Plus, playing poker with agression, and folding aggressively
TWO SIMPLE POKER TIPS If you are just starting out on your poker career here are the two easiest poker tips to remember ahead of all the more complex stuff which will unfold as you gain experience. Really there are two basic mistakes you can make when playing poker on or offline. The first is not investing your chips in the pot when you have a premium hand that can dominate the table (that’s known as “slow playing”). The second mistake is investing chips in the pot when you have a risky hand. If you slow play your monster hand you’re making the first mistake and you’re not allowing your enemy the opportunity to make the second mistake. Stick with those two strategies until you have the experience to “feel” when slow playing might be appropriate.
UNDERSTANDING AGGRESSION Newcomers to poker are also constantly bombarded by an array of poker articles about the “need for aggression”. This column is as guilty as any other. Whilst the rallying cry for aggression is fundamentally correct it is however important to realise this encouragement doesn’t mean you should be aggressive with every hand. Here’s the important fact a lot of poker virgins seem to overlook: Aggression applies to powerful hands or situations which provide an opportunity to take down a decent pot from an advantageous position.
AGGRESSIVE FOLDING! None of the above is meant to imply that it’s weak to immediately fold rag cards. In fact “aggressive folding” of cards which clearly have a bad risk-reward-ratio is to be highly recommended.
FREQUENTLY ASKED POKER QUESTIONS Q: What does the term a “family pot” mean? A: That would be a hand where all or almost all of the players call pre-flop thus creating a monster pot that everyone at the table is playing to win.
Q: I’ve seen the expression “rope-a-dope” used on several poker chat boxes and couldn’t understand what they were getting at? A: I’ve mentioned slow-playing in this column. Rope-a-dope is slow playing a premium hand to lure an opponent to betting against you. Muhammad Ali would allow other fighters to punch themselves out while he rested on the ropes and then knock them out. He did this famously to George Foreman and the tactic became globally known as the “rope-a-dope”.
Q: Why do some players refer to a bet as a “value bet”? A: It’s when you make a decent bet with what you hope is the winning hand with the intention of being called.
