In Part 2 of Moving Up: Beyond Winrate And Bankroll, I discussed how the relative strength of your hand reading skills versus your opponents’ is a big factor in whether you’re ready to move up or not. The river betting round is the one that allows you to benefit most from sharp hand reading, [...]

The isolation play is one of the most profitable weapons in the professional cash game player’s arsenal. Yet it is also one of the least understood by most amateur players. Teaching the play thoroughly would take a book, not an article, so my goal here is merely to try to shed some light on [...]

In Part 1 of Moving Up: Beyond Winrate And Bankroll, I claimed that the two factors most cited in discussions of moving up, winrate and bankroll, don’t tell the whole story. If you’re thinking about moving up, you should consider some other factors just as much.
The first factor is your overall comfort level at your [...]

Are you ready to move up to higher stakes? How can you know when you are?
These questions are on the minds of most serious players at least some of the time. Conquering your current game and moving on to bigger and better things is the goal of most players.
Most discussion about moving up I see [...]

Poker players get stuck in ruts. We make so many decisions when we play that it’s natural for us to develop a sort of default, automatic way of handling most situations. Automatic plays are, on one hand, a practical necessity. I play about 500 hands an hour, and I probably make at least 800 to [...]

I’ve published this article a few times in the past, but I wanted to republish it for those who haven’t seen it before. I edited and updated it a bit this time around.
Periodically, I’ll read an article about “feel” players versus “math” players. The “feel” players lob a shell: “Math players just don’t get it. [...]

Quite a few short stackers play in the $2-$4 and higher online 6-max no-limit games. Many of them play a strategy that seems likely to me to be profitable. I think a decent chunk of their profit comes from a play that I see them make repeatedly that I think many full stacked regulars don’t [...]

Here’s a question I hear all the time:
“How short a stack can you play before it’s not profitable anymore? At some point the blinds eat you away too fast and you can’t wait for a good hand anymore, right?”
This question is based on a false assumption that is the subject of today’s article. Yes, there [...]

Your opponent – perhaps sensing weakness or perhaps taking leave of his senses – pushes out a huge bet and dares you to call. If he has the hand he’s supposed to have, you’re crushed. But you think something is amiss and decide that this is it. You’re going to take a stand. Just after [...]

Dry boards sometimes offer a golden opportunity to get extra value for your medium strength hands like top pair. Many players are always looking to sniff out a bluff on a dry board, and you can use that fact to your advantage if you have a hand that beats a typical bluff catcher. In particular, [...]