A History of Poker

Poker was first popularized in the American South in the 19th century, where it was played on Mississippi riverboats with a twenty card deck (A, K, Q, J, and T of each suit). But the game actually originated in France, where it was called poque.

Poker Strategy

The essence of winning poker strategy is to play tight but aggressive. Tight menas you fold a lot, especially before the flop. As Tommy Angelo once wrote "folding builds latent winning potential". Tight players do well over time because strong hands preflop translate to strong holdings postflop. If you have your opponent dominated, say with AQ vs QT, and the flop comes with a queen, you stand to make a lot of money. And even if QT does happen to outflop AQ, say with a T72 flop, AQ has nothing and will probably get away more or less unscathed. Big cards win money in NLHE because they end up making better hands. Top pair instead of bottom pair. Nut flush instead of a low flush. And it really is that simple. In fact, you can pretty much just sit around and wait for really strong hands in a lot of games, and do very well. Luckily, there is much more to poker strategy than simply sitting around and waiting for the goods. As complicated and nuanced as preflop strategy can be, post flop strategy is infinitely more complex.

Fundamentals of Preflop Play

The first and most important concept to learn about preflop play is what to raise when you are first in (RFI). The above charts are fairly simple. Blue you fold and beige you raise. RFI standards are more or less static so they are relatively easy to learn, although you can also adjust your range on the basis of game conditions. Note that UTG - and this is for a 6 max game - we open 17.9% of the time. This number increases to 22.5%, then 30%, then 46.6% for HJ, CO, and BU respectively. It reaches its peak at BU and the author advocates a mixed strategy for SB vs BB. These charts were found at PokerAti.com and have been reproduced here without permission.

Preflop charts can be valuable tools. But what if we are not first in? That is what if there is action in front of us. Then the chart no longer applies. Instead we must either three bet, call, or fold. And this is a good time to introduce 'the gap concept', which is that it takes a much stronger hand to play against a raise than to raise yourself. So right away, if someone raises, you are going to fold mostly. A good default strategy is to three bet AK, QQ, KK, AA, and to flat TT, JJ, AQs and to fold everything else. But it really depends on how they play. And this introduces a second important concept. In poker, everything is relative.

Concept #1 : The Gap Concept

The gap concept, as we just said, means it takes a much stronger hand to play against a raise, than to raise yourself. Let's explore this a little more. Let's say you are in the cut off or CO and everyone folds to you. This means that only the button, the small blind, and the big blind remain to act. Let's say you have 99, and you want to know how likely it is that you have the best hand. Well, there are only 5 hands that beat you, TT, JJ, QQ, KK, or AA. That is 5 x 6 = 30 combos of hands that beat you. There is only a 2.26% chance that any one particular opponent has a better hand than 99. There is a 3.47% chance one player has a TT-AA, and AK. I have chosen to include AK, even though 99 is a favourite, because if someone three bets you when they have a range of TT-AA and AK, you should probably just fold. So the fact that they will play AK like it is the best hand means it is the best hand. Or should be treated as if it is. Anyway, because there is a 96.53% chance that any one player does not beat 99, you can take that to third power and get 89.95%. That means there is a 90% chance that 99 is the best hand. Now people could have ATs, or KQs, and be competitive against you. But we know most of the time we will have the best hand before the flop, because it is just us, with a pretty strong hand against three random hands. They could have anything. Now let's look at our hand vs a raise. Even if we give our opponent a healthy 10% range, we aren't beating much. We beat 77 and 88, and A9ss. That is only 13 combos. We lose to or flip vs the rest. So we have to hope that we are against the soft part of his range, over cards or 77 or 88, and that we get a safe flop, and that we hold. That's a bit of a parlay. Now I'm not saying you can or cannot call a raise with 99. Just that we are in a much better situation it is folded to us in late position, than if we are facing an EP raise. The gap concept. You need a better hand to play vs a raise than you do to raise yourself. And this is applicable to many poker situations.

