You Play Poker so Bad

Poker Tips: Avoiding Tilt

Nathalie — Fri, 11 May 2012 10:48:11 +0000

A poker player who is going on tilt is in a very dangerous situation when he behaves differently from the usual. He acts based on what he feels and not what he thinks. Tilting often stems from a series of bad beats and huge losses. Here are some poker tips to help you avoid tilting while playing NL hold’em poker:

Logic Vs Emotion

Poker is all about logic and never should emotion take control. You do not put into the equation your emotions when you are trying to make a decisions during a game. Once you tap your emotions, you will be losing control of your game.

Aggression

Aggression is good in poker not unless you are on a tilt. When you tilt, you will be making bets, bluffs, and raises without really any good basis. You will accidentally win some pots along the way but you will be on a downhill quite quick.

Catch-up

When you are tilting, your brain will go on a catch up mode to recover the chips you have give away in previous rounds. Building your stack can be slow during the game while losing them is fairly easy. You need to adjust and make sure you will survive having a short stack for a while.

Stop

You cannot combat tilting when you play on. You need to get a breather. Stop for a few games or days. This way you can regain your grounds, focus on your style of game, and start winning chips again. The only way to go when you are down is up. Everyone has his share of a bad day, enjoy the game.

Understanding Your Winrate in Poker

Nathalie — Thu, 30 Dec 2010 11:01:57 +0000

A player’s winrate in poker is always a very interesting topic. Simply put, this is the player’s winning ability over a set period of time. It can be expressed a number of ways. One is bb/100 or blind bets per one hundred hands. This winrate is the most commonly used in no limit Hold’em. Another way to compute a player’s winrate is bb/hour or blind bets per hour. While this is used in some forums, it’s not as common as bb/100.

You can also get your winrate by computing your $/100 or the amount of money your win per one hundred hands. Other players get their winrate by computing the amount of money they manage to win per hour or $/hour. Winrates aren’t very accurate, though, unless you have a million hands to go by. When you’re only basing your reading on 10,000 hands, you can be sure that your winrate will either fall or rise. Variance changes things all the time.

If you’re wondering what winrate is good enough, anything above 0 is impressive. Most poker winners play the game and lose money. Very few of these winners even win a dollar for every 100 hands they play, so be thankful, even if your winrate is only 1/100.

Also, the best way to get your winrate is really just to entrust everything to a poker winrate manager. The best ones online are HoldemManager and PockerTracker. Otherwise, you’ll have to do the excruciating task of getting the total amount of money you’ve won and the number of hands you’ve played. Once you have these figures, you’ll have to divide each side by a number that can turn your # of hands to 100. Some of the best online professionals like Kenny Hallaert and Kenny Louagie keep track of their winrates through software on a daily basis to make sure they know exactly what their expectancy and results are…

This will finally give you your bb/100 winrate. Complicated, yes?

Bob Safai is a donk… Phil Laak is a genius…

Nathalie — Tue, 26 Oct 2010 19:34:15 +0000

Funny hand from Poker After Dark:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Okay, so we all know Bob Safai is an uberdonk that has no skills what so ever when it comes to the green felt, and we know Phil Laak is a much better player than he gets credit for when it comes to deep live cash games — and this hand basically shows both. Phil shoves an easy hand, and Bob Safai really considers donking off a hundred grand drawing to what’s either a dead hand, or a very very very weak drawing hand.

I wish I could sit down in these games and play these millionaire idiots. Unbelievable. EXCELLENT LAYDOWN IN THE END THOUGH, Mister Safai. Fishcake.

And…. it’s a 9. Poor Hellmuth.

Nathalie — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 14:27:07 +0000

I feel so bad for Phil Hellmuth on this Pokerstars.net Big Game thing. I mean, can the guy catch a break? Russ Harlow should have been ON HIS BIKE!

Click here to view the embedded video.

Quite the suckout if you ask me… ^^

Top Mistakes to Avoid in Poker

Nathalie — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 05:06:22 +0000

In a lot of cases, online poker players feel confident enough to venture to live play. Live play poker inevitably gives the player a bigger experience. It’s pretty hard to hold your nerve when you’re face-to-face with your opponents when you’re so used to staring solitarily at your monitor. Below are the most common mistakes that you should avoid when you play real life poker.

String betting

A player string bets when s/he makes a bet and then moves back and forth from the chip stack to the pot while completing the bet. For example, when you intend to bet $40 and you move four stacks of $10 at a time, you’re string betting. While this is fine on an online play where all other actions are on pause while you make yours, this can cause a lot of confusion on a live play.

Reacting to cards

Remember the expression “poker face”? You have to train your face not to react to any card before you go for a live play. It’s pretty easy to hide your reaction when you’re playing online. This is because your opponents can’t actually see you. In a live play, even a twitch of your eyebrows can give away your hand.

Live poker players like Tony G and Liz Lieu are extremely good at bluffing as well as reading other bluffers fail on the table.

Acting out of turn

In an online card play, it’s absolutely impossible for you to act out of turn. The software determines which player should make the move. For this reason, a lot of online poker players act out of turn once the play a live game. The only thing that you can do is to pay attention while you’re playing live poker. When you’re given a strong hand, you should try to be calm about it. An act out of turn during a live game will give away your strong hand.

Other players will notice how excited you are. When they spot this sign, you’re in trouble. They’ll quickly catch up on you, or they’ll fold and you lose the chance of raising the bet.

Laurens De Smet at the 2010 WSOP Main Event

Nathalie — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 11:14:45 +0000

Laurens De Smet talking very candidly to Steven Smith of the Dutch Pokernews Site. I’m a big fan of Laurens, always honest, always open and from what I’ve heard pretty down-to-earth too.

Click here to view the embedded video.

To see the site they’re talking about, check out LaurensDeSmet.com, the infamous fan site!

Lex Veldhuis in Dutch (making a fool of himself)

Nathalie — Tue, 20 Apr 2010 02:08:24 +0000

I’m from The Netherlands, so I know what he’s saying — and if you are too, you’ll love watching Lex explain how his thinking was in a hand, trying to justify bad play and a hugely lucky hit on the river…

Click here to view the embedded video.

I’m willing to bet anyone money Lex Veldhuis will go broke within the next five years if he keeps playing high limit cash games. Evelyn might think he’s a genius, but we know better — he’s a live one that’s been extremely lucky, and luck runs out for guys like Lex sooner or later…