How Not to Play Poker

Take a look at the poker section of any large bookstore near you. There are shelves and shelves of �how to play poker' books written by the best player's in the world. Some of these vary from each other but for the most part they promise to tell you how become successful by playing Texas Hold'em, Stud Poker, Draw Poker and every variation of poker correctly. You can read any of these books and learn what to do in most situations on a poker table. The more you read the better you are schooled in these games of luck and skill.

I would not try to tell you �how to play poker' since just about everything on the subject has been said by better players than I and many times over. What I can do to increase your level of success is to tell you the five golden rules of �how not to play poker'. If you break even one of these rules, you have no chance of playing winning poker unless lady luck has taken a personal interest in you for that day.

Golden Rule 1: Never Drink Alcohol And Play Poker

Would you get into a car with an open beer after already downing a six pack or more? If your answer is yes you are a looser and have more to worry about than playing poker with a reasonable expectation of winning. Even one drink will lessen your disciple and concentration, two essential elements of the game. In fact I would not have a drink within 6 hours of playing or two or more drinks within 12 hours of playing. Some good poker players have a drink next to them with ice and even a cherry. You can be sure though it has no alcohol. My favorite drink at a poker table is diet coke with a cherry or cranberry juice on the rocks.

If you can find a table with one or more alcohol drinkers, get on that table. Of course the same goes for drugs of any kind. I have seen good cash players drink alcoholic looking beverages and even fake an alcoholic drawl to make other players go in against them when they have a good hand, since the other players think they are drunk and bluffing. This form of acting is called �Hollywood'. Don't be fooled by a Drama King or Queen!

Movies like The Cincinnati Kid with Steve McQueen and The Hustler with Jackie Gleason (even though the later is about Pool) make it seem macho and cool to drink and play a game of skill. These are only movies. It is not cool!

Golden Rule 2: Never Get Angry With A Player And Stay On That Table

One of the best poker players I have ever known was a woman from Montana, who made millions playing in the highest stake cash games. She was not a tournament player and liked her identity to be kept private. However, winning that much money, she was interviewed on a famous news magazine television show. One of the questions she was asked was �what would an ideal table be composed of?' Her answer was �a table full of drunks' and of course this was not unexpected so they next asked her �what would your second most ideal table be composed of?' To this she answered �a table full of people that hated me and are out to get me.' This was a much more unexpected answer.

The fact is if you get angry with a player there is a tendency to want to beat them. This emotional response will mean you will probably loose two hands to that player just to beat them once. This is obviously a loosing strategy and if you find yourself angry at a player, just get up and change tables. Since you can't do this in a tournament, make sure you do not try to confront the player who is the object of your anger. Many players purposely try to make you angry just to get this advantage from you. Phil (the Poker Brat) Hellmuth and Mike (The Mouth) Matusow are great examples of professional poker players who purposely try to get you angry with them to ensure they have the advantage of people going in to get them with less than winning hands.

This is not limited to men. Many women have perfected this technique and use their gender to emasculate, insult, belittle and anger their male counterparts in order to maximize their financial gains on the poker table. This is all �Hollywood' or their �shtick'. These women are generally nice people socially.

Golden Rule 3: Don't Tell Other Players Your Hands

I don't mean that you shouldn't show your hand to the other player after the game is over. You absolutely should not but that is not what I mean. What I do mean is don't through action, tone, posture, talk or any other signal indicate the strength or weakness of your current hand. This is called having a �tell' which other people look for in order to make a decision whether to raise, bluff or fold depending if the �tell' indicates you have a strong, weak or medium hand.

When I first started to play poker, I would stroke my mustache if I was on a draw and did not yet have the winning hand. It sort of meant that I was debating whether to continue or not. Several players noticed this and would bet high to get me to go out. Luckily, my cousin, who was an excellent poker player in his own right, let me know about this. The next day I had a well hidden straight flush made so I stroked my mustache like mad. I made a lot of money in this hand by using my �tell' to mislead the other players. The next day I shaved off my mustache since they knew, I knew about this playing deficiency.

Some people think the most common �tell' comes from your eyes. That is why players wear sun glasses, or laser image glasses. This might be a good idea for you as well. Other �tells' are shaking hands or face flushing, which indicates you have a great hand. Looking at another player straight in the eyes means you are bluffing but trying to look like you have a good hand. If you have great eyes, you can actually see the carotid artery in a players neck speed up and beat harder when they are excited or slow down if they are have already decided to go out and the pressure is off them.

Since most players will not help you out with these problems, and since you are unaware of them yourself. You must work to keep every thing you do consistent for every type of hand you get. This takes a lot of practice but with patience and disciple you can do it. Here are some things to do.

