You don’t win hands by checking; you win hands by betting.

Yesterday for example I was playing a small stakes online poker tournament on Full Tilt Poker. I was doing quite well due to some good hands coming my way. I think I had around 8000 chips when I decided to make a move under the gun with A7 suited. I raised it up to 950, the blinds being 150/250, and got one caller in middle position. The flop was rainbow KQ8. I bet 3/4 of the pot and my opponent called. At this point I started to worry that my opponent had hit either a King or a Queen so I decided to slow down and we ended up checking both the turn and river. My opponent showed pocket 9s and took down a 5000 chip pot. In retrospect this was a terrible play by me and I’ve been kicking myself about it all day long.

What annoys me is that I have a tendency to always slow down if I raise preflop, don’t hit the flop and my continuation bet gets called. I very seldom follow through on the turn. Yesterday this was exactly what I should have done. I showed strength both preflop and on the flop and with a 5000 chip pot on the turn compared to my remaining 6000 chips I should have pushed all in. There is no way my opponent could have called an all in from me on the turn. This is especially true because he did not re-raise my flop bet.

Posted:18.12.2009, 07:29 (No subject)

ynet00,

Welcome to noluckneeded!

Thanks for posting. You are right.. It is very important to be tight and aggressive to win at poker.

Posted:18.12.2009, 12:12 (No subject)

Okay, I soooo didn't understand any of that!!!!!!

Posted:18.12.2009, 12:16 (No subject)

RGALP, LOL! Just remember to check raise the turn and bet the river if you are bluffing. Laughing

Posted:18.12.2009, 12:21 (No subject)

Oh okay (still don't understand)..... LOL

I gave up poker years ago and went to the machines. They don't talk back!!!!! Of course I'm talking live poker, but I guess that caused me to get away from it.

Again this is live play, but give me a machine, drink, and a cigarette (yeah I know Embarassed

) and no one sitting on the side of me....I'm in heaven LOL

Posted:18.12.2009, 12:22 (No subject)

RGALP, Ok, this has nothing to do with video poker.. it is about texas hold'em. wink

Posted:20.12.2009, 08:02 (No subject)

Don't beat yourself up about lack of aggression here. I don't think that was your problem.

Raising A7s from UTG is pretty loose, especially with only about 20M (30BB). You've just put in 1/8th of your stack with a very speculative hand. If you hit your ace, you've a good chance of being dominated. If you hit your 7, there's likely a higher card or overpair out there. If you hit your flush draw, everyone can see it and will be wary about putting their money in. You just don't have the implied odds here to play it so early.

You get called and the flop comes KQ8. That flop hits your opponent's calling range perfectly, does it not? Any hand he holds from 8s to As has hit that flop in some way, with a made hand or a draw. Now you need to plan what to do, not just automatically c-bet and then think "now what?" Once you've c-bet here, you've put in half your chips - you're committed to this hand. Given this flop, do you really want to be committed?

When you both have so many chips committed, I don't think there's much chance of getting him to fold a made or drawing hand here. OK, with the hand he actually had he could well have folded, but over his range of hands, I think barrelling is not a profitable play for you. Also, this is not a cash game. In a tournament your tournament life has great value. I wouldn't be risking my tournament life with this hand on this flop.

An additional plus is that, if you c-bet 80-90% of the time, rather than 100%, your c-bets will engender a little more respect.

IMO the biggest mistake you made here was playing the hand. After that, I'd have checked and folded to this flop like a wimp. But at least I'd be a living wimp! :-)

Posted:14.03.2010, 23:09 (No subject)

You need to be calm and show some aggression to your opponents while playing poker.