include some pretty cool riffs.  In fact, the songs I’m listening to are so good, that I’m inlcined to forget the fact that it’s currently 2:30am, and even though I’m crushing a $1/2 game on Stars, I have to get up for a blistering day of work in just 4 measly hours.

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Ever had a session where you know you played like crap?  Nevermind…it’s a rhetorical question.  If you read that first sentence and started shaking your head you’re either delusional, very lucky, or very very very good.  I’m none of those things, so I’ll happily admit there are days where despite everything I’ve learned about poker over the last few years I still play like a randy virgin taking his first shot at popping his cherry…in other words, I am completely devoid of insight or style, and generally fumble around or **** things up. After a hell session it can sometimes pay dividents to reflect on where things went wrong, and get back to basics.  In this post, I’m going to revisit some of the core texas hold em poker tips to avoid donkey plays, particularly in tournament poker.  

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I have a friend who plays in our regular home games who is a rock.  I mean he is tight…super tight.  Think of a joke involving tight, and the virgin mother’s nether regions, and we’re at least starting to get close to just how rigid this bloke is with his hand selection.  Now, I sometimes get called a rock, but that’s just fine with me.  I always enjoy making a point of bluffing the name caller out of a key pot during the game, and I try not to be too smug about the fact that they walk away believing they made a brilliant laydown.  The thing is though, whilst playing tight aggressive poker might be a good starting frame of reference, not having the ability to change gears when the situation demands it can be a loosing proposition.

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Taking a bad beat in poker can be a really frustrating thing.  A bad beat, in poker parlance, is losing a hand that is initially thought of as a winning hand.  There are varying degrees of bad beats.  Frequently, a bad beat is preceeded by some form of muppetry played out by a donkey who the poker gods have a hard on for.  An example - having your all in bet called by someone with bottom pair against your set, only to see them hit running cards for a straight.  A lesser degree of bad beat but no less typical, would be when someone who has a pair of aces  continues through the betting rounds upping the ante everytime only to lose to a player who simply gets lucky in making a gutshot draw.  Poker bad beats such as this happens all the time and are considered to be a normal occurrence that most of us need to learn how to accept.  Ask any poker player, they can tell you a bad beat story.  If you find a player who has a poker bad beat story but chooses not to tell it, chances are they can handle themselves at the table.

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Its doubtful Chris Moneymaker knew in 2003, when he won the World Series of Poker that he’d change the way the world looks at poker, but it’s true nonetheless.  Since then, people from around the world and certainly this author, have dreamed of sitting at the final table, holding pocket aces, and staring down Jackie Chan.

However any decent player knows you’re only as good as your last game (or tournament) and learning to play a good sit n go game can generate some serious cash very quickly (skill and the poker gods not withstanding) .

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This is the third part of our series on No Limit Texas Hold Em Strategy, and we’re going to take a look at where things all begin…pre flop poker strategy.  A poker hand pre flop is a little bit like the start of a first date.  We’ve made our selection carefully, we can feel the potential, and we’re a little bit excited about how things might develop. The only real difference is that unlike a date, in a poker hand we’re really not looking to get screwed.  Here are a couple of factors to keep in mind when playing your hand pre-flop.

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In texas hold em winning hands with massive holdings is easy.  It doesn’t take long to learn what beats what, and when we hit a monster like a full house or flush it’s less a question of whether we will win but how much we can extract from a hand.  However, in hold em, particularly tournament play, we won’t always hit the big hands we need to stay alive.  When this happens, winning hands without the holdings can be key to our enduring success.  Many players simply lack the experience or balls to make strong plays when our opponents show weakness, so we’ll examine a few of the situations where we can look to take down pots, even when our hole cards are against us.

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This is the second part of our series on No Limit Hold Em Strategy, and in this post we’ll take a look at the first poker playing style we want to master at the tables…tight aggressive.  Of all the playing styles new players should try to emulate, this is the one.  The reasons are numerous, but the advantages clear. 

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