•Keep your bets consistent
•Keep the time before you bet consistent
•Do not look a player in the eyes
•Do not look at your hold cards as soon as they are dealt to you
•Be very careful with your hands, to me they tell more than your eyes do
•Keep your posture consistent, don't lean forward on a good hand or backwards on a hand you are going to fold
•Keep you own �Hollywood' to a minimum, it tends to backfire after awhile
•Don't smile
•Don't talk
•Don't grimace when you get bad cards
•Keep both feet on the ground in front of you
•Do not change your facial expression at all when you look at your cards
•Remember your hold cards and don't look at them again
•Don't look at the board cards too long (there is a tendency the to spend more time looking at the board cards if you either have or are drawing for a straight or flush)

Keep every move you make, every expression on your face and every position of your body they same for every hand. This is just a good use of discipline and patience.

Golden Rule 4: Do Not Make Winning The Most HandsYour Goal

Televised poker tournaments seem to give people the impression that �stealing the blinds' is a good thing. Some even praise people who go all in to steal the blinds and succeed. In real life poker this tends to be poor play. There is only one goal of a great poker player and that is to win the most money. Winning the most hands does not mean you will win the most money. Often the latter causes a player to take big risks for small payoffs. The best poker players take the smallest risk for big payoffs.

If you are playing Texas Hold'em and have pocket aces how much should you bet before the flop? There seems to be three major choices: 1) slow play and call but don't raise until later, 2) make an average raise of 3 or 4 times the big blind, or 3) bet all in. What should you do to make the most money? If you bet all in before the flop there is a good chance that everyone will fold. You have definitely won the hand but how much have you won? The answer is not much. You have just wasted the bet possible first two cards you can get and have little to show for it. But say you are called. You have a pair of aces, the average winning hand in 9 player Texas Hold'em is a high three of a kind. If you go all in and are called you are giving a draw hand the flop, the turn and the river cards absolutely free since you have shot your wad. All you really have with two aces is a pair, the highest pair but a pair non-the-less. Unless you get another ace, four card to a flush which match one of your ace's suit or four card to a straight all of which add up to a one in of nine long shot, all you will end up with is a pair. If two people call you, you are actually the under dog versus the other two players combined hands. All in all not the best odds and outcome you might get with that hand.

Option 2 is a modest raise of 3 or 4 times the big blind. In most tournaments you will get at least 1 caller. At least you will win more than the blind if you win. This also has the advantage of letting you see the flop for a modest price. Your two cards plus the three from the flop is 5/7 of all the card information you will get in that hand. The advantage is that if the flop improves you, say gives you the third ace, you have by far the most likely hand to win the game and can increase your bet before the turn and river card. In fact you can probably greatly increase your river card bet since the other player has pot odds which favor them to make the call, pretty good strategy with maximum return on investment. Also if you do not improve on the flop, you can check, bet modestly again or with a nice looking flop, bluff and still have good odds that your pair of aces may take the pot if the adversary does not fold. I think this is in the long run the best strategy to make the most money with your aces.

Option 3 is to slow play your aces and just limp in (a bet the size of the blind). This can be a bad mistake if no one else raises. There is less money in the pot and everyone gets to outdraw you for free. The key here is you don't want to give other players the ability to outdraw you for free or for just a little money. If they bet after you check you are almost forced to re-raise even if you don't improve your hand. Otherwise expect an all in by the river and expect a hand to show which will very likely be better than your pair.

A great time to slow play is with a middle pair which becomes a set after the flop, or flop a straight. Notice I don't include a flush here since if the flop is 3 cards to a flush, people will be very cautious and slow playing will not often work to increase the size of the pot.

Of course betting strategy has a lot to do with player position and that is covered in all the �How To Win' books and I will not cover it here again.

Golden Rule 5: Contrary To Everything You Have Seen On TV And Everything You Have Read, Don't Be Overly Aggressive

I know that Doyle Brunson and most other professional poker players you hear say the most aggressive players are the ones who will win. This is just not true unless you have a major streak of luck going for you as well. The key word here is �overly'. I have seen players go all in almost every hand. That works great until the first time they loose. They are among the first people out of the game.

The truth is just as in life you have to pick your battles in poker. Go in when you think you have the winning hand and get out when you think you have the loosing hand. Never become married to a hand that you feel is a looser, get out and live to play another day. Knowing when to fold your hand is every bit as important as knowing when to bet your hand, perhaps more so.

A few days ago I was watching Doyle Brunson play on the final table of a tournament. Only two players were left. Doyle was dealt a pair of pocket queens. He bet about 4 times the size of the big blind and his opponent a famous cash player, raised the pot to all in. Doyle had to make a decision and that was to fight another game. He folded. His opponent had a pocket pair of Kings. Doyle Brunson, the biggest advocate of aggressive play in his books, knew when to fold his cards. He won the tournament a few hands later. My hat is off to him.

Play poker with discipline and play poker with patience. Don't be aggressive until you know you have the hand won. Then be aggressive, be very aggressive.

In Conclusion

I hope I have taught you a little more about poker by telling you what not to do. I have played professionally for 3 years and won the Mandalay Bay Hotel And Casino Poker Championship in Las Vegas last year. I have won other tournaments and been �in the money' in many more both online and in brick and mortar establishments. Therefore I feel I am qualified to give you some advice.

I wish you the best of luck to go with your skill level and hope that that level is a little higher after reading this. Please feel free to give me feedback in the way of comments.