Concept #2 : All Hands Are Relative

A very tight raiser opens in early position for 5BB. We are in the CO with AKo and there are two loose players in the blinds. What do we do? A lot of players would just three bet here without thinking because they have ace king and ace king is a three bet. Poker players love simplistic rules like that. However in this case it is a mistake. Let's look at the tight players range. It is JJ, QQ, KK, AA, and AK. 2.5% of hands (2.12% if we factor in your AK). Some players really are that tight. And notice, we are not doing great against any of then. In fact, against such a tight range, we are a 2:1 underdog.
However, if we are to flat and allow one of the loose players into the pot, the situation changes dramatically. Now we are 31.77% in a three way pot vs 37% heads up. This corresponds to a -4.69% edge on the action three way vs a -26% edge on the action heads up. Okay, maybe we should just fold in either situation, but we DEFINITELY should not three bet. And if we make the preflop raisers range a little looser - giving them a 6% range for example, still very tight (AA-88, AJ+ only) - now we are 37% in a three way pot. So we have a a reasonable edge but heads up we are an ever so slight dog with 49.329%. Furthermore, our loose opponent in the blind is probably going to make more postflop mistakes than the tight raiser, since marginal hands are more difficult to play.

On the other hand, if villain is a very loose opener, opening a liberal 30% range including lots of broadway hands, some ace rag off suit, stronger suited connectors, then three betting AK is going to print. Not only do you stand a good chance to take down the pot immediately, but post flop weak ranges translate into weak holdings. And villain will not be able to four bet you very often with such a weak range either.

Drawing Hands

We can taxonomize pocket pairs, suited connectors, and suited aces into the grouping of 'drawing hands' although it would be a serious mistake to treat these holdings as identical. The most important category is pocket pairs. Smaller pocket pairs derive most of their value from their ability to hit a set. They do have some showdown value, and anything that beats ace high should not be ignored, but especially in the context of loose live games where most pots are contested multiway, the showdown value of an unimproved pocket pair is negligible. You will flop a set 1 in 8.5 times (7.5:1 against). Determining whether or not to call with a pocket pair in order to 'set mine' is a complicated process, which most players do not appreciate. You will almost never be getting the direct pot odds to draw for your set. However, because you still have many streets of betting to go, improving to a set can be quite lucrative. The calculation is essentially this: first you calculate your pot odds. Let's say you are getting 3:1. Then you need to be able to win on average an additional 4.5 times the preflop call when you do hit your set. This is usually not difficult. Let's look at an example.

You have 88 in the CO. UTG folds, UTG+1 raises to 3x the big blind, and MP flats. Everyone has 100 big blinds. Should we call or not?

First we should consider our pot odds. We are getting here only 2.5:1 in direct pot odds. Assuming this is a $1/$2 game, it would cost us $6 to call. There is $15 in the pot ($6 raise, $6 call, and the $3 in blinds) so 2.5:1. However, we are not closing the action. The BU, SB, or BB could all still raise. Therefore, our effective odds are actually worse, since vs a large reraise would probably want to fold our hand. However, if we do call, there is a good chance we go 4 way single raised to the flop, with one of the blinds or the button joining us. If that does happen, we are in a very good situation. If we flop a set, the pot will be around $24. And there will still be $194 to bet. Furthermore, with four players in the pot, it is likely that at least one player will flop a decent hand and give us some action after the flop. Discounting our pot odds to only 2:1, because of the possibility of a three bet, we only need to earn an additional 5.5 x $6 = $33 the times we hit a set. With a pot of $24, that shouldn't be too hard, as we still have three streets on which to get action.

How about suited connectors? Some have suggested that suited connectors can be played in a similar manner to pocket pairs, except they need better odds. That is a reasonable starting point. The idea behind a suited connector is that you are trying to make a straight or a flush, and get paid off big time. Like a pocket pair, a suited connector is a drawing or implied odds hand. Usually it makes nothing, or just a weak hand, but sometimes it makes a very strong hand or the nuts and as such can win a massive pot. Alternatively, others have argued that suited connectors can make a good light three bet. In fact both contentions might be true.

