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World Series Aftermath

August 17, 2006

Talk about a pocker hangover. The World Series aftermath has left the poker world wondering "What now?" Players weren't going to want to shuttle in from hotels 20 miles away. For example, many groupings list A-A and J-J in the same category, and while we've all heard poker players gripe about getting aces cracked, no sane, experienced player would contend for a moment that these two hands play similarly, or have similar expectations. I have no intentions on giving a clinic on how to play a big stack at the final table here in this article, but I will say that you should lean on the more aggressive side as well as making sure to be aware of your table image at all times when considering just how much pressure someone can take before they call you with a marginal hand. There also are tournaments with $6-$11 buy-ins.

• Another reason to have an ample supply of pocker chips is so that when you do pick up a big hand, you have enough chips to make money on your play. How many times have you said or done something when you are angry that you regretted later? Certainly we will have to take strong measures at home, too, some of which will involve more than mere inconvenience. Check with your favorite cardroom for its policy. Over the course of the next year, Hellmuth traveled back and forth between Las Vegas and Madison several times, and eventually went broke, but he re-built his bankroll in Midwestern games, and soon started returning to Las Vegas, where each of his first two World Series Championship Event appearances ended with confrontations with Johnny Chan.
• Generally speaking, most cardrooms will have at least one game where you can play for a buy-in as low as $20-$30. First off, you must have good enough reason to believe that the guy opening for a raise is very willing to do so without adequate starting hands. I'll get to those reasons in a moment, but I soon realized that this overlap created an opportunity for the mid-level tournament player to score in a prestigious event, because the top hundred players in the world can't be in two places at one time, and that means that even though the fields in both tournaments will be tough, they can't possibly be as tough as they would be if they each held their own space. Someone explained to him that there is a rule against taking chips off the table. First off, a shortstack should be happy that he even managed to make it to the final table.

If you're someone who's put off reading poker articles by self-confidence, you are probably not going to like Phil Hellmuth. The reason is usually the same: playing too many pots. I don't want you to think I'm contradicting myself here as it is correct to limp with a lot of hands earlier in the pocker tournament while you'd be better off employing a raise or fold strategy once the blinds get higher. He is already in for the full bet, unless there has been a raise. This is something the house does to ensure a good attendance for the event.

At seventy-one he is undeniably the best pocker player on the face of the earth. In home games, there are often terrific opportunities to play weaker opponents in dealer's choice games, but more importantly, venturing out from your one-game comfort zone will help you learn how to think like a pocker player. Instead of playing by rote-as I see so many limit hold 'em players doing-you'll need to think and analyze more, and that process should help you when you return to your main game. There is a round of betting here equal to the lower limit ($2) and then the dealer will put out the turn card. In very low limit games, where players tend to get involved with ace-rag a lot, A-Q is a pretty good hand.