Poker Tips That will save your Money!

-Good starting hands are the first defense against bad online players

-Be very selective from early position

-Loosen up your starting hand requirements as you gain position

-Consider staying in with suited connectors from late position with lots of callers

-Play small and medium pocket pairs in the right situations and remember: no set, no bet

-Don't sink to the bad players level

-Play the opposite style of the rest of the table

-Always raise your strong hands, especially at loose tables

-Consider raising at least 5-6 times the big blind.

-Bet out hard on the flop to keep draws playing against the odds

-Be careful with a dangerous board against bad players - they play any two cards

-Don't slowplay unless you have the absolute nuts

-Let go of A-K immediately if you don't flop anything

-Consider only calling everything preflop for awhile if you're on a bad beat streak

-Don't draw unless you're getting the right odds

-Usually employ a "Flop it or Fold It" strategy

-Check behind your opponent if you think he made his draw

-Try checking behind your opponent with a strong hand on the turn and raising him on the river

-Check on the river if you think your opponent missed his draw

-Fold when you're obviously beat on the river

-Know when your hand is counterfeited

-Patience and discipline are essential to poker

Preflop Play

Hand Selection

I'm sure that you've read about hand selection and looked over your favorite author's starting hand guide. It will tell you the recommended hands that you should play from early, middle, and late position. There are exceptions, but their recommendations are usually a very good guide to use. If you want to keep yourself out of trouble and stay above the gutless play of the online fish, you'll take your tight-aggressive author's word and stick to good starting hands. I even kept a photocopy of Matthew Hilger's starting hand guide from Internet Texas Hold 'em next to my computer for a while. And remember, we all play garbage like J-7 offsuit at times, but try to keep those temptations to a minimum. It'll save you a lot of money in the long run.

In Beat Texas Hold 'em, Tom McEvoy suggests that "it is unprofitable over the long run to play anything other than Aces, Kings, AK, and sometimes Queens from first position." He's right. Position is power in hold 'em. You can loosen your starting hand requirements as you get closer to the button, but play very selectively from early position. You'll have to act first, and you won't know where you stand unless you're holding strong cards. Most of your opponents will be playing a combination of good starting cards (even maniacs can wake up with AA) and bad cards. You'll only be playing the good cards. Don't sink to their level because you'll probably be stuck with a borderline call that could cost you a lot of money

Suited Connectors

Even though you'll be playing big cards most of the time, keep an eye on the pot when you're in late position. This is a great time to play suited connectors if 4 or 5 players are seeing the flop with you. The pot odds justify a call from you in this situation, plus these types of hands can turn into real monsters if you hit the right flop. If you've been showing your opponents good cards, you may even consider a raise in this situation. Your opponents will put you on a couple of big cards, and it can pay off when you hit two pair or a set on the flop with your 4-5.  

Hands	Raises in front of you	Early pos.	Middle pos.	Late pos.	Blinds
	None	Raise
AA, KK	Exactly one	Raise
	More than one	All-In
	None	Raise
QQ	Exactly one	Raise
	More than one	Fold
	None	Raise
AK	Exactly one	Call
	More than one	Fold
JJ, TT	None	Call	Raise
	One or more	Fold
99 to 22	None	Call
	One or more	Fold
AQ, AJ, KQ	None	Fold		Raise
	One or more	Fold
Special rules
If there is a raise behind you, you only continue playing with AA, KK, QQ and AK and go All-In immediately. You fold all other cards.
If an opponent raises more than 6 big blinds, you only continue playing with AA, KK, QQ and AK and go All-In immediately. You fold all other cards.

Playing Any Pocket Pair

A couple of table situations make it profitable to play small and medium pocket pairs (2-2 through 10-10) from any position. If you're in late position and you have at least 4 or 5 callers ahead of you, definitely play any pocket pair. Also, if you're table is passive and you don't encounter a lot of preflop raises, than you might consider playing any pocket pair from middle and late position. Just remember, if you don't have an overpair to the board on the flop, NO SET, NO BET!

Play the Opposite Style of Your Opponents

When your table is full of stupid players who are hitting big hands with trash cards, you might be tempted to play those same trash cards hoping to hit those monsters, too. You can try it. But the problem is that maniacs and fish like to intimidate other players by constantly raising the pot preflop. It's going to cost you to see the flop, and most of the time you're not going to hit anything with trash hands.

As Doyle Brunson recommends in Super System 2, you usually want to be playing the opposite style of the opponents at your table. If your table is full of wild loose players, you want to tighten up and wait for the right cards to snap them off. I don't suggest getting involved with mediocre hands and trying any fancy plays at most loose online tables. Your opponents aren't going to pay attention, and will probably call you down with any two cards. Doyle's advice also works well if you're playing at a tighter site like Ultimate Bet or Full Tilt. At a table full of tight players, I often mix it up with lots of pot-sized raises from late positions. Most of the time you'll pick up the blinds and if you do get called, you can usually win it on the flop if all blanks fall.