Another factor about suited connectors is that without them, and this is more of a metagame perspective, it is difficult for you to have many draws. This means you won't have many semi bluffing opportunities. And you won't have many bluffing opportunities either if you are only starting with premium hands. This isn't really a problem at low live stakes games, but in a tougher game it could be an issue. In general in low live stakes games you will not get many bluffing opportunities anyway, because pots are contested multiway and your opponents generally call too much. Suited connectors also broaden your postflop range. What I mean is, without them, you can't have draws, and you can't really make straights or flushes. This makes you a lot easier to play against. However, with suited connnectors in your range, you can both make these hands and you can represent them. This makes you a lot more difficult to play against, and allows you to employ a more dynamic strategy. This is most important in deep stack play, where leveraging the threat of large turn and river bets allows you to capitalize on substantial fold equity as well as to make punishing value bets.

In Theory of Poker, David Skalansky describes semi bluffing:

The semi-bluff is one ofthe least understood tools of poker, yet it is a very valuable and potent weapon. All professional players use it, and it may be used in any game. It may be a bet, a raise, or even a check-raise. Essentially you are representing a bigger hand than you actually have; however, in contrast to a pure bluff, your hand must have some chances of improving to the best hand.

There are many different types of semibluffs. Extremely strong draws, for example KhQh on JhTh2s, usually want your opponents to call. On the other hand, a hand like 5h6h on 7h3s2s is probably cheering for a fold, as a gutshot is a low probabiltiy draw. Having the semi bluff in your arsenal is important, because if your bets usually represent either strong hands or draws, then your opponents will be faced with some tough decisions. They don't want to fold to your draws, but they also want to avoid paying off your strong made hands. Simply by mixing in some semi bluffs, your strategy has become considerably more sophisticated and difficult to combat.

Note that even low equity semi bluffs can often be profitable. Let's look at the example of a gutshot on the flop. Say the board is AsKs4d and we have Jh Th. It is heads up and checked to us. We have a 20% chance of hitting our draw. Let's say we bet and have a 30% chance of winning the 8bb pot with a 5 bb bet. So right away, we profit 8 bb * 30% = 2.4 bb. Assuming we check give up if we miss, we just need to win another 2.6 bb to justify our bet. The pot on the turn - and probably the river, since our plan is to just give up if we get called - is already going to be 18 bb. Let's estimate that we will win 10 bb if we improve on the turn, and 5 bb on average if we improve on the river. In that case our expected gain would be only +1.5 big blinds (10% * 10bb + 10% * 5 bb), so over all slightly -ev. But if we tweak the math a bit it could easily be a +EV situation, for example if villain folds more frequently to the flop bet, or we win more on the turn or river when called. And note that this is with a gutshot, our weakest possible draw.

Hand Example

Let's take a break from the pure theory for a moment, to discuss an actual hand that I played. The game was ₱50/₱100 at Okada Manila. It was a typical Okada ₱50/₱100 game. There were a few nits, a couple looser players, and myself. I was losing, but not much. Seven handed I open 4d5d from UTG to 3x bb. This is maybe a little too loose. I say maybe because there really are no absolute truths in poker. However, not all suited connectors are created equal; the bigger the better. 4d5d is just too low. Anyway, I got three bet to 1200, and then a loose player cold called. Because we were 200 bb deep I decided to make the call with a deceptive hand.

The flop came 4s6d8d. I checked the preflop raiser, who overbet the pot, ₱4,000. The other guy folded, and I put in a check raise to ₱12,000. Villain, holding two black aces, jammed. I obviously called the rest of my stack. Unfortunately the board bricked out. But that is the power of suited connectors. Most of the time you flop air, but sometimes you flop a very strong hand, and can get the money in as a 60/40 favourite. Losing a big pot like that can be devastating. Especially when you have been playing a long session already. Luckily, I did the smart thing and left. If it had been at the start of my session, then maybe I would have stuck around and tried to play well. It is important as a poker player to be able to brush off big losses and still play your A game. This isn't easy to do, but it is possible. But it is also important to walk away when you are tired and stuck because that is when you are most vulnerable to tilt.

Suited Connectors

I have scoured internet discussion forums to get different opinions and views. Here is one perspective.

