Ways To Make Your Poker Bluffs Work More Often

Whether you play poker live or online, tournament or cash formats, for fun or for thousands of dollars - bluffing is a vitally important part of a balanced strategy. Look at it this way, if you never bluff, then it will be obvious to your opponents that a bet means you have a strong hand. If you always bluff you will find observant opponents calling you down 'light' and taking your chips away very quickly. This article covers 5 great ways you can implement now to improve the success rate of your bluffs. #1 - Avoid Buffing The Calling Stations It is a fact of life in poker that some players just hate to fold. They call with anything pre-flop, with any hand or draw on the flop... and build big pots with hands which seem far too weak to play at all! If you are constantly trying to push one of these players out of the pot with bets, you are not actually bluffing - you are just giving chips away. Now, some of these players will fold the flop if they completely miss... however if you meet any resistance at all then stop bluffing - you can always wait for a hand and value-bet these players instead! #2 - Make Sure You Are Not Obviously Playing 'Backwards'. Some players go 'backwards' with their play to an extreme and very obvious degree. By betting big and bold when you are weak and betting small or checking (perhaps trying for a check-raise) when you are strong, you give the advantage to any opponent who sees what you are up to. After all, in poker you want to get the chips in when you are ahead. Varying your play is important, however those players who always check when strong will find their big bluffs snapped off too often for them to be profitable. #3 - Bluffing The Right Flop Texture When a flop comes down with suited or connected cards, several of your opponents may call with draws to the various flushes and straights possible by the end. If you bet as a bluff and are called, you will often not know whether your opponents have a hand or a draw... making your next move unclear. Flops with a 'dry' texture are far better for bluffing, for example 2-7-Queen has only 1 high card and no 1-card straights - making it less likely someone will stick around if they missed the flop completely. #4 - Make Sure Your Bluff Tells A Story If it looks like you are drawing to a flush, which does not come in by the river, your bluff to try and save the hand will often get called. Since your play early in the hand, calling pre-flop and checking the flop / turn and your river bet did not match - your opponents are suspicious. This is just one example of your bets telling a consistent story, a key factor in successful bluffing. For example if you always raise with your ace-x hands pre-flop, it is hard to convince your opponents you hit the ace high flop those times you just checked or called! #5 - Make Sure The Stacks Are The Right Sizes Bluffing will often backfire when you play against very big or very small stacks in a tournament situation. The small stack might call out of sheer desperation, while the big stack might look you up with a variety of holdings - since the damage to their chances is limited if they are wrong. One more situation to watch for is when you raise a smaller stack (12 times the blind is a classic example) and someone re-raises all in. If you are getting odds of 2-to-1 or better then you can profitably call with many hands. This means you need to avoid bluffing in situations where this might happen when your stack is relatively small - fold or shove all in instead!

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The Law of Attraction - Poker Style

Let's take a different look at an approach to the game of poker. Many people are familiar with the book titled "The Secret", it was based on a theory from Abraham Hicks, which he called "Law of Attraction". Basically, this states that if you think positive, then positive things will happen. If you have a negative outlook, bad things will happen. Like attracts like. This theory can get a little out of control. Some state if you constantly think about money, thousands will come in the mail one day. I personally look at it like this: We shouldn't be thinking about things we want; it should be more about feeling good and maintaining a positive outlook. As it is related to poker, what sounds or feels good may not actually be the best way to make decisions while playing poker. If someone has that "good feeling", they tend to take chances outside of playing the appropriate odds, or they might play outside their bankroll. It begins to distort thinking and can develop into bad habits. Obviously, feeling good plays a great roll in confidence. When you play with a sense of self-assurance you are will to approach the game differently. Your energy level, and focus is at a whole different level. If you play within your bankroll it is much easier to take out the emotions involved in the game. When you combine emotions with poker it becomes -EV on the other hand if you can exploit your opponents emotions that becomes +EV. Most online players that play will either lose or simply break even in the long run. Attitude is one aspect of the game that keeps players on a negative downswing. If you start a session with a negative attitude it will effect your game and decisions. In all honesty, this is has the same effects on normal life. If you approach people with a negative attitude you will be treated differently. You must always try to keep your head up and your confidence strong. This is why many of us have found a love for the game of poker. It is really isn't always about the money, it can be more about the dopamine that is released into your brain when you win a game, or a big hand. The key to successful poker is to understand the basics of the game, maintain a positive attitude, and exude confidence. Start each session as a new beginning. Don't focus on bad beats or losses. It will only manifest into a longer downswing and a negative outlook on the game.

