A few tips to save you fortune....... $$$$

First off i would be thousands of dollars richer if i didn't try to outplay my opponents. to clarify read a bit further..

While playing in Texas holdem games, and all other poker games, for that matter , it is wise not to do too much bluffing or fancy plays, your opponents really don't understand what your trying to do anyways, nor do they care to go broke with 1 pair, so if the flop is 997 and you bet pot size, and opponent has JJ don't worry they are not folding, so hopefully you have the 9 your bet represents and will make a killing, or you will just pay his JJ off, and he will laugh all the way to the cashier. Not realizing your bet and story your saying with it, says you indeed have the 9, he will go broke with his JJ 85 percent of time. Just the game your playing. Just wait until in this situation you actually have Ace 9, 99 , 77, or 97, etc and let the JJ pay your rent,, lol .

Now im not saying you can never bet without the best hand, a bluff its called, or even a semi bluff, which is with a hand that if you hit 1 of several cards you will make the likely best hand, ex. you hold ace king both clubs, and flop is queen Jack 9, 2 of these are clubs, now any 10 or club gives you a straight or flush, both powerful hands, so now maybe a 1/2 to 2/3 size pot bet is in order, and you don't neccesarilly hate a caller, but you'd like to avoid a raiser, but maybe you go anyways, as you will hit 1 of these hands in this situation just a bit less than half the time, against more than 1 caller , in cash game this is good, as getting in as favorite is always correct, but in tourney with a big portion of chips in mix may be a avoidable situation that will keep you from making a early leave.

The earlier paragraph don't make any sense as i reread it, if i don't know Pot odds.

Pot odds definition and few examples.

Pot odds are your expected return on investment, much like playing the stock market.

If you put all your money in middle and are called by a weaker hand, you are favorite to win, but is any amount favorite worth the amount it may take to play, maybe, maybe not, heres how to tell.

AA you hold, and someone goes all in in front of you do you call, yes everytime.. easy you are about 80 percent favorite to win the hand preflop, every 1 time you lose this spot you will win 4 , so if everytime the call was 20 bucks, you would lose 20 bucks and win 80 so 80 minus 20 equals 60 bucks, so playing AA calling 1 all in is worth 60 bucks every 5 times it comes up or 12 bucks each call average, now this is just example it will not always be only 1 caller, and the bet amt not always exactly 20 bucks but an easy illustration.

Now at the beginning of a 1 dollar 45 people sit n go, 5 people all in preflop,, do you still call, well if you do and win you start off early with a huge monster stack and lead early in tournie, but with so many callers, you will only win now with the aces alone, very rarely, you are likely up against at least 2 players having a pair, 2 players having suited cards, and 1 have ace king , ace something anyways, and random 94 offsuit who love to call with junk and suckout, now with aces you will only hit another ace about 1 out of 5 1/2 times seeing all 5 cards, and hitting a 4 card straight or flush is almost impossible, and with so many other hands out against you, i say fold, fold fold, fold , fold, and just watch the 94 get paid when he hits a miracle full house, about how it goes everytime.

Now same situation and only 2 all ins, and your last person who can possibly call, then yes call you are getting 2 to 1 on your money, it costs you only 1,500 sit n go chips to win 3,000 for a total of 4,500 enough to make it to final table if you folded every hand until then, and against 2 players pocket pairs, you will win this about 60 percent of time, or 3/5 times, so your getting 2 to 1 on your money and will win 3/5 more than half makes this a winning situation in long run, and you should be willing to call this everytime.

Now with poker like investing, the best hand will not always hold up, and it is very frustrating , to put all your money in middle with the best hand and watch the lesser hand break you on turn or river, be very careful how bad you handle this when it happens, rather than losing a buyin , of tournie cost, or the 20 bucks you have at table, if you get pissed off and play like a mad man for the next hour trying to make that money back, often times you will bury yourself even deeper in losses, this phenomenom , has a name, it is tilt, Tilt is very costly, and should be avoided at all costs, if your running bad many bad beats in row, or just some idiot who's 37 beats your kings , you may need to take a break for an hour, or day, or week, until your back in the frame of mind to play correctly and only getting your money in with the best hand agian. Repeat, many of players would be very big winners in life vs poker, if this did not happen to them, they will lose a big pot they expected to win, instead of just taking a 20 dollar loss, they will blow thru another 40 bucks or more trying to get back at this player. Playing less than optimal poker, and they will not get lucky as the other player did I Guarantee it.

A little fact Ive read several times, it is said and i believe it, that only 5 percent or 1/20 people that play the game, at the end of their life will be winners. that means 95 percent or 19/20 will be losers, the decisions you make at the table will either put you in the 5 percent winners column or the other 95 pit. which do you want to be?

So just because the guy playing King 2 suited hits a flush on river to beat your flopped set, 3 of kind, when you put him all in on turn, meaning you should be about 84 percent favorite in most thinkable situations, and he wins a 30 buck pot, doesn't mean his style of play puts him in 5 percent winners bracket, in fact it suggests just the opposite, that if this particular hand happened 1,ooo times , unless he is bill gates, he will notice several thousands of dollars that he don't have anymore that he would of had otherwise. And you my friend could treat yourself to a week at disney land with this poor schmoes cash.

Why do pocket Kings always lose big pots or win very small ones???

Answer. Well they do win more times then they will lose, but the big losses and small wins, can be explained very easily, Its playing them not so great, heres a tip to help this stop.