A lot of the value of suited connectors is the potential to aggressively barrel opponents off hands, so that you overrealise your equity (ie win the pot more often than you make the best hand). For example, semibluffing when you have a strong draw. Ideally you want to be playing them in position, with deeper stacks, and with fold equity. At the lower stakes, it may be best to just 'nut peddle' ie make very strong hands and value bet, rather than play them as they are played aggressively. This is because you may not be able to get opponents to fold hands very often. If you want to play them this way, make sure you are getting the correct pot odds or implied odds on your draws. if you are the first person into the pot, you should definitely raise. I also 3b my suited connectors in position quite often - you gain the initiative, create a larger pot for when you hit, and gain fold equity immediately. It also helps to 'balance' the strong hands that I would 3b in position. However, at the stakes you play, it may be best to take a value heavy 3b range rather than balancing it too much with bluff hands, because people will not fold pre or post often enough to make it worth having those weaker hands. I feel like I may not have given you a direct, complete strategy for how to play them, but I hope this info helps you. The problem is that in poker, the correct move is nearly always 'it depends'. Do some more research and learning beyond this, especially the bits you are unsure about, and learn how to turn the general 'it depends' into a clearer answer for each individual spot.

Reddit User Ashenfaced

I think there is a lot of value in what Ashenfaced writes. Semibluffing is a powerful weapon when it is employed in the right circumstance. And semibluffing with a combo draw, like a straight draw + flush draw, is even better, because you are essentially on a freeroll, as even if your opponent calls you still have substantial equity.

Rather than looking for a comprehensive guide on how to play suited connectors in every situation, what we can do is consider a suited connector as a tool, and ask ourselves in what situations may we be able to make use of that tool. And the first thing to recognize is that suited connectors are not, by default, playable. You need to fold them from early position, and you need to fold them to most raises. If you are on the button or the cut off, and the stacks are deep, then it becomes worth entering the pot. Or if you are open raising from late position, since you might just win the pot uncontested, and if they call it is not so bad anyway.

Post flop, you can try to play suited connectors aggressively in some situations, for example if you are heads up or against a player who does not protect their checking range, then that is the perfect time to try semibluffing. If they call, you can still improve and potentially win a big pot. If they fold, you win immediately. And if they check raise, then you can just fold unless you are getting the right odds to call on your draw.

As Ashenfaced notes, it can be good to balance your three betting range with suited connectors. If you play in a relatively small pool, with many of the same players, and you adopt a conservative three betting strategy of AK, AA, KK, QQ, then some players will start automatically folding to your three bets. These players - especially if they are still opening a reasonable number of hands - you can target for some bluff three bets with suited connectors. If you can pick up one or two pots this way in a session, it makes a big difference to your long term results. And not only is this play immediately profitable, but it is also good for your image and for the metagame. While you want to start off with a very tight, nitty strategy of just value betting really strong hands, your ideal goal is to have a strategy that is versatile enough to win in any game conditions.

Playing in tough games

Even at low stakes, you will encounter tougher games, where everyone is folding. Sure, you can avoid those games easily enough, but it is even better to learn how to adapt to them and thrive in them. In these tight games you will want to start stealing the blinds and running people over after the flop.

Speaking of chess, Nimzowitsch said "the threat is greater than the execution". That is very much true for NLHE, in the context of a tough, short handed game. You need to leverage the threat of punishing turn and river bets in order to steal pots on the flop. And then once your opponent shows some resistance it becomes a game of chicken. You have to be able to fire three streets with air, but you seldom want to actually do so.

Suited Aces

Playing Big Pairs

Playing big pairs - and to a degree, hands like AK and AQ, is fairly simple. Raise. And if someone else raises, re-raise. Easy enough right? Except the exact application of this can be very complicated. If we have AA, then we can stack off to any action. It might be more profitable to slowplay sometimes - in fact, according to Caro in his 'Most Profitable Hold'em Advice, this is usually the case. But generally speaking, big pairs - and to a lesser degree big aces - are your 'power' hands. They are hands that you want to be aggressive with because you are a favourite to win, therefore you want to either build a big pot as a favourite, or you want to take the pot down immediately.

