Session stages and player identities
There are few skills more critical at a poker table than the ability to take small pieces of information about your opponents and to extract from those pieces larger conclusions about how they’re likely to play. One thing to consider when you’re attempting to generalize about your opponents is the fact that people are [...]
Surviving long sessions
No work, no school, girlfriend or wife is out of town, just bored for a few days – reasons can be found to play poker as long as the eyes stay open. And when the game is REAL good it’s tempting to never leave. What most players don’t realize is this – playing an epic [...]
The little blue article
I’m flying high over the Grand Canyon with newbie rock gods Wolfmother, and we’re all about to die . . . OK, not exactly. My flight from Vegas to Denver IS somewhere near the Grand Canyon right now and the air IS a bit choppy. And I AM listening to Wolfmother on my IPod. If [...]
Meditations of pokus professionalius (things I know to be true about poker)
Awhile back I saw the movie 300 at the IMAX in the Palms Casino with two friends of mine. I’d never seen a Hollywood movie in IMAX, just educational titles like ‘To the Moon’ or ‘This Green Earth’ when I was, like, in grade school. Although I really didn’t care for the movie 300, seeing [...]
Strategies for avoiding cascading errors
Poker players make mistakes for a variety of reasons – a lack of information, an off-kilter emotional state, a patch of temporary insanity, and so on. Each time you make a mistake, you probably spend some time immediately afterward playing detective in an attempt to uncover the root of the error. This type [...]
Speaking at the table – what do your opponents mean when they say what they say?
People give away a lot more with their chatter than they realize when they’re playing live poker – especially in tournaments, where people tend to loosen up with those around them (since they’re expecting to be there for a decent amount of time). While it’s impossible to ever be 100% sure of what a person [...]
Dealing with the emotional impact of bad runs in poker
Bad runs are sort of like the in-laws of your poker experience. You know they’re inevitably going to show up, even if you aren’t always sure when or why, you know that no matter how hard you try, there’s nothing you can really do to make the experience any better, and, worst of all, [...]
Playing an Unfamiliar Opponent in No Limit Hold’em
Many times in poker you will find yourself facing unfamiliar opponents. If you play in a regular home game, at a small casino, or only at very specific tables online, you may have intimate knowledge of who you are facing. Otherwise, you are likely to be up against players who are completely new to you. [...]
Your Psychological Bankroll and Managing Risk
You’ll hear the term bankroll thrown around in poker circles and it usually pertains to the amount of money that you have available strictly for poker playing. This is what the term is meant to describe in a perfect world. However, a majority of poker players do not have a “bankroll” per se. They have [...]
God, Why Did I Call That? (A Brief Overview of Common Decision-Making Errors).
Admit it – there’s been a time or two where you’re at the poker table and found yourself asleep at the wheel. Your mouth opens, your hands move, and before you know what’s happened, you’ve made a bet or called a raise with no rhyme or reason. Every once in awhile these blunders work out [...]