First you have to raise with big pocket pairs, in my opinion, and you have to raise quite big, to weed out all non paired no big card hands so you know a bit where you stand and possible holdings your opponents may hold, if in 5c 10 cent game you raise only 10 cents, you will get about 3 - 5 players calling your raise, not a good outcome, but if you raise say 35 cents you will only get called by other decent to great hands, which is exactly what you want. Why you ask?

You will actually have easier decisions after flop, if flop comes jack 9 7 and you will likely have the best hand in this case, unless the guy has misplayed his Aces and only called a raise, or got lucky enough to hit a set, holding JJ, 99, 77 which are possible but not as likely as if you bet a smaller amt, and have 3 other hands that could all hit a pair or better, or even a guy holding 8 10 and already has you crushed with the nut straight. So best just raise big and pick up blinds, and save yourself from losing a big pot to inferior hands, or get ace king qq , jj 101o to push behind you and snap call , or reraise big, and break him 80 percent of time, that the kings hold up agianst 1 hand.

Lets figure out winning odds together, if you passed the 4th grade in mathematics, this is no sweat,
if not go back to 4th grade and when your done finish reading this post.

odds my hand will win , or at least improve..

These are going to be estimates but so close to real numbers that unless you care about a few percetn either way, these should work fine. Yes every percent counts, but preflop 52 / 48 and 50/50 are going to be same for now. to get an idea about winning odds, this isn't the math whiz's idea of a fun outing, but good enough for now.

AA vs KK 80/20 or 4 to 1 with Aces
KK vs 22 80/20
TT vs 77 80/20

notice the pattern, any pair vs smaller pair is 4 to 1 to win 80/20 PREFLOP!!!!

Now the next examples can vary from 55/45 or so 51/49 53/47 Known in poker terms as a coin flip cause they are so close to 50/50 or odds of Heads vs Tails.

Ak vs 77
QK vs 44
JT vs 99
63 vs 22

These hands pitted against the other the pairs are a very slim favorite, but not big enough to justify a big pot preflop holding 1 or other if you knew your opponents cards.

Now with the exception of Ace King, this 1 is a bit more worthy of a war, because often times instead of a smaller pair you will actually be vs Ace Q , Ace 10, Ace 8 suited etc. which means vs these other Ace ? hands your likely a 70/30 favorite against the other Ace ? holdings. So if you add the 50/50 and 70/30 you should get an 60/40 lead in this on avg. so the Ace king is a bit more worthy of big pot, only hands that you absolutely are afraid of are AA and KK but Since you hold both an A and K these chance are reduced that another player hold 2 of 3 remaining kings or Aces. not impossible but lot less likely. Now im not saying war worthy as you would be loving idea of going broke with ace king, or getting knocked out of tournie preflop calling an all in, as this can be dangerous only being a not so respectable 60/40 to be best hand, but you could stand a reraise , and see what if anything materializes on flop, if you catch air, not hitting any king or ace and guy raises again, after flop likely he holds a smaller pair, and you can see what the bet amount is, you will only pair your Ace or King on turn or river about 1/4 not too good of odds, but say preflop the pot is 1 buck and his flop raise is only 20 cents, 1/5 of pot, you may afford to call this raise , to see if turn helps you out, but if he bets again on turn you will need to fold your Ace high and wait for better spot to gamble. But often times your flop bet call will cause him to check the turn instead of bet him fearing you have a piece of it, because you called preflop raise and now a flop bet, he may check turn giving you a free look at river card, now if the river is A or K , then maybe now you have the best hand, as his check on turn suggests he shouldn't have 2 pair or better, likely a pair smaller than k or A , but is slightly possible he had Ace something he was betting his smaller pair on board, say flop was 972 , he had Ace 9 and bet his 9's on flop, you called the 20 cents now he checks his turn to see if you have a over pair, maybe 10s or J's and now the Ace on river actually gives him Aces up, meaning 2 pair, and your Ace king just improved to a bigger yet still losing hand, man i love this game,, lol

Improving your hand what are the chances it, one of the most significant bits of info in all of poker.

Ac is Ace clubs, Ks is King of spaces, Jh is Jack of hearts, 7d is 7 of diamonds.

Ad 7d vs ?? now the flop is Kd 3d 8h , you now have 4 diamonds and almost the nut flush

now how to know if you should call a bet , raise yourself , or fold to bet.

with turn and river to go, you have about 1/3 shot at hitting flop how do i know this??

Easy the power of 4 and 2. multiply outs by 4 with turn and river to come, and by 2 when just to the river.

An out is any card that improves your hand, in this case 9 outs remain cause their are 9 other diamonds left in deck, and with 4 times 9 = 36, tru odds are about 32.7 or something close to that.

now with just the river card to come, if you didn't hit your diamond, 2 x 9 = equals 18 percent 1/5 chance just slightly lower but close enough, if he makes a pot size bet before the river card you have to fold your flush draw here, unless he has a massive stack behind this bet and so do you, and you know 100 percent that if you hit your flush he will pay you off his whole stack, known as Implied Odds, how much of your opponents money will i win, now you will never know 100 percent if opponent will go broke when you hit your hand, but some players may do it a little more often than others, your part as a player in this game is to seperate a player and his chips by putting them in your stack, sometimes you hook a fish and eat like a king.

Lets try to be the best poker players possible , make that promise to yourself you won't play when tilted, tired, pissed, sexually frustrated, or when on the bottle, alcohol is a big losing formula when playing poker.

lets be a 5 percenter and winner in long game, not a 95 percent loser, there is enough of them to last a lifetime already.. until next time

Hold up hand hold up!!!!