As you can see by the previous RFI charts, we want to raise big pairs from any position. We are also happy to raise limpers with them. And we are generally happy to three bet with them, although as previously mentioned, all situations are relative. Incidentally, a lot of poker instructional videos place too much emphasis on three betting. 2+2 poster carnivore said it well.

Three Betting

Three betting means re-raising before the flop. If you are confused about the name, consider that the first bet is the big blind. The second bet is then the initial preflop raise, and the third bet is a re-raise. You can also three bet on the flop, after say a bet of $10 and a raise to $30, any re-raise at this point would be a three bet.

So we can begin with the uncontroversial opinion that we want to three bet AA. Actually, Caro makes a compelling case that AA plays better as a flat a lot of the time. And here I have a hand example from an actual hand I played about a year ago at Masters Poker in Malate, Manila, Philippines.

The game was ₱50/₱100 and it was a decent game. Mostly recs, although there was a Russian pro on my right that I had some history with. And I had played with some of the recs before as well. A rec - a younger Filipino guy, with some tattoos - opened from early position. The Russian pro three bet, and I look down at AA in the SB and put in the four bet. The rec folds - after the hand said he had AK and I believe him - and the pro folds KK face up. His fold is reasonable. He is a tight reg, and I am a tight reg. His range there is quite snug, and I would probably just fold AK and QQ to his three bet. Even the rec is opening fairly conservatively from EP. Now if I flat, the rec probably jams his AK. Now I'm not saying that four betting was wrong. It is right according to some basic poker principles. We don't want to give free cards with strong but vulnerable hands. We don't want to slowplay when other players can have big hands. But the thing about general rules is that they are not infalible. They are not always applicable in every case.

Anyway, the case for three betting AA is very obvious but it behooves us to go through it, if only to lay a solid foundation on which we can later build a more sophisticated three betting strategy. AA is a massive favourite against any hand. Against a smaller pocket pair AA is 80/20. Against a suited connector, it is 77.5/22.5. Against KhJs it is 86.5/12.5. If we look at a flop distribution chart vs KJ, the case is even more compelling. 95% of the time, AA flops > 50% equity against KJ. 90% of the time, AA is still ATLEAST a 3:1 favourite. So by three betting, if we get called, we create a pot that we will be a massive favourite to win.

Okay. Three betting AA is pretty obvious. From there, we can infer three betting with KK would be fun and profitable as well. After all, KK is a lot like AA. The only big differences is that now there is a class of hands opposing KK, which is Ax. An overcard. Which is no big deal still because KK vs AT (for example) is still a 70/30 favourite. The second big difference, is that KK loses to AA. This might not seem like a big deal, because after all pocket pairs are rare. You only get AA 1 in 220 times. You only get KK 1 in 220 times. So running KK into AA should be extremely rare. And it is. However, once you three bet a tight raiser, and another tight player re-raises you, the probability goes way up.

Three betting in NLHE is ultimately a factor of our opponent's raising range, and our position. Poker is a game played against the whole table. So things are very different when we are in early position, say UTG+1 vs an UTG open, then if we are on the button vs that same UTG+1 open. Likewise, even if UTG is a maniac opening 50% of hands, we still have to be aware of the other 8 players at the table when we are UTG + 1. If UTG, a maniac, raises to 3bb, and we three bet to 10 bb, we are betting not only against UTG, but against the whole table. And they are probably going to react very conservatively to our three bet, only continuing with very strong hands. Meaning that we are now in a game theory sense losing to all of them.

The problem with three betting at low live stakes games, is that often our opponents employ very passive strategies. If they are only raising with strong holdings, then you do not get a lot of opportunities to three bet. When you three bet someone, they will fold part of their range and continue with the rest. So we need to be not just stronger than their opening range, but a decent favourite against their continuing range in order to have a profitable three bet. Otherwise we are just turning a strong hand into a bluff, which might work on ocassion but is in general poor strategy.

