Poker Classes
Tournaments
PokerStrip
COMMON POKER PITFALLS
Poker maniacs, and other common pitfalls.
When facing a maniac it often looks like it is “the table versus him.” Sooner or later the poker players will try to make a stand against a maniac who is constantly harrassing the table.
Now, if two or three people go all in to call, even if you have pocket aces, the right call is to muck.
Why?
Here are two examples:
Example 1:
Maniac: 5c - 3c
1st Caller: 6d - 6h
2nd Caller: Ks - Ad
3rd Caller: Ts - Js
The Flop: 9h - Qc - 5s
This appears like a comparatively safe flop, and you may be kicking yourself for folding those pocket aces.
As a matter of fact, this is virtually a best case scenario with pocket aces, but looks can be deceiving. With this many cards being played, here are the cards that can decimate you:
(3d, 3h, 3s, 5d, 5h, 6c, 6s, 8c, 8d, 8h, 8s, Kc, Kd, Kh).
That’s fourteen cards that beat you outright or 14/39 left that will severely threaten your tournament life if you are not carefully studying the board and decide to push.
That’s a 36% chance you are going to lose the hand just on the turn, much less the second chance on the river.
Worse yet, with one ace showing, you only have one more on the board — which might lose anyway depending on suit.
Any club or spade also adds the possibility of a flush draw.
So say this takes place:
The Turn: Tc
So now the turn would be quite disastrous for you.
Not only do those first fourteen cards still beat your pocket aces, but go ahead and add every remaining club, we’ll even assume you have the Ac (another 5 cards in addition to those that will beat you), now add every remaining jack (2 — because one’s a club), and the other two tens (2) and now a whopping 23 of 38 cards will eliminate you.
In reality twenty-four, because that last ace will now eliminate you as well, by completing a straight. This means even though no one caught anything, you have a 2/3 chance of losing the hand! We all love Poker, don`t we?
Regardless what any guidebook or articles or poker book even written by a pro says, a maniac will affect you in a negative emotional way.
They are too pesky, obnoxious, and when they are sticking around and start catching lucky, they are able to piss even the most Zen-like poker players off.
Many players get wiped out because in this situation they take a “Well the more of us in the pot, the more likely it will be that somebody hits something to take out the maniac” point of view.
Well, Virginia, think of this, if someone else at the table wins, YOU still lose and take the early bus home!
Please don’t fall for this. Even with pocket aces, in a multiway all-in situation like that, fold them and live on to see another day.
If it’s heads up or in a three-way pot, by all means strike, but don’t get suckered in a family pot, where the chance that your Aces hold up go down to roughly 50 percent only.
Let the others cut him up, wait until you have a giant hand, or if you’re online, wait to get switched to another table. Above all else: survive!
Avoid the Most Common Early Pitfalls Some of this stuff seems somewhat basic, some doesn’t, but in multi- table tournaments getting fancy doesn’t do you any good early.
Play a solid game early, getting aggressive when you get in, but don’t over-complicate things. This is the biggest downfall of many good poker players, who start with 1,000 chips and will risk 120 to steal 15in blinds.
Even common pot odds dictates that’s a bad play — but many will try it and complain when three amateurs call.
In the early stages it is always important to survive.
Steal blinds only when you can do it against feeble players, risk coin flips as little as possible, and play the dominant hands. Aggressive play is always good, but with multi-table tournaments that needs to be tempered.
Surviving the early rounds is predominant, and doing that means letting the Madmen, drift wood, and fish cut each other to pieces.
Besides, if a bad poker player ends up prosperous with 12,000 chips, just remember that by playing skilled poker you will be able to get that back from him.
Never bet your medium strength hands. Don`t drive your draws unless heads-up against a timid player in position. If you are in the beginning stages, I don’t even know why you’d be playing these hands, but when you have the best hand, you want to be called, when you bluff you want them to fold.
With a middle hand you won’t chase away a large hand, and the fish will come after you early. Just check or muck.
Again, be patient. Don’t wait for good odds, wait for great odds!
Respect your opponents, and do not get fancy — never underrate the skills of good players or the stupidity and luck of bad ones. Outlast and outlive the field!
Generally by the time the blinds have raised four times, you are just at the point where blinds make a fairly decent investment out of your stack, and a lot of players have managed to eliminate themselves, narrowing down the field.
Once stealing blinds adds an evident amount to your chip stack, this is the time where the field is shifting to the middle stage:
which is often coming into swing with about 30-50% of the field gone, and this is the time to look at blind steals and hope for that double up hand to take advantage of other players’ desperation.
This is a cardinal point going into the middle game, because to survive a tournament you will have to double up at least once or twice relatively early.
The end of the beginning to the middle is the best time to do this.
You are here: Commong Poker Pitfalls
Poker Tips & Tricks