The Management Consulting Group

No-Limit Texas Holdem tends to dominate ht social scene at the present. This means that most of the online poker advice that has to do with basics like bankroll management has to do with No-limit games instead of limit. A limit player could easily get confused at the online poker table if they try to apply the bankroll management techniques of a no-limit game to their favorite variant. This article is for all the limit players out there so that they have the same fundamental guide to bankroll management available for them as is available to their no-limit counterparts. If you play limit Texas holdem poker online on any kind of a regular basis you should try to have a bankroll that is 300 times the big bet on the table. By making your bankroll this big you are insulating your wallet from major losses. You are also guaranteeing that you will have something left to play with if you happen to hit a bad streak. It is a good starting point to think of this as a hard and fast rule, but you will need to adjust to your playing style as you start to play more frequently. Aggressive players would be better off padding their bankroll a little more while conservative players can lay in a little less.

Pocket deuces are the lowest possible wired poker pair you can be dealt in a hand of poker. Any other pair an opponent might be dealt is said to ‘dominate’ the deuces, in that you will need to flop a set or otherwise improve to a straight or flush of some sort (one that does not affect your opponent’s online poker hand) in order to draw out. Even being the smallest pair, the deuces are a slight favorite against any other unpaired hand including ace king, and will win just slightly more than 50% of the time against those hands when faced with an all in situation preflop. The problem with deuces is that when you see a poker online flop, unless you are already all in it is difficult to continue if you don’t flop the set. Because all cards that come on board are overcards to the two, every flop that doesn’t include a two is going to be automatically not pretty for the twos. Flops with other pairs, like 3 3 8, can still look good in that it is often unlikely that your opponent has a 3 or an 8, but it is still hard to be sure, especially when facing aggressive betting. The general rule is this: flop a set, or be gone.

Poker is won through betting. In No-Limit, a online poker player can bet any amount, but the minimum poker online bet is always equal to the big blind and a raise has to double any previous raise made in the round of betting. A “min” bet (short for minimum) is just that - the smallest bet or raise a player can make. The min raise is tricky. casino players who hold big hands like pocket Aces often resort to it as a slow-play tactic. It is meant to entice some calls. The min bet though is hazardous from both from an execution viewpoint and from a calling perspective. Putting out a min bet with a big hand may telegraph that your hand is big, and the min bet is not worth calling. Your opponents may recognize that you want a call, and will fold. When you have a big hand, then bet it big. You want gain fold equity and aim to go heads-up to win the pot. When faced with a min raise in No-Limit poker, you must pause and consider if your opponent is trying to trick you into calling. Think about the pot odds, which are probably not good with a min bet. The min raise is meant to lure marginal hands into making bad calls. Don’t fall for it.

When you’re playing online poker, having the big stack may feel like a big party-you get to see more flops, you can afford to raise the blinds whenever the urge strikes, and you can put any one of your online poker opponents all in if you feel like it. There’s no doubt that using your stack as a weapon is an effective tool, but it’s one that should be wielded with care. It’s easy to get drunk with power only to lose your stack and spend the rest of the night wondering where you went wrong. The key to keeping your stack is to grow it slowly. If you’re too passive, some other, more enterprising poker player will accumulate your other opponents’ chips and will build a stack that’s bigger than yours, but if you’re overly aggressive, you can end up giving away all your chips to the rest of the table. When you’re the big stack, your best friend is fear-your opponents are going to be constantly aware that you can call them all in, and it will affect their decisions. Use your frighteningly large stack to buy up blinds before the flop. The quickest way to lose your stack is to call someone all in and lose, so buy up blinds and keep winning small pots before the river, and you’ll hang on to your stack.

Winning and losing at poker online is a mindset. Now, I’m just as sick as anybody of hearing about the little engine that could, but it’s true that the way you handle adversity has a pretty big impact on how likely it is for you to achieve success in poker online . Here are a few ways to turn a losing hand into a winning one. Figure out what went wrong. Take a look at the online poker hand you just lost and figure out exactly what happened. Did you make a bad read? Did your opponent make a good read on you? Did you play too aggressively with the wrong hand? Not aggressively enough?Analyze your mistake and figure out how to not make it again. If your opponent made a great read on you, it could be because you’re getting too predictable. Start varying your play from time to time to keep your opponents in the dark. Did you overvalue a bad hand? Look at the cards you’re willing to play and make sure you don’t go into a hand with a loser. Appreciate the Luck Factor. If you just got a bad beat, make sure you don’t let it get to you. If luck wasn’t a part of the game, the bad players and newbies that usually lose to you wouldn’t be as plentiful. You benefit from bad beats as often as you lose to them, so deal with it and move on to the next hand.