However, when we do encounter a maniac, we shouldn't be afraid to punish them accordingly. Let me tell you a story about a 50/100 hand that happened at Okada not too long ago.

An Encounter With A Maniac Whale

There I was, playing 50/100 NLHE at Okada. The game seemed tight at first. It was mostly just people folding to each other. I was just about to hop on the 25/50 list, when I picked up KK in EP and decided to limp. Limp raising KK or AA from early position in a full ring game can be a powerful tool. A lot of people who play live poker are impatient and want to play big pots. And because loose limping is so common, it is easy for someone who isn't familiar with your game to not give your limp the proper respect it deserves. In this case, an old man minraised my limp to 200. This is already quite strange, and signifies him to be a whale. I mean who minraise isos? It's such a bizarre play I'm tempted to encorporate it into my arsenal. Anyway, a few people called, and I came over the top with a big back raise to 1600. The old man called, everyone else folded. I was a little short at the time, playing maybe 8k or something. With so much in the middle I was ready to ram and jam on almost any flop. But when the flop came:

(4000) Ad8s7c

my blood ran cold. Worse yet, I was out of position. I decided to put out a 1400 CBet. With any luck, I would take down the pot. Unfortunately my opponent called.

The turn and river bricked out, and we checked it down. I think the old man was just as scared as I was. He ended up showing down A2o and taking the pot.

Actually, the old man is not the focus of the story. But he was the reason I reloaded to 20k. Unfortunately we didn't really get any chance to tango the next two hours that he was at the table, although he continued to open raise light from every position.

No, my encounter was with the next player who sat down at the table. Right away, the whole table could tell that this guy was different. Almost every hand he would raise before the flop. And after the flop he was highly aggressive too. Bluffing, value betting. And he sat down with 30,000 PHP in chips. This was a man who came to play. After about an hour of watching him, sizing up his game, I picked up KQo. Normally, this is a hand I would fold against a raise. Usually when people raise they have a hand like AK or AA which dominates KQ badly. But this guy had raised every hand for an hour. Against a 100% range, we are a 62% favourite. So I made it 1800. The old man called the 1800 cold, and the maniac called as well.

The flop (5550) came down Q74 with two spades.

Maniac checked, and here I made a large bet. 4300. When I have a pretty strong hand against two very loose opponents, I don't mess around. I make large bets and extract that thick value. The old guy folded, and the maniac called. The turn came a 6, completing an odd ball 58 draw. No spade thankfully. With 14k out there, and about 17k in my stack, I jammed. These sort of spots, when you are all in for a big amount, when you have a hand that you can go with but you aren't even sure if you are good, are gut wrentching. The first thing was I faded the snap call. That was very good. It means he probably wasn't slowplaying me on the flop. Then I started wondering if he could hero fold AQ. How sick would that be. At this point I started cursing myself for playing such a big pot with KQo. Finally he called. The river paired the 6, and my hand was good. He showed a queen, so he clearly had some trash queen. Anyway, the lesson is, three betting maniacs with okay hands can be profitable.

Post Flop Play

Value Betting

The most virtuous of all poker plays is the value bet. This should form the core of your poker strategy. Value betting is simply betting with a strong hand. The best part about a value bet is you can't lose. Either your opponent calls, in which case you build a big pot as a favourite, or they fold, in which case you win the pot. There is however significant nuance when it comes to value betting. One can go for thick value, say with top set or top two pair, or thin value, for example with middle pair. Thin value betting is a great skill to develop, and can really ramp up your winrate and make you a feared poker player.

Your opponents player profile is also relevant when determining whether or not to value bet. Against a loose player, who calls anything, you can value bet more aggressively than against a conservative player who does not like to call bets. Against a tough opponent, who is capable of bluff raising, you should also consider that value betting might cost you the entire pot, if you plan to fold to their raise. However against most of your typical low limit opponents you can value bet freely without much concern. And you should.

Don't make the mistake of auto checking the river either. A lot of players auto check the river in live low stakes nlhe games. This is because bets on the flop and turn can not only earn you value, they can also win you the pot or prevent you from losing the pot. A value bet on the river is not going to win you the pot, but it can still often be profitable. At the very least, you should engage in a cost benefit analysis. In order for a value bet to be profitable, it needs to win more than 50% of the time when called. Try to break down what calling combos villain can have, and how many of them you beat.

