The longer I’ve played poker, the more I’ve become convinced that a single concept is truly at the core of nearly all successful strategies. It’s a concept that is as important playing no-limit hold’em as it is at limit stud eight-or-better. This central concept is extracting thin value.
It’s a simple idea. On the final betting [...]

Last issue I wrote about how the most useful way to read hands relies on the concept of hand ranges. Because your opponents do not provide you perfect information with their checks, bets, and raises, you cannot quickly narrow down their holdings to just one or a few hands. Instead, you must assign ranges of [...]

Reading hands is a critical poker skill. The better you can key in on the sort of hands your opponents have, the better decisions you will make, and the better your results will be. Most players use some sort of hand reading process to inform their decisions.
But not all hand Reading Hands Using Hand Ranges|968|3.95|USD|| [...]

Stacking your opponent is the ultimate no-limit high. There’s nothing more exhilarating than winning a huge pot. But, beyond that, stacking opponents is a critical no-limit skill. I’ve noticed that the best players tend to be far more adept than the average player at encouraging opponents to part with all …Login/Register for more.

Cash games tend to be relatively static. The blinds don’t change. The stack sizes can vary, but they tend to vary from fairly deep to really deep. And after any hand you can get up from the table and cash your chips in for dollars. So each chip is always The Three Stages Of A [...]

Whenever I have a bad session, I spend the next hour or two doing a post-mortem in my head. What went wrong? Could I have done something different to play better and (presumably) lose less money? I go through all the significant hands and analyze my play. Should I have Are You Paying Off Too [...]

One common scenario confounds nearly every beginning hold’em player. People ask me about it time and time again. If they hold a big pocket pair, and an overcard comes on the flop, they are lost. They are doubly lost if they have to navigate the minefield of an overcard from Alas, An Overcard|934|3.95|USD|| [...]

In tournament play, you make decision after decision that could result in risking all your chips. You’ll make at least one decision for all your chips in virtually every tournament you play. And in most tournaments you’ll make multiple all-in decisions.
Whenever you choose to go for it, and you lose, Taking An All-In Risk|917|3.95|USD|| [...]

If you’ve played much no-limit, you’ve no doubt at some point run into a hyper-aggressive player. This player is constantly betting and raising with little pretense of actually holding strong hands each time. In many games, a hyper-aggressive player will thrive because no one has the guts to fight back. Fighting Back|914|3.95|USD|| He [...]

Blind stealing and blind defense. What hands should I do it with? Should I do it more short-handed? What factors affect whether I try a blind steal or whether I defend my blind. These questions are extremely common. I get asked them in many forms. Unfortunately, a complete answer could Does Short-Handed Play Affect Blind [...]