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How to Spot and Exploit Weakness In Poker Cash Games

Aggression in your betting is an important component of any winning poker strategy. Being the aggressor means you have two ways of winning the pot - either showing down the best hand or having your opponent fold. The real key to developing a winning cash game poker strategy is the use of selective aggression. Knowing when an opponent is weak will help you to get this right. This article looks at both obvious and disguised weakness from opponents. Before we move on to the details there are two important factors to mention here. Firstly watch out for you very skilled opponents, they will be aware of how their actions are perceived and will try to mix up their play to deceive you. Secondly paying attention to the table, the betting patterns of all opponents and how different players react to different flops is important here. For example there is no point trying to push an opponent who always calls off of a 'weak' holding - he will call you anyway!! Obvious weakness is the scenario where an opponent makes no attempt to show any strength. The first example of this is a pre-flop limp. Any opponent who limps from one of the later positions at the table when first to enter a pot is showing weakness. Re-raising from a later position will often take the pot down immediately. When called you will usually have position on the limper after the flop - when your opponent checks to you fire another bet to take the larger pot there. If called a second time you must slow down of course, however this works so many times that the rare scenario in which you are forced to fold will be more than made up for by the times you take down the pot without resistance. Players who raise from stealing positions may also be weak. If your opponent raises the button when ever they are folded to you do not need to give them credit for a good hand. A healthy re-raise from the big blind will often take the pot pre flop. Remember to ensure that your opponent is capable of making the fold - no point bluffing a calling station here! Many players who call raises pre flop will lead into the original raiser when the flop comes with a small bet. This is called the weak-lead and is usually a sign of a draw or vulnerable holding such as bottom pair. Firing a large raise will often take the pot down immediately in this situation. This is opponent specific - some players will make this same move when strong here so it pays to be aware of your opponents previous betting patterns. Likewise some players bet very strongly from out of position after calling a pre-flop raise. Here the texture of the flop is a significant factor. If there are flushes or straights draws available then your opponent may be protecting a strong but vulnerable hand such as an over pair. If the flop is 'rags' the strong lead is more likely to be a weaker holding. How to react here will depend on your opponent, however a strong raise will usually take the pot in this scenario.

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How To Easily Incorporate Tells Into Your Game

Utilising poker tells is an advanced poker strategy that most people don't understand. I'm going to explain this in an easy to learn manner. Now I am going to reveal an advanced poker strategy trick on how to pick up on and identify Holdem tells. Holdem tells are the little things other players do to give away what cards they have, or what actions they are going to do. It's advisable to incorporate poker tells into your advanced poker strategy because this is a crucial area of any good Holdem poker strategy. Whether you are playing a full table or heads up Holdem you need to be able to have some idea of how to read another player to get some more info out of them. Advanced Poker Strategy - Types Of Poker Tells There are two main types of Holdem tells. 1) Involuntary. These are actions and tells that the opponent doesn't realise he is doing 2) Voluntary. These are actions and tells that the opponent is doing on purpose to try to throw you off. Your advanced poker strategy should be built around the more useful one: Advanced Poker Strategy - Involuntary Tells Involuntary tells can consist of any number of things which may give away what cards the opponent likely has and how they are playing. There is an extremely long list so I'll go over the main ones. - Facial Expressions Facial expressions can consist of anything from forehead to chin wrinkling, eye movements, squinting and widening eyes, concentration expressions to name a few. The main point about facial expressions is many times people don't realise they are doing them. We express almost every single emotion and thought that goes through out heads on our faces, and 99% of the time we have no idea we are doing it. That's why learning how to read peoples faces is one of my favourite Texas Holdem lessons. If you want to learn more, go and research FACS (Facial Action Coding System). - Body Movements and Posture The next most major area is a participants body movements and posture. Are they leaning forward or relaxed back? Are their arms crossed, open, fists clenched, arms shaking? Do they shrug their shoulders down or are they open? Body movements are also a major area where people do them and don't actually know. The brain will automatically put the body into the best position for a particular job. So if someone feels they are being attacked and need to defend the body will cross itself (arms and legs) in an effort to "block" the attacks. This is just one example, there are a million more. Like when you aren't confident you will slump your shoulders and move/look towards the floor. If you are confident you open up and move/look up. If you are nervous you will sweat or shake. Anger is usually a fist and tension throughout the body. If you want to learn more, go and research body language. Incorporate Holdem Tells Into Your Advanced Poker Strategy Today Being able to identify and read the different Holdem tells is crucial to any solid advanced poker strategy. The extra information you can get from a player just from watching them careful can make all the difference to your decisions and outcomes of the game. If I had a dollar for every time I saw something and it helped me win...