Zero Street

We'll get back to postflop play in just a moment, but now I want to talk about another topic. One that is more appropriate to address after some introduction to poker strategy

The concept of 'first street, second street etc.' is mostly a holdover from seven card stud. However, I would like to introduce the concept of the Zero street.

Zero street occurs while you are sitting at the poker table, before you play your hand, and between hands. It is my contention that Zero street is the most important street in poker.

Tommy Angelo refers to this as 'sixth street' in his work 'Elements of Poker'.

Sixth street starts when the betting stops. Sixth street is when players relax, which is why it pays not to. Sixth street is when statues become fountains. While playing the turn and river, the players are stoic, doing their best to give up as little information as possible. And then, as soon as the betting stops, their parts start moving, broadcasting information about their thoughts, their feelings, and their cards. Sixth street is when players let their guard down, as if all of a sudden it’s safe to reveal classified secrets to the enemy. It’s like they don’t even know the war is still going on.

I was at River Rock Poker Room in Vancouver, many moons ago, waiting to get in the 2/5 game. There were two tables, and I was observing the action. The message girl, whom I was friendly with, asked me if it was really possible to get much idea about a game just by watching it. And yes, you absolutely can. In fact, from that priviledged position outside the game, I was able to observe my opponents while at the same time giving away nothing about my strategy. Talk about your assyemtrical information advantage! Equally important however, was determining which of the two games I wanted to play at. And that too was quickly apparent, as one game featured a lot of folding with pots being vigorously contested heads up, while in the other game almost every pot was mass multiway, with players trying to limp in with any two cards from any position. Gee, I wonder which of these two games would be more profitable?

The first decision you have to make at a poker table is your stack size. Most games are going to have a minimum and a maximum. Sometimes the game will be uncapped, meaning there is no max. But that's not very common these days. There are a number of different buyin strategies you can employ. Many poker theorists, especially in the context of games with a 100 big blind max buyin, simply recommend that you buy in for the max, and top up if you lose any chips. This is a reasonable approach, especially for low stakes play. But what about a game with no cap? Or a game with a 500 big blind cap? While this simplistic strategy is attractive and effective, it is not optimal.

A theory of optimal stack size: the optimal stack size is a factor of the skill levels of your opponents and their stack sizes. Basically, you want to have your stack size around where the fish are. If the fish are deep, then you want to be deep. If the fish are shallow, then you want to be shallow.

So when you first sit down at a table, usually you won't know who the fish are and who the regs are. So the ideal buyin amount is actually the minimum. Then you can play for a while, get a read on the table, figure out how everyone is playing, and top up if table conditions warrant it. You might find out that actually the game is quite tough, and it isn't worth adding on extra money. In that case you won by buying in for the minimum of say $200 at a $2/$5 table instead of $500, because you limited your variance and your losses in a game that wasn't worth playing. Furthermore, being short makes necessary a certain conservative style of play which has less downside (and less upside) potential. Essentially, the point I am trying to make, is if you are going to take a risk, the potential reward should be worth it.

Being short can also be an advantage, even if everyone is playing good. If everyone else is deep, and you are short, then your opponents need to focus on each other. That is where the potential to win or lose a big pot. This lets you slip through the radar, and employ a strategy which your opponents don't or can't counter.

Bankroll Management

Bankroll mangement is a crucial skill that winning poker players need to develop. One basic metric that is thrown around - and it is really too general to be useful, but we have to start somewhere - is to have 20 buyins for your game. So if you are playing $50 NLHE, you need $1,000. That gives you enough bankroll to handle most of the variance that poker can throw at you. You get outdrawn in a couple big pots. You get coolered. You lose 4 or 5 buyins. That happens. Then things turn around and you start crushinhg again. Hopefully.

