When you play poker, it really teaches you take the rough with the smooth…

You can sometimes have the best cards and still lose, or you can have average hands and win – that’s poker and that’s why we are all hooked on poker because poker is unpredictable and fun!

In life we get dealt all sorts of things to deal with every day, sometimes we get a bad beat, sometimes we get lucky – that’s life!  But what is important is learning to cope with the loses (not that I am saying you should not focus on winning, everyone wants to win).

Imagine you are heads up on the final day of a big poker tourney and you get beat.  Sure you are upset about not getting the fame & fortune that comes with the main prize, but heh you could also say… I just finished second and I still get to win a load of money, I learnt a lot and next time I will take this trophy!!

Then also apply this to your every day life…

I’m not sure if poker has made me a better person, but one thing I do know is that playing poker has taught me a lot about life!

Most of us find out about life, the hard way through life’s lessons that we learn on the job.  No matter what someone wiser tells you, you always know better until you discover for yourself that there may be another aspect to the picture, something different to consider or a different way of doing things.

One guide I have been able to apply to my life is from poker lessons – learning to control my emotions.  I used to be a hot headed, bad tempered youngster that allowed my emotions to run my life.  Now I have learnt that emotions don’t help you in any way and that it is better to be aware of your emotions and to control them.  That way you can stay in control of situations, think clearer and still operate in stressful, pressurized situations.

So maybe I am a better person because of poker.  Has poker made you a better person?

Showing aggression before the flop can be a tricky poker skill to learn.  Everyone is different in their style of play, you will develop your particular poker style as you progress.  And remember no-one is ever too experienced or too good to learn more about poker!  As you develop your style of poker or the way you play, you will learn to use different amounts of aggressive tactics at different times during the game.

On one side, you have an ultra aggressive player like Tom Dwan, who often raises before the flop, sometimes even with nothing in his hand, just to test the players and maybe hope he will get lucky on the flop.  Sometimes this will pay off and sometimes you gonna burn… thats poker!  Sometimes you will just scare everyone off and only collect that blinds… if that is what you want…

Then you have more cautious, tight players like Howard Lederer or Daniel Negreanu who may be a little more careful pre-flop, depending on their starting hand and depending on whether they want to force the play a bit, mix it up, stir the pot…

Showing aggression before the flop can pay off, but it can also backfire on you and cost you, especially if you get unlucky with the community cards and someone else at the poker table gets lucky… once again thats the fun of poker!

The problem with pre-flop agression, is that you commit yourself and you commit chips to the pot.  It is usually better to keep raising and playing aggressively, once you make the decision to make an aggressive move.  If you get caught in two minds, players will pick up on your indecision and punish you.

Another good guide to poker aggression is to always think what hands, players may have and what hands players may think you have.  Look at the board and think of all the possibile hands, then choose the most probable hands… once again poker odds and probabilities come into the game… you have to know them by heart.

Its no good being aggressive when someone is sitting there with a nut hand and they know they have the nuts!  They will be only too happy for you to throw in more chips and collect them from you.

Tight aggressive poker is the way to go.  Use your aggression in a controlled clever way, dont over do it.

and now for some more High Stakes Poker Play…

Passive poker does not win the money… the young guns are very aggressive and really take it to the older established poker players.  Very true Phil Lark…  Nice mix of new players and the older regulars.  The young Italian takes a few nice pots.

You have to pray to the suited connector gods – don’t you know??

And then there are some huge bluffs!!

Oh boy this clip of High Stakes poker just cracks me up!

..as usual there is a lot of talk around the poker table and this time its about movies, just love the line, “poker players think that any movie with a hooker in it is a love story…”.  Ha just cracks me up!!!

We all dream of playing poker against the big name poker pros and trying to beat them.  But in reality we would come second every time!!!  I have to say I am impressed with Nick Cassavetes and how he handles himself.  Sam Simon, the Simpsons producer/writer didn’t really do much in these last few episodes, but Cassavetes has had presence at the poker table has handled himself well and had the poker pros guessing!  Pulls a very nice poker bluff against the Prof, Howard Lederer in this clip, now that cant be too easy, but he manages it.

In fact I’m sure Howard Lederer didn’t enjoy watching this on tv afterwards… because he folds and pulls out more than once

Daniel Negreanu pays hima compliment and calls him the rockiest, nittiest, supposed amateur I have ever seen… (what is nittiest????).

What about that call from Patrik Antonius with a pair of fours to win $287,000 now thats guts!!!!

This was one of the first bits of advice that I was given when I first started playing poker.  “You can’t win at poker if you keep folding”.

At the time I thought yeah, yeah… but actually it is very simple but yet very good advice.  You shouldn’t play weak opening hands and you should be cautious when you are in a weak position – but that doesn’t mean that you should keep folding.