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Texas Holdem Poker Strategy on Bet Sizing

Texas Holdem Poker strategies are often the talking point for most Poker fans as your game can enhance quite dramatically with better planning and strategical. Tristan Wade is often seen as the straight forward player with easy strategies that can work for anyone. When not playing Poker, Wade teaches in the Deepstacks University, and his specialization is "Strategic Management". Let's see some interesting ideas and strategies being presented by Tristan Wade about Texas Holdem Poker. Most Common Mistakes The most common mistake in Bet sizing according to him is the making of Preflop. This problem is often due to the fact that the players exceed the limit from two to four bets. Once in blind range above that their bets are inconsistent. This leads to flop, and the obvious reason of that is that they are not aware of the Pot size. The players often make the mistake in judging the pot size and their bets quite easily too. What are Some Factors of Preflop? The two most important factors in this matter are the stake size and blind level. Every player must try to play with the 100 deep blinds in back of his mind. The 3x is often the best strategy for blind Preflop. The stakes are important and one should not keep them shallow. Incase of shallow stakes one should try to keep the bets up to 2.5 only. Similarly in the antes the blind bets need to stay under 2.5 as well. The other factors in this game that can influence include the table size and the players also. What is Preflop Strategy for Big Blind? The big blind can be huge factor, and if not understood that can out play you easily. To defend from the big blind the good players should find a path in which they reduce their loss. This is vital especially when the bet is on the big blind side. The idea is to remain in the game till you have better hand and win back all the chips too. Same approach can work for the other players also. What are Three Bet Size Strategies? The three bet size is a situation where you can apply different approaches too. Different players use different approaches for this, and each works to some extent. One approach is to having small Preflop while you fold. If you are playing live, the one thing you can do is to keep the bet size up to four at most. The other option can be to increase from 3x but this might depend upon the style of player too.

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The Importance of Poker Bonus

The craze for online poker is definitely on the rise. Many new players who have never played poker in their lifetime are now trying to test their skills on various online poker sites. Hence, we can see new poker sites that have emerged successfully. Many poker experts claim that the best thing about poker site is that it allows you to play your game from wherever you want. You can sit comfortably in your home or take a break at work to enjoy some cool poker games on the web. However, many poker players feel that the best part about these sites is that they provide poker bonus. When you are playing poker games in a real casino you never get any bonus, but you do get a poker bonus when you are playing poker games on the internet. There are different poker bonuses and they are really important to attract more players on the website. Poker bonus can attract many poker players from all over the world, and therefore these websites come up with various poker bonuses that can help them to get more players. These bonuses are really important to uplift the confidence of the players because they get extra money that they can gamble and try to win some more money out of it. Most online poker and casino websites have welcome bonus for all those players who register and transfer their funds for the first time to their account. This means that when a new registered member transfers $100 in their account, the bankroll shows up as $200 straightaway. This really adds to the self confidence of the player because the player can now first gamble with the bonus money rather than using their own money. However, players can only use that bonus money to gamble on the website and they cannot withdraw that money because it is a bonus and not a winning. Apart from that, there are reload bonuses available that encourages players to keep playing more and add little amount of money every time they run out of cash. This definitely helps the players as well as the poker website to get more funds that can be used for jackpots. Some of the new poker sites have poker bonus without deposit option. These websites are rare, but they allow players to get registered and get instant poker bonus. The players get additional welcome bonus when they transfer funds from their account for the first time.

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First Depositors' Freeroll

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