When playing poker online, it is hard for players to make mistakes in protocol because everything is automated. You can’t bet out of turn or a wrong amount.

In live poker games, the protocols must be obeyed and if a player violates a rule, the dealer will correct it. One such protocol that newcomers frequently are not aware of is the “string bet.” This type of bet is put out in stages. It is often portrayed in movies with a player saying, “I call you bet” and putting out the call amount, then adding “And I raise!” and then adding more chips to the pot. This is a string bet and is not allowed in casinos and live poker rooms.

Unlike poker online, when you are playing poker at a live table, your betting action must be done all in one action. If you are simply calling, then put in that proper amount of chips. If you are going to raise, then you must put the full amount in all at once. You can’t move in some chips for a bet, then add more in a second motion.

Some players may find this difficult or clumsy, and are unsure of how many chips to add. In this case, the best thing to do is to announce your intention. If you say “I raise” then you can take a moment, count your chips in front of you and then put in the amount you intend.

Verbal bets are binding in poker, so be sure you say what you mean. If you are unsure about how many chips to put in as a raise, announce that you are raising and ask the dealer to tell you what the minimum raise has to be.

A string bet made in stages is unacceptable and will be rejected by the dealer.

In cash games and poker online tournaments, it is appropriate to tip your dealer(s) when you win. How much is enough?

In life, less than a dollar tip is usually an insult. Sure, any amount of money over time will add up, and your dealers, bartenders, servers of the world probably won’t complain, but if you can’t buy anything for less than a dollar, neither can they.

Very few games, even limit games, are dealt in a casino for less than $1 stakes. Plain and simple, it’s just hard for the house to squeak money out of tiny games which they have to staff. If you play one of these games, a tip of a BB or more is appropriate.

In higher stakes cash games, most generally tip a dollar per hand that they’ve won. This goes for $1/$2 all the way up to 10/20. The amount of money you’re winning in a cash game shouldn’t really affect your tip. The dealer is basically doing the same thing at any price level. If you want to tip more, go ahead. It will be appreciated.

In a poker tournament, however, you are not playing with chips that have any real value. When you win a big pot, you are not guaranteed any money whatsoever. Only if you cash in a tournament should you have to tip, so no tip is required at the end of any hand.

Generally, players should fork over 5-10% of their winnings to the dealers of a tournament, and this should be given to the tournament director with instructions to tip the dealers with. The dealers work very hard to supply you with a comfortable rule-enforced environment to play your game in. The more money you make in a tournament should affect how much you tip, as opposed to cash games. The winner of an online poker tournament must make up for most of the playing field, because guess what; a majority of the players in a poker tournament lose.

So, don’t be a cheapskate. You just won a lot of money. If it’s millions, sure put a cap on your tip. But even if it’s thousands, remember how many dealers were involved in the entire tournament. Cough it up.

By now a lot of online poker players are familiar with the term continuation bet. Simply put it’s a bet made after opening the betting preflop. If you simply get callers, you’re going to want to continuation bet on the flop nearly every time regardless of if it hit you or not. This is especially great to do against unconnected, or low flops. But what about when you just get a call on your Cbet? Well, sometimes you’ll want to think about firing a second round. This is called double barreling. On the turn, maybe a big card come out, or a rag comes out that couldn’t possibly have helped your online poker opponent. So what do you do? You fire out another continuation bet even if you don’t have anything. You’re betting with air in hopes that your opponent will think that his marginal hand is beat, or sometimes you’re betting with a huge draw that will make his top pair or two pair unable to fold to you even when you hit. Usually you’ll get reraised if the player is any kind of player at all, but in some games, there are calling stations that just like to show down anything so be prepared for that, too. This is becoming a great technique to get rid of weak online poker players and take down pots without having to go to showdown. Since a lot of players are catching on to the concept of continuation betting, double barreling is one way to throw them off and make them reluctant to “just call” your next continuation bet. If they want you out of the pot, they’re going to have to reraise you and tell you you’re beat next time.

Though the practice of who acts first and who posts blinds is pretty straightforward when there are several poker online players involved in a ring game, once it gets down to heads up action, the goings forth can be somewhat confusing for newer casino poker players.

The action in a head up match works as follows. The player on the button, before the flop, posts the small blind, and is then first to act. He may fold, raise, or call the big blind, in the standard form of any round of betting. The poker player not on the button is the big blind, and last to act in preflop action.

After the flop, however, the player on the button is last to act. Betting begins, then, with the player who preflop paid the big blind. Each round of betting continues with the player on the button, as is traditionally done, acting last.

Many players argue that because the nature of heads up is so fast, raising aggressively (sometimes on nearly every pot) is the best way to proceed. Others, on the other hand, prefer to play small ball poker when heads up, waiting for the perfect spot to get all of their opponents’ chips.