If you keep folding, you will use up all your chips paying your taxes on the blinds… and the other players will think that you are extra cautious and they will know that you only play very good hands… they will read you like a book.

Come on… mix it up a bit… take a chance once in a while, nothing wrong with a strong semi-bluff to make them sit up and say ok this guy or girl can play poker!

If you get a strong hand that you know can beat them hands down, then back your hand, raise the betting and make them play and pay! And don’t let others bully you if you think that you have a good hand.  Only if you know you don’t have a chance of winning then get out and fold, the earlier the better because it will cost you less.

Freeroll poker games are a good way to learn how to play online poker without it costing you a lot.  Freeroll poker games are free poker games that you play online, where you don’t use real money.  If you are a beginner, playing poker with your own money can be an expensive past-time!  And, losing all your cash doesn’t go down so well with your wife or family…

Most of the top online poker sites will offer freeroll games.  Some sites even offer freeroll poker tournaments, where you can get a feel of what it is like to play in a poker tournament and compare your poker skills against many different players.

Once you have a feel for the game then you can deposit some “real” money on the online poker site and play micro-level poker games for less than $1, so when you lose it doesn’t hurt so much.  If you feel you are ready then progress to the higher level poker tables, but be careful some players lurk like sharks at the lower tables, waiting to pick-off the weaker players.

The pots aren’t big but I suppose they just get a kick out of winning at poker!  Don’t we all get a kick from winning???

How often do you look at your cards after folding? – the flop ends up working in your favor and you think if only I hadn’t folded.

I was railbirding a texas holdem online poker game last week and this player folded a queen, five – unsuited starting hand, understandably it isn’t that strong a hand and the opposition looked strong and aggressive.  Together with the flop, turn and river card there ended up being three queens on the board!

Poor sucker folded and could have had quad queens!

But you can’t get too worked up about it – it happens in poker and you have to just learn to take it.  Perhaps its better to not look at your hand again once you have decided to fold.  A good poker guide is to move on and dont think back to what could have been.

Actually that’s a good guide to life in general.  Don’t dwell in the past on what could have been!

Betting takes a lifetime to get right and even then you still get it wrong sometimes… but I will try to give you a little more on betting…

The best way to learn about betting is to actually do it.  You can read every poker guide there is and study all the poker strategy, but when you are faced with the real situation then you have to make a quick decision and that only comes with experience.  So the best way to learn betting is to just do it!

When I was young boy there were two influences I had that helped me learn about betting.  I used to spend some time with my grandparents, they enjoyed their horse racing and playing bridge.  At first I used to think these hobbies of theirs were boring, but then I started to take more interest in them.

My grandparents taught me how to bet on the horses.  I took more of an interest and learnt about odds and the different bets you could make.  It was fun, we didn’t take it seriously, it was always small amounts of money that they put on the horses.  Sometimes they won, sometimes they lost but a lot of fun was had backing the horses.

The other thing I learnt was how to play bridge.  It took a while to master the bidding – which is really like betting to see how many hands you will win.  My grandmother told me it was all about signals that you gave to your bridge partner.  So if you said “two hearts” that meant you had a medium strength hand with hearts and you thought you could win a total of eight hands out of the thirteen etc etc…

Well betting in poker is the same – whatever you do, whether it is raising, calling, checking, folding… you are giving a signal to the other players.  And, importantly the other players are giving you signals or information.

The amount that you raise is a key signal – and it takes a while to master how much you should raise by.  Too much, and you scare people off, or they think you are bluffing.  Too little, and they think you have a weak hand or trying a bit of slow play to lure them in…

My best poker guide is remember that betting is an art form, not a science!!   An art form is practiced over and over to become a master, a science is learnt!

We visited my sister and her family on Saturday.  She has two teenage sons that interrogate me every time I am there.  I get asked so many poker related questions that I come away wondering if these two will ever do any school work or will they become poker professionals… my sister and her husband would never forgive me!

As much as I told them to go to my poker blog and find out for themselves, they were not interested, they wanted answers now!

“So, uncle Jason… can you give us a brief guide on betting?”…

“Well guys, this is a long subject and I am not sure we have time for it all…” I reply, nervously looking at my sister.  Who by now is starting to get the “irritated look”, which I know only too well!

The problem is they have seen poker tournaments on TV, they follow poker games online and they have seen how much money can be won… so they think it is easy and this is the life for them.

How do you get it across to teenagers that it is not as easy as it looks, without breaking their spirit?  So I think up something fast that will be short and to the point.

Here’s a beginner’s guide to poker betting – “You have to be sure when to bet – either fold early or decide to bet and raise often – don’t get caught in between”.  Now let’s go get some food…

“Is that all?”, they cried…

I thought it was a good, concise guide to poker betting, don’t you?