Of course there is nothing magical about 20 buyins. And the type of poker you are playing matters also. There is a statistical concept known as standard deviation, which measures how much variation you can expect to see from the expected result. In poker, at least for online poker, this can be expressed in terms of big blinds per 100 hands. The higher the std dev, all other things being equal, the greater your bankroll requirements.

We can taxonomize between three types of players, each will have radically different bankroll requirements.

• Recreationals
• Semi-Professionals
• Professionals

Recreational Players

Recreational players do not really have bankroll requirements. Instead, they have a budget, based on their "fun money" left over after bills and other obligations are met. If they win, so much the better. If they lose, no big deal, it was money that they could afford to lose anyway. One of the great things about poker is there are no minimum triproll requirements. The term triproll means how much money you need to have on you to play poker, as opposed to bankroll, which is the amount of funds you have dedicated to the game of poker in total (including cash on hand, money in the bank, safety deposit box, poker site etc.). While it is true that most semiprofessionals and professionals will want to have to ample buyins on them, especially if they are going away for a weekend trip, in order to make sure they can keep playing even if negative variance strikes, technically any amount of money is enough to play poker. You don't even necessarily need 100 big blinds, because short stacking can be a viable strategy (especially in the context of high limit games).

Semi Professionals

Semi-professionals however do have more rigid bankroll requirements. A semi-professional is someone who plays poker but also has another source of income. A day job, if you will. Poker actually makes a great part time job. Playing fewer hours helps keep your volume clean and your game fresh. If you run bad or you need to grow your bankroll, then you can just ramp up the hours at work. Conversely, if you are crushing it in some soft games, you can scale down your part time job or time you devote to your small business. For a semiprofessional, we have to return to the dread 20 buyin figure. This is a reasonable starting place. With 20 buyins, you can absorb most of the variance that comes with grinding seriously. But it all depends. One idea is that as you increase in stakes, your bankroll requirements in terms of buyins should increase as well. This reflects the fact that $50,000 at $5/10 is a different thing entirely than $10,000 at $1/$2. Meaning is a lot easier to replace $5,000 or $10,000 than it is to replace $50,000. So you might start with say 20 buyins at $1/$2 ($4000) but require 30 buyins to try $2/$5 ($15,000). Exact bankroll requirements for whatever game you are playing need to be individually assessed. A semi pro can afford to be relatively aggressive in moving up limits and taking shots, because they can always fall back upon their day job if things go south.

Professionals

Professionals - meaning someone who earns most of their income from poker - have the most stringent bankroll requirements.A good starting point is something like 50-100 buyins, as well as 6 months living expenses. This is sufficient funds that a winning player shouldn't have to worry about day to day variance, and can instead fcous on the minutaie of being a winning poker player.

Other Bankroll Management Tips

Top Ups

How you manage your bankroll goes beyond simply how many buyins you have. Consider for example a bankroll tactic that I have pioneered. The micro top up. You sit down at a $1/$2 game with $100. You fold for two orbits. The action is incredible, once you fold your small blind, you top up for $35 more. The micro top up. Maybe other people do this and I just never notice, but I don't really recall anyone ever doing this. Most people rebuy if they lose a big pot, or if they go broke. And that makes sense, you need to top up to keep playing when you get stacked. But if I fold for two orbits, chances are I am playing well. So it seems like the perfect time to invest some more money, especially if the game is good. And the better the game, the more money we should be prepared to invest. That means we should be ready to rebuy if we get stacked, and we should be more aggressive about topping up. Another tactic in the context of low stakes games with a maximum buyin, is to constantly top up to 100 bb if you fall below. You do this by having chips in a bag. Every time you lose any amount of money, you top up for that amount.

The 10% Rule

Another important bankroll strategy is to never have more than 10% of your bankroll on the table. For example, let's say you are playing $1/$2 NLHE and you buyin for $200. You lose your stack and rebuy for $200. You get stacked again and rebuy. Then you go on a tear, and now have $1,000 in front of you. If your total poker bankroll is less than $10,000 AND there are players who cover you, then it is wise to quit the game, because that is too much of your bankroll to expose to the fluctuations associated with playing poker. And you won't be able to play your best with so much money at stake.