A tip from Gus Hansen

Every Hold 'em strategy guide talks about the importance of positional advantage. The standard thinking is that the player who acts last has more information than his opponents, so he'll have a better sense of where he stands in a hand and can, therefore, make better decisions. There's no doubt that this is true, but it's important to understand that the power that comes with position is often granted to the late-position player by the early-position player.

To see what I mean, consider a pretty typical No-Limit hold 'em hand. Say that I'm in the big blind with 7s-8s - a nice, flop-worthy hand. The player on the button raises to three times the big blind and I decide to call. Many players would check the flop under almost any circumstances. But, by checking, you give control to the late-position player. He can bet whether or not he has a hand, putting you in a tough spot if you don't get a piece of the flop.

In a hand like this, I believe it's best to look at the flop and ask, "Is it likely that these cards helped my opponent?" Once I have an answer to that question, I can decide how to proceed.
If the flop is Ah-Kd-9c, I'd probably just check and fold to a bet, as my opponent was likely raising with big cards and caught a piece of the flop. However, if the flop is 9c-5h-2d, I'd probably be more skeptical. I know that in Hold 'em, two unpaired hole cards will fail to make a pair on the flop about 66 percent of the time, and this seems to be a flop that the pre-flop raiser might have missed.

If I suspect my opponent didn't connect, I'm going to take the initiative and bet out about half the size of the pot. Betting here with my gutshot draw offers several advantages. First, I might take the pot down right here, and I'm always happy when a semi-bluff forces a fold. But even if I get a call from my opponent, I've forced him to react. That gives me a chance to pick up a read. If my opponent seems uneasy, I might continue with my semi-bluff on the turn and try again to pick up the pot. Or, if I feel my opponent is strong, I can check and fold to any bet on the turn if I fail to make my hand.

Stabbing at pots when out of position can be very lucrative. In tournaments, I'll open-raise out of position fairly frequently because I think there's a lot of power in being the first one to fire at the pot on the flop. I pick up a lot of small pots that way.

As you work on your Hold 'em game, remember that you don't have to give the advantage in the hand to the player in late position. Look for opportunities to bet out and seize the initiative.

I totally agree with Gus on this if you are first to act you are going to have 1st advantage. I've won so many small pots off of performing this as well as winning a few large pots from carrying on a bluff pre-flop with initializing the 1st advantage.

Full Tilt/Poker Stars customer service review

Full Tilt:
I just received an email from Full Tilt concerning a complaint I made against a player who kept talking shit to me during the entire game. Well, the problem isn't that I got the email concerning the complaint but that it took them 2 yes 2 years to respond to my complaint. Of course they still didn't do anything concerning the email I sent basically making their customer service useless for the most part.

Poker Stars:
Honestly I have nothing bad to say about Poker Stars, their customer service has got to be the best that I have ever seen. All you do is call for the moderator they come in and assess the situation by viewing the chat log. Based on the viewing of the chat log they send out fair punishment to the offenders. Of course the moderators are also extremely friendly to talk to and offer you an explanation to any question you have concerning punishment or anything else.

"Daniel Negreanu" Best Poker Reads

Quote of the Day "Jennifer Harman"

Should I Stay or Should I go?

I see so many players playing short hours when they're winning, and long hours when they're losing. It should be the other way around.

When you are winning in the game, at least a few of the other players must be losing. And when your opponents are losing, they often aren't playing their best. But you are.

When you're winning, other players fear you; you have a good table image. And when you have a good table image, you can get away with things that you can't seem to when you're losing. For one thing, you can bluff more. Usually a losing player is scared to get involved with a winning player, so it's easier for you to pick up pots. You can represent more hands than you actually have because your opponents believe you're hitting every flop.

The only time to quit when you're winning is when you are tired, or when you start playing badly

Totally agree nothing worse than playing for hours and slowly bleeding out chips while hardly winning a hand due to your cards and stupid moves.

Bad Beat

Just another bad beat you hate to see. Phil did nothing wrong here but Ferguson was gutsy as hell to be calling his all in after knowing that Phil obviously had been beat on the turn either with a flush or a straight. Of course sometimes bad decisions end up paying off in the end. My worst bad beat was having a 4 of a kind of Aces on the turn and losing to a royal flush on the river after going all in, that killed me especially for the fact that it was on the final table of a tournament I was in, ended up placing 4th of about 120 people.

Quote of the day

Phil Ivey-When it comes to advice about poker, my attitude is very simple: seek it out, absorb it, but while you're at the table, forget it.

I totally have to agree with what Ivey says I always try to learn as much as I can about other players and strategies but when you play poker in person and online you have to throw it all away. You have to play by pure instinct (not meaning all in on pocket aces lol) otherwise you become predictable and start bleeding out chips to your competitors.