Summary

-Good starting hands are the first defense against bad online players

-Be very selective from early position

-Loosen up your starting hand requirements as you gain position

-Consider staying in with suited connectors from late position with lots of callers

-Play small and medium pocket pairs in the right situations and remember: no set, no bet

-Don't sink to the bad players level

-Play the opposite style of the rest of the table

Where Did Online Poker Fish Come From

The explosion of televised poker tournaments and lipstick cameras has ushered in a new era of poker popularity. Thousands of new players flocked to the game, mainly the Texas Hold 'em variation, hoping to emulate their TV heroes for fame and fortune. The logical starting place would be the local cardroom, where new players can try to improve their game against real players. Unfortunately, casinos don't exist in many places of the country. Others may feel too intimidated to enter a physical cardroom for the first time.

Enter online poker. 

Beginning about four years ago, startup companies began to cash in on poker's new popularity and create online poker rooms. New poker prospects could play online anonymously from anywhere at anytime. Just fund your account, choose your game, and play your cards against thousands of real players from all over the world. Over these 4 years, online poker has become a booming industry. New players who've just watched Daniel Negreanu crush the competition at a WPT event rush over to their computers to deposit with the poker room with the coolest commercial. Thousands of inexperienced players can enter any online game so long as they have the buy-in.

Enter the fish.

This is the new breed on online player. They've watched Chris Moneymaker take home a couple  million bucks by putting in his whole stack with nothing. They've watched professionals raise with A-5 offsuit from late position and catch two fives on the flop. Why can't they do it, too?

Usually they're harmless. Players who know their stuff, read and study poker books, and stay on top of their game can make a killing off of this type of player. They'll bluff off all of their chips when you have the nuts and you'll love it. They're also dangerous and can put you off your game. How many times have you been on Party Poker playing $1-2 No-Limit Hold 'em and raised 4x the big blind with A-K and get called by A-5 only to watch the flop come A-6-5 rainbow. "Great!", you're thinking as you reraise your clueless opponent for all his chips. You don't catch a K on the turn or river and you're left wondering why he stayed in the hand at all.

You try to shrug it off and you get dealt pocket Aces the very next hand. Your fishy buddy has position on you so you just call the big blind from early position. Everyone folds to him who makes the minimum raise. Why do these players do that so often? What's the point? How many times have you seen this open up the betting action and the smooth caller comes back over the top of the minimum-raiser for a huge raise? Everyone folds. Why don't they either call or make a real raise? Or why don't they go find a Limit game if they're going to play like that? Oh, well.

Anyway, everyone folds back to you and you just call the minimum raise hoping to trap the fish. The flop comes J-4-9 rainbow. Another seemingly great flop for you. You make a good pot-sized bet here and the fish comes over the top and raises you all you've got! You decide to call as he turns over J-2 offsuit. Finally you've got him! The turn brings a K and the river brings a deuce. You pound your computer monitor as you click to exit the poker room. You're down $400 with two premium hands.

"Why me?", you ask the Poker Gods in the sky. It happens. These are real hands that I've been involved in, and something similar will probably happen to you (if it hasn't already) if you play online poker much. My goal is to teach you how to keep these situations to a minimum, and if it does happen anyway, how to deal with it without blowing off anymore of your chips.

The keys are hand selection, proper play, and discipline.

BankRoll Managment

Thanks to the rise of online poker rooms, a totally new type of poker player has emerged. Most of the time these are young people from any corner of the world, who appear out of nowhere only to work their way up from the lowest stakes to the top in no time. These prodigies achieve in a matter of two or three years what took others half a lifetime to do in the old days.

However, the career opportunity that online poker offers through its constant availability demands a whole new set of requirements of the players themselves. If you want to advance in the world of online poker, you don't only have to be a good player - you also have to be a good manager, your own manager.

The buy-in for a tournament should always be looked upon as an investment, just as if you were trading with stocks. You only buy when there is promise of a certain return on your investment and if the risk is limited to a reasonable degree. In poker, this can be achieved through bankroll management.

Bankroll management will help you identify how much of your poker money you can invest in a tournament, in order to find the right balance between your desire to...

• make significant progress and a reasonable profit if you win
• avoid falling back too far and losing big chunks of your poker money when you lose.

Your bankroll is your asset, which you have to invest wisely in order to advance. You naturally want to win big when you win, but you don't want to take too much of a hit when you lose. This can be achieved by following the '2 percent rule'.

Never spend more than 2% of your balance for a single Sit and Go (excluding rake).

You get this 2% by dividing your account balance by 50. Though it might sound exaggerated, this buffer is really necessary.

And what is this rake we are talking about anyway? Your buy-in to a tournament is almost always made up of a part for the prize pool and a fee that the poker room keeps, which is called the rake or entry fee. If the entry to a tournament is advertised at $1+$0.15, this means that $1 of your buy-in will be put into the prize pool while the poker room keeps $0.15 for itself. The first figure here is important for your bankroll management: only play the tournament if you have at least 50 times this amount ($50 in this example).