Poker

[Sarvius]

I'm sure there are a whole lot of poker players on these boards. I've been playing pretty casually and online for the past year or so. I do well against my friends, but I've enrolled in a 100-person NL Tex.Hold'em tournament at the end of this month. I've never played in a live tourney, let alone one that cost cash to register.

Anyways, was hoping for some advice from you guys as to what kind of preparation I should do, and what I should look out for. I know the basics (shaky hands = big hand, look at chips = big hand, etc...) but I would like to improve how I play (be able to give fake tells, etc...)

Anyways, any tips would be appreciated.

[Jabberwhacky]

Eat lots and lots of beans before going to the tourney. The reason for this is twofold: first, the smell will bother your opponents, and second, in case anyone else did it, you should have a fart-cloud barrier around yourself so as to enjoy your own brand while avoiding theirs.

[Peacecraft]

read any book by Sklansky. he writes some excellent tournament books as well as the best poker book ever written, The Theory of Poker.

[dolaan]

I play from time to time and I remember someone telling me to play aggressively in the beginning of the tourney. You will either be out or have a large bankroll to bully other players who played conservatively just to make it farther. Personally that it what I do, sometimes it works and other times it blows up in your face. Like when you have pocket Kings with no help on the board and bet huge every chance you get and some idiot bets into you the whole hand and you have to think what the hell does he have, so you go all in. Then of course he calls and has only a 3 in his hand, and there is a 3 on the flop but the 3rd 3 comes up on the river and you loose (((. It is amazing how clearly I remember that hand. If he was not shitfaced and an idiot I would never understand why he stayed in.

[AngryGerbil]

My advice: Be prepared to lose a lot more than you win if you play tourneys. Stick with cash games if you want to make money. Tourneys are good fun but don't think for a second that they are a money maker unless you have proven to yourself many times that you can win them, because chances are, you won't.

[Dinthug]

If you aren't good at holdem, the best thing you can do is just play good hands. "Good hands" is a general term, many poker pros have different classifications for a good hand depending on their position at the table, their chip stack, how other people are playing at the table, and how many people are left in the tournament.

Generally early on you DON'T want to play aggressively, you just want to play a lot of pots. Since you have a lot of chips and the blinds are low, you can see a lot of flops for a cheap price and call a lot (to chase flush/straight) without severely hurting your chipstack. Plus early on several people are usually involved in a hand so you have a better chance at winning more money (opposite of what you might think). If you don't flop some kind of draw or a pair, just fold, unless you are paying attention to how other people are playing.

Don't bluff, or don't do it often. When you do decide to bluff, only bet a percentage on the pot, don't go all in (especially if the pot is small), it's usually a tell that you are a newbie and people will start picking on you. If you are bluffing, it's usually a good idea just to throw a small amount of chips. If the person is playing tight, they will usually just throw the cards (like how I am telling you to play) or you know they have something. Don't bluff at aggressive players, they will out play you.

If you have a good hand, you generally bet 3-6 times the blind, with 3-4x being the common bets. Betting after the flop is tricky, you are trying to keep people from making hands but still getting paid off. I'd suggest you just play small ish bets and if you have something really good (flush, straight, full house, etc) just bet it at the end and hope they pay you off (bet the pot, or a little less).

Later in the tourney, if you get a lot of chips or you are short stacked, still tighten up your game. Only play late positions (1-2 positions behind the button), small and big blind. If you get a good hand and you are in an early position, represent it and try to push people off the hand, especially if the flop is small and rainbow (no suits match on the board). If you are doing well, you want to still tighten your game, but pick on small stacks that can't call every hand. You can usually force people to bet with small bets, if they call, just watch out. Try to avoid pots with the people that are just behind you in chips and keep the pots small unless you have something. If you are the chip leader after 2/3rds of the tournament is over, you can practically fold your way to the final table, don't play big pots unless you're sure you're going to win. If you are short stacked (your stack is 10-20x the blinds), just work on stealing blinds and only play very good cards. Pay attention to when blinds are going up.

If you make the final table, good luck. People write books about the final table alone, just be happy you made the money

[Sarvius]

I don't want everyone to think I put down $2k for a 10k guy tourney or something...I paid $5 to get in on a 100-man fundraiser-type deal for a few pistons tickets.

I'm a very conservative player generally, so I don't anticipate on going all in on my first hand :-p

[thorn]

Like above poster said, if you're not that good, don't get fancy. Play tight and simple.

Playing tight is almost always correct, especially in tournaments for a long while. Don't listen to the poster saying you ought to play wild in the beginning, the opposite is true. When the blinds are moving up say 1/20th of your stack, that's when you need to escalate. The bigger the blinds, the looser the play essentially.

For the first hour or so, you might as well sit out. No, not really, but dont play many hands. The reason is twofold: Essentially you'll have a hard time building pots because the preflop action is so small and you're building an ultratight image that will help you steal blinds later on. And stealing blinds might not be a big deal in cash games but it sure is in tournaments.,

If you get the time, read Harrington on Hold'em. It's the best tournament oriented book out there.

[dak]

Poker has drained the life from a lot of my friends worse than I've seen any MMO ever do. They just get so damn addicted.

It's 5:35am right now but I guarantee I can call at least 4 people right now that I know and they will be sitting at home in their underwear, chain smoking with ESPN2 poker going playing online for cash. Some have made a living out of it.

[vurt]

Poker? I don't even know her!

[Delenar]

I use poker to supplement my income. I paid 50 bucks a few years ago and lost it all in about 2 days. Then about 6 months later after reading some books I put another 50 bucks in. I make about 400-1000 extra bucks a month playing tournament poker on pokerstars and I haven't had a losing month since my first deposit.

That's playing 3-4 nights a week for 1 hour (if i sucked) to 5 hours (If I make it deep in a tourney or two).

I have a lot of fun and the money is good.

Sorry, I guess this turned into a bit of a brag post.

To your live play. Do not worry at all about giving fake physical tells for one. You'll just mess yourself up. The only fake tells you should be doing is showdown a really poor hand once, to make people think you play garbage, then tighten your game up.

If this is a fundraiser type dealy, there's going to be a pile of dead money to feed on. Watch for people limping into every pot, use position to trap them and let them bet off all their chips when they hit mediocre hands and cannot lay them down. You'd be shocked how many people will place any Ace/rag and cannot lay it down post flop.

Look to be very aggressive with KK and AA in particular, this may sound like a no brainer but with weak opposition, they will call you with garbage like AJ or worse and even really low pairs.

Good Luck!

[Dexz]

So far everyone has given you some good advice. In tourneys that size if you dont do well early the chances of you getting to the final table start going down fast. By early lets give a comparison, if you start out with 10k in chips and the blinds are 100/200 and they go up every 15minutes. At one hour into the game the blinds should be around 400/800 or 500/1000, If you start falling below that 30x the bb mark chances of you making poor decisions increase and hands you will have to play could be your downfall. My theory on tourneys, Ill play just about every hand possible for the first two blind periods and hope to get enough chips to bully/chase/wait when the price of poker gets costly.

** If you can afford to play hands with suited connectors against a raise / reraise, do it, especially hands like 2/3, 8/9 , 9/10. When they hit against high pocket pairs or people playing face cards you will get PAID. And if they dont hit on the flop they are easy to fold. *by hit i mean, strong straight or flush possibilities on the flop** Why ? 8/9 suited is one of the strongest hands to take down pockets aces, Its an underdog but not by alot so if you have over 3:1 pots odds call it down b.c you are less than a 3